Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,8

has plenty of them. And even if he didn’t, the look in his eyes is crystal clear.

“I can be the stranger at the door and you can be the damsel in distress. It works for me, even though I seem to remember that you’re more of a tiger and not the girl in need of rescue. But people change. Sometimes, they even change their names. I get that.”

“Chris.” My voice is filled with censure, but my body betrays me. Unconsciously, I’ve been inching closer to him, so that we’re practically touching. I take another step back, putting as much space as I possibly can between the two of us.

There’s one major difference between the Chris Jensen I once knew and the Chris Jensen standing in front of me right now and I don’t know how I could have overlooked it earlier. The Chris I was hopelessly in love with was completely unaware of his power over women. Over me. It was an oddly endearing trait, especially given the thousands of screaming girls in those last six months we had been together.

This Chris Jensen is well aware of the way he’s affecting me. A man. No longer a boy. I search his face for some specter of the person I once knew, but I can’t find anything. I can’t quite figure out how that makes me feel, whether I’m relieved or disappointed or somewhere in between.

He doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything. Years stretch between us, creating some semblance of distance. I’m grateful for it.

“Why did you marry him, Hallie?”

It’s the last question that I thought he would ask.

He definitely doesn’t know, then.

I’m not sure what kind of answer he wants from me. Does he want to hear about the two months that I spent in bed after London? The time when Ben came to Atlanta to kick my ass into shape? Or maybe he wants to hear about the fact that I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid his face for years.

I’ve thought about his question an obscene number of times. There’s only one answer, really, that makes any kind of sense. And it’s the true one.

“I loved him.”

His face falls, just for an instant, but it’s enough for me to see that I was wrong, that the person that I loved is in there still. It breaks me down, but before the whole, terrible truth can come spilling from my lips, his façade returns. I close my mouth.

“I hope the two of you are very happy.”

He didn’t catch the past tense.

I don’t correct him.

Chapter 4

CHRIS

Pretty much everything in my office is broken an hour after I get back from my little trip to her hotel. There’s not a piece of glass that isn’t shattered or an object that’s intact. Some poor intern is going to draw the short straw and spend the next three weeks gluing things back together. I make a mental note to check their pay scale and double it.

I’m muttering incoherently to myself, and I wind my arm back to throw another gaudy statue against the wall, but I stop suddenly.

Jeff is standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

“What the hell, Chris?” he asks. “Now, I’ve heard of celebrations before, but this doesn’t look much like a party.”

I am not in the mood for this. I called him in here for one reason, and it wasn’t so that he could give me a frank opinion about my choice of festivities.

“What?” he asks, peering at me closely. “Seriously, what the fuck? We got the movie. We paid a little more on the back end than we wanted, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t warrant throwing a fit.”

I glare at him, and he looks suitably humbled.

“My secretary said that you needed some background on the deal.”

“That’s right.”

I need to hear every gory detail. I still have some hope that maybe the image of her face, sad and wistful and lost, will remove itself from my brain. There’s another option, one that I can’t bring myself to own up to, the tiny little voice that’s telling me that maybe everything is not so perfect in the Ellison marriage. I mean, he couldn’t even bring himself to show up today. I need more information.

“What do you need to know? More numbers? I mean, the budget…”

I don’t give a shit about numbers. “Not that. Why was she here?”

“I’m assuming that you mean the smoking hot writer that you couldn’t keep your eyes away from. Not that I blame you. That’s