Dom only laughed louder. “Don’t take it so seriously. That picture will never see the light of day. When they’re sifting through the images to upload they’re going to ask ‘who’s this nobody with Nina Alexander?’ and hit delete.”
He didn’t sound the least perturbed. But then what little she’d seen of him, Dominic was a man so confident in his own skin he didn’t give a damn what others thought. She wished she knew how that felt. She’d spent a lifetime faking confidence.
Dom’s gaze shifted to the stage. “Your new boyfriend really does like the limelight.”
She looked, just in time to see Paul take the microphone from the band’s lead singer. He tapped the mic and a few heads turned. The hum of voices dropped as more and more heads turned at the unexpected interruption.
“Hi everyone, are you enjoying the party?”
The crowd murmured its confused assent. They were here to mingle, to see and be seen. Speeches weren’t part of the program.
“I’m Paul de Angelo.” As if he needed to tell them who he was. “I apologize for interrupting the party, but please bear with me. Would Nina Alexander please join me up here?”
What?!
As Paul looked out over the assembled guests, searching for her, Nina frantically looked for the nearest exit. The anxious knot in her stomach pulled suffocatingly tight.
But there was no hope of escape. The people around her turned and looked, and the crowd’s buzz started again, nearly drowning out the sudden buzz in her head. Then Chrissie was beside her, grabbing her arm and pulling her forward. “Get up there!” Chrissie hissed through impossibly white teeth.
Nina cast a desperate glance back at Dom, who suddenly seemed like an anchor in a tumultuous sea, solid and strong. Then he was swallowed up in the crowd as Chrissie propelled her forward.
On either side of her, people nodded and smiled and greeted her. It was almost like the walk winners did up onto the stage at the Dolby Theatre. Almost.
She couldn’t see their faces or hear their words. The sound between her ears had become a maniacal trill and the anxious presentiment she’d felt earlier sky-rocketed all the way from a knot in her stomach to throw-up territory.
She’d only felt this way once before in her life and that hadn’t ended well.
She reached the stage and Paul leaned forward, extending his hand to help her take the giant step up. Though her body had turned numb, she took his hand and he pulled. She’d dreamed of this night since she was nine, imagined the graceful glide up to the stage on Oscar night in a hundred different ways. This wasn’t how she’d pictured it at all.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, but Paul only smiled as he turned back to their audience. “As you all know, Nina was up for Best Supporting Actress tonight, but didn’t win.”
Great, thanks for rubbing that in.
He raised his champagne glass to the winner, still cradling her golden statuette. “By the way, congratulations, Jen.” The crowd laughed. “But I’m hoping I can turn the night around for Nina.”
Paul set down his champagne glass and got down on one knee.
Her heart crashed to a stop. Far from numb now, her entire body burned. He wasn’t really doing this? Not here, not now?
It was romantic. It was so, so stupid.
He took a black velvet box out of his pocket and held it out before him. “Will you marry me?”
An aaah whispered through their audience, rising in pitch to an oooh as he opened the box and the most enormous diamond ring Nina had ever seen caught the light.
This wasn’t happening. He couldn’t be doing this. Black spots clouded her vision but there was nothing to grab onto, no one to hold onto.
She liked Paul, but she didn’t want to marry him. Marriage wasn’t part of her big plan. Where she came from marriage was a lifelong commitment and she wasn’t ready to give up the single life yet – if ever – and certainly not for someone she barely knew.
Paul was the longest relationship she’d ever had and they’d only met a few months ago.
But neither could she reject Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor, the man most women in this town – in this country – would kill to be with. Not here. Not now.
If she turned him down in front of everyone she’d be branded a heartless bitch. And that wasn’t going to help her win the ultimate in peer awards any time soon.
The silence stretched, the audience growing restless, starting to murmur.
She could say yes and accept another wave of fake congratulations and then tomorrow she could call it off…
Tension etched lines around Paul’s pin-up blue eyes. “You really know how to make a man beg,” he joked.
The crowd tittered, but there was tension in that sound, too.
Paul could take her career places she hadn’t even begun to imagine. They could be Hollywood’s new power couple, the new Brangelina.
On the other hand, she might spend the best years of her life as Mrs. de Angelo, always in the shadow of her more-famous husband – and then find herself out on her ass, replaced by a younger model as soon as her prime was over.
A prime spent with a man whose idea of fun in the bedroom amounted to keeping the light on.
She had to make up her mind.
Saying “yes” now didn’t have to mean forever. Perhaps just until she got the “part of all parts.” Who could it hurt?
She opened her mouth to speak and heard Gran’s voice in her head. Whatever you do in that place, girl, you just remember where you came from. You work hard, you hold your head high, and you don’t ever compromise who you are.
She shook her head.
“What?” Paul obviously hadn’t intended the word to be magnified around the room. It bounced off the walls as people began to cough and snigger.
But their embarrassment had nothing on Nina’s. This was it. This was the end of everything. Turns out she wasn’t prepared to do ‘absolutely anything’ after all.
Marriage for the sake of her career was one of them. Even a fake engagement. It was up there with sleeping her way into a job. Gran would tan her hide if she said yes.
“No.”
This time Paul did speak for the microphone. “You’re such a joker.”
“I don’t want to marry you, Paul. I don’t want to marry anyone.”
He stared at her.
She cleared her throat and tried again. “It’s not you, it’s me. I just don’t think I’m the marrying kind.”
She didn’t need a microphone for her words to carry. They seemed to take on a life of their own, echoing around the vast room.
The moment hung, suspended in time, as she looked into Paul’s eyes and he looked into hers. Then his eyes narrowed, wiping away the disbelief, and the tsunami crashed in upon them.
“Do you know who I am?” he demanded. Then he rose, snapping the black box shut and jamming it into the pocket of his tux. He thrust the microphone back at the band’s lead singer and jumped down from the stage. Fury radiated off him and the whispering crowd parted before him, people stepping back into one another in their haste to give him space.
“You said she’d say yes,” Paul flung at Chrissie as he strode past.
The words sliced through Nina. This was the story Chrissie had promised the sub-editor? Who was she working for