The Idea of You: A Novel
The Idea of You: new york, ii

It started off small.

Rose’s parents would not let her come to New York for the boys’ premiere. Her father argued that she’d be missing two days of school, which was true. But I’d seen them pull her out a full week before spring break so they could make the most of their Kenyan safari, and I knew it had less to do with their concern of her being truant than my current relationship status.

On Twitter, I gained eleven new followers, none of whom I personally knew and all with anonymous handles like @Hayes_curls17 and @MarryMeCampbell. There was one random message in my notifications from an @NakedAugustBoyz that read: “Are you the one?” And for some reason, that simple question seemed terribly intrusive, personal. As if she’d reached out from wherever she was, and touched me.

And then, on my Instagram, beneath a photo I’d posted from Miami, of one of Glen Wilson’s pieces, someone with the peculiar handle @Holiwater had posted: “Hayes?” And nothing else.

Hayes had once explained how a certain subgroup of their fandom had fantasized all these perverse relationships between the guys. “They ‘ship’ us,” he’d said. “Like they think I’m having a relationship with Oliver or Liam or Simon, and they combine our names and they invent all these scenarios, and it’s very entertaining but it’s also quite crass.” And so I knew any handle with the name “Holi” in it was a “shipper” of Hayes and Oliver.

“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard,” I’d said when he’d informed me. “Why would teenage girls fantasize about you having sex with your friends?”

“Absolutely no idea,” he’d said.

But I was still clueless as to how any of his fans might have identified me, and then I made the mistake of revisiting the blind item. And to compound it, I read the comments. All 128 of them. The majority of which had accurately named Hayes. There were no fewer than a dozen posters who had recalled his photo at Joanna Garel’s opening and inferred that it had to have been someone at Marchand Raphel. The rest was cake.

*   *   *

We arrived in New York late Tuesday night. The boys had shot The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon earlier in the day after a handful of interviews, their PR in overdrive in anticipation of the movie and album release. Hayes was exhausted but putting on a brave face.

“Text me when you’re close to the hotel,” he said, on the phone, shortly after we’d landed. “There are a slew of fans out front and I’m going to send someone down to meet you and the girls.”

“What’s a ‘slew’ exactly?”

He laughed. “A little less than all of them. But you’ll be okay, I promise.”

He was not exaggerating. There were easily over a hundred and fifty girls outside of the Mandarin Oriental, at eleven p.m., on a school night, in December. Where were their mothers?

“Oh my God.” Georgia’s face lit up on seeing the swarm. “How cool is this?”

Isabelle turned to me, and I could see the panic in her eyes. “Are we going to walk through that? Do they know who you are?”

“Yes, we’re going to walk through it. No, they don’t know who I am. We’ll be fine.” I tried to say it as convincingly as possible.

Then, like clockwork, as the car pulled up in front of the entrance on Sixtieth, I spotted Fergus exiting the building with a bellhop in tow. I’d never been so happy to see a familiar bald head.

“Well, hello there,” he greeted us, opening the car door.

The fans were barricaded on either sides of the entrance, but the hum of their excitement and squeals of “Who’s that?” and stomping of their feet and singing of “Sorrowed Talk” en masse was still unsettling.

We had almost made it safely to the entrance when a voice off to the side called “Solène,” and I turned to see whom I might have known who was also staying at the Mandarin Oriental. And then it dawned on me: I knew no one.

Someone yelled, “That’s her!” and there was a collective gasp and flashes were going off, and I realized in that moment that my life as I knew it was over.

*   *   *

The girls would not sleep.

Hayes had booked us adjoining rooms on the forty-sixth floor and then came by to make certain we were settling in. Two hours later, they were still on a high, giggling and plotting and cooing over their good fortune, and I could not effectively slip out of my room to meet him in his suite on the floor below.

“I’m knackered. Just wake me,” he’d texted. “Just crawl into my bed and do things…”

*   *   *

It was almost two when I finally made it to his room, and at that point I would have been happy to have him just hold me, and inhale him while he slept. But Hayes evidently had other plans.

“Hiiii.”

“I thought you were knackered.”

“I’m knackered, I’m not dead,” he said, wriggling out of his underpants.

“They ID’d me.”

“Who ID’d you?”

