know, Elena, is that I haven’t stopped thinking about you for more than five minutes all day.”
Quietly, she said, “Me either. Obviously, this part is going to happen. I need to know that I’m still going to have a job when this part is over.”
He made a noise, captured her hand and put a kiss on her palm. “That’s harsh, killing it before it starts.”
She looked at him, smiling. “Neither one of us is that naive, Julian. Things don’t last.”
“Never?”
“So rarely that it might as well be never,” she said, aware of a high sense of emotion lurking at the top of her throat. “And I’m not trying to have some serious conversation at an inappropriate time, but I want this job. I don’t want anything to fuck that up.”
“Then let’s make a pact that we won’t let it happen. Whatever it is, whatever we do, the job is yours, Elena.”
“Let’s just say that no matter what happens with us, the job is about the job, how’s that?”
“Deal.” He stuck out his hand to shake, and Elena accepted it, and he tumbled her forward. “In the meantime, before it’s all over, can we have sex about seven billion times?” His mouth was hot on her throat. “Because that’s about how much I’ll need to get this out of my system.”
“Deal,” she said, and this time, she took the lead. In the back of her mind, she heard the snide voice of Dmitri saying He just wants to fuck you.
But it could go both ways, couldn’t it? She wanted to fuck him, too, Julian Liswood of the tumbles of curls and throaty laugh and big zucchini. She just had to keep it all in perspective.
After he left, she turned on the television to stop thinking, erase everything. Clicking through the On Demand movies, she saw one of Julian’s slasher movies, maybe the first one, starring his ex-wife. Fiercely curious, she punched in the order code.
It was an odd experience, seeing the very young version of Portia’s mother. Portia really did look a lot like her, but there was something sturdier in the daughter’s face, a legacy from Julian. It was a classic teen serial-killer kind of thing—a young woman trying to outsmart the crazed killer who wanted her dead and killed everyone in his path to get to her. It surprised her with its tongue-in-cheek humor, and also the respect it gave the genre. He never talked down to his audience.
It was also very scary. Elena fought the urge to double-check her locks, and told herself that Alvin would go insane if anyone tried to break in.
At the end of the movie, the young woman—bloodied but triumphant—outsmarted her killer, and as she stood there, breathing hard, marks all over her from her struggle, Elena found herself in tears—suddenly knowing more than she wished about Julian, about his losses.
Suddenly curious, she opened her laptop and typed his name into Google and called up all the movies he’d made. Sixteen in a little over twenty years, starting with The Importance of Being Earnest, a ghost story that had been made for next to nothing and was a surprise smash. It had launched his career.
In the body of his work, there were three ghost stories, one historical vampire flick that was a cult classic, a foray into a dark romance, and the rest slasher movies.
He was either killing killers or resurrecting the dead.
Resolutely, she did not look around for her own dead, but turned off the computer, turned off the light, and told herself to get a good night’s sleep. As she closed her eyes, she saw his stricken face when he looked at the altar that afternoon. As she drifted toward sleep, finally, she wondered what to cook for him next, how to feed that hungry, hungry heart.
TWENTY-NINE
Vintage postcard of Paris, black-and-white, showing a woman smoking in Montmartre:
Dear Elena,
How long are you going to keep this up? I know you’re furious with me and you have a right to be, but will you please just listen for three seconds to me? Haven’t I earned that much? I’ve forgiven you lots of times. Love you (still, even if you don’t love me),
Mia
THIRTY
Saturday, the energy in the kitchen was palpable. The restaurant would open at five-thirty, and Elena checked the reservations list when she came in at three. Julian had orchestrated a marketing campaign that would kick in the first of December, but for now, some of the kitchen guys had gone into town with