Grounded By You

  There were too many things to think about, and that was why even though she thought that she heard the plea for a reply in Sam’s voice every time he told her how he felt about her, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words back.

  Unlike Sam, Millie had said the words too many times when she was younger. It was as if she was tried replacing the emptiness in her life with men destined to break her heart. That was before she wizened up and realized that the only person she could truly trust to make her happy was herself. She adopted her no commitment rule when it came to men, and it seemed to work well for a long time.

  It was obvious to her that until now she had no idea what love actually meant. As much as she wanted to give in and take that chance with Sam, she had to be smart about things. She wasn’t making decisions for just herself anymore.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Sam about the baby, but something held her back. It was still too soon. She was afraid that he would do something drastic like quit the film to be with her or even ask her to marry him. Sam was old-fashioned that way, and although she loved him, she didn’t know if she was ready for anything like that. She was barely getting used to the idea that she was going to be a mother.

  She saw the irony in the situation. Non-committal Millie was now being thrust into the biggest commitment of them all. She had no idea if she even had a maternal bone in her body. Her mother had been a shoddy role model. But as she caressed her stomach and felt the slightest bump there, she thought that she would give it her best shot. Millie didn’t know how to do it any other way.

  Tiptoeing back into the bedroom, Millie quickly got dressed. Then she pulled the envelope from her purse. It was a letter she wrote before she left the Willoughby in search of him. She hoped that he would understand. It was the best way.

  She put the envelope on the pillow next to him. When Sam shuffled in his sleep, she backed up quickly. The tears were already starting to fall, but this time, Millie didn’t view it as a sign of weakness. Closure was always painful.

  Millie cracked the door and slipped out into the morning light.

  When Sam woke, he stretched out to pull Millie close to him. When his hands found nothing but cool sheets all around him, he sat up in alarm. Although he could still smell her perfume, the room had a feeling of emptiness. He knew immediately that she was gone.

  He saw the envelope on the pillow next to him.

  “No,” he said. He couldn’t believe it. He picked it up and turned it over and over. He didn’t want to read it, but he knew that he had to. He ripped the envelope open and tugged the single piece of paper out. Then he began to read the dainty words written on the page.

  Sam-

  I believed you when you said you loved me. Thank you for letting me feel that the time we spent together wasn’t a waste of time. I might not understand your life, but I see now that whatever is going on will help you and your movie be successful, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. You were meant to be a star.

  As much as I care about you, what I can’t get past is what I told you that last night we were together. We are so different, and our paths are taking us to different places. Yours is going straight up into the stars, and mine is to a place of security and stability. You have a bright future, and I don’t want to ever feel like I’m the one holding you back. That wouldn’t be fair to either one of us.

  I care about you and I always will, but please, go do what you were always meant to do. Our friendship has given us both a gift, and someday, you may understand what that means. But for now, I’m asking you to let it go. Let me go so that we can both be happy. If you are truly my friend, you will respect my wishes.

  Millie

  Sam crumpled the letter and threw it on the ground. Then he started to get dressed. He didn’t care what Millie thought was right. He wasn’t about to let her go. Not this time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  They were halfway to DC when Josh handed her a piece of paper. It was a print out of an itinerary for a flight later that afternoon from DC back to New York, and it had her name on it

  She looked at him in surprise. “What’s this?”

  “It’s your ticket off this crazy ride,” Josh said.

  “What you are talking about? I’m ready for this presentation tomorrow. I’ve got it all down. You can’t kick me off it now,” Millie protested.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with that,” Josh said. “Dad and I have been riding you hard the last few weeks, and you took every bit of it. I have no doubt that if you went into that meeting tomorrow, you’d be a star. You are a St. John after all.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that your heart isn’t in this,” Josh said simply. He shook his head. “I was being stubborn and not listening to you before, and I’m sorry.”

  Millie didn’t know what to say. Although part of her thought that she should protest further, at the same time she knew that he was right. Taking a job with her father’s company wasn’t what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. “What about Dad?”

  Josh waved a hand. “I’ll take care of Dad. I actually think he was surprised that you showed up for work a few weeks ago. I don’t know what you said to him, but he was convinced that you were going to be the next Vincent Van Gogh.”

  Millie thought about the conversation she had with her father the afternoon he dropped in unexpectedly. She remembered the way he stared at the canvas just before he dashed out the door. “I just told him that it was time that he let me live my life the way I want and to stop treating me like a kid. He raised me, so he should know better than anyone that I can make smart decisions.”

  “You might want to rethink that argument when you spring it on him that he’s going to be a grandfather,” Josh said with a smirk.

  Millie hit his arm. “Thanks a lot.”

  “I was just thinking about the fact that soon I’m going to be an uncle. I thought about what wisdom I’d want to impart on my little niece or nephew,” Josh said with a far away look on his face. “I’d tell them that they could do whatever they want to do in life and that I’d be behind them supporting them every step of the way. That’s when I realized that I had done the exact opposite thing with you.”