“Your fans.”

He smiled then, pulling off my T-shirt, pushing my hair out of my face. He was not completely awake. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. You’re safe here in my bed.”

“And when I leave?”

“And when you leave … if I’ve done my job … you’ll be happy.”

*   *   *

In the morning, Isabelle and Georgia went for a swim in the hotel pool while I ducked out for a long run. I bundled up, donned a set of headphones, and timed my departure with a group of German tourists, and none of the fandom seemed the wiser. And that hour or so alone was heaven. Up Central Park West, cutting in at Eighty-sixth Street, twice around the reservoir, and home. The air cold, crisp, perfect. I’d missed this. New York.

In the thirty-fifth-floor sky lobby, while waiting for an elevator post-run, I encountered a guest at the front desk who was having problems with his room key.

“This key card is a bit dodgy. Could you perhaps switch it for me?”

I smiled on hearing his accent: British, posh, desirable.

He ended up riding in the elevator with me. He was tall, rakish, a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair. Maybe fifty, if that.

“Good run?” he asked once we’d pressed our respective buttons.

“Very. Yes.”

“Where did you go?”

I told him.

“You did all that? This morning? Bloody hell, that shows dedication. Perhaps if you’d given me a wake-up call, I would have come with you.”

I laughed at that. He had kind eyes, an inviting smile.

“I didn’t get the wake-up call, I’m afraid.”

“Tomorrow…” I teased.

“Tomorrow,” he chuckled. “Room 4722. I’ll be waiting.”

“All right.”

“If my wife answers, just hang up.”

“Okay,” I laughed. “Will do.” We’d reached the forty-sixth floor. The doors were opening.

“You’re beautiful,” he said suddenly, as if he could not help himself.

“Thank you.”

“You have a lovely day.”

“You, too.”

I was still smiling when I got to my room. The idea that I could be pouring sweat and still attractive/attracted to middle-aged businessmen in hotel elevators. Perhaps it was the Lululemon.

I’d barely gotten my sneakers off when the girls came barging in, hysterical. They were yelping and jumping and speaking over each other. Apparently, they’d had the distinct pleasure of bumping into one Simon Ludlow and his personal trainer at the pool. And after they chatted him up and explained who they were, Simon had invited them to join him for a quick jaunt to the Apple Store and lunch before he had to begin prepping for this evening’s premiere. And could they pretty please, with icing on top, go?

“Absolutely not.”

“Mom, his bodyguard is going to be there.”

“I don’t care, Isabelle. Simon is twenty-one years old. Why is he inviting you to lunch?”

“It’s just pizza.”

“Actually, he turned twenty-two last month,” Georgia added, as if that would somehow help their case.

“No. No.”

“Mom, please. He only invited us after I told him you were my mom. He was just trying to be nice. Please.”

“He’s like the sweetest one,” Georgia said, and at that point I realized they were wearing makeup. What the hell?

“He might even be gay,” Isabelle added. Her attempt to soften the blow?

Georgia threw her a look. “He is not gay. Simon is like the least gay.”

“He’s not the least gay.”

“There’s a least gay? Who’s the least gay?”

“Rory,” they said in unison.

“Okay, I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going to have a shower and think about it and then I’ll let you know. But don’t get your hopes up. And take off that makeup. No one is going anywhere with makeup.”

“Okay,” Isabelle said. “But we’re supposed to meet him in the lobby at eleven-fifteen. So could you kind of shower fast?”

I was trying to remember everything I knew about Simon. Whether he’d struck me as a potential rapist, child molester, predator. But the only image I had of him was as a jocular blond who liked age-appropriate models. Regardless, I texted Hayes. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Simon invited the girls on an outing to the Apple Store. Please advise.

Totally safe.

Really?

Really.

Also, did you know there was a LEAST gay guy in your band?

Lol.

Rory.

Great. I want to ask where you fall on that list, but maybe I don’t really want to know …

?????

You haven’t been complaining.

Stop getting ur intel from 13 yr olds.

*   *   *

By ten after eleven we’d all congregated in the sky lobby, with its sweeping view of Columbus Circle, the park, midtown. The girls were near jumping out of their skin, and at the same time trying to keep their cool. And I had still not made up my mind.

“Please, Mom.”

