Star bright, p.12
Star Bright, page 12
“Good girl.” Luna leaned forward a little, her face growing bigger as she gazed through the screen. “It’s easy to make mistakes. It’s a lot harder to fix them.”
“Yeah.” Kimberleigh looked down at the lump under her shirt where Spencer’s ring hung around her neck. “I’m pretty sure there’s no fixing this.”
“Maybe. But you’ve still got some groveling to do.”
Kimberleigh accepted this with a nod, still looking down at that shape close to her heart. “I’ll call him.”
She needed to get his ring back to him, but she’d been reluctant to ship something that precious and irreplaceable. Also, if she were being honest, she hadn’t wanted to give it up. Even when she’d hated him, when she’d been convinced he’d betrayed her, she’d still carried his ring with her every day. So maybe she hadn’t really hated him after all.
“Can I ask you something?” Luna said, and Kimberleigh looked up at the screen. “Do you love him?”
Kimberleigh swallowed, her hand moving involuntarily to her chest to touch Spencer’s ring through her shirt. “I think I do. It wouldn’t hurt so much otherwise.” A short, bitter laugh came out of her. “Not that it matters anymore.”
“Bullshit,” Luna said. “Love always matters.”
The first time Kimberleigh tried calling Spencer, it went straight to voicemail. Which meant either his phone was off, he’d declined her call, or he’d blocked her number. Since she’d never known him to turn his phone off, her money was on the second one—although option number three was a definite possibility.
She didn’t trust herself to leave a coherent voicemail, so she hung up and texted him instead. It took her a good fifteen minutes and about ten false starts to compose the two-sentence text.
I owe you an apology. Would you be willing to call me so we can talk?
He didn’t call back for four and a half hours. Almost midnight Kimberleigh’s time, which meant it was nine on the West Coast—the time he often got home from work. She’d been in bed, but wide-awake as usual with her phone lying next to her in case he called.
When it rang, she bolted upright, her heart beating a million miles an hour. She stared at Spencer’s face on the screen, taking a deep breath before answering.
“Spencer.” Despite the deep breath, her voice cracked a little.
There was a pause long enough that she wondered if he was going to speak at all before he finally said, “Kimberleigh.” That smooth, deep voice with a hint of Georgia drawl shot through her with a surge of relief. But the way he said her name sounded off. Instead of carrying layers of hidden meaning, it hung there flat between them. Empty of all emotion. “You said you wanted to talk.”
She hated that sound in his voice, but she’d called for a reason, and it didn’t have anything to do with making herself feel better. “I know it wasn’t you who leaked the story. I know you were telling the truth.”
“Great.” That was all he said. Just that one word, so cold and sarcastic it landed in her stomach like a ball of lead. It didn’t sound at all like the Spencer she knew.
He was protecting himself from her. Good for him. But it hurt even more than she’d anticipated.
She cleared her throat before reciting the speech she’d been rehearsing in her head for hours. “I’m so sorry. I should have believed you. It wasn’t fair, how I treated you. You didn’t deserve it, and I can’t even express how deeply I regret it, how much I wish I could take it back. I know I can’t, but I just wanted you to know how sorry I am.”
As grovels went, it wasn’t very impressive. She’d given far better speeches on-screen.
There was another pause, shorter this time, like he was waiting to make sure she was done. “All right,” he said. “Thank you for telling me.”
Thank you for telling me. Like she’d just informed him his hired car was waiting outside. So perfunctory. So detached.
“Spencer—”
“Is that all?” he asked, the brusqueness in his voice as close as he’d come to showing emotion.
“I—” She hadn’t been prepared for him to react like this. Of all the scenarios she’d imagined, for some reason she’d never envisioned him being curt. Angry? Aggrieved? Resentful? Sure. But not this flat, disinterested blankness. She cast around for something else to say, afraid this might be the last time they ever spoke. “Are you okay?” she finally settled on weakly.
“I’m…fine,” he answered, not quite so terse this time, the little hesitation in the middle making her think he’d almost said something else. Like he’d almost been tempted to let her in a little. But then he hadn’t. He’d gone with fine instead. Which meant he obviously wasn’t fine at all.
“Spencer,” she breathed, her voice shaking with regret. “I messed up. I didn’t trust that anything could be that good, so I threw us away. And I’m sorry for fucking it all up. I’m just so incredibly sorry.” She ended on a wet, choking sob that finally broke through his protective shield.
“I know.” His voice was soft and sympathetic, like he really did understand exactly how wretched she felt. “I know you are.”
Maybe there was hope for them after all?
A fat tear slid down her cheek and she reached up to wipe it away. “I just—is there any way—I mean, do you think you might ever be able to—”
“Forgive you?” he offered quietly.
“Give me another chance,” she countered. Because that was what she really wanted. She wanted him back. She wanted to fix this. To show him that she could be better. Worthy of him.
His voice was gentle, but his answer cut the legs out from under her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh.” She blinked, squeezing her lips together to stifle another sob.
