When Dreams Come True (The Star Series Book 1) (19 page)

“No!” Lissa screamed, sitting straight up in bed and reaching out to the fading image from her mind.

“Darling, you’re safe.” Will’s arms came out and brought her to his warm chest.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Nightmare.”

“You’re going to have them.”

“Sorry I woke you.”

“You know it’s no problem. Do you need anything?”

“I think I’m going to get up for a little bit. Why don’t you go back to sleep?” She started to pull away from him and get out of bed.

He pulled her back and waited until she looked at him. “No, this isn’t how this is going to work. Do you understand I almost lost you this afternoon? I’m not going to go back to sleep when I can see you’re hurting. You don’t have to deal with this alone.”

“I don’t want to burden you.”

“Burden me? What makes you think you’re a burden to me? I love you; you’re my sun, my light, and my stars. Without you I’m in darkness. My existence is for you alone.”

“Maybe I can’t handle the pressure of living up to that. My God, Will, I’m just a plain, ordinary woman. I prefer to sit in my cave and write.” She waved her hand around. “This is more than I ever dreamed of. I’m a dork of epic proportions, and I’m just waiting for the press to have a field day with every single time I’m on the red carpet and I either say something dorktastic or trip. And you know it’s going to happen.”

“Are you kidding? They’re going to love you, you’ll endear them. I think it’s pretty well known I’m a big dork, too.”

“Yes, but you’re a gorgeous movie star, and your personality and who you are shines through. You’re allowed to do whatever you want. It’s not going to be the same for me.”

“Since when do you care what people think?” His eyes narrowed at her.

“I always care, but I just try to keep it hidden away. Do you know why I stay away from the negative reviews? It’s not because I don’t care; it’s because I care too much. I start reading them and all I can think of is how much I suck. It doesn’t matter if only five percent of my reviews are one star and over fifty percent of them are five stars; I
will
focus on the negative. It will bring me down and I won’t write. Not because of the helpful negative reviews, but because of the hurtful ones. My head isn’t so far up in the clouds I don’t realize that not everyone is going to like my books. I know that. It’s the ones who feel the need to be brutal about it or me which rip my soul to pieces. It’s easier for me to believe the negative.”

“You stop this right now. Do you think I don’t see that? Melissa, you can’t hide that part of you from me. We may not have spent as much time together in person as I’d like, but we’ve talked almost every single day for hours since we met. Do you know how many times I’d watch as you slept when you couldn’t keep your eyes open any longer when we’d been video chatting? Do you know I’d talk to you while you were drifting off and you’d smile? You’d hear my voice and smile, and you have no idea what that did to me. You take care of your friends, you take care of strangers. Even today, half a world away from your home, you’re trying to help a young mother, her son, and an old man. You like to put on an aloof persona, but I know you. I know better. You’re sweet, a hopeless romantic and one of the most kind-hearted people I’ve ever met.”

“Stop.” Lissa could feel the tears starting to surface again; she’d hoped she’d been all cried out for the day. She tried to get away from him, but he wouldn’t let her escape.

“Damnit, I’m not going to lose you.”

“You could have lost me today!” she screamed at him. “Don’t you understand that? My brains could have been blown out in that café today. I’m damaged, damnit. I came too close to death today. That’s not going away any time soon. God, I’m a wreck being away from you as it is. And now… now I’m going to be freaking out all the time. What if that had been you in there? What if I lost you? I can’t deal with this. It’s too much. I feel too much. My God, make me stop feeling.” She beat her fists against the bed. “I’m not strong enough.”

“You are. You are strong enough. Look.” He grabbed her, pulling her up so she was eye to eye with him kneeling on the bed. “Look at everything you’ve been through before today. Think back on your life. Every time you thought something would break you, it didn’t, and you survived. You became stronger. Caring and wanting to help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength. We’re all damaged somehow, some way. Each and every one of us is damaged. We’ll get through this, because damnit, you’ve got me to lean on this time. I’m not going anywhere. I won’t let you go through this alone. One damaged soul to another, I won’t let you go through this alone.”

“Show me.”

“I’ll show you.” His mouth came down and dominated hers. His frustration at her and fear of what he’d almost lost came through loud and clear with every nip of his teeth on her lips and flick of his tongue in her mouth.

Her numb body came back to life under his masterful touch and made her long for more. The glow from the lights of Paris turned their bodies golden as sweat glistened and trailed down their bodies, reflecting as they moved together in a fevered pitch, faster and faster until they both collapsed in satisfaction and exhaustion.

The next morning, Lissa stumbled out of the bedroom while wiping the sleep from her eyes to see Will standing there, drinking his tea. He had on a pair of jeans slung low on his hips and his broad, naked shoulders looked so strong in the sunlight. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Thank you.” She kissed a trail across his back.

“For what?”

“Everything. Allowing me to cry, to throw a fit, to be with you.”

“Anything for you, darling.” He placed his cup down on the table and turned, enveloping her in a hug. “Are you better this morning?”

“Yes, I know it’s going to be hit and miss for a while, but yes, much better than last night.”

“Good. Are you hungry? I’m sure you didn’t eat much yesterday. I can order something up for you.”

“What time is it? Didn’t you have somewhere to be this morning?”

“Beau rescheduled after everything happened yesterday. I still have a couple of hours, which gives us some time to talk.”

Her heart sank, and she tried to pull away from him. Whenever someone said they had to talk it was never good. She tried to quickly erect a wall around her heart even though she knew it was too late.

“Come here.” He pulled her to the couch and sat down, keeping her hand in his. “You can write from anywhere, right?”

