Chapter Six
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“I don’t think you understand” she said into the camera, “I’m about to let Simon Cowell stick his tongue in my mouth… Simon Cowell! Would you let him do that to you?” She could hear that guy behind the camera chuckle.
They were in a room she’d been in before but now it was different. Filled with a tension, she took her seat at the table. His kitchen was lit up like a Christmas Tree, filled with ten to twelve people all mingling around getting ready for the grand event.
Simon waltzed in as if he was walking into a meeting or something. His tight black shirt seemed to outline his sculpted chest well, Paula could help but ogle him.
“Hello Darling, are we ready to get this over with?”
Over with? It hadn’t even begun and he was already thinking about getting it over with. To Paula that seemed like someone searching way too hard for the light at the end of the tunnel.
“Of course Simon. Isn’t Terri going to come watch?” It was indeed a snide comment but coming from Paula it didn’t seem that way. She had a way of making even the meanest things seem sweet.
“No, she’s in London. She’ll just have to miss the festivities… I feel bad for her.” Simon ended the statement with a wink in Paula’s direction.
His face was covered in a sappy grin, and it seemed to put her a little at ease. Paula had been worried about this all day and seeing that Simon was taking it all in stride, joking and laugh, made her feel like she had worried for nothing.
They looked over their scripts, sipping wine, and then words seemed to just jump off the page.
“Cuddles? What the hell, Simon I can’t say that!”
Simon just shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“I didn’t write the script deary.”
They continued to look things over until Simon found something to complain about.
“Wait, Randy’s the one waking up with me in bed.. I thought it was going to be Paula..”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him. As if he could ever get her in a bed to begin with.
Three glass of champagne later, thirty some odd takes of the one single kiss they had to share, and there they were talking away as the candles burned lower and lower. Everyone was gone, and it was just them enjoying each other’s uniqueness in their conversation.
“Paula, are you alright darling… these days you seem so …”
“Out of it?”
“Yeah, a bit.”
“I’m not too sure anymore. Life is just a little tangled up these days.
“Why?”
She turned to look at him and saw such an enduring essence in his eyes. This man, who seemed to care for no one, seemed to be actually interested in her life and what she had to say.
“Life is perfect in sorts. I’m working more than I have in years. I love it. But I’m missing that special person in my life to share it with.”
“But you have me love.” He placed his hand on top of hers. He looked into her eyes, hoping she knew he was being truthful and sincere. “Am I not special enough?”
“Simon you are special, but you’ve got a love in your life and I’m missing one in mine.”
Simon shifted uncomfortably in his chair and Paula felt him close up a bit.
“What? Don’t you love Terri?”
He thought about the question that sounded so simple was filled with much deeper meanings. Love was such a strong emotion and he’d didn’t believe he’d ever felt it for anyone.
“I like her, but love? No.”
Paula was surprised at his blunt honesty on such a private subject, and she was never surprised by his bluntness.
“Then why…?”
“It’s comfortable. It’s a good image for me here in America. There are a lot of reasons.”
Questions started popping up in her head in such an uncontrollable manner she didn’t know what to ask first.
“Simon does she know this?”
“Have I told her? No. But I’m sure she knows it. She has to get it when I’m away for days at a time and don’t call.”
“You mean, you’re not faithful?”
“Oh, no. I don’t think I ever have been.”
Paula had to look away. She pretended to be overly interested in the orange glow of the city that hovered just above the trees that framed his garden.
“And she’s okay with that…?”
“She signed up for it. She knew before we got together that I had never once been faithful to a girlfriend. She’s friends with Sinitta. Sinitta has never kept it a secret that I cheated on her.”
Paula was in a state of shock. She had always thought that Terri had tamed him, cleaned up Simon’s playboy image. She had been very wrong. Terri hadn’t changed him, but rather just accepted him. Coming to these realizations she felt out of place and awkward. Something inside told her to run for the hills and she listened.
“It’s late Si, I should go.”
“Stay.” He said softly. He didn’t look at her, but stared blankly at the table, his fingers tracing the rim of his wine glass.
“What?”
“Stay with me tonight. Sleep over.”
“Simon I can’t, I won’t be one of your …” She stopped herself. She didn’t want to hurt him. She couldn’t betray the information he’d just confined in her.
“Lovers?” He finished for her.
“Well, yeah.”
“Paula, I won’t sleep with you, at least not if you don’t want to. Just stay over, cuddle with me and watch a movie.”
He had asked her to cuddle with him. How could she resist to cuddle with him when her bed at home was so lonely, filled with only her and her dogs.
“Okay.”
They walked together into his bedroom, Simon guiding her holding her hand. He brought her one of the famous black shirts he always wore. She peeled off her black dress and pulled the shirt over her head. She didn’t bother to tell him not to watch because in a way she wanted him too. He caught a glimpse of her black bra and lacy thong to match before she was covered in a look owned by him.
“What do you want to watch?”
She went over to his extensive movie collection and traced the titles with her finger. She picked out Serendipity. It looked like a sappy lovey dovey movie and she knew he’d hate it.
Simon came out of his dressing room in a white t shirt and striped blue pajama pants.
‘He looks good in anything’ she thought.
“This one.” She handed out the movie for him to see.
“Oh I love this one.”
She couldn’t believe her ears.
Simon turned on the movie and they climbed into his bed. Paula felt a little awkward at first but then Simon wrapped her arms around her and she felt at ease. He felt like home to her. She was in the nook, the place where she felt so safe that she couldn’t stand to be anywhere else.
This man was amazing and yet amazingly flawed. For the first time he was showing her these flaws, exposing himself to her. She was taking it all in stride. She didn’t know what to think of all these flaws and how they could affect her in that moment. Her head felt full of thoughts about it but then she casted them aside.
He reached over and kissed her lips softly.
And in that moment, to her, he was just amazing.
She saw no flaws.
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It had been years since she’d thought about that night, but now trapped on a plane with over a hundred people, she was left with only her thoughts. Things had gotten so complicated since then. She had let her guard down for him, wanting, needing him to be close to her, yet he was always for some reason unavailable to her. He could always reach her, but she couldn’t get him, Daniel had told her. It didn’t make sense to her, but for some reason, now that she was flying away from her home it did. At the time between the night they filmed the kiss and their romp in Vegas, Simon could pick up the phone or stop by and she would be there, but when she tried to reach him it took days just to hear his voice on the other line. Then after Las Vegas she had shut herself off to him, stopped running to him, stopped answering his calls on the first ring and she had gained control. It was not as if she wanted control or had some aching, sick need to be in control, but if she was in control her heart could remained whole.
The truth was she knew that night that she had fallen in love with him. The moments between them, when he chose to share his flaws, his soul with her she’d looked at him in a different way. She felt his inner hurt, his painful struggle that he hid with the cars, money, and women he flaunted for everyone else. With her, Simon didn’t have to flaunt these things, there was no smoke and mirrors to hide behind. She accepted him just the way he was and this he’d never felt before. He had once told her she was the only women he knew didn’t like him for his money and the one women he could tell anything to and knew it wouldn’t change anything between them. She remembered him saying that like it was yesterday, the two of them sprawled naked on her bed, bodies intertwined.
Now she was unsure of who was in control. Maybe at this point neither of them was in control. It felt to her that the only thing in control was their emotions and they were running ramped over the two of them and the two continents that separated them.
Paula slipped her iPod out of her purse and flipped through it looking for the song that always seemed to calm her down. She leaned her head towards the window and fell into a lazy sleep just as they flew over New York City, Michael Buble singing sweetly to her.
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