“Do you not trust me?” Simon smiled, all broad shoulders, cleft chin, and blond chiseled perfection. Did they just make them like this in England? How was it they all found one another? “Your girlfriend doesn’t trust me, Campbell.”

His candor threw me. I was not yet in the habit of referring to myself as Hayes’s “girlfriend,” especially in front of Isabelle.

“I made a promise to Georgia’s mom,” I said.

This was true. Earlier in the week, when I’d swung by Georgia’s house to pick up her bags, her mother, Leah, had asked about Hayes. I told her the truth. She high-fived me, and I laughed, but vowed to keep her daughter under lock and key.

“She’ll be fine,” Simon said. “Trevor will be with us the entire time.”

I looked over to see Trevor standing watch near the elevator bank. Tall, all-powerful Krav Maga Trevor. Ready to take on the tsunami of fans below.

There were a group of girls congregating in the sunken lounge not far from us. Fans who’d somehow figured out the boys’ schedule and booked rooms at the hotel. Security detail was keeping them at bay, but I could see them in my peripheral vision, whispering and giggling and capturing everything on their camera phones. Later, our exchange, inaudible from a distance, would end up on YouTube.

“They’ll be okay, Solène,” Hayes said, reassuringly, his hand at the base of my spine.

But they weren’t his kids.

My eyes moved from Hayes to the girls to Simon and back again.

“Trevor,” Desmond called over to him. He’d been surveying the activity in the lounge, never more than twenty feet from Hayes. “I’ll go with them. You stay here. You all right with that, Solène?”

I nodded, touched by the kindness of his gesture.

“Thank you!” Isabelle hugged me. “You’re the best mom ever!” The girls were near exploding as they headed with Simon toward the elevators. I imagined what they were going to tell their friends in L.A. Poor Rose and her judgmental parents. Missing out.

“Thank you,” I said, wrapping my arms around Desmond. I could not recall ever having hugged him before.

“No problem,” he said. And then: “Don’t break him.” He gestured toward Hayes.

“Just his heart.” I smiled.

“Not even that.”

I watched him take a few paces toward the group near the elevators before I called him back. “Des, they’re thirteen.”

“Got it.”

“Treat them as if they were your own daughters.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

It wasn’t until they had parted that Hayes threw me a bemused look. “What precisely do you think is going to happen at the Apple Store?” he laughed. “What kind of animals do you think we are?”

“They’re virgins, Hayes. I’ve seen you in action. I know how persuasive you can be.”

“Really?” He took my hand, leading us to the elevators that went up to the rooms. He seemed to not care that we were being watched, recorded. “Well, for one, I’m pretty sure you weren’t thirteen when I met you. Nor a virgin. And still…”

“And still?” An elevator arrived and we waited for the passengers to exit before stepping into the empty lift. The doors closed. Alone.

“… and still I was very respectful. I did not force you to do anything you were not comfortable doing. Not once. And now you’re like: ‘Anal? Sure.’”

I laughed, uneasy.

This was something new. The “when in Miami” that I thought was going to stay in Miami, but apparently not. And evidently something that once required a year of marriage and much coaxing could be negotiated with two glasses of Scotch and an “I promise I’ll be gentle.” Fucking millennials. Fucking millennials.

“There are cameras in here,” I whispered.

“The cameras don’t have mics,” he said, completely assured.

I thought about it: Solange Knowles pummeling Jay Z, and that football player knocking out his fiancée, and I realized, indeed he was right. No mics.

“I’m pretty certain I didn’t say ‘Sure.’”

“Actually, I think you said ‘Please.’” He smiled, coy. Dimples. “You like me an awful lot.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

He moved toward me then, reaching to hold my head in his hands. “Please,” he repeated, before kissing me on the mouth. So soft, so tender, I might have forgotten where I was.

“Cameras,” I whispered when we parted.

“I don’t care who sees us,” he said. And then he kissed me again. “We’ve got about two hours. Let’s go do something dirty.”

The doors were opening. There were two security guys I did not recognize on his floor. Different from the ones who’d done the night shift. I’d stopped trying to keep them straight. Staying in a hotel with Hayes and staying in a hotel with August Moon were two completely different things.

“Thank you, Simon Ludlow,” Hayes said, stepping out of the lift. “Your check is in the post.”

