Coming Attractions (20 page)

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Last night? The call? I thought
it was good news… But then, finding the jewel could—”

At that moment, his phone rang. She was starting to
really dislike that cell.

He answered and listened for a moment.

She wondered narkily if he was talking to Candy again.

“Don’t fret,” he said down the line, “I have the
money in the bag. They can go ahead with the surgery.”

Cara prickled with anger. He had barely
acknowledged her part in funding his niece’s operation. Not that she expected
bucketloads of gratitude or kisses on her feet or anything, but a polite thank
you would have been appropriate, surely? Even if he had simultaneously figured
out the nature and location of the sapphire, he could have shown even a hint of
gratitude. After all, it was her inheritance he would be using to fund Bronte’s
operation—even if it was technically his because it was on his property.

She tried to rationalize his arrogance and
impatience. He did have a lot going on in both the logistics of Bronte’s
treatment and his travel, she supposed, to the hospital. But also the emotional
component of feeling responsible for Bronte’s condition, and being hopeful for
a positive surgical outcome.

Her follow up thought was not so kind, but her
inner critic bypassed Levi and sent that particular poison dart directly into
her.

Did you really
think he wanted any more from you than your money? A roll in the hay was a
happy detour and the film was great bait, but it was only ever the bucks he
wanted.

So, now that he had what he wanted from her, he had
no use for her, Cara realized. She swore she heard a tinkle like chinaware as
he drove away, still talking on his cell, as her heart shattered into chunks
and shards and slivers of unrequited love.

Chapter Seventeen

Cara had heard from Mia that, after a week’s
absence, Levi had returned to Flinders’ Keep to progress the film. It appeared
Mia was consulting in Cara’s place, which seemed kind of strange, given that
Mia had not supported the film in the first place. Evidently, Mia had a change
of heart. Maybe proof of a bona fide lover and news of the found fortune had
given her some new perspective. Or maybe reconciling with Joe had mellowed her
outlook. In any case, it seemed Mia’s involvement in the film had increased in
unswerving proportion to Cara’s refusal to participate.

Despite Levi’s impersonal invitation via email, Cara
had skipped the rushes and tersely declined every other invitation—delivered
through his office staff—to contribute further to
Lost Treasure
. She didn’t want any more to do with it. She had done
her part. She wasn’t prepared to take anymore crap from anyone, whether it be Levi,
Mia, or her dead mother.

 
But the
invitation to the premiere was irresistible.

She had chosen a long gown, the blue of her eyes. A
dipping halter neck, it exposed the creamy slopes of her shoulders and drew the
eye to the vee of her décolletage, also baring an expanse of skin at her back.
In contrast with the slightly daring cut of the bodice, the skirt was a demure,
flowy floor-length creation. Sparkling faux sapphire drop earrings and a
matching pendant offset high-brushed gold sandals and seemed a fitting nod to
her mother’s treasure. The overall impression, she hoped, was striking but
elegant. Not that she really cared how she looked, she told herself. Why should
she give two hoots about what anyone thought of her outfit? She wasn’t out to
impress anyone—anyone at all. And besides, next to a megastar like Selena
Simms, she would pale into insignificance anyway.

“Do you see him?” Mia asked, gawking around the
glittering crowd in the luxurious theatre.

“Who?” Cara asked, pretending not to scan the room
under her lashes. She would have expected Levi to be knee deep in meet-and-greet
schmoozing with the paparazzi and the glitterati alike. But, so far, there was
no sign of him. Not that she was looking.

“Who do you reckon? The Giant Stay Puft Marshmallow
Man?”

Cara ignored the gibe and waved at Otto and Selena
across the foyer. Caught up in conversation with a couple of guys in power
suits, Otto pantomimed a big double thumbs up and Selena blew elaborate kisses.
The playful gestures afforded Cara a modicum of comfort.

Truth be told, Cara was nervous about everything,
tonight—about the film and the critical response to it, about the film and its
personal impact on her and her sister, and most especially, she admitted, about
seeing Levi.

A bell chimed, letting them know it was almost show
time. She stalled, adjusting her shoe strap, summoning a second champagne,
pausing to admire the famed vintage movie posters. But in the end, she was
ushered into the luxury theatre without having laid eyes on him.

