To the Stars and Back: A Glittering Romantic Comedy (First Comes Love Book 4) Read online

  For a moment, I’m tempted to ask what has made his day so bad and listen as he feeds me more lies. See how far he’ll go. But, frankly, I’m drained, and I can’t wait for him to be out of the house and out of my life.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. What—” He stops mid-sentence as he spots the suitcases. “Are we going somewhere?” He frowns. “Because I’m super busy at work. I can’t take any days off.”

  Don’t worry, I think bitterly in my head, I won’t whisk you away from your mistress.

  “Really, Lana,” John says, starting to look annoyed now. “You know I don’t like surprises.”

  “Relax,” I snap. “I haven’t planned a romantic gateway if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “So what’s with the suitcases?”

  Again, I’ve imagined a million possible sarcastic replies in my head. Something like, “Since you already paid for a room at the Peninsula…” But I’m too tired for sarcasm, and I want to end this farce, so I go with the simple truth: “I know about you and Summer.”

  John’s neck snaps toward me so fast I’m afraid it might break. Our eyes meet, and a wide range of emotions appear on his face: shock, fear, embarrassment… But to my utter dismay, his features settle on relief.

  “Shit,” he says, scratching the back of his head. “That’s not how we wanted you to find out.”

  Such a simple response, yet it tells me all I need to know. Taking his answer as the hypothesis for my failed-relationship theorem, I can only come to three logical conclusions:

  a) John wanted me to find out. (His visibly relieved expression being incontrovertible proof.)

  b) He’s chosen her. They’re a “we” now, apparently. He won’t even try to beg me for forgiveness. (Not that I would ever forgive him.) But a bit of groveling would’ve at least given me the satisfaction of showing him all my contempt. Also, it would’ve helped me believe I haven’t thrown away the last ten years of my life on a complete douchebag. And this brings me to realization number three:

  c) The asshole didn’t even say he’s sorry!

  In fact, Johnathan is more curious than contrite when he asks, “How did you…?”

  No point in keeping the suspense alive. “The Find Friends app. Neither of you removed me from your followers.”

  He makes a “so-dumb” grimace and seems at a loss for what to say next, so I take over. “I’ve packed all your stuff. I want you out of the house by tonight.”

  Still wordless, he stares back and forth between me and the suitcases. Then he acknowledges my request with a single nod.

  And just like that, a ten-year relationship is over.

  It all feels so anti-climactic.

  John silently loads the bags in his car. When he comes back inside, though, he seems to want to talk.

  “Listen, Lana—”

  “Don’t,” I interrupt him. Nothing he could say now would make me feel better. No excuses, justifications, not even a simple apology, would change things. Fighting to keep my tone even, I add, “I’ll need your keys back before you go.”

  Johnathan’s eyes widen at the hardness in my voice. Looking chastened, he nods and unhooks his keys from the chain to drop them on the small cabinet in the hall. We stare at each other for a long, silent moment until I break.

  “Please go,” I whisper.

  He nods again and, without another word, he leaves.

  Once the door closes, I let myself collapse on the kitchen floor to cry. I’m not sure if it’s a nervous reaction, if I’m sad, mad, at him, at her, I don’t know… My feelings are so all over the place right now, I can’t sort myself out.

  With a stomach knotted too tight to eat anything, I skip dinner. I change into my PJs, lift a cat under each arm, and go to bed. I changed the sheets earlier. Not that our bed has seen much action lately, but I’m sure John and I had sex at least once or twice in the past two months.

  How creepy that he would still sleep with me while he was cheating with someone else.

  I shiver in the dark, wondering if he’s already told her. If they’re together right now, discussing me and everything that happened.

  Will she try to contact me? Apologize?

  I’ve known Summer even longer than Johnathan. We’ve been friends since grade school. Me, her, and her identical twin, Winter—I know, parents can have a questionable sense of humor when naming their children—have been a fantastic trio from the first day of school. Inseparable ever since.

