Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood (25 page)

Grace gave a weak smile, then took a deep breath, as if bracing herself. “We better circulate. Go say hi to everyone.”

“Make it loud,” Hallie added. “So the old folks can all hear.”

After explaining for the fifth time that, yes, they really
were
related to little Dash — and wasn’t that just amazing? — Hallie was ready to bail.

“I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to leave right now,” she offered, gulping the grape juice that all the children had been relegated to. Hallie supposed she should just be happy they hadn’t offered it in a sippy cup.

“You don’t have a hundred bucks,” Grace pointed out. “I bet you don’t even have ten after buying that dress.”

Hallie grinned, giving a little twirl. “Worth it, though, right? Anyway, I’ll owe you.”

Grace shook her head.

“Pretty please?” Hallie begged. “Seriously, one of those old men just asked where I went on vacation to get so tan.”

Grace sighed. “We can’t go yet, it would be rude.”

“And he wasn’t?”

“Grace!” Lucy’s breathless cry made them turn; the British girl descended, lavishing air-kisses on both of their cheeks in turn. “Isn’t this party the best? I chatted with Theo’s grandmother for half an hour. I don’t know what he was so worried about, the woman’s a doll!”

Grace’s smile was thin. “That’s great.”

“Isn’t it?” Lucy’s eyes were wide, but now that she knew what to look for, Hallie could see the steel behind them. “Now that I’m getting to know them all, there’s no reason for us to keep our relationship a secret anymore. Theo will be so relieved.”

“Will he?” Hallie asked. Lucy blinked at her.

“Of course. It’s been so hard on him, not being able to tell anyone.”

“Right.” Hallie kept a smile fixed on her face. “Except usually, if a guy really likes you, he wants to tell the whole world. Unless, it’s like some dirty little secret.” Grace’s elbow dug into her side, but Hallie couldn’t resist finishing. “You know, a mistake, that he’s ashamed about.”

Lucy’s smile dissolved so fast it could have set a record. “Theo and me are in love,” she said, practically hissing.

There! Hallie knew that whole Mary Poppins routine was an act!

“I,” she corrected, not able to resist a tiny dig. Lucy frowned. “It’s
Theo and I,
” Hallie explained, smirking. “I thought you Brits were sticklers for grammar.”

Grace coughed. “Ooh, look, cookies!” She tried to drag Hallie away. Hallie stood fast.

“If you’re so in love, why aren’t you over there with him now?” She fluttered a wave across the room at Theo. He saw them all, froze, and then promptly turned and headed in the other direction.

Sure, like that was a boy in the grips of a secret wild passion.

“Whoops,” Hallie said, sarcastic. “He must not have seen you.”

“He saw me.” Lucy pulled herself up to her full height, giving Hallie a smug look. “We just agreed not to go public tonight. Agreed it last night. Which we spent together. At his place.”

Hallie heard Grace’s pained intake of breath and snapped. She lurched forward, spilling red grape juice all down the front of Lucy’s dress.

“Oh, no!” Hallie cried. “I’m so clumsy. You better go wash that out before it stains!”

Lucy glared at her, openmouthed, but no sound came out. Finally, she spun on her heel and fled toward the bathroom.

“Hallie!” Grace dragged her into the empty kitchen, countertops full of hors d’oeuvre platters and empty wine glasses. Grace shut the door behind them and turned on Hallie. “I can’t believe you did that!”

“It was for you!” Hallie protested. “I was helping!”

“I don’t want your help,” Grace told her. “It was mean, and immature, and . . . and . . .” A tiny smile bubbled to her lips. “Did you see her face?”

Hallie grinned. “Priceless. Now, the stain should keep her busy for a while, so you go get back out there with Theo and fight.”

“But I don’t want to.” Grace sagged against the kitchen cabinets. “I don’t want to fight. It shouldn’t be a competition. Either he likes me or he doesn’t, and, well . . . clearly he doesn’t.”

“There’s no clearly about it,” Hallie insisted. “Did you hear her story? Something’s not right. I bet you she’s lied about everything.”

“But why?” Grace countered. “Why go through all the trouble pretending, when we could easily find out just by asking Theo?”

“So why don’t you?” Hallie asked.

Grace looked away.

There was a noise in the doorway. “Hey, you two, champagne’s running thin.”