She frowned at him; this wasn’t the direction she thought he was going to take. “Yes, even without internet access, although it helps for research.”

“Good. Now we both understand you are more of an introvert, but you don’t hate people. You don’t mind going to new places, do you?”

“No, I don’t hate people. I’m shy and really don’t know what to say to strangers and I have short patience for rude people, but I try to be nice to everyone and see if I can figure out their story. And yes, I love seeing new places. Those are the best ones to come up with new ideas, or to make my books more authentic.”

“So then, you’d say there’d be no obstacles for, oh, I don’t know, maybe coming on set with me while I’m filming?”

“No, in fact—”

“Perfect, so am I to assume you would need to talk to Hannah about setting up, what, remote access to everything you’d need?

“Yes, but—”

“Wonderful, wonderful. Now, I’ve already spoken with Beau and he’s working on making sure the studios are informed of the changes in lodging I’m going to need. He’ll also double-check you’ll have everything you need. And no, you aren’t going to be paying him. If he needs help with extra duties, he knows he can get whatever he needs to help him.”

“What about—”

“I’ll take care of everything. All you’ll need to do is pack a suitcase and your laptop and come with me. I’ll make sure you’ll have everything else you could possibly ever need. We’ll travel the world together. I’ll act all day, you’ll write, and we’ll spend every night wrapped in each other’s arms. No more watching you sleep from the cold screen of the computer.” He caressed the side of her face. “We’ll work around any events you need to attend, but you will be with me.”

“Will—”

“Now, before you start arguing, you were already going to come with me to London for my stage show, and then my next three movies are being shot in the U.S. and England. So it’s perfect: your home soil and mine. Now—”

“William Martinsson!”

“Yes, darling?”

“You’re too late.”

“What do you mean too late?” He frowned at her.

“I’ve already set everything up on my end. I couldn’t stand to be away from you. That was why I had all of those meetings the day you surprised me by coming in early. I was setting everything up for the next six months with everyone, so we were all on the same page.”

“Really? Did Beau know about this?”

“No. Like I said, I was going to surprise you. I couldn’t stand being apart from you. And as
you
said, I can write from anywhere.” She shrugged. “Who knows; I may end up with hundreds of new ideas to write about. And I can spend every night wrapped in your arms.”

A grin spread across his face. “Well then, looks like we’re all set.”

“Or you could get completely bored of me within the first three weeks and send me packing.”

“You think so?” He moved toward her and she leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Darling, it’s going to take me weeks if not months to worship your body as it deserves to be.” He slid his hand under the small of her back and pulled her tight into him. “And then…” Will began to kiss the side of her neck. “I’m going to start all over from the beginning and do it again.” His head dipped lower and he softly kissed between her breasts. “My heart beats for yours until forever is but a distant memory.”

Lissa wanted to weep at his words; she never thought she’d find something as effortless as being in love with Will.

There was a discreet knock at the door, and Will walked over to open it for Beau.

“How are you feeling today?” Beau asked as he crossed to her while Will walked to the bedroom to get ready for his interview.

“All things considered, pretty good. Thank you for everything yesterday.”

“Don’t mention it.” He patted her shoulder. “Here’s your phone. Both Will and I wanted to make sure you had the rest you needed before getting back to work.”

Lissa laughed. “I actually hadn’t missed it yet. I’m sure there’s a couple of phone calls I need to make, though.”

“About that. I
did
call Hannah and let her know what happened. She was going to contact the rest of your team and pass on the word you’re fine.”

“Thank you. I should have thought of her last night.”

“Oh, you had enough on your mind.”

“That I did. What’s on the agenda today?”

“Will has the interview, and then we’re supposed to go to a black tie event tonight honoring Safe Water.”

“Are we still going to be able to fly to London tomorrow?”

“We should be. I’ve cleared everything with the police, and they know where to find you.” He smiled.

“That’s great. Now, what else aren’t you telling me?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Why, whatever could you mean?” Beau opened his own eyes wide.

Lissa folded her arms across her chest. “Are you really going to play it that way? You know I’m going to find out.”

“Yes, you will, but it won’t be from me.” He gave her a wicked grin.

“Oh, I see. No problem.” Standing up, she walked over to the window Will had been intently looking out before trying to give herself a moment to think of what he could possibly be hiding from her. She was surprised when she looked down and saw so many people standing around as police tried to keep them back on the sidewalk. “What’s going on out there?” When he didn’t say anything, she turned around to see him zipping his lip. “Still not going to say anything to me? That’s okay.”

Swiping her phone screen, she was shocked to see there were close to one hundred missed calls and almost as many voice messages. “What the hell…” Her email inbox was even worse; there were five times the amount she usually received. “No.” She started mumbling to herself as she did a quick search on Will and news stories came up about what had happened the day before. She looked up at Beau. “How bad is it?”

“Honey, it’s not bad at all. You have to know it was only a matter of time before the press found out. We’ve been ready for this for months now.”

“Hmmm…” Looking through the pictures of her and Will standing outside the café together was strange. Part of her broke out in a cold sweat looking at them, but another part of her couldn’t help but see the love they shared and the fear they were both living at that moment. She ran a finger over a picture of him all serious and worried about her.

“You know those iconic photos which stand the test of time?” Beau walked over and sat down on the arm of her chair. He swiped to the picture of Will with both of his hands on her face, the two of them looking intently at each other. “There’s yours. This shows the world your love for each other.”

She didn’t want to look at her own image; she was always too critical of herself. She swiped back to the photo of him standing there, waiting for her to come out of the café. “He looks so intense, angry.”