  They say twins have a special connection. Well, with Summer and Winter I’ve always felt like the third twin. To me, they’ve been more like sisters than best friends… or at least, they were…

  How could Summer do this? Stab me in the back over a guy? Did Winter know? How deep does the conspiracy go?

  I spend the night tossing and turning with nightmares of Summer and Johnathan together, having sex, mocking me, laughing at my foolishness.

  Between the nightmares, I dream of the stranger who gave me a ride home; only Christian is their accomplice, and he’s helping them sneak around behind my back…

  My mind is so twisted it keeps coming up with horror-like scenarios: Winter telling me she’s siding with her sister and that we can no longer be friends, my students making fun of their naïve professor in the middle of a lecture, the dean firing me because I’m so dumb I didn’t even notice my boyfriend and my best friend were having an affair, our friends all siding with them… And so on, and so on, until, finally, I languish in a dreamless slumber.

  Four

  Lana

  A double ring of the doorbell wakes me up the next morning.

  I’m not sure what time it is but, judging from the bright light filtering in through the blinds, it must be late. With no classes to teach or faculty meetings to attend this morning, I didn’t set an alarm last night.

  Was I expecting a delivery?

  No, I don’t remember ordering anything online.

  Did Johnathan have a delivery scheduled?

  Yeesh.

  How long will I keep receiving his mail?

  Will I wake up every day to find a reminder of his betrayal right in my mailbox?

  He’d better find a new address where he can forward his correspondence.

  Oh, gosh, will he move in with Summer?

  Has he already?

  My stomach churns at the thought. Either that, or my internal organs are protesting hunger after a skipped dinner. Anyway, I don’t care whose mail they’re trying to deliver, I’m not getting up. I’m going to stay in bed nestled between my two cats and never leave the house again. Except maybe to buy cat food. The innocents shouldn’t pay for their humans’ mistakes.

  I’m snuggling deeper under the sheets when the buzzer goes off again, and again… and again.

  “All right!”

  I slither out of bed, trying not to disturb their sleeping majesties, and stroll to the front door in my PJs.

  When I see the person on the landing, my first instinct is to sucker punch her in the stomach. But then I take in her clothes—plastic flip-flops, khaki cargo Bermuda pants, plain white T-shirt. Her uneven, white-circles-around-the-eyes tan. And the messy bun—a real, hair-that-hasn’t-seen-conditioner-in-a-month tangle of golden locks. And my brain clicks. Summer would never dress so casually. She’s not standing on my doorstep, her twin is.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Whoa.” Winter winces. “For a moment there I thought you were going to throttle me.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that—”

  “I share a face with the devil,” she finishes the sentence for me.

  “Oh, so you know.”

  “Just found out.” She steps forward and pulls me into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry.”

  I wrap my arms around Winter’s warm body, relishing the human contact, tears already welling in my eyes.

  “Shhhh,” she soothes me. “It’s going to be all right, and I brought donuts.”

  I pu
ll back, noticing for the first time the pink box she’s holding.

  Winter flashes me a goofy smile. “Double glaze!”

  I manage not to start crying, and beckon her to come in. “Want coffee to go with those?”

  “Yes, please, the jet lag is killing me!”

  We move into the kitchen and I get busy with the coffee machine.

  “When did you get back?” I ask.

  Winter is a travel photographer and never stays in LA for long.

  “Only last night…”

  “Where were you this time?”

  “Madagascar.”

  “How was it?”

  “Amazing, but do you really want to talk about an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean right now?”

  I turn my back to her and grab two mugs. “No, not really,” I admit. The machine beeps; I fill the mugs and settle at the bar next to my friend. “So, how did you find out?”

  Winter gives her donut a savage bite. “The evil twin came to pick me up at the airport last night,” she says, speaking with her mouth half full, “and when I walked out of the gate, I found her crying while she was talking on the phone.”

