“Anna, did you know he looked like this in a tux when you started dating him?” her stylist asked.

Anna shook her head, but with a wide smile on her face. That smile made him realize how stressed she’d looked the rest of the time. Was it the premiere? Was she anxious about what that would be like, with all of the photographers and the cameras?

“I didn’t know he looked this good in a tux,” she said. “But I highly suspected.” Her eyes were locked on his. He blushed and went to stand where the stylist pointed, so they could pin the cuffs and hems and . . . the sleeves?

“You’re taking in the sleeves?” he asked her.

She looked at him, then over at Simon.

“We thought we might as well take advantage of those biceps of yours,” she said.

He knew who the “we” was there, but he’d let that go.

He left the room again to change back into his regular clothes, which took longer than usual because he had to do it without stabbing himself with a pin, but he managed. When he came back into the room, he stopped cold at the doorway.

“Wow,” he said. “You look incredible in that dress.”

Anna looked up and into his eyes. A slow smile spread across her face.

The dress was red, with a simple, snug, strapless top and a very full skirt. It wasn’t as overtly sexy as the first dress, but that wasn’t why he liked it. It just looked like Anna to him. Bright and powerful, but also fun and beautiful.

“I like this one, too.” He liked that smile on her face. “Simon likes the first one better, but I’ve always wanted a tulle dress.” She looked at herself in the mirror, and then at her stylist. “I’ve never worn one—people have always told me that with my shape, the big ball-gown skirt doesn’t work on me, but . . .” She looked in the mirror again and swung her hips from side to side. “It’s just so fun.”

Something happened to him as she danced in the mirror. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. Fuck it, he didn’t care how many people were in the room, he had to kiss her. He moved toward her. She turned and smiled right at him.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Her stylist stepped in front of Ben. He stopped.

“Remember the Golden Globes?” Simon said. “You loved that dress, too. That time, I also said—”

Anna turned away from Ben and looked at Simon.

“I remember the Golden Globes, how could I ever forget? Yes, yes, you were right that time.” She looked at herself in the mirror again. “Get them both ready, Devora? I’ll decide next week.”

Simon looked irritated, but then, Ben figured he probably did, too. He sat on the couch amid the piles of clothes to wait.

He wished he could send Maddie pictures of all of this—she would love to see the clothes Anna was choosing from, and he’d be able to ask Maddie all of the questions he didn’t want to ask out loud right now. Not with Simon around, anyway. What happened at the Golden Globes? Did Anna pay for all of these clothes? If not, did she get to keep them? And his tux—where had that come from? Anna had just told him she’d take care of it and he hadn’t argued with her about it, but now he wanted to know if she’d paid for it or if some designer had given it to her for him.

Holy shit. He was really, actually going to be on a red carpet with her. He’d known that from the beginning of this whole charade, of course. But he hadn’t really thought about what it would be like. Would he have to pose for pictures with her?

If so, he hoped someone would give him some tips.

“Okay, I think we’re all set,” Devora said, and unpinned the red dress from Anna. Anna stepped out of it and . . . holy fucking shit. He’d seen her body, nude and in lingerie, so many times now, but it blew his mind every time. He tried to disguise the naked hunger that he was sure was all over his face, but when she looked at him, it was almost impossible. She beamed at him.

Anna threw on a sundress, and Ben tore his eyes away from her. He saw Simon looking at him, but he couldn’t care less. Everyone in the room other than Ben was getting ready to leave, and after too many side conversations and “just one more things” and “have you thought abouts” and “Oh wait, Anna, I forgot to tell yous,” they all finally left Anna’s house. Everyone but him and Anna.

“Hi.” Ben met her by the stairs when she came back up after walking Florence out.

“Hi, yourself.” She walked toward him. She had that look on her face again, the one he’d noticed earlier. The worried, anxious look. He pulled her into his arms, and she nestled her head in his chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She laughed.

“How did you know something was wrong? It’s nothing.”

He tilted his head back and looked at her. She smiled when she saw the expression on his face.

“Okay, it’s not nothing,” she said. “It’s nothing new, nothing major, that’s what I meant. It’s just everything—I’ve gotten my hopes so high over the past few weeks about everything, and this fitting just made me think about what if I’m wrong about all of it? What if I show up to this Vigilantes premiere and smile and pose on the red carpet and then I’m barely in the movie? I’ll be so crushed, so humiliated that I did all of this for nothing. I want this role in the Varon film so bad I can taste it, and I’m just so worried that all of this won’t work. I’ll feel like such a failure, and everyone will see that I’ve failed, and laugh at me, and I won’t know where to go or what to do.”

Her arms were tight around him, and all he could do was brush back her hair in that way he knew soothed her.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked.

She lifted her face up and kissed him softly on the lips.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

They went to his favorite couch in her den, the cozy little room that just had a TV and couches and a coffee table and felt lived in.

“I’m sorry this is all so stressful,” he said. “How did the meeting with Varon go?”

She let out a long sigh, and his stomach dropped until she started talking.

“It was great. She was great. But it just made me want it even more—I want it so bad, Ben. I see so much in this role. It could be . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Everything I want. At first I just wanted it because it felt like it could be the thing that would get me back to the Oscars, to maybe even win this time. But now . . . now it’s not about that. Well. Not just about that. She gets me, I get her, I feel like I could really . . . grow in this role, I could learn so much from it, from her. But that may have just made everything worse, because it’s still the same situation as before—I have to get the buy-in from the studio, and I have no idea what they’re thinking. I think Varon was trying to make them show their hand a little by having a public meeting with me—she knows how this game is played, too—but who knows, that might just piss them off.”