“Kimberleigh.” This time when he said her name, she could hear in it everything he was feeling. All the hurt, the regret, the sorrow. And beneath all that she could hear the love that was still there. The love that hadn’t completely gone away yet. “I don’t want you to beat yourself up about this. I forgive you, okay? I know why you reacted the way you did. I understand, really I do. I just don’t think you’re ever going to be able to fully trust me—because of who I am and who you are. And that’s not your fault, but I can’t be in a relationship like that. I don’t think it’s good for me.”
But I love you.
She almost said it. Her mouth opened to speak the words, but all she said was, “Okay.”
“Are you?”
She ignored his question in order to throw one last Hail Mary pass. “What if I promised to be better?”
“Don’t,” he breathed, like the idea caused him pain. “Don’t do that. You don’t need to be better. You’re perfect the way you are.”
You’re not a burden. You’re a gift. Her heart constricted, remembering when he’d said those words to her. But he didn’t think she was a gift anymore, did he?
“We’re just not perfect together,” he finished sadly. “It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just what it is.”
But I love you. I love you I love you I love you. The words screamed inside her head, but she couldn’t make herself say them to him. It felt too desperate. Too manipulative.
She swallowed them down and said, “If that’s how you feel.”
“That’s how I feel.”
He sounded so calm. So certain. This was what he wanted. She’d given him a choice, and this was the one he’d made. All that was left for her to do was respect it.
“Right,” she said, forcing steadiness into her voice. “Okay. Then I guess this is goodbye.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No reason for you to be sorry. Take care, Spencer. I mean that. I hope you get everything you want out of life. You deserve it.”
“Kimberleigh—”
“Goodbye.” She hung up before he could say anything else, so she didn’t break down crying over the phone.
It was for the best.
That was what she told herself over and over again in the days that followed. He’d made the right choice by choosing to protect himself.
Good for him.
That still left the problem of his ring. She felt bad about holding on to it, but since it was only one small thing in a long list of big things she felt bad about where Spencer was concerned, she added that guilt to the rest of it.
After she got back to LA, then she’d figure it out. Have Luna deliver the ring to his office, maybe. Make sure he got it back safe and sound.
In the meantime, Kimberleigh continued to carry it with her every day. The last little piece of Spencer she had left.
She tried to let him go, otherwise. Tried to move on with her life. Even agreed to go out for drinks with some of her castmates to distract herself.
When she was alone at night, her feelings for Spencer threatened to smother her. They made her bones ache with longing and her chest constrict with shame.
Her insomnia was worse than ever. She used the time alone with her thoughts to compose long, heartfelt apologies to Spencer in her head and imagine how her last conversation with him might have gone differently. Sometimes in these imaginings he’d forgive her and welcome her back into his life. But sometimes he’d respond with anger, saying all the awful, hurtful things she knew she deserved.
She wondered if he was okay. Hoped he was moving on with his life. Hoped her betrayal hadn’t broken any of his sweetness.
When Kimberleigh’s publicist proposed a new fauxmance to help change the narrative about her in the press, she agreed—though not without a moment of hesitation, wondering what Spencer would think.
Probably nothing. Why would he care what she did anymore?
If he was smart, he wouldn’t think about her at all.
sixteen
“Well?” Vanessa asked, following Spencer into his office. “How’d it go?”
He shrugged noncommittally as he sat down at his desk. “Pretty well, I think.”
Vanessa stood on the other side of his desk and rested her fingers on the edge. Her fingernails were long and painted dark blue with a different tiny constellation drawn on each one. “Pretty well?” she repeated impatiently. “That’s all I get? What’s your gut say? Do you think they’re going to offer it to you?”
They had offered it to him, in fact. The network’s open late-night slot was his, if he wanted it. He ought to be happy about that—ecstatic, even. Six months ago he would have said it was what he wanted most in the world. But he couldn’t seem to muster much enthusiasm now—not even enough to accept the job.
Spencer had told them he needed to think about it. His agent was going to kill him, but he just wasn’t sure he wanted it anymore.
Truthfully, he hadn’t wanted much of anything lately. Not since his breakup with Kimberleigh. Work used to be his driving force, his purpose, the thing that got him out of bed in the morning. But his heart wasn’t in it these days. It was too busy trying to stitch itself back together.
“I really don’t know,” he lied to Vanessa. “We’ll have to see.” He didn’t want to get her hopes up in case he decided to turn it down.
A late-night slot was supposed to be the brass ring for a guy like Spencer. His own studio, his own house band, his name in the title of the show. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted? Perform well in the 1:30 a.m. slot, and you were well-positioned to inherit the coveted 12:30 or even 11:30 slots when one of them eventually opened up.
The problem was that the network wanted to keep him in his anchor spot on Hot Hollywood Nights and use it to cross-promote with the new late-night show, which would mean two tapings per day, five days a week. To make it work, Spencer would have to give up the morning show segment and his radio show, plus the two cable reality shows he hosted.
