The Things She Says(64)

His voice washed over her, flowing through the coldness inside, heating her thoroughly. She must be asleep. Dreaming. Tentatively, she reached out and flattened a palm against Kris’s chest. Solid. Warm. Amazing. Real. It took every ounce of will not to sink into his arms.

This was all wrong.

“Kris.” She shook her head and snatched her arm back. “You don’t want that. You never wanted anything other than to make movies, and I ruined that.”

The taut lines around his sculpted mouth softened. “You’re wrong. I was wandering around in the desert, lost, and didn’t even realize it until you found me. You showed me how to tap into my emotions. To tell the story from my heart. Without you, my career is nothing. I’d abandon it in a second if that would prove it to you.”

“No! I can’t let you do that,” she said fiercely and took a step back. He was too close, and her will was only so strong. “You shouldn’t even be here. Go back to Hollywood and get photographed a bunch with Kyla so people forget about me. Then maybe you can still make Visions of Black.”

“You’re the only person I want to be photographed with.” A camera, a huge professional number like from a movie set, appeared in his hands from its hiding place under a table. He pushed some buttons and positioned it carefully on the scarred Formica tabletop. Suddenly, the camera was on them both, recording.

Kris took her hand and squeezed, so she couldn’t move out of range. “This time, everyone, especially the media, will get the story right. Once upon a time, there was this guy who had all these chaotic, extreme emotions inside, and he was so afraid of letting those things control him, he pretended he didn’t feel anything at all. Then he met this extraordinary woman who really got that. And this guy fell in love with her but couldn’t figure out how to get past being that same guy so he let her go. Now he’s trying to get her back.”

Kris was in love with her? Definitely a dream. “How does the story end?”

“With a translation.” He nodded to the card hanging from the sunflower still clutched in her fist. “It says, ‘The first time I saw you, you reminded me of a living sunflower. Beautiful and open.’”

With a firm hand, he guided her to the next person, who held the next flower. Her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Cole, smiled and handed off the bloom. “I’m jealous you got to stay in such a fancy hotel,” she said with a wink.

Coupled with Mrs. Johnson’s nice comment, it warmed her. Not everyone thought she was the devil incarnate. These people were here to support her. They were here because Kris had asked them to be. He was rescuing her from the bad press, because that was what he did.

Kris leaned in, brushing her ear with his lips and as her lobe burned, he said, “This one reads, ‘The second time I saw you, your hair smelled like coconut, and I couldn’t get the scent out of my mind.’”

Where was he going with all this loveliness? Before she could blink, Kris shuttled her to the next flower, held by Pearl. “This card says, ‘I nicknamed you my desert mirage, a shimmering, gorgeous fantasy rising up out of the bleak landscape.’”

A nickname. Oh, no. “The stages. You have all the stages written down on these cards.”

Impishly, Kris smiled and handed her another flower. “‘The Scrambler. Then the Ferris wheel.’”

He was reading the cards in public. Great balls of fire. In public.

“Everybody out. Now.” She turned to address the room at large before Kris could start on the next flower, which undoubtedly read: You exposed your breast, showed me the butterfly tattoo and I tasted it in the elevator. “I appreciate everyone coming out today. Your support means a lot. But some things are best done without an audience.”

Grumbling, everyone shuffled to their feet and filed out slower than lizards molt. The flower bearers laid the stalks in a pile on a nearby table. Pamela Sue grinned and hustled a glowering Bobby Junior out the door. VJ made a mental note to thank her later for taking care of all this.

Finally, they were alone.

Alone, with Kris. She never thought she’d see him again, never mind while he spouted romanticisms in that gorgeous voice.

“I wasn’t going to read them all aloud,” he said. “That’s why I wrote them in Greek.”

“What else do the cards say?” she asked, her throat raw with emotions too big to process.

“Lots of things. Like, how I love being your guinea pig. Six-forty-five, which is what time I watched the sunrise while I held you. This one.” He pulled a bloom from the stack and swept it across her cheek. “This one says, ‘Love, passion and friendship. You gifted me with all three, and I want to spend my life giving them back to you.’”