Damn.
Secretly, she had wanted
him to see her strolling up the red carpet with Mia, bathed in the pops of
flash lights, aloof, smiling serenely with her skirt swirling around her legs.
Or, at the very least, poised elegantly, cradling a champagne flute and chatting
amiably with Quentin or Russell or Meryl. But it wasn’t to be.

Maybe she would see him afterwards, she thought. She
hoped her dress didn’t crush while she sat in the plush chair to watch the
film. She hoped her fancy up-do held and her makeup stayed fresh. She wondered
if anyone would notice if she slipped off the strappy stilettos—they were
killing her feet.

Surely Levi wouldn’t miss the premiere.

The lights dimmed and the opening credits filled
the screen, simple white serif type over a montage of Flinders’ Keep—aerial and
ocean views, cozy interiors and garden scenes, interspersed with thoughtful macro
shots of flowers and architectural detail. The moon falling across the lawn,
the key hanging beneath the window ledge, the sunlit back kitchen. These frames
made Cara feel lost in time, like a mystical bridge between two eras at the
house. The orchestral soundtrack was light yet poignant. The authenticity was
flawless. Cara felt as though she had stumbled back in time to her adolescence.

And then her mother appeared on the screen and Cara
gasped aloud. Mia’s hand flew to her own mouth. Both women were riveted to the
screen. Her stance, her clothing, her manner, her voice… Selena had captured
the exact essence of their mother in the very first seconds of the film.

Levi had truly worked his best magic.

Despite Cara’s absorption in the film’s opening,
her focus suddenly receded from the screen. Her senses precipitously prickled
with alertness. While she kept her eyes front, she heard his footfalls against
the thick carpet in the aisle, heard his mumbled apology as he stepped past
audience members toward his seat. A relieved smile tugged her lips and she let
out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

Cara always got a buzz from seeing her name up
there on the big screen as the writer, but tonight, she barely cared. She was
hyper-aware of the unique scent of him moving closer to where she sat.
 
She was entranced by his familiar posture in
her peripheral vision, his buff build, his killer smile, and his undiluted
sexual magnetism. And if that wasn’t enough, he had donned a tux. Mmm-mmm. He
practically sizzled. Blast her traitorous libido!

From the moment she first sensed him in the
theatre, she had known as surely as she knew her own name that he was slowly
but steadily progressing toward the seat beside her. He was a human
Cara-seeking missile, unerring in his direction, unstoppable in his
determination. She felt as though she could have donned an invisibility cloak
and he still would have found her. Indeed, she almost felt as if her thoughts
had summoned him and her desires were drawing him to her like a silent siren
song.

When he was close enough to touch, she dared a
direct peek at him. He flicked her an uncertain glance as he took his seat
beside her. She wasn’t sure whether he was unclear on her reception of him or
the film. While she had instantly warmed to the film, she wasn’t sure how she
felt about being so close to Levi in real life. Oh, she was hot for him, sweltering
like she was sitting beside a desert bonfire. But she also wanted to protect her
wounded heart.

Between Levi’s presence and the reality of
Lost Treasure,
Cara’s evening felt
surreal.

Selena had so completely captured her mother’s
quintessence that at times she forgot herself and the child inside her ached as
though the real woman was up there on the screen, almost close enough to touch.
During other moments, she completely zoned out of the drift of the film, not
due to any lapse in quality or intensity, but only because of the sheer
entrancing force emanating from the man beside her.

Most mesmerizing of all were the tiny
half-forgotten details of her childhood—the book her mother kept with typed and
cut out recipes, the cut glass vase in the hallway, always brimming, even if it
was only with pretty winter foliage and grasses, the mailbox constantly
battered by vehicles clipping the gatepost. Between her own memories and Mia’s,
they had managed to weave hundreds of tiny, genuine details through the main
story.

Their mother, humming that half-remembered song—da,
da, da something, something—warning the girls not to eat their apples too fast
or they’d get the hiccups, smiling wryly with an egg in one hand and a stray
feather in the other, leaving out the almonds, eating only half a biscuit.

Da, da, something of the morning. Love
shines in your eyes. Sparkling, clear and lovely. You're my lady…
The lyrics came back to her in her
father’s voice, and she suddenly recognized the song as an oldie by Styx.

Styx…Styck… One singer. Only one.

The “Styck” who signed the mysterious letter hidden
in the book of faerie tales was none other than Cara’s father.

Suddenly, Cara knew in her bones the nature of the
treasure her mother had been seeking. The song “Lady” had been their song and Alessandra
had kept it alive for all the years her husband, Dane, was missing. She had
never stopped loving him, never given up hope. And he had never stopped trying
to contact her.

