With a laugh, Darlie veered away.

Within twenty-four hours, a tabloid printed a grainy picture of the two girls’ affectionate embrace with the headline:

ARE HOLLYWOOD’S SWEETHEARTS ACTUALLY SWEETHEARTS?

Darlie and Cate’s Secret Romance

Within the speculative article, with suggestions that the two actors had fallen into more than friendship during the filming of Absolutely Maybe, Charlotte offered a quote.

“I support my daughter, whatever her lifestyle, whatever her orientation. The heart wants what the heart wants. And my heart only wants Caitlyn’s happiness.”

She swallowed it; what choice did she have? But it cut in ways she couldn’t explain.

And when she flubbed her lines in a key scene five straight takes, she felt something break.

“I’m sorry.” Tears pushed through the crack, began to rise in her throat. “I just need to—”

“That’s lunch,” McCoy announced. “Cate, let’s have a minute.”

She wouldn’t cry, she promised herself. She couldn’t, wouldn’t cry and be one of those overemotional, oversensitive actors who couldn’t handle a smackdown.

“I’m sorry,” she said again as he moved to where she stood on the rapidly clearing kitchen set.

The set looked like she felt, she realized, total chaos. Which was the damn point of the scene she kept screwing up.

“Have a seat.” He pointed to the floor, lowered to it himself, sat cross-legged.

Thrown off balance, Cate hesitated, then sat with him on the floor. “I know the lines,” she began, “I know the scene. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“I do. You’re somewhere else, and you need to be here. Your head’s not in it, Cate. It’s not just the lines, you’re not giving me the heart, the frustration, the pent-up anger that leads to the blow. You’re walking through it.”

“I’ll do better.”

“You’ll need to. Whatever’s pulling you out, I need you to get rid of it. And if you’re letting that bullshit tabloid garbage get to you, you need to toughen up.”

“I’m trying! She blubbers about me on Hollywood Confessions, I have to toughen up. She blubbers on Joey Rivers, toughen up, Cate. Celeb Secrets Magazine does a cover feature on her blubbering? Don’t think about it, Cate, just toughen the hell up. And on and on and on.”

She pushed to her feet, threw up her arms. God, she wanted to throw something, break something.

Break everything.

“And now this, after weeks of being hounded, this? I can’t even have a friend? Someone I can actually talk to without that being tossed in the sewer? And what if I were gay, or Darlie was, and we weren’t ready to come out? What kind of damage would that do to someone if they were still trying to figure out who they were?

“I know this kind of shit happens, okay? Toughen up? Goddamn it. My whole life is behind the walls of my grandfather’s house and this lot. I have no life. I can’t go out and get a pizza, or go shopping, go to a concert, the damn movies. They won’t leave me alone. She makes sure of it. Because I’m still her goddamn golden ticket. That’s all I ever was to her.”

She stood, fists clenched, angry tears still streaming, breath heaving.

His gaze still on her face, McCoy nodded. “Two things. The first as a human being, a father, a friend. Everything you said is right. And you have a right to be sick of it, tired of it, pissed off by it. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not decent.”

He patted the floor again, waited until she—with obvious reluctance—sat again. “I haven’t said anything about Charlotte Dupont to you. Maybe that was a mistake, so I’ll say this now. She’s despicable. Every way, every level, every angle, despicable, and I’m sorry for what happened to you, what’s happening to you. You don’t deserve it.”

“Life’s not about deserve. I figured that out really early.”

“Good lesson,” he agreed. “But I hope she gets what she deserves. I’m more concerned with how somebody got that picture than the content. I want you to know I’ve had some strong discussions with security.”

“Okay. Okay. I shouldn’t have taken all this out on you. It’s not your fault.”

“Hold on. Second thing—and this is from your director. Use those emotions, the frustration, the rage, the fuck this shit. That’s what I want to see. Go grab something to eat, get makeup to deal with your face, then come back on set and give it to me.

“Pay her back. Pay the assholes back, and give it to me.”

She gave it to him, kept her head in the character, toughened up. And during the following weeks of production, made a decision.

She waited. An actor knew the value of timing. Besides, Christmas was coming, and this year, Christmas meant returning to the house in Big Sur for a big Sullivan clan celebration.

She’d avoided going back easily enough with work, school, her family’s need to shelter her in Ireland, then L.A.

But this year, schedules meshed, and her grandfather’s real joy at the prospect of holding a kind of full-scale holiday reunion gathered such steam she couldn’t find the heart or the will to spoil it.

She’d never told anyone but her therapist that every nightmare she suffered started at that house with the ocean crashing, the mountains looming.

But if toughening up remained the goal, she had to face it.

Just like she faced learning to drive on the right side of the road—mostly practicing on the back lots—and going through the gates to Christmas shop. Yes, it involved a decoy, a disguise, and a bodyguard, but she got out.

In any case, Christmas in Big Sur had to be more festive and less plain weird than Christmas in L.A. with the Santa Ana winds blowing in the hot and dry. Sweltering Santas in open-air malls, fake trees tipped with fake snow, shoppers in tank tops didn’t bring on images of dancing sugarplums.

Next year would be different, she promised herself.

But for now, she packed for the trip and put on her shiny, happy face. And kept it on as she strapped in for the short flight.

“We’ll get there first.” Lily scrolled through the schedule her PA had put on her phone. “That gives us all time to catch our breath before the invasion.”

Shiny, happy face, Cate thought, perfectly described Lily’s. “You can’t wait to see Josh and Miranda, the kids. I know you miss them.” Timing, Cate thought, and segues. “You’ll see a lot more of Miranda and her kids when you’re in New York. A whole year.”

“A year if the play doesn’t bomb.” Lily fussed a hand over her artistically knotted scarf. “If I don’t bomb in it.”

“As if. It’s going to be awesome. You’re going to be stupendously awesome.”

“That’s my sweets. I wipe at flop sweat every time I think about it.”

“My G-Lil never flops.”

“Always a first time,” Lily muttered and reached for her Perrier. “It’s been years since I did live theater, much less Broadway. But the chance to do Mame? I’m just crazy enough to go for it. Workshops don’t start in New York for six weeks, so I’ve got time to get my pipes and my pins in shape.”

Before Cate could launch, Hugh leaned across the aisle. “I heard her pipes in the shower this morning. They’re in fine tune.”