  Millie felt a lump in her throat. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed in me. Or Mother or Dad either for that matter.”

  Josh cleared his throat and looked abashed. “I feel like this is all kind of my fault, so I wanted to help fix it. I might have put in a call to Evelyn Ward this morning.”

  “Why?” Millie felt a glimmer of hope.

  “Dad mentioned that you were going to meet with her. That’s a smart move, leveraging your network to get a leg up in the industry. I also know that Evelyn would tell me the absolute truth about your work.”

  “What did she say?” Millie asked softly. “I haven’t even shown her anything yet.”

  “You might not have shown her anything yet, but apparently she’s already talked to one of your instructors. It was somebody she knew in a former life or something like that. He sent her some pictures. She said that your work was, and I quote, dazzlingly,” Josh said. “She was disappointed that you decided to cancel the meeting with her because she was excited to work with you. You know me, I like to have all the info so I can assess the risk before placing my bets.”

  “And?” Millie realized that her voice was shaking.

  “I’m betting on you,” Josh said. “I’m counting on you to have a bright future and rock the New York art scene. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

  Millie rushed across the small space between them and gave her brother a fierce hug. “Thank you, big brother.”

  “There’s just one other thing,” he said.

  “What?” Millie was afraid that he was about to say something that would totally ruin the moment.

  “I wanted to say that I’m sorry about last night. I overreacted when I saw Sam. I know that I need to learn to mi
nd my own business. I’ll support whatever you decide to do there.”

  Millie smiled at him sadly. “That means a lot, but I took care of it before I left.”

  “Took care of it how?” Josh asked suspiciously.

  She looked away from him then. She intended to hold those moments with Sam in her heart forever. No matter what happened from that point forward, she had felt loved and worshiped, if even for a short period of time. She was grateful for it.

  “He’s going to be a big star,” she said, choking on the words. “I told him that’s what I want for him.”

  “What about you? What about the baby?”

  “I will tell him eventually” she said. “But for now, I’m nothing but a distraction for him. Sam’s got a chance to do something that most people only dream of. That’s my gift to him.”

  She could tell that Josh wanted to say something else, but then he took a deep breath and murmured something to himself that sounded like “Stay out of it.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to be all right. Trust me.”

  Then she leaned back and closed her eyes. For the first time in days, she fell asleep within moments.

  “Lee, can I talk to you for a minute?” Sam followed the director to the catering table as the other man filled his coffee cup. He had deliberately waited to approach the director until after the make-up artist took care of the bruise on his face. So far he had avoided any comments on it, although he had noted the raised eyebrows.

  “Sure. You ready to get down and dirty today?” Lee winked at him.

  Sam was never sure how to read the director. Although he insisted on ensuring that each interaction between Jackson and Camilla was pure and sweet, he tended to be crude about everything when they weren’t filming. Everyone on set was buzzing because the day of the forbidden sex scene had finally arrived. Any other time, Sam would have been anxious thinking about it, but today he had a bigger concern on his mind. Every minute that he was in North Carolina and not with Millie was another minute that he felt as if she slipped further away from him.

  He went straight from the hotel to the Willoughby after getting dressed, only to discover that Millie and Josh had already left for the airport. Frustrated, he realized his options were to try to chase them to Asheville and find her before she left, or go to the set, do his job, and figure out a plan. At the very last minute, he turned on the road that led to Grossler’s Point.

  He wasn’t sure yet how to tee up what he wanted from the director, but he had to ask.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, finally answering Lee’s question.

  “You deliver like you did last night, and everything will be fine,” Lee said, stirring cream and sugar into his coffee. Sam was pretty sure that the only thing keeping Lee standing most days was the pots of coffee he consumed. With the insane filming schedule and then watching the dailies every night, he didn’t think that Lee ever slept.

  “What did you need, Carter?” Lee took a sip of his coffee.

  “How long have you been married?”

  Lee gave him a quizzical look. “Next month will be thirty-four years.”

  “Did you ever think you were going to lose her? Because of your job?”

  Lee chuckled. “She’s threatened to leave me more times than I can count. She says that she’s insane to have stayed with me when I was always on the road. Funny thing is once I retired she started saying that having me around all the time was driving her crazy too. I think she was more excited than I was when I took this job.”

  “But it’s possible, right? Having a relationship and making it work even through the hectic work schedules and everything that being in this business requires?”

  Lee sighed. “I’m not going to lie. Doing what we do is a completely different animal than getting up in the morning, putting on a tie, and going in to some office in a skyscraper. You know that already with all the attention you’ve gotten. Making a relationship work, which is a hard thing to begin with, becomes that much harder when you’re doing it in the spotlight.”