I froze, realizing what he’d said. “Did you … Did you arrange with Simon to take the girls?”

He was holding the doors open, waiting. “Maybe.”

“Hayes. That is totally inappropriate.”

“Is it?”

“You paid him?”

“He owed me.”

I could not help but laugh. “You are so fucking bad. You are the worst.”

“And that is why you love me,” he said. “Two hours. The clock’s ticking…”

*   *   *

The crowd at the Ziegfeld Theater for the premiere of August Moon: Naked was unlike anything I’d ever seen. There were thousands of fans swarming in every direction. Fifty-fourth Street completely closed off. Traffic at a standstill on Sixth Avenue and Seventh. A red carpet that extended a full city block, bleacher upon bleacher of photographers and press. Extensive security detail. For five guys who were schoolboys just a few short years prior, “playing football on Green,” I imagine it was overwhelming.

We arrived nearly two hours after the boys. Their time occupied with photo ops and walking the press line and engaging with their fans. Hayes had warned me that he would be consumed with promotional duties and suggested I would probably be happier if I brought a friend, and so two weeks earlier I’d called Amara and asked how she felt about being my wingwoman.

“Are you kidding me?” she’d laughed, on the phone. “The opportunity to cross that off my bucket list? Star-studded premiere of boy band documentary? Check. What are we wearing?”

The theater was huge, the crowd chaotic. Industry types and Brits and contest-winning fans and celebrities with their teen daughters. My own was on a momentous high. She and Georgia had been floating since their trip to the Apple Store. Replaying every moment of their afternoon. Everything Simon did, said, laughed at. They’d already experienced the unthinkable. The premiere was just icing.

It went quickly. The film was surprisingly well done: beautifully shot reportage of the band’s meteoric rise. Concert footage, intimate portraits, a compelling, almost wistful look at Augie mania in all its fervent glory. Much of it shot in artistic black and white. A series of flawless frames lingering on skin and lashes and lips. By the end I’d determined that she, the director, must have loved them all.

Amara agreed. “I feel like I just watched a ninety-minute Herb Ritts music video. Is it bad I want to lick them? Their skin … Did we not appreciate our skin when we were that young?”

“I don’t think we did.”

“Youth,” she laughed. “Wasted.”

*   *   *

I did not see him until the after-party. The guys, all seated together, were swarmed and swept up so quickly when the credits began to roll that there was no penetrating the thick wall of security and sycophants. But in the car, on the way over to the Edison Ballroom, he texted.

Where are you? Why aren’t you with me? I miss you. I need you.

Ditto.

What’d you think? Did you like it?

Loved.

xo

Find me. When you get to the party, find me.

*   *   *

I did. But it was no simple feat, in a sprawling two-story hall with atmospheric lighting and nine-hundred-plus guests. We navigated through the crowds and the waitstaff and the cocktail tables and the potted trees dripping with white lights, part sexy speakeasy, part winter wonderland. The DJ was blasting “All the Love,” the group’s next scheduled single. There was a large screen above the stage playing looped clips from the documentary, and I was keenly aware that everyone was there to celebrate my boyfriend, more or less.

At some point near the center bar, someone called my name, and I turned to find Raj. I had not seen him since Cap d’Antibes. He greeted me with a warm hug and introduced himself to Amara and the girls. And he was so affable and familiar I realized that for better or worse Hayes had likely been filling in some people on aspects of our relationship all along.

Raj led us through another level of security to the private booths off to the side. Each with its own reserved place card: “Universal,” “WME,” “Lawrence Management,” “Liam Balfour,” “Rory Taylor,” “Oliver Hoyt-Knight,” “Simon Ludlow,” and there, tucked in the most secluded corner, “Hayes Campbell.” He was standing with his back to me, engaged in conversation with a gentleman I did not recognize.

Raj called out to him, and the look on his face when he saw me made my heart smile. Surprise and happiness and wonder. As if he were seeing me for the first time. As if we hadn’t spent the afternoon doing naughty things.

And yet, despite the fact that I could read every emotion washing over his features, I was beside myself when he took my head in both his hands and kissed me. Before my kid, before my friend, before his businesspeople, before his fans, before every single fucking person in the Edison Ballroom.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” I beamed. He, in his Tom Ford suit and dazzling smile. “So … I guess we’re public?”

