“What are you putting on her face?” Courtney asked Derek with another giant smile.
“It’s moisturizer,” Derek replied.
“Cool. I think that’s allowed. Don’t worry, I’m not checking up on you. You’ve been briefed on the ‘no makeup’ idea, right? It’s so exciting.” She threw her hands in the air.
“Yes! I’m keeping my excitement on the inside,” Sofia replied.
“It’s awesome Jack wants to go down this road. It will lift the production value,” Courtney said.
“Maybe call him Mr. Travers—he likes that,” Sofia said. “An affectation, I know”—she rolled her eyes and smiled— “but trust me, he prefers it. It will put you in his good books.”
Courtney nodded with a smirk. “Jack is pumped for us to wear no makeup. He wants everyone to look their age.”
Sofia paused, shocked, and nodded. “Message received, loud and clear,” she finally replied.
“Gotta run. See you on set,” Courtney said in a bright voice. She exited the truck, jumping onto each step as she went down.
Derek shut the door and sat down next to Sofia. “Ms. Wentworth, I need to tell you something.” He leaned in close. “Courtney Smith is wearing makeup.”
Sofia laughed and sat up. “She said she wasn’t.”
“She’s put primer on there, concealer, foundation, lashes, bronzer, highlighter, the works. All very subtle—perhaps she used a spray gun—but it’s there.”
Sofia chewed her lip. “I’m going to walk out there with no makeup on, while a woman fifteen years my junior will wear a full face?”
“Afraid so,” he said.
Sofia’s earlier concern hardened to aggravation. Derek stared at the door for a moment and shook his head, then touched Sofia’s arm and spoke in a casual tone. “Ms. Wentworth, what Courtney did . . . I could do something similar for you? Nothing outrageous—a little touch-up?”
“That’s against the rules, Derek.” She shook her head.
Derek shrugged. “I wouldn’t suggest it if Courtney wasn’t doing the same.”
Sofia scratched her head. “What did you have in mind?” she asked him innocently.
“A little ‘no-makeup’ makeup,” he replied in an equally innocent voice. “I’m the master at it,” he added. He raised an eyebrow.
Sofia winced. “But what if Courtney notices? She will say something for sure.”
He shook his head and smiled. “She will say nothing, Ms. Wentworth, because she has done the same thing. If she says something, you will say something. Mutually assured destruction.”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking at him cautiously.
“Let me do this for you. When I’m done, Jack won’t be able to look away.”
It was the one thing she couldn’t say no to. She nodded.
He smiled. “Lie back, Ms. Wentworth.” Sofia did so.
ABOUT A MONTH after Jack had left her, Sofia had fled from LA back to London to escape the scrutiny. She needed to feel the green of England. Stupid idea, it had turned out, as every tabloid journalist seemed to have set up camp on the front porch of her London town house. One day the doorbell rang, and Sofia yelled at the journalists to go away, but it wasn’t a reporter. It was a messenger, with a package from her husband’s lawyers. He had served her with divorce papers.
He’d mentioned nothing of divorce earlier. Sofia had expected a trial separation, but he moved fast. She’d holed up inside her house and read the legal papers in shock. Finally, after three days in hiding with no food in the house, she realized she might actually starve, which would be an even more embarrassing headline— “Beleaguered Hollywood Darling Dies of Starvation, Alone.” She snuck out to buy dinner, but after what happened next, she wished she’d stayed inside.
Someone must have tipped off the press that Sofia Wentworth, newly served with divorce papers, was attempting to purchase a microwave dinner from the local Marks & Spencer, like a sad person. All she’d wanted was their lovely shepherd’s pie, which she’d planned to eat in peace with a bottle of red and a slasher movie box set, preferably one where everyone died, when the camera vultures swooped. By the time she left the store, an honor guard of paparazzi was waiting for her, lining the exit.
One of the photographers said something to her as she walked out, something she would never forget as long as she lived. And Sofia did something she normally never did. She reacted.
“Just let me eat my shepherd’s pie in peace!” she screamed at the man with his camera.
For days afterward, every gossip rag and entertainment news show replayed those immortal words. Sofia had regretted it instantly, but the retort had flown from her mouth involuntarily; an act of self-defense. “What did that man say?” her agent asked her later. Sofia refused to repeat it. She knew the photographer had said it to get a rise out of her, to get a picture he could sell. But the words stuck with her: “What a pity,” the paparazzo had said, shaking his head and tutting with disappointment. “You were a poster on my bedroom wall. Now you’re no use to me.”
“DONE, MS. WENTWORTH,” Derek announced.
Sofia opened her eyes.
“What do you think?”
She checked her reflection in the mirror.
Derek had worked magic. The crow’s-feet had faded; the eye bags lifted. She still looked like herself, but she felt a little beautiful. He had erased all the evidence, too, like an evil genius at a crime scene.
“Derek, you have a gift.”
Derek smiled. “I just brought out your natural beauty,” he said.
Sofia grimaced and looked at the floor, fragility returning. “What if Jack still doesn’t . . . ,” she said, not finishing the sentence. What if he still doesn’t want me?
Derek bent down and smiled at her. “Impossible,” he said. She smiled back and inhaled. He touched her arm. “Ready?”
Chapter Twenty
Jane stood next to Fred on a raised platform forged from stone. The structure apparently housed some sort of station that received not post carriages, but a train. Two steel tracks sat below her on the ground and stretched to the horizon in either direction. The sight overwhelmed her. Jane
