It was very flattering to be asked to reconsider her decision, but Reese was in love with Alex. Painfully in love. Seeing him again after being separated for the holidays, she could no longer stay with the show and be kissed by him week after week when she knew he had no interest in her off screen. Rumor had it he was in a committed relationship with an older woman. That didn’t surprise Reese.
Certainly it would take a more mature, sophisticated woman than Reese to attract Alex and hold him. She would only be hurting herself to keep showing up for work wishing for something to happen between them when it couldn’t possibly come true.
Though Alex was always congenial, both off and on camera, there was a remoteness about him at times. She knew he’d just come back from spending Christmas in Greece. No doubt the woman he loved lived there. If he’d been forced to endure a long-distance relationship, it would explain why his private life seemed to remain so mysterious.
She stifled the sob in her throat and checked her watch. Nine a.m. Time to go.
Dressed in her usual T-shirt and jeans, she left the Burbank condo her aunt had willed to her, and hurried down to the underground garage. It was only a couple of miles from there to Television Central in Los Angeles.
Her last trip to the studio. Everything she did today would be for the last time.
Before long she drove into the huge parking lot packed end to end with cars. After getting out of her aunt’s old car, she sprinted on long, shapely legs past three sets of guards on her way into the building.
They called friendly greetings to her. As she turned and waved to each of them her ebony hair glistened in the rare January sun. The smog was almost nonexistent this morning, a good omen for what would be the most painful day of her life.
Though she