“I guess we’re public.” He leaned into me, his thumbs flicking over my earlobes, his voice low. “You look insanely beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

It was sublime, my dress. Lanvin. Midnight blue silk, draped, gathered, fitted, hitting me at the knee.

“Red lipstick?”

“I thought I would switch it up.”

“It just makes me want to do things to your mouth,” he said.

“As opposed to all the other times when you don’t?”

He laughed, withdrawing. “Hello, ladies!”

I looked on as he greeted Amara and the girls and introduced us to those in his booth: friends of his parents, a couple of reps from TAG Heuer, a publicist. Ever the host, he busied himself making certain we were all taken care of, pouring me and Amara flutes of champagne and the girls cranberry juice, even though he was drinking water.

“Fucking Graham,” he muttered to me, “he’s been on me and Liam like a hawk. Oh, girls.” He turned to Isabelle and Georgia. “Have you met Lucy Balfour? She’s Liam’s little sister. She’s thirteen. She flew all the way from London with her mum and dad and she’s miserable because she says she has no one here her age to hang out with. And when I pointed out that there were quite a few thirteen-year-old girls here, she complained that they were all ‘crazed, immature fans.’ And then I said, ‘Well, you haven’t met my friends Isabelle and Georgia, because they are certainly not that.’”

My girls were beaming. So very sweet in their dresses.

“Come, let us find Lucy!”

“Where the hell did you find him?” Amara asked. We had stepped away from the booth and were navigating a path toward the main floor. “He is really quite perfect.”

“I know,” I said. “He is.”

“Jesus. How did you do it? I’m out here on Tinder, and I’m miserable…”

I nodded, empathetic. Amara was a few years older than me and had never been married. She had never wanted kids. But she had also never wanted to be alone.

“And with all these online dating services,” she continued, “so much comes down to your photos, your physical appearance, your face. Tinder is purely your face. It’s people swiping left and right in reaction to your face. And my face is changing. And people react to it differently. Men react to it differently. I used to be a hot young blonde, and I’m not anymore. Although I still think of myself that way on the inside,” she laughed.

“I think of you that way.” I smiled. It seemed to me that all my friends were going through this. The self-definition crisis.

“But I’m not. On the outside anyway. And it’s like I have this shifting identity. I’m not who I used to be. And ten years from now I might be somebody else altogether. Even if I never become someone’s mom or change my career or move to Idaho. My identity is different because the world responds to my physical appearance differently. And their response inadvertently changes how I see myself. And that’s kind of … crazy.”

“It is,” I said. “But we redefine ourselves. We evolve. That’s what people do.”

“But I want to evolve because I evolve. I don’t want other people to choose when that happens for me.”

She had a point. And I had to wonder if I was evolving. Or if this thing with Hayes was just one giant step back. Never mind how people were viewing it.

The DJ was playing Justin Timberlake, king of the boy band graduates. Justin, who had somehow settled down and was about to become a father. Clearly, he’d evolved.

“I think aging is hard for everyone.” Amara swiped a red bliss potato with crème fraîche and caviar off a passing tray. “But it’s definitely harder for women. And I think even more so for beautiful women. Because if so much of your identity and your value is tied up in your looks and how the world responds to your physical appearance, what do you do when that changes? How do you see yourself then? Who do you become?”

I paused, attempting to process all of it. Hayes was on the screen. His features blown up to ridiculous proportions, and the symmetry still, like art. His beauty clearly defining him. “I think I’m going to need more to drink.”

She laughed, popping the potato in her mouth. “Don’t worry. You have a couple more years left. Things don’t really start falling apart until forty-two.”

*   *   *

We spotted each other at the same time. He was engaged in conversation with two fetching twenty-somethings who were clearly smitten. But he waved and I inclined my head, and then he dismissed them before making his way over.

Oliver.

“This one is so fucking cute,” Amara said under her breath as he approached.

“Let it go. He’s trouble. But he does know his art.”

“Murakami.” She smiled. “You can just look at him and be happy.”

She’d said it casually, a throwback to an earlier conversation. But something about it resonated. Finding joy in art.

“Solène Marchand.” Oliver grinned. That he knew my last name threw me.