  “If it’s worth it, then it’s worth trying though,” Sam said. It wasn’t really a question.

  Lee gave him a long look. “There’s not much else out there that I can think of that would be a good reason to try. You only live once. All of this,” he waved his arms around them. “It can disappear in an instant. A movie can flop. Your fans could tire of following you and latch onto the next big rising star. Careers spark and then they fade. That’s why you have to keep the make-believe separate from your real life.”

  Sam drew himself up straight. “Lee, I need to take tomorrow off.”

  Lee stopped in his tracks. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to take care of a personal issue,” Sam said. “I will be back on Tuesday. I promise.”

  Lee shook his head. “We’ve got to work on close-up shots tomorrow. We’ll be done in ten days. You’re committed to this through then. Unless somebody’s dying, it can wait.”

  Four weeks before, Sam would have bowed to Lee’s intense stare. “It is my intention to nail at least one of the two scenes we have scheduled today in one take. Delaney and I are ready to do tomorrow’s close-ups today too. You won’t lose any time.”

  Lee laughed a deep belly laugh. “One take? You’re crazy. These are some of the most critical scenes in the entire film. I’ve been directing them in my head for twenty years. I highly doubt you’ll be able to enact exactly what I have in my mind on the very first take.”

  The corners of Sam’s mouth twitched. “If Delaney and I nail either one of these scenes in one take, you’ll let me take tomorrow off.”

  Lee stared at him. “And if you don’t?”

  Sam shrugged. “I’ll stay. I’m not going to jeopardize the movie. I wouldn’t do that. I want to make sure it’s done right as much as you do.”

  “And you won’t pout about it?” Lee countered.

  Sam shook his head. “And I won’t pout about it.”

  Lee started to walk away grumbling. Then he half-turned and looked back at Sam. “You are a strange one, Carter. It’s a good thing you’re as good an actor as you are; otherwise I think I’d have to kick your ass.”

  Sam grinned and then he hurried away before the director could change his mind. He found Delaney waiting for him outside the makeshift wardrobe tent. He cocked his head toward a small clearing that was away from prying ears and eyes.

  “You are crazy,” she said as soon as she confirmed that they were alone. “I got your voicemail, and you are officially delusional.”

  “Just don’t let me down,” Sam said. “We only need to get one of these scenes in one take, and then he said he’ll let me off tomorrow.”

  “There’s nothing so desperate as a man in love,” Delaney said with a wry grin. “I hope you’re ready, Mr. Groveson. Your first love scene ever and you’re boasting that you could get it in one take? Even last night, when you were on fire, it took us five.”

  “I need you with me on this,” Sam said. “Please?”

  “What the hell?” Delaney said. Then her voice changed into the softer version that she had been using for Camilla. “How can something so wrong feel so right?”

  “Save it for the cameras,” Sam shot back at her, and then he walked away.

  Slipping into Jackson’s character was easier with each passing day, and Sam found that today it was effortless. Perhaps it was the culmination of all the preparation and practice leading up to that point, but he thought it was more so because he had the recent experience of his time with Millie to draw on. He loved her, and having her in his arms made him feel as if he could do anything.

  He barely heard Lee’s call to action and then the cameras were rolling. In his mind, Delaney’s face morphed into Millie’s, and that was all it took. He drew on the well of emotions that he felt for Millie and brought them fully to bear for everyone in the world to see.

  As Jackson, he kissed his Camilla soft
ly and then the kiss deepened. Her weak protests that what they were doing was wrong were soon overcome as they lost themselves in the passion that had been building between them for weeks. As they sank down onto the sandy shore of the beach, the world around them faded away.

  It was just the two of them forever. He believed it in his heart.

  When it was over, Sam heard Lee call cut, and he pushed up to knees. He grasped Delaney’s outstretched hand and helped her sit up. She immediately started combing the sand out of her hair. They both looked at Lee, and Sam’s heart raced as he waited for the verdict.

  He knew that Lee was reviewing the footage, and there was a hushed conversation with the cinematographer as Lee pointed at the screen several times. Sam’s stomach dropped. Something had gone wrong. It could have been something as simple as an arm out of place or a shadow that blocked the camera’s view. Something completely out of his control could cost him everything.

  When Lee looked up, Sam waited in sullen silence.

  “Print it,” Lee announced.

  Sam tried to keep his expression neutral. It was, after all, what he said he’d deliver, and he did.

  Then Lee walked over to where Sam and Delaney sat in the sand. He leaned over and whispered. “You two keep this up, you can have two days off.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The phone rang early Monday morning, and Millie thought about ignoring it. It took her hours to fall asleep the night before, her thoughts haunted by the memories of Sam’s hands on her body and his voice whispering “I love you” in the dark. In those moments, it was easy for her to think that she had made a mistake. But then the logical part of her brain kicked in and reminded her that he hadn’t called. He got her letter and that was it. No response.