  “With Johnathan?” I ask. Acid rises in my throat at saying the name, and I temper it with a bite of fried, saturated fats covered in sugar. Just what I needed.

  “Yeah.” Winter washes down the donut with a generous sip of coffee. “Summer wouldn’t tell me anything at first, but then it’s not like she could keep the affair a secret, not since they were already busted!”

  My chest tightens. It’s still hard to process which betrayal is worse: Jonathan’s or Summer’s. “And then… what did she say?”

  “Sure you want to hear the pathetic stream of excuses she came up with…?”

  I nod.

  “Well, it was the usual. She felt alone and sad after breaking up with Robert… It started innocently at first— she bumped into Johnathan by chance a few times. They clicked, things spiraled out of control…” Winter makes a pretend-gag face. “She made it sound as if you could accidentally sleep with someone.”

  “Yeah, they just happened to find hotel rooms booked in their name, right?” I say. “An affair that lasts months is no mistake. And what if I hadn’t caught them? How long would they’ve kept at it?”

  “Summer claims she fell in love and didn’t know how to stop… She hoped Johnathan would break up with you, but also didn’t want you to suffer, and a bunch of other trite crap…”

  I blanch at this. “In love? Summer said they’re in love?”

  Winter’s eyes widen. “Oh, I’m sorry, was I too flat?”

  “No,” I reassure her. “I need someone to be straight with me.”

  Donuts finished, I refill our mugs and we move to the couch. Five seconds later, each of us has a cat in her lap.

  Winter scratches Boles under his chin and asks, “So, how heartbroken are you?”

  The question startles me. Of all the things I’ve felt in the past twenty-four hours—angry, betrayed, shocked, anxious, sad, tired—somehow heartbroken hasn’t made the list.

  “How can you tell if you’re heartbroken?” I ask.

  “Standard symptoms include a heart-ripped-out-of-chest sensation, palpitations, shivers of panic at the idea of never being able to kiss the loved one again…”

  “Mmm,” I muse. “Nothing like that. I’m more stunned than anything else. John has been in my life for so long that losing him feels more like having an arm cut off than my heart ripped out.”

  “Good.”

  “How’s that good?”

  “You can survive without a limb, but it’s pretty hard to keep going without a heart. And…” She stops, and twirls a loose lock around her finger, looking undecided if she should continue.

  “Come on, out with it,” I prompt her.

  “I’m trying to find a silver lining,” Winter says. “If breaking up with Jonathan isn’t giving you the slightest chest pain, perhaps it isn’t all bad you broke up. I mean, he and my sister are two cockroaches who deserve to burn in hell forever, but maybe it was about time you took your relationship with John behind the barn and shot it.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “You guys… mmm… lately, seemed a bit flat as a couple.”

  I curl my fingers into Cengel’s fur. “Flat how?”

  “Not as into each other…”

  “Johnathan clearly wasn’t into me since he’s been screwing my best friend on the side. And how long is lately?”

  Winter scrunches her face in an apologetic grimace. “Couple of years?”

  “That long? Really?”

  “Yep, you guys were like that thirty-year married couple with nothing to say, instead of one that still has to get engaged and tie the knot.”

  “After ten years together, a relationship can’t be as intense as it was in the beginning,” I counter.

  “Try to be very honest with yourself, Lana. Are you or are you not in love with Jonathan?”

  “I’m confused,” I say. “He’s been such a big part of my life, I don’t even know how to function without him.”

  “That’s co-dependence, not love.”

  “Yes, but we share the same friends, and now we can’t all hang out together. From now on it’s going to be: who do we invite, Lana or Johnathan and Summer? Our group is split, ruined. I wonder who’ll get custody of whom?”

  “Johnathan will get Mike and Ingrid, for sure. Mike is his best friend.”

  “Oh, but I love Ingrid.”