“Oliver Hoyt-Knight. This is my girlfriend Amara Winthrop. Amara, Oliver.”

He greeted her before turning his attention back to me. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I leaned in to kiss his cheek. And it wasn’t until he reached out for my waist that I realized I’d made a mistake.

“You look stunning,” he said in my ear, low.

I pulled back, and made a point of announcing loudly, “You clean up quite nicely yourself.”

He laughed.

“That’s a joke, Amara. Oliver always looks like this. When you first learn to tell them apart, you learn that Oliver is the dandy one.”

He was wearing a charcoal-gray three-piece suit, a dark tie, a coordinating pocket square. Posh sex on a stick.

“Who told you that? Beverly?”

“Is she your wardrobe person? Yes, then, Beverly.”

His hand was still on my hip.

“Also, we look nothing alike,” he said, hazel eyes piercing.

“Where’s your girlfriend?”

“She couldn’t make it. Exams.”

“I’m sorry.”

He let loose my waist then, sipped from his glass. “It is what it is.”

Amara spoke suddenly, and the fact that I’d nearly forgotten she was there was telling. “Dominic and Sylvia D’Amato are over at the bar. I’m going to say hello.”

It took a second to register: the owners of the Hamptons house. Mrs. D’Amato.

“You know them?”

“Please. They practically pay my mortgage.” She winked. And then I remembered: the Hirst, the Lichtenstein, the Twombly, the Murakami. Gagosian repped them all.

“Oliver, pleasure…” Amara said. “Solène.” She gave me a funny look. “You okay if I leave you for a minute?”

“I’m okay,” I laughed, downing my champagne.

“So,” he said once she was gone, “are you having fun?”

“Yes.”

“Are you being taken care of?”

“I am, thank you.”

“Yes, I heard.” He smiled, swilling again from his drink. “Thinner walls than you would think at the Mandarin Oriental.”

I froze, allowing it to sink in. The ease with which he’d transgressed. As if he’d reached out once again and touched me. “If I’d known you were listening, I would have made an effort to call your name.”

He laughed. It was not the response he was expecting. “Well, maybe next time I can watch.”

“Me?… Or Hayes?”

Oliver tensed. “What do you think?”

“I think it says something that I’m asking you to clarify.”

He stared at me for a moment. And then he smiled. It hurt that he was so good-looking, and still managed to be such an ass.

“Well, you know where to find me. When you’re ready for an upgrade…”

“I love your audacity, Oliver. I’m going to be nice to you, because I know how much you mean to Hayes. And because I like Charlotte. And because you’re cute. But I’m not going to let you cross the line…”

He paused, smiled, swilled from his glass. “I think you already have.”

“Ollie!” A voice called from off to the side.

He looked over, and I followed his line of sight to a striking young woman approaching us in a peacock-green dress. I took her for a model, but then thought she seemed far too self-possessed. And he seemed far too adoring.

“Hey.” She hugged him, mussed his hair. He kissed her cheek. And then I realized.

“Solène, do you know my sister, Penelope? Pen, this is Solène. She’s a friend of Hayes.” It seemed to me he said it pointedly, but I could not be certain as to why.

She was stunning.

She had her brother’s height and arresting hazel eyes, but the similarities ended there. She was sexier than I’d pictured, riper, darker, fuller lips. A young boy’s wet dream. I wanted to high-five Hayes’s fourteen-year-old self. I imagined his joy. And then it dawned on me that she may have very well been the prototype. The original Hayes fantasy.

“Pleasure,” she said, extending her elegant hand.

I could feel her assessing me and then remembered that I was not supposed to know their story and could not openly assess her in the same way.

“Are you from New York?” she asked.

“Los Angeles,” I said, and she nodded.

“Did you like the film?”

“Very much…”

There was something unnerving about being in her presence. Knowing who she was and what she’d represented to Hayes. And the idea that she knew him. She knew his mouth, she knew his dick, she knew his hands. She knew what I was going back to at the hotel. She knew him.

This seemed to be happening over and over again.

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“It was fun.” She smiled. “They’re a fun bunch.”

“Yes,” I said, turning to look at her brother. “That they are.”

