Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (32 page)

He stooped, coming down to my level so that he could look right into my eyes. “Let me help you.” he said again. “
Please.”

I’d underestimated him. Not just his feelings for me, but
him.
I’d looked at big, honest, good-hearted Ryan and not realized that his quietness was because he was watching. That’s why he was such a good cop. He could watch someone and watch someone and watch someone and just as they thought he wasn’t paying attention, he’d pounce. That’s how he’d caught me in my lie. He’d been watching me harder than anyone had ever watched me. And now he wasn’t going to stop, ever, until he got the truth.

And Emma’s voice screamed that maybe that’s what I needed.

Maybe that was the reason for all those Ryan Moments I’d allowed myself.

Maybe that was why I’d rehearsed the kiss at my apartment.

Maybe I’d wanted to get caught. Maybe I knew I needed saving.

I stood there staring at him, my body growing colder and colder, the chill of the metal door seeping through my robe and numbing my nearly-naked body. This is what my life was—alone, growing cold, afraid to make a connection.

Unless I made the leap. Right now.

And suddenly, I was flinging myself into his arms, wrapping my arms around his neck, and my freezing body was pressing against his through our robes. A single loud, wracking sob made it up out of my chest, a pressure release of pain, and then the tears came, but they were silent. He pulled me tight in against his chest, knowing instinctively it was what I needed, and I snuggled in as far as I possibly could, clinging to him around his back, never wanting to let go.

He pushed the hair back from my face and felt the tears on my cheek, and then he was kissing them away and his hot mouth on my frozen cheek was the best thing I’d ever felt in my life. He kissed and kissed, clearing them away as fast as fresh ones could come, and then he was kissing my lips and I tasted my tears as our mouths met. It wasn’t about sex, this time, or teasing. It was about shelter and comfort and saying you’ll be there for someone no matter what. I clutched him to me and I swore I’d never let him go.

Chapter 35

Ryan

There was no filming the next day. I spent the morning driving around New York. Not, technically, patrolling because I was still on enforced leave. But I could still take a car out and even put on the uniform, as long as I used the excuse that I was coaching Jasmine. The captain wouldn’t know that I was cruising around on my own.

Well. Not completely alone.

I could feel him sitting in the passenger seat. Every time I looked at the road, he reappeared in my mind, sipping his coffee with extra cream, one arm hanging lazily out the window. He was
there
so firmly that, whenever I glanced sideways to check and saw the empty seat, it was a brutal, wrenching shock.

I told you it’d be fine
, said Hux.
I said that all you had to do was talk to her, you big ape.

I didn’t reply. I wasn’t going to get into talking with ghosts...or with myself, whichever it was.

So are you two going out now, or what?
asked Hux.

Were
we going out? I had no idea. Everything had definitely changed, up on the roof. But then we’d gone back downstairs and shot more scenes—ironically, the awkward morning-after scene between Isabel and Tony. And though we’d exchanged nervous smiles between takes, we hadn’t actually said anything. We hadn’t arranged a date or kissed again. I knew she liked me and that alone was enough to make my heart pound like a goddamn lion’s every time I thought about it. I knew that she was hurting, inside and that she was finally ready to let me help her. My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I remembered how she’d reacted to me grabbing her at the gym. At some point in her past, some bastard had—

My insides knotted at the thought of that happening to my Jasmine. It didn’t change the way I felt about her—not for one second. It just made me want to pull her into my arms and hold her against me, stroking her hair and telling her that it was okay, now. That I was never, ever going to let anything like that happen to her again.

And, when I found out who did it to her—

“I’ll kill him,” I said out loud.

On that
, said Hux,
you have my blessing.

Chapter 36

Jasmine

I stared down at my sneakers as I laced them up. “What’s wrong with them?” I asked.

Clarissa gave a little sigh. She was lacing up her own sneakers next to me. Hers were blinding white. Mine used to be white...once. Hers had an exciting, sporty design picked out in blue and silver. Mine had cracks in the leather and threads hanging out.

“Those are
sneakers,”
she told me. “You need
running shoes,
like this.” She elegantly lifted one foot and showed me the high-tech underside. It looked as if it might transform into a robot. “You have no support. You’ll over-pronate.”

“I’ll what? Look, it’ll be fine.” I stood up. I was wearing an old Curious Weasels t-shirt that was a little too small and a pair of tracksuit pants that were a little too big. It was the closest thing to running gear I had. Clarissa was wearing black jogging tights and a black bra top, edged in pink. She had her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and looked as if she’d just stepped out of a Nike commercial. She looked very...
serious.
“You are going to go easy on me, right?” I asked, my voice quavering just a little.

“Oh yes,” said Clarissa. “We’ll just do one circuit.”

One circuit. That didn’t sound too bad.

Clarissa had been on at me to go jogging with her for years. After seeing how fit Ryan needed to be as a cop, I figured I’d better get in shape. Also, I needed an ear. Normally, I would have gone to Karen but she was in the studio with Connor all week.

Clarissa led the way out of her apartment. It was still weird to be there and not see Natasha. She was probably sitting with Darrell in their breakfast kitchen, cuddled up together drinking coffee while they read the papers—

And something weird happened, as I thought that. I wasn’t jealous. For the first time since Nat had gotten together with Darrell and Clarissa had hooked up with Neil, there wasn’t even the tiniest stab of
why can’t that be me?
Because, for the first time, maybe it could be. The thought of Ryan was like a warm glow inside me, lighting up the dark, aching cavern that had been there before.

I’d kissed him.