They both turned. It was the Ivy League guy from Bergdorf’s, Hallie realized: floppy blond hair and an expensive watch. He looked at them impatiently. “The trays. We need fresh bottles out there.”

Hallie blinked, confused, but Grace snorted under her breath. “He thinks we’re the help,” she explained to Hallie, voice brittle. “I can’t imagine why.”

They exchanged a look.

“Who are you exactly?” Hallie asked him.

Ivy League looked thrown. “Rex Coates. This is my family’s party.”

“And we’re part of the family.” Hallie gave him a deadly smile. “Your step-sisters.”

There was a beat, but Rex didn’t even have the decency to apologize. He frowned again, processing the information, then shrugged. “If you do see the real staff, tell them about the champagne, OK?” He turned to go. “Oh, and happy holidays.”

The kitchen door closed behind him. Hallie shook her head in disbelief. “This family! They are all freaking insane,” she declared.

“Except Theo,” Grace said quietly.

“Keep telling yourself that.” Hallie wasn’t so sure. “You still care if these people think you’re polite or not?”

Grace wavered, then shook her head. Finally! Some sense. Hallie linked her arm through Grace’s. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

Hallie didn’t have tickets for the sold-out show — or the money to spend two hundred bucks on scalped passes from the seedy guys lurking around outside the club — so she figured the backstage entrance was her best bet. Simply wait by the stage door once the show was over, intercept Dakota on his way out, and voilà! The reunion she’d been dreaming about. Sure, the back alley was strewn with garbage instead of rose petals, but the setting didn’t matter; once she and Dakota were together again, they could retire back to the Waldorf-Astoria to catch up; the important part was that she was finally — finally! — going to see him again.

“You’re sure it’s not too late to talk you out of this?” Grace asked, following Hallie around to the back of the club. There were two dozen fans waiting there already, and the line out front of the show had stretched around the block, easily their biggest audience to date. Hallie couldn’t help feeling a glow of pride on Dakota’s behalf. They were doing it: the band was really breaking out!

“We could go back to the hotel and splurge on room service,” Grace continued, bundled up and blowing on her hands like she was deep in Arctic Russia. “The warm, toasty hotel. With heated towels and an adjustable thermostat.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Hallie told her. She was shaking too, but her tremors were from pure nervous excitement. “A little cold never hurt anyone!”

“Except for all those people who die from hypothermia!”

Hallie ignored her protests, cutting ruthlessly right to the front of the crowd. She quickly scoped out her competition for the band’s attention. Underage fangirls, she decided: clutching posters for the band to sign, their cameras at the ready. Dakota wouldn’t give them a second glance.

Grace ducked in behind her, apologizing as she went. “What are you going to do if this doesn’t work out?”

“It will!”

“No,” Grace said, “I mean it.” She put her hands on Hallie’s shoulders, forcing her to look into her eyes. “What will you do?”

Hallie blinked. For a moment, something inside her slipped — icy cold and fearful — but then a sudden excited cry went up, and the crowd pressed forward. They were coming out! Hallie broke away from Grace, breathlessly straining for the first glimpse of him.

And there he was.

Dakota came sauntering out behind AJ and Reed; hair damp with sweat, that Sex Pistols shirt Hallie picked out peeking from under a jacket, and looking every bit as beautiful as Hallie remembered him. She felt her body wilt with pure relief. He was there, right in front of her! Everything was going to be OK!

“Dakota!” she called, but her voice was lost in the din. The crowd swelled, filling the small space in the alley, and the band was quickly surrounded.

“Whoa!” The guys laughed, clearly reveling in their moment of glory. “Back up!” A couple of club bouncers hurried out, trying to fend off the adoring masses.

Hallie struggled against the surge. “Dakota!” she yelled, louder. “Over here!”

He didn’t hear her, busy scribbling autographs on T-shirts, tickets, even random limbs girls thrust his way. He looked completely happy, Hallie realized, not even fazed by the crush of people screaming out for his attention. This was what he wanted, after all: to be seen, recognized.

A black limo arrived, driving slowly through the alley. The crowd began to scatter, happily clutching their autographs and camera phones. “Wait up,” Dakota called ahead, over the noise of the crowd. “We can’t go without her.”

Hallie brightened. He’d seen her. He’d —

The stage door opened again, and security ushered a girl out. Face obscured by huge sunglasses, she was dressed in tight black jeans and leather boots, long blond hair spilling in a glossy wave over a silky shirt.