Against all odds, Alessandra had finally received a
letter from Dane and set off to rescue him from where he was held captive in
the Middle East. She had lost her life trying to save her one true love, died
trying to bring her family together again.

Cara began to cry. Her sounds were soft, but the
tears pouring down her cheeks were abundant and dripped off her chin down her
cleavage.

Mia shot her an alarmed look in the dark and
reached to grip her arm.

“The treasure was Dad,” Cara whispered to her
sister. “She wanted to bring Dad back.”

Cara could feel Levi’s eyes on her, sense his
concern and puzzlement, almost hear his intrigue and empathy, but with the
distance between them over the past months, she was totally unprepared as to
how to respond to his silent communion. What could she say to him in the dim
but crowded screening room? How could she condense the glut of discoveries and
reactions and feelings she was experiencing into a few whispered sentences? So,
rather than try and surely fail, she averted her eyes and said nothing as the
film played itself out before them.

Both Mia and Cara were still weeping as the final
credits rolled, realizing that Alessandra had not, after all, selfishly
abandoned them for some earthly treasure. Rather, she had risked, and
ultimately lost, her life in an effort to rescue her one and only love and
reunite her family. Cara’s father was the treasure after all.

That kind of love was rare, Cara thought—one in a
million, one in a hundred million maybe. It was the mythical ardor of ballads,
the epic devotedness of poetry, the absolute ardency of legend. It was Orpheus
and Eurydice, Paris and Helena, Jane and Rochester, Pochahontas and John Smith…

It was Cara and
Levi.

The thought came unbidden but wholly and precisely
accurate and fitting. She loved him. Not in some girlish crushy way. Not in
some overly romanticized fantasy way. No. Cara loved Levi the way a woman loved
the man who was her soulmate. She loved him with every particle of her mind, body,
and soul. She loved him in the simplest way, and the most complicated. She
loved him as she could love no other as long as she lived.

Her devastation over the last months had been
total. Losing Levi had left her empty and shattered as though the space inside
her chest was a bombed city or a black hole. She had been sick and listless,
unwilling and barely able to eat, to laugh, or even to write. She felt as
though she was cursed, that a limb had been amputated, that some vital part of
her being had been excised, that she was withering away.

As the screen faded to black, she realized there was
no question what was missing—in fact, there never had been—and he was sitting
right beside her in the dark theatre having just delivered her family back to
her—restored her faith in blood connections, love, trust, and forever.

That’s all,
she thought glibly.
He just gave me everything.

So, what was Cara going to do about it? Hold it
against him that he had been hell bent on saving his beloved niece at any cost?
Wouldn’t she have done the same? Wasn’t that what she loved most about him? His
ambition? His tenacity? His commitment to family and those he loved?

Hadn’t she herself felt safe and cherished under
his protection? Hadn’t he supported her at every turn? Reviled Alessandra’s
supposed betrayal? Championed her writing? Yes, they had disagreed about the
film, but he had never acted against her. He had always treated her with
courtesy and respect. He had always been on her side. Well, always until that
final morning before he drove away.

Could there still be a chance for the two of them,
she wondered. Did he miss her as much as she pined for him? Did he miss her at
all?

She came back to herself as the final credits
scrolled over a night sky backdrop, rolling away to leave a twinkling
starscape. For just a moment, Cara thought she saw a stray constellation
twinkling her name, but when she blinked, it was gone.

She brushed away her tears as the lights came up
and turned to look at Levi, but at that moment, they were swamped by a crowd of
fervent well-wishers jamming the aisle—George, Leonardo, Jennifer, Johnny. There
was no chance to exchange a glance or a touch, let alone few words, with Levi.

Eventually, the exuberant crowd carried them out
into the foyer where buffets groaned under the weight of food and wine. There
were speeches, toasts, photographs, praise, interviews…

“You want to get out of here?” Mia finally asked as
she found Cara drooping in a corner. The champagne had worn off along with the
professional elation and the personal closure.

Cara’s eyes darted across the room to where Levi
had been cornered by yet another eager blogger and his photographer sidekick
and she nodded wearily. He hadn’t sought her out and she wasn’t likely to get
near him anytime soon. More than anything after the tumult and turbulence of
the evening’s revelations, she needed to lie down before she fell down.