The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [162]
“You’d like it here,” Ella said, still sounding hopeful. “The weather is wonderful, for a start, and the men all adore the accent. We’d have fun.”
We. Again, with the collective nouns. But for all the time they’d spent together while Ella was in London, theirs had not been an enduring friendship, with history to cling to, like Alice had with Flora or even Cassie. In fact, Alice wondered with new clarity, if the end hadn’t come with so much drama and confusion, would she feel such an emotional pull toward Ella at all?
She’d been chasing somebody—something—that didn’t even exist.
“Think about it, at least?” Ella spoke again, her control clearly slipping. “You’re finished at the agency—you need a new job. It could be an adventure!”
Alice sighed. “Ella…”
“I want to stay,” she said stubbornly. “This time, I want my life to be something real.”
“Without earning it?”
Ella gave a sharp laugh. “Who earns anything these days?”
“Then what’s stopping you doing this with your own name? Your real one,” Alice tried, watching for any sign of emotion.
Ella just gave Alice a look, unreadable, but tinted with some defensive shell. “That’s not going to happen,” she replied, and her tone was so final, Alice knew it to be true.
“Then, I don’t know what to say.” Alice looked around the polished room, bright from the spotlights, and full of potential. It would be fun here, in the sunshine—that much was true. And with Rupert already wanting her to represent him, and all the contacts she could make…
Alice shook her head. “It’s late. I need to get some sleep.”
Ella looked at her, uncertain.
“We’ll talk more tomorrow,” Alice reassured her, even though she had no idea what more could be said.
“And you’ll think about it?” Ella helped her to her feet.
Alice nodded. However absurd Ella’s plan, Alice could sleep on it, at least until she found some other solution.
“But can I even trust you not to run?” She stopped halfway to the door, turning back to Ella. “This won’t work if you’re just going to bolt the minute my back is turned. The police dropped their inquiries ages ago,” she added. “And nobody knows where you are.”
Ella nodded, giving Alice a small smile. “I’m staying. I promise,” she vowed. “I told you—I’m done with that. I want something normal, for a change.”
“You call the Hollywood Hills normal?” Alice mocked, with a faint grin.
“Don’t knock it.” Ella laughed, switching off the lights behind them and locking the doors up tight. “I’ve got a view of the whole city.”
Alice dropped her back at the hotel to pick up her car, idling by the curb for a moment as the late-night crowds on Sunset streamed past: hustling toward fast-food outlets or the impatient lines snaking outside every club. Above them, the Chateau Marmont’s turrets glowed in their spotlights, towering over the boulevard like a film set plucked from a different era.
“Chris is having a brunch thing tomorrow,” Ella said, collecting her things. She gave Alice a hopeful smile. “There’s some kind of sports game on TV, but I usually just hang by the pool during all of that. Want to come to my place around eleven? He’s sending a car for me—isn’t that ridiculous?”
Alice paused. “All right,” she agreed slowly. “My flight back isn’t until Saturday.”
“Then I have time to talk you around.” Ella grinned. “I have excellent powers of persuasion.”
Alice smiled softly. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
She drove back to her hotel deep in thought. Ella’s proposition was ridiculous, of course, but there was a certain neat symmetry to it that Alice couldn’t help but find appealing. Right then, their lives—and identities—were tangled in all kinds of difficult ways, and the challenge facing Alice now was how to extract herself from whatever world Ella had created, without jeopardizing the contacts or reputation she’d managed to achieve, in Alice’s name. Or was that Angelique?
Sighing, she parked and strolled into the hotel. She