Three Days

ROMY'S POV

I was halfway down the courthouse steps when someone called after me.

"Miss! Please, wait."

A slim man in a gray suit caught up with me, out of breath, and pressed a black card into my hand.

"I'm Hollis. I work for Mr. President." He was already backing away. "He expects you at the residence in three days. Bring your things, and please don't be late. He hates that."

"Wait, I need to explain.."

But he was jogging toward a black car, and it pulled away before he had even shut the door.

The card had a silver address printed on it and nothing else. Pembroke Residence, Bel Air.

I took the bus home because my phone was dead, and a woman across the aisle kept staring at my white dress. I folded the certificate small and pushed it to the bottom of my bag.

The bus dropped me two blocks from our house in Hancock Park, and I walked the rest of the way with my heels in my hand. Paloma was waiting for me in the sitting room, stretched out on the sofa with her feet on a cushion that used to be my mother's. Margaux sat across from her with a glass of wine.

"Romy!" Paloma sat up. "How did it go?"

"He didn't show up."

"Brice? No." She pressed a hand to her chest. "Oh, babe. So you didn't get married?"

I thought of the paper at the bottom of my bag. "No."

Margaux laughed into her glass. "Stood up twice in three months. That has to be a record."

I went to plug my phone in by the kitchen door, and when I came back, Paloma had my bag open on her lap.

"I need a lipstick," she said. "Mine's in the car."

"Paloma, give me that."

"Relax." She dug past my wallet, and then she pulled out the folded certificate and started to open it. "What's this? Certificate of.."

I knocked my coffee straight into her lap.

She screamed and leapt up. The certificate fell back into the bag, and the coffee ran down her white jeans and onto her shoes.

"Romy! These are Prada!"

"I'm so sorry." I grabbed the bag before it hit the floor. "I'll get a towel."

"Don't touch me!" She stormed toward the stairs. "Mom, look what she did!"

Margaux didn't look at her daughter's shoes. She looked at my bag, and then she looked at me.

Upstairs, I locked my door and took the certificate out. My hands were still shaking. I hid it inside my mother's old sewing tin, under the spools of thread she had left behind, because it was the one thing in this house nobody else ever touched.

I stayed in my room until Margaux called up the stairs that dinner was ready, and I changed out of the white dress before I went down. Dinner was Paloma talking about her new series and Margaux agreeing with everything she said. My father read the business news on his phone between bites.

Then he put the phone down and frowned.

"Pembroke Global wants a meeting," he said. "Evander Pembroke himself, apparently. He's looking to buy into film production, and he's been asking about the studio."

My fork hit my plate.

Everyone turned to look at me.

"Sorry," I said, and I picked it back up. "It slipped."

"Evander Pembroke?" Paloma's eyes lit up. "Nobody's ever seen him. Dad, if you meet him, take me with you."

"Nobody is taking anyone." Dad went back to his phone. "And Romy, I hope you've finally dropped this acting nonsense. It's a childish waste of the family name."

My mother had been an actress and a singer, and she had built his studio with her own hands. I didn't say that, because I had said it before and it never changed anything.

Across the table, Margaux was still watching me.

So I kept my eyes on my plate and finished my food, and I laughed when Paloma laughed. It was the best acting I had done in months.

Later that night, after everyone had gone to their rooms and the house was quiet, I typed his name into the search bar.

Evander Pembroke.

He was the CEO of Pembroke Global. His company owned music labels, TV networks, a streaming service, fashion houses and two theme parks, and half the artists I admired had signed with it.

There wasn't a single photo of him anywhere. He had turned down every interview request for eight years. One magazine had printed a silhouette on its cover with the headline The Ghost Who Owns Hollywood.

I scrolled until my eyes hurt, looking for anything that tied him to Raff.

In two years, Raff had never introduced me to his family. He said they were difficult and wouldn't approve of a struggling actress. I used to think he was protecting me. Now I wasn't sure what he had been protecting.

And now the man I had married wanted to buy into my father's studio.

I took the certificate out of the sewing tin and unfolded it on my bed. His signature was sharp and quick, and mine was crooked beneath it. He thought I was someone else, and the longer I waited, the worse this would get.

My phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number.

Three days, Mrs. Pembroke. Don't make him wait.

I was still staring at it when the phone buzzed again.

It was a different number, and this time it was a photo.

It showed me at the courthouse counter in my white dress, signing my name. The tall man in the charcoal suit stood beside me, with his face turned away from the camera.

Under it was one line.

Congratulations on your wedding, Romilly.

I typed back with clumsy fingers. Who is this?

The message showed as delivered, and then as read.

Nobody answered.

Only my family called me Romilly.