Hallie blinked in recognition at the same time as an audible gasp went up from the crowd.

“Is that . . . omigod! Talia!”

Talia Talbot: Hollywood starlet, tabloid staple. And . . . the girl Hallie had seen in Bergdorf’s the other day, she suddenly realized.

The tide of people pressed Hallie forward again as they grabbed for the star. Dakota reached Talia first: throwing one protective arm around her shoulder and blocking their faces from the dizzying flash of cameras. Talia sank against him, resting her head against his chest as if she hadn’t been stalked by the paparazzi since the day she’d “accidentally” torn her dress and flashed the entire Emmy Awards her perfect derriere.

Hallie froze, staring at the pair in bewilderment. They were just ten feet away from her: Dakota’s arm around Talia’s slim body; her hand clutching at his jacket. His brand-new, designer tuxedo jacket.

And then, as if Hallie were trapped in some cruel nightmare, Dakota leaned down and kissed Talia. A long, slow kiss that left the crowd screaming, and turned Hallie’s body to ice.

How was this possible?

The couple broke apart, smiling. Talia climbed into the limo, but Dakota turned back to give the crowd one last wave. That’s when he saw her.

Their eyes locked. His smile slipped.

Hallie finally unfroze. She ducked under the arm of one of the security guys and closed the distance between them, unsteady on her heels. “Dakota?”

“H-Hallie?” Dakota stuttered, glancing anxiously toward the car. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.” Hallie stared back at him. Everything she’d imagined telling him was gone from her mind: wiped blank by the sight of his lips on someone else’s. “I don’t understand,” she managed, ignoring the sound of the overexcited crowd. “Why won’t you talk to me? I’ve been calling you for weeks!”

“I, um, I got a new phone.”

Hallie gasped. All this time, he hadn’t even
listened
to her pain? “But you still know my number. Why didn’t you call?” she demanded. “You just disappeared. I didn’t know what to think!”

Dakota shifted, not meeting her eyes. “I told you, things got crazy. I needed some time.”

“For what?” Hallie cried.
“Her?”

He stiffened, and pulled her to the side. The bouncers closed around them, forming a solid wall of muscle between them and the crowd. “Look, it’s not like that,” Dakota hissed. “The label, they’ve sunk a ton of money into us, but without publicity . . .” He jammed his hands in his jacket pockets — the jacket she’d seen some other girl pick out, just the day before — and looked at her plaintively. “Please, try to understand!”

But she did understand. That was the problem. For the first time in months, Hallie understood perfectly, and the truth was so simple, it took her breath away. The reason he’d stopped calling? The reason he hadn’t invited her out, or visited, or done anything to assuage the terrible misery and heartache she’d been going through?

He didn’t want to.

Not enough to do something about it, anyway. Not enough to send her even a simple note explaining that he couldn’t see her anymore — give her some kind of closure, or power to put him behind her for good. Hallie had spent the last weeks making so many excuses to herself for the way he was acting, but finally standing there in front of him, she realized: there was none.

It was over, she saw that now, but worse than that, it had
always
been over. Dakota had just been too much of a coward to ever say it to her face.

“Hey, D, get in the damn car!” Reed’s yell came from through the tinted window, and the limo began inching its way slowly back toward the street. Dakota looked between them, torn.

“Hallie . . .” he began, those blue eyes pooled with regret.

Hallie cut him off. “Go,” she spat, something new forming: a sharp blade in her chest that cut through the melancholy haze that had shrouded her ever since he left. “Go to your precious after-party, with all your fancy new friends. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To be seen. To
matter.
”

She was shaking — not with grief, or any of the pitiful emotions she’d been weighed under for so long. No, this was rage, chasing the icy numbness away with a furious power. Hallie peeled his leather jacket off and thrust it at him.
“Go!”

“Please, you don’t understand. . . . It’s not just about me. I have the band to think about. . . .” Dakota looked to the car, then back at her. He seemed suspended there a moment: caught between them, unmoving, with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

“Dakota, sweetie.” A honeyed voice emerged from the limo. “They’re holding our table!”

Dakota seemed to sag. He took one final look at Hallie, took the jacket, and slid into the limo. The door slammed shut, the tinted window slid up, and slowly, it rolled away — leaving Hallie there in the dark alley with nothing but her thin vintage dress and a bitter rage so thick she could taste it.