“Ha!” Oliver smirked. And as much as I might have wanted to, I could not hate him. Because he had that thing. That cocky thing I fell for. Every single time.

“Liam, especially,” Penelope continued. “He’s quite rascally, that one.”

I nodded, taking her in. Round breasts, narrow waist. I wondered if she’d slept with Liam, too. Lanky Liam with his darling freckles, angelic voice, and winsome smile. And then I realized how outrageous that sounded. But it was all a wee too incestuous for me. I needed to get out of there.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I have to check on my daughter. Penelope, it’s been a pleasure. Oliver, I’ll see you around.”

*   *   *

I found Hayes back up near the booths, engaged in conversation with a bunch of women I did not know. They could have been publicists, industry execs, ex-girlfriends, fans. I’d stopped caring.

His face lit up when he saw me, and he managed to remove himself from his admirers. “Where did you run off to? You okay?”

“Penelope is here. I just met Penelope.”

“Yeah…”

“Did you know she was going to be here?”

“I found out yesterday.”

“Were you not going to tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to worry unnecessarily.” His hand was by my face, tucking my hair behind my ear, subtly transmitting our relationship to all.

“Have you seen her yet?”

“Briefly. In the theater.” He reached out for my wrist, fingering my cuff, familiar. “Solène … It’s been over for a long time…”

“I understand that.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then: “I’m sorry you keep bumping up against my past.”

I nodded. It was something I had not had much experience with. When I married Daniel, there were only fourteen girls that he’d slept with, and they were all on the East Coast. Except for that one in Capri.

“Come,” he said. “My mum and dad are over there. I want you to meet them. Have you had a sufficient amount of alcohol?”

“Probably not.”

“Let’s get you some more champagne then, and we’ll go meet my parents.”

*   *   *

They were standing over near Hayes’s table. I could see her face in profile as we approached. She had lovely bones and flawless skin, and she looked like the boy I had come to love, and that, in itself, was unsettling. She was laughing at something and I could see her dimples, and for a moment I thought I might not be able to go through with it. But Hayes called to them and they both turned around and there was no time to run. Not that my feet could have moved if I’d willed them, because standing next to Hayes’s mother was the rakish Brit from the hotel elevator.

The air left my lungs.

“Mum, Dad, this is Solène,” he said proudly, his hand at the small of my back, encouraging, protective.

“Victoria.” She took my hand in hers, warm. Warmer than I’d expected. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Likewise,” I said.

“Ian,” Mr. Campbell said, never breaking character, his two large hands pumping mine. “Lovely to meet you, Solène.”

“My pleasure.” I might have smiled a smidge too wide. Blame it on the awkwardness, the champagne, the fact that I’d openly flirted with Hayes’s father.

I thought back to the first time that I’d met Daniel’s parents at their house on the Vineyard, and how daunting they’d seemed to me then. It felt like I was there again. Except these people were technically my generation. And I knew they were likely thinking, What the fuck are you doing with our child?

“Our son is quite fond of you,” Victoria said.

“Is he?” I turned to him, and the way he was looking at me brought to mind his expression in the photo he’d shown me with his mum and Churchill. So much adoration and awe. That it was directed at me was staggering.

“He’s pretty wonderful, your son.” I hoped I was not giving too much away. “You must be very proud of him.”

“We are,” Ian said. “Did you enjoy the film?”

“Very much, yes. It was artsier than I expected.”

“It was. Hayes says you’re in the art world?” Victoria was twirling the string of pearls around her neck. Her dress, black, classic, I recognized as Chanel. Of course.

“I am.”

“A gallerist?” Ian asked.

“Solène’s gallery is in this fantastic industrial space. And she and her partner solely represent artists that are women or people of color, which is pretty extraordinary on their part.”

“That’s rather noble,” Ian added.

“Noble?” Hayes laughed. “It’s tremendous.”

“Hayes says you have a daughter?” Victoria took it upon herself to change the subject.

“Yes. Isabelle. She’s here with a girlfriend, flitting about somewhere.”

“They’re with Lucy Balfour. They hit it off quite well.”

“How old?”

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen.” She smiled knowingly. “It goes by quickly.”

Ouch.