I’d told him how I felt.

It still seemed unreal. We’d carried on filming, afterward, and then we’d gone our separate ways. I think neither of us knew how to make the next move. One of us was going to have to call the other one. Probably me, since he’d done all the pursuing so far.

But first, I needed to process. I still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. Emma had just pushed her way up through the fragile remains of Jasmine, still barely repaired after my freak-out in the gym. It had been her that had told Ryan how I felt….

But it was Jasmine he loved. He thought we were one and the same, that it was Jasmine who’d been hurt, who needed healing. If only it was that simple. He didn’t know there was a whole other me hiding inside.

We reached the bottom of the stairwell—Clarissa had said taking the stairs would be a good warm up—and stepped out into the dim lobby and then into the blinding, late-summer sunshine. I stood there blinking. My clothes suddenly felt ridiculous, now that I was outside in them.

“Come on,” said Clarissa, bouncing from foot to foot. “We’ll start off slow.”

And she was off, her feet slapping the sidewalk, her long legs eating up the yards. She looked like the goddess of jogging.

I took a deep breath and hurried after her. For the first few minutes, it was actually quite pleasant. The sun was shining, I was with my friend, we were jogging. I started to smile at passers-by.
Look at us! Healthy women, jogging! I can do this,
I thought.
I can actually do this.
Maybe I’d sign up for the New York marathon and run for charity, or—

We jogged on. By the end of the block, I was starting to gasp for breath.
Oh yeah.
This
is why I don’t jog.
I also became aware of how much things were bouncing. Clarissa, whose breasts must be just delicate little mouthfuls for Neil, was barely moving. In front of me, though, things were going everywhere.
How can one go up while the other one goes down?!

“You should have worn a sports bra,” said Clarissa.

“This
is
with a sports bra!”

Clarissa slowed down a little in sympathy and I pulled alongside her. And then she asked the question I’d been dreading. “How’s it going with the co-star?” She talked as if we were sitting in a cafe sipping lattes.

I could easily have lied, but I didn’t want to. I wanted advice. I wanted to know what the hell I should do. “I kissed him,” I panted.

Clarissa glanced sideways at me and then looked again, more carefully, picking up on my expression. “Screen kissed or
kissed
kissed?” she asked.

I bit my lip.

“Oh my God! Really?!” She grinned. “That’s
fantastic!
So you
do
like him?”

“Yeah,” I panted. “But—”

She waited. “What? What’s the ‘but’?”

And now we hit the problem. How could I explain without telling her everything about my past? I didn’t want her to know about Emma. “I just feel that...maybe he’s got a false impression of me.” I was getting seriously out of breath, now, but in a way I was grateful we were running. Looking at the street ahead meant I didn’t have to meet Clarissa’s eyes and that made the half-truths easier. “Like...what do you do if the guy thinks you’re one thing...but really you’re not?”

Clarissa frowned at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

We turned a corner and pounded down a long, tree-lined street while I tried to come up with an answer. I couldn’t say that I was broken and dark inside. That the woman Ryan knew was just a brightly-painted shell. “I’m worried he won’t like me, once he gets to know me.”
Understatement.
He’d hate me.

And yet, knowing that, I’d still kissed him. I’d still thrown myself into his arms.

I’d thought that I’d locked Emma safely away, deep inside. I’d hoped, maybe, that she’d eventually just wither away and die and that the Jasmine shell would be all that remained—hollow, yes, but free from pain. Instead, Emma had grown louder and louder, rattling the bars of her cage, until she’d finally broken free in front of him. It hadn’t been by chance. She’d groped upward out of the darkness like a flower seeking the light, heading for
him.
He’d brought her out of me.

Emma was in love with Ryan. And Ryan was in love with Emma. And the combination was too strong, for me as Jasmine, to keep them apart. My heart needed him. The Emma part of me needed him. That’s why I’d finally slipped, after years on my own. And now I had to figure out whether I could really have a relationship with Ryan. I wasn’t even sure who he’d be having the relationship with. Jasmine? Emma?
Me?
Which one was I, now?

My face was red and my t-shirt was soaked with sweat, now, but I barely noticed. I was too caught up in what was going on inside. Clarissa was still glancing at me, worried, now. “What’s got into you?” she asked. “You’re...
you.
Why would you worry he wouldn’t like you? You’re every guy’s wet dream.”

“I don’t want to be just a wet dream,” I managed between pants. “I want to be—” I broke off.
What?
In love? Puppy dogs and rainbows?

Real. I wanted it to be real, and nothing since Chicago had been. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed that. Of course, there were the girls. My friends were real….

And then, with a gut-wrenching twist, I realized that they weren’t, in a way. They didn’t know what had happened in Chicago. They didn’t know me as Emma, or what I was like inside. If I wanted them to be real, if I wanted them to love me back as I loved each and every one of them, I had to tell them the truth.

Sweat was trickling into my eyes, which neatly hid the fact a few hot tears were escaping as well. My lungs were burning but I wanted to keep running because it would distract Clarissa from asking too many questions. I should never have said anything to her.

Clarissa suddenly slowed to a halt. “Okay,
stop!”
she ordered.

I staggered to a halt. My chest felt like it was about to explode so part of me was grateful, but I knew that now I’d get the full inquisition.

“What’s with you?” asked Clarissa. “You’re never like this. What do you care what some guy thinks?” She frowned at me, her perfect nose wrinkling. God, she looked like a Disney princess when she did that. “Do you....” She gripped my shoulder. “Jasmine, do you...really
like
this guy?”