Even now, almost two years after filming, I felt the vestiges of West Lockwood’s character like cobwebs stuck to my flesh. He was a psychopath who stalked his victims for years, luring them into his traps with diabolical mind games before killing them. It was all in the name oflove, love of a woman who did not give him the time of day but whom West had loved since boyhood. The marvellous twist at the end of the movie came when the viewers realized she knew West was targeting people who offended her, and she willingly sent the victims to their deaths.
It was shocking how many critics and fans considered him a romantic hero, but then, dark romance was a popular genre in books, and many readers yearned to see it on the big screen.
“Yes, he was a villain, but there is enough empathy within his character to draw audiences in. You would be surprised by how willing people are to forgive actions that are proclaimed to be done in the name of love,” I said, staring at my bare left wrist as my mind inevitably fell back into the past.
I had not worn a watch outside of filming since the one the Meyers had given me. Even when I had been offered a six-figure deal with one of the top watch makers in the world, I hadn’t thought twice about declining it.
“That’s very true,” Isla agreed, studying me with a cocked head like a scientist with a specimen under glass. “Well, given the character was a deviation from your usual roles, it must feel validating to know you might be up for Best Actor again with this role inWaking Nightmare.”
My laughter covered up the pang of insecurity that twanged in my chest. “I have been blessed with a number of nominations, and they never get old, I assure you.”
“But a win would be nice for a change, wouldn’t it?” Isla asked slyly, gauging my response.
I offered her a bland smile. “Winning is always nice. That is never why I take on a project, though.”
“No, I suppose given the movie has already grossed over 200 million dollars domestically in the first three weeks of release, it can be considered a success by any standard. Though I know you are motivated more by your performance than anything else. Does it make you happy to know so many fans are saying it is their favourite movie of the year?”
“Of course,” I said with a slight, humble shrug.
“Some reviews have likened your role to Adam Meyers’s performance inThe Devil Cares. What do you think of the comparison?”
I didn’t know why I wasn’t expecting the question.
Even though I didn’t read my own reviews, my agent, Mali Issah, did, and she always sent me a compiled document of all the best critiques. I’d seen the comparisons to Adam’s iconic psychopathic role, the very same one he was filming while I lived with him and Savannah in their London townhome.
Beyond that, I had thought of him when the script first came across my desk. Freddie Bannerman was an ex-convict who took over London’s criminal underworld without a shred of remorse, his motivation purely power-based. But the way Adam played his Oscar-winning role spoke of a hidden undercurrent, a desire to be admired because he had never been loved.
It was a similar vein to West Lockwood, who committed atrocities like a cat bringing its master dead mice, as if it would make him worthy of tenderness.
I’d called Mali immediately after readingWaking Nightmareto say I would take the role, and I’d dreamt of Adam the entire shoot even when I was desperate not to.
“It’s an interesting one,” I said with a flippant shrug, stretching my arm across the back of the booth in a way that drew Isla’s gaze once more to my physique.
“It’s not like you to be so ineloquent,” she noted, hardly distracted. “Unless someone brings up Adam Meyers or Savannah Richardson.”
SavannahRichardson.
She had married Tate Richardson, the media mogul, only ten months after divorcing Adam in a lavish, star-studded ceremony in the Hollywood Hills.
Yet, of the two of them, it was Savannah who was still accessible to me.
It was impossible not to run into each other around New York City, where I kept a residence because Mama, Giselle, and Elena lived there, and Los Angeles, where I spent most of mytime shooting or attending press junkets. When you ran in the same circles, both cities became rather small.
And Savannah made it a point, as she had in London before, to be everywhere.
Though she had no discernible career, she had made it her life’s work to play the grand puppeteer, connecting people with projects, rubbing elbows with the right financial backers, and introducing up-and-comers to the right casting agents and directors. She might not have held a title at Tate’s production company, but she was his right-hand woman.
The first year after everything had happened, I refused to even let myself look at her.
To do so seemed to open a crater in my chest, a seismic degree of pain that stole my breath and inhibited me from carrying on a normal conversation.
By the second year, I started to sneak peeks, my curiosity and longing potent counterweights to my calcifying heartbreak. It felt good, in a strange way, like pressure on a sore muscle, to just look at her after so long. She was aging as I’d always known she would, like a pearl inside an oyster, maturing into her polished beauty, emanating a worldly, covetous elegance that still made me want to bruise her with love bites and pin her down on my driving cock.
Still, the first time she spoke to me at a Fourth of July party thrown by our mutual friend, I had taken one long inhale of that English garden floral perfume and turned on my heel to leave.
It took another year to capitulate to her gravitational pull. She was relentless, orbiting me at social and professional events until one day, I found myself talking to her about the latest play on everyone’s lips, a musical written and directed by the incredible Ryan Gates.
Somehow, that next week, I found myself accompanying her to the Friday night showing.