“Campbell!” Rory Taylor was leaning in over the velvet rope. All gussied up, but still every bit the bad boy. He was tan, dark hair slightly disheveled, stubble, black suit, black shirt partially unbuttoned, chest tats peeking out. Was that a butterfly? A bird? “Sorry to interrupt. Hi, Mrs. Campbell, Mr. Campbell, Solène … Hayes, they want us to come up to the stage. Some introduction thing.”

“All right. I’ll be back. Don’t go too far.” He kissed me. In front of his parents, he kissed me. And part of me wanted to crawl under the fucking booth and die.

*   *   *

“So you’re the girlfriend?”

Sometime after the band and the director and a handful of studio execs had officially thanked everyone for coming out and posed for a bunch of photos onstage, I ran into Ian near a side bar.

I was three champagnes in and looking for my fourth. “I’m the girlfriend.”

“Wow. That’s impressive. Even for him. However did he…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind. I’m not sure I want to know.”

I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before, but it was all there: Hayes’s nose, Hayes’s jawline, Hayes’s hands, Hayes’s fingers …

“So, I take it we’re not running tomorrow,” he laughed.

I shook my head, smiling. “Probably not…”

“Yes, that’s probably for the best.”

I could see Hayes across the room, whispering something in Simon’s ear, laughing. His hand dwarfing the mouth of his glass. He’d managed to get himself something besides water, Graham be damned. What were they discussing? I wondered.

My attention turned back to Ian. “Was that your real room number, 4722?”

Hayes’s father smiled, then swilled from his glass. “I’m not going to answer that question.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s probably for the best.”

*   *   *

Toward the end of the night, when Amara had parted and the girls had returned to the hotel under the supervision of Liam’s parents, Hayes and I sat together in one of the booths. We were alone, but it felt false. The velvet rope, Desmond standing a few feet away with his back to us. Like exotic animals in a cage.

“You know tonight changes everything, right?”

“Because I’ve met your parents?”

“No.” He smiled. “Because there are people with cameras here. And press. People are going to talk. And it’s going to be more than a blind item.”

“I know that.”

“And it’s going to be more than one or two fans calling your name outside of a hotel. It’s going to feel really different. I’m just warning you.”

“Are you trying to say it’s too late to turn back?”

He laughed, kissed me. “It’s definitely too late to turn back.” His hand had found its way to my knee beneath the table. “Jane and Alistair are giving me dirty looks from across the room.”

“Are they?”

Hayes inclined his head to the ballroom floor, where, sure enough, his managers, a commanding couple, were in conversation with some record people but clearly staring daggers in our direction. Hayes put on one of his megawatt smiles and waved. “Hello, Jane and Alistair, I know I’m going against your boy band playbook by consorting with someone completely age inappropriate in a public setting and we’re going to lose a bunch of young fans in the Bible Belt. Sorry.”

I laughed, grabbing his waving hand. “Stop that.”

“Do you think they can read my lips?”

“I think they can read your cheeky attitude.”

He turned to me then. “I like you.”

“I know you do.”

“Thank you for coming. It really meant a lot to me that you were here.” He smiled slowly, his hand reaching to stroke the side of my face. “I more than like you. You know that, right? I’m not going to say it right now … but I do.”

We sat there for a bit, disappearing in each other.

I spoke first. “I’m really proud of you…”

“For putting on a suit and showing up?”

“For all of this. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you, and your idea.”

He squeezed my hand and smiled. “It might have been a wee selfish on my part. Plus, it’s not exactly rocket science, is it?”

“It’s art. And it makes people happy. And that’s a very good thing. We have this problem in our culture. We take art that appeals to women—film, books, music—and we undervalue it. We assume it can’t be high art. Especially if it’s not dark and tortured and wailing. And it follows that much of that art is created by other women, and so we undervalue them as well. We wrap it up in a pretty pink package and resist calling it art.”

Hayes was quiet, processing.

“That’s part of why I do what I do … to push back on that, to combat it. And that’s why you should be a little more proud of what you do…”

I could see him searching for a response. The start of a smile playing over his lips. “Remind me again. How did I find you?”

“My ex-husband bought you in an auction.”

He laughed, his head angling back. His jaw. “We probably should thank him then.”

“We probably should … Let’s go back to the hotel. We can thank him properly there.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “Let’s.”

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on G𝘰𝘰gle to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.