  “Well, you’ll get to keep Martha and Hector—and Susan, too. Daria is borderline; she likes my sister but hates cheaters—”

  “Oh, please, stop.” I cover my face with my hands. “See?” I mumble between my fingers. “Exactly my point. There are going to be factions, people taking sides. It’s not just my romantic life that’s ruined, but everything else, too. And there’s two of them and one of me. In the end, it’ll be easier to keep calling them and leave me out, and I’ll end up the single loser with no friends.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Winter protests. “I’m right here, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, thanks for coming.” I squeeze her knee. “But it’s a coincidence you’re in LA. You’re gone most of the time.”

  “Fair enough. No other friends or colleagues you can lean on outside our group?”

  “Not really. I meet up with a few of the younger professors for lunch and coffee sometimes, but they’re all married with kids.”

  “So your life is screwed.”

  “Appears so.”

  “But you’re not heartbroken.”

  I take a moment to reflect before answering. My feelings for Johnathan haven’t been wild in a long time. And I’m definitely more scared of the turmoil this breakup will bring into my life than losing Johnathan per se…

  “No,” I say. “My heart is bruised but intact.”

  “Good.” Winter’s face opens up in a bright smile. “Let’s focus on the positives for now.”

  I crack a grin. “So, should I tell you about the handsome stranger who rescued me from the Peninsula’s closet?”

  Five

  Christian

  The roaring of the Ferrari coming up the driveway wakes me up the next morning.

  If Penny is here already… Time to get up, mate!

  I swipe back the sleeping mask covering my eyes, wearing it above my forehead like a pair of sunglasses, get off the bed, and pull on a robe to go down to breakfast.

  As I move down the hall toward the stairs, the framed covers of six issues of People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive gaze down at me from their honorary spot on the wall. I know, a bit narcissistic to keep them on display. Still, I stare fondly at the one from my first win, after a few years being stuck in the top ten.

  A turning point in my career. The year when producers around Hollywood understood they’d have to shell out the big bucks to have me in their motion pictures. And al
so when I started to be able to be pickier with screenplays.

  Yep, the covers are staying on the wall.

  I wink at my pic and hop down the stairs.

  In the kitchen, Jeff, my personal chef, greets me with a cheerful, “Good morning, Mr. Slade, what can I get you for breakfast?”

  “Morning, Jeff. Plain yogurt and fresh berries, thank you. I still feel a little heavy from dinner.”

  “That’s because you ate at the competition.” He means restaurants. Last night I was out with Marvin, my agent, to discuss the Ridley Scott movie. “You know they use way too much butter in those steakhouses.”

  He’s right; my filet mignon was soaked in a buttery sauce. Still delicious, though.

  Penny makes her entrance before I can reply.

  “Nice ride, Boss.” She tosses me the Ferrari keys, and I snatch them out of the air. “Feel free to ask me to babysit it whenever you like. Morning, Jeff.”

  “Morning, Miss Jones.” Jeff’s eyes widen with hope at the appearance of a new customer. “Please tell me I can fix you something more interesting than yogurt and berries for breakfast.”

  Penny—tall, slender, with light brown skin and a halo of dark curls around her beautiful face—fixes her aquamarine eyes on him and her mouth widens into a bright smile. “Could I have a waffle, with fresh berries as well?”

  “Plain, or with chocolate chips?”

  “Oh, you devil, you know a girl can’t resist chocolate chips.”

  With a grin that’s definitely devilish, Jeff hands me my yogurt and a cup of steaming coffee. Then, he cracks open an egg and gets to work on the waffle.

  “So, what’s on the agenda today?” I ask Penny.

  “Nah, nah, nah.” She shakes her head vigorously. “You can’t really expect me not to ask why I needed to buy you a car with half an hour notice. What was wrong with the Ferrari?”

  I shrug noncommittally. “Just trying to evade the paparazzi; you know they have the Ferrari pegged down.”

  “So why a Tesla? Couldn’t you use any other of the twenty cars you own?”

  “I wanted to try an electric one.”

  “The I-need-it-in-thirty-minutes-tops text seemed more urgent than that.”