Hollywood Nights (26 page)

As I lay across the bed flipping channels, someone knocked on the door.

“If this is about the valet sticker for my car,” I said as I opened the door, “I promise you I have—”

I broke off when I saw who stood there. I didn’t have any more words.

“I got it right,” Brynn said with a half-smile. “I thought you mumbled that when you walked out of the store. Room 231, 21C Hotel.”

She could have stepped right out of the pages of a magazine, and I recognized the clothing. Leather leggings. Black booties. A loose burnt-orange top. She hadn’t gotten rid of everything from her life in LA after all.

“Come in,” I said. Before she said anything else, the way she dressed gave her away. I had won. Goddamn it, I had won. I’d won her back, and I would never lose her again. That much I knew.

“This room is pretty nice,” she said, turning around in the middle of it, her gaze sweeping over the king-sized bed and the rest of the minimalist, upscale furniture. “I guess I should expect that.”

“Best hotel in the city.”

She nodded and bit her red lacquered bottom lip. “I read your note. And I opened the bag.”

“I figured you did. You’re here.”

“You meant every word, didn’t you?” Then she laughed. “Not that I have to ask again. I already know.”

H
e crossed the room and grabbed me right after I spoke. His mouth covered mine, and I gave in to him. It was like coming home. Our kisses had a feverish insanity, a depth they’d never had before, back in Los Angeles, before things changed. For the first time, we laid ourselves bare, fresh, and clean.

I didn’t want it to ever end.

After a while, he picked me up and took me over to the bed. I fell back against the mattress and he climbed on top of me. My shirt came off in a flurry of broken buttons, and I tore open his robe. I wanted him more than anything, and finally, I was getting him for real—Tanner Vance, without any prerequisites or shadows of the past. I moaned, and his lips found mine again.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said when he broke away a few kisses later and shifted his weight. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

“I won’t,” I said.

“Will you come back to LA with me? Can we start over? Do things better this time?”

“Yes,” I said.

And it was the truth. At last.

Eighteen Months Later

“W
ell, that went well,” I said after we climbed into the town car and it sped away, headed back to our home on Mulholland Drive.

Tanner grinned, then raised my hand and kissed the top of it. “You looked fantastic tonight.”

“I try.” I jerked my head in the direction of the disappearing theater. “They say you’re going to get an Oscar nod for that performance.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ve got a lot of competition out there.”

I shrugged, more confident than him about it. Critics loved his portrayal of a desperate campaign manager willing do to anything to fix the Ohio electoral votes for his candidate in
The Season
. I hadn’t heard or read one bad word about the film, and people had nothing but accolades to say about his performance at that night’s premiere. Soon, people wouldn’t think about
The Flash Returns
when they thought of Tanner Vance. His career had reheated over the last year, and so had mine. In addition to a huge print campaign with Lancôme, I had my own major role in
Boelyn
, a historical drama about the sibling rivalries of Anne and Mary Boelyn. It hadn’t done as well with the critics, but I’d gotten noticed. People knew my name now, and the tabloids had stopped calling me Tanner’s arm candy.

The car wound its way into the Hollywood Hills, but then it took a turn I didn’t expect, and headed away from the house. When I asked Tanner where we were going, he didn’t give me a straight answer. Instead, the car drove up the hill and through the entrance of Griffith Observatory. The driver parked the car, and Tanner helped me out of the backseat.

“I love this view,” he said after we walked to the edge of the observation deck. “Never gets old. Never.”

A panoramic, sweeping view of the city and the rest of the county swept out before us. The city lights played and danced against the nighttime sky; most of the tourists had left the park for the day.

“I’ve never been up here at night,” I said.

Tanner wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer to him. “We’ve had a good year, haven’t we?”

I didn’t disagree.

“I can’t help but think, that something is still missing.”

“What?”

“Well, we left something unfinished.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a rumpled stack of papers. My eyes widened. “This.”

“The contract we signed,” I said, confused, as I pulled myself out of his arms. “You still held on to that thing?”

He nodded. “I’m good at paperwork. One of my better qualities.”

“And the contract is—”

“Don’t you think that’s a little sad?” he said. “It was all business when this first started between us.” He looked down at the papers. “But I have to be honest you,” he said and ripped the legal paperwork in half. “I don’t think it was ever
business
for me.”

For a second, my heart stopped beating.

“Starting now, at this moment, I want to do this right way,” he said, tearing the pages into a smaller stack of scraps. He walked to the nearest trash can and threw them inside. “That way doesn’t fit.”

“Tanner, is this what I think it is?”

He had one hand in his pants pocket, and when he arrived back at my side, he took his other hand in mine. “I never believed I’d meet anyone like you in Los Angeles, Brynn. You’re the best, most consistent, most important thing in my life. I don’t ever want to live it without you.” He paused, and then took a small blue box from his pocket. “Will you marry me?”

A large, clear, princess-cut diamond sat in the box. It caught the evening floodlights around the observatory and sparkled.

“Yes,” I said. “Every day, and for the rest of my life. Yes.”

A
thousand thanks to the people who believed in this story. It was so much fun to write. If you are reading this, I hope you enjoyed it. Individually, I want to thank Sean, my mom, Lisa, Mandy, Jenny, Lauren, Terra, Kevin, and the fantastic editors at Write Divas. I couldn’t do any of this without your unwavering support.

A
n overactive imagination has always served her well. Starting from age ten, with an epic tale about a soldier during the Civil War, Sara has made creating stories her life’s work.

After graduating cum laude from Western Kentucky University in 2004 with a degree in Broadcast News and History, Sara Celi started her decade-long career in broadcast journalism at a TV station in Louisiana, then worked in Oklahoma and Ohio.

Her love of the written word came to fruition with the publishing of her first novel,
THE UNDESIRABLE
, in 2013, and she has since published
THE PALMS
,
PRINCE CHARMING
,
and
NATURAL LOVE
. She is also a contributing author to
Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Positive
and a regular columnist for
Cincinnati Refined
.

Sara Celi calls the Greater Cincinnati area home. In her spare time, she likes to read, shop, travel, run, volunteer with the Junior League, serve on the Board of Trustees for Wesley Community Services, and work with Cooperative for Education, a non-profit providing educational opportunities for the children of Guatemala.