The cable gigs he couldn’t care less about, but the others were a different matter. The in-depth sit-down interviews he did for the morning show segment and his satellite radio program were the work he was proudest of in his career to date. Sure, the late-night show would be mostly interviews, but it was only a half-hour slot for two guests plus an opening and closing monologue. How in-depth would he be able to get in that kind of format? He’d have five minutes max with each guest to pimp their latest project and not much else.
Was that really what he wanted to spend the next few years doing? Was it worth the long hours that ate up his whole life to the exclusion of almost everything else?
Before Kimberleigh came along, Spencer had lived for work. But she’d shown him there were things he cared about more than his career. Companionship. Comfort. Love. He still wanted those things, even if he couldn’t have them with her.
That was why he’d ended things between them for good. It had been the hardest decision he’d ever had to make, and he still second-guessed it every day. Loving her had made him realize how much he needed love in his life. How empty his world had been before she came into it. How much he’d been missing out on by living only for work. Now that he’d let love into his life, he couldn’t go back to the way things were before.
But that meant accepting Kimberleigh didn’t love him the way he loved her and never would. He’d fooled himself into believing she’d get there, but he couldn’t keep holding out for a miracle anymore. She’d never be able to trust him. She had good reasons, and he didn’t blame her for it. It was just bad luck, really. He was the wrong person for her. She needed someone who made her feel safe. Someone she trusted enough to let inside the protective walls she’d constructed around herself. He wanted her to have that, but he needed to accept she’d never have it with him.
That was why he’d had to let her go. If he clung to her like he’d wanted to, neither of them would ever find the love they deserved.
God, it had been hard though. Hearing her voice break like that over the phone. The sound of her choking back a sob still haunted him. She’d practically begged him to take her back. And he’d wanted to. Badly. He missed her so much it felt like a piece of himself was missing. Like someone had dug a hole through his chest and scooped out a huge chunk of his heart. He’d never felt as lonely in his whole life as he had this last month. Which was saying something, considering how lonely his life had been up until now.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d had to report on Kimberleigh’s new romance. Even though he knew it was just a PR stunt, he’d barely been able to get through the script.
“Spencer?” Vanessa tapped one of her constellation nails on the edge of his desk. “Are you okay?”
He looked up at her and forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
When she frowned at him, he had the sense she was seeing through all his bullshit. “You haven’t seemed like yourself for a while. You’ve been…I don’t know. Subdued, I guess. I thought you’d be more excited about this opportunity.”
A pang of guilt nailed him in the solar plexus. It’d be good for Vanessa if he took the late-night gig. More prestige and money for him meant more prestige and money for her.
“I think the long hours have started to get to me,” he admitted, sitting back and scrubbing a tired hand over his face. “I’ve been feeling sort of burned out lately. But I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “It’ll pass. I just need to create a little more work-life balance for myself.”
She nodded, seeming to accept this. “You do work too much. It’s not healthy. When’s the last time you even took a vacation?”
He laughed hollowly. “I can’t remember.” It wasn’t like he had anyone to take a vacation with, and he’d never seen the point of going on a vacation alone.
“You should really think about taking some time off.”
“I will,” he promised. “It’s a good suggestion.”
What would he even do? It wasn’t like he had any hobbies to occupy his time. He basically had nothing going for him outside of work.
Vanessa studied him for a long moment, her dark chocolate eyes sharp under her long lashes. “You know, if this late-night hosting thing is going to be too much added stress, maybe you shouldn’t do it. Life’s too short to work yourself to death.”
Spencer bit down on his lip so it wouldn’t quiver. God, he’d been so emotional lately. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
One way or another, he was getting Vanessa a raise. If he turned down the late-night job, he’d find a way to make it up to her.
“Anyway,” she said, tapping her nails on the desk again. “Tamara Williams’s assistant called while you were out. And you’ll never guess why.”
He ignored the painful twinge in his chest at the mention of Kimberleigh’s publicist. Tamara had a large roster of high-profile clients, and Kimberleigh was only one of them. He had a long-standing and mutually beneficial working relationship with Tamara. She threw him scoops and exclusives when she could, and in exchange he lobbed softballs when one of her celebrity clients got into hot water and wanted to use him as a stop on their apology tour.
“Why?” he asked, trying to look interested.
“To offer you an exclusive interview with Kimberleigh Cress.”
All the breath left his body. It was a good thing he was sitting down, because he wasn’t sure his legs would have been able to support him.
“I know,” Vanessa said. “I was as shocked as you. I guess you’re off the blacklist for real, huh? Unless they’re punking you. Tamara doesn’t strike me as the punking type though.”
Spencer cleared his throat to make sure his voice still worked. “Did she mention what the interview is about?”
“Nope. Just that you should let them know if you’re interested.”
“Can you get Tamara on the phone for me?”
Tamara turned out to be in a meeting, so Spencer had to wait for a call back. Forty-five agonizing minutes later, he finally heard from her.
“I thought that might get your attention,” Tamara said, sounding pleased with herself.
“What’s this about?” he asked. “Why is Kimberleigh offering me an exclusive interview?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me, yeah.” His teeth ground together, and he forced himself to unclench his jaw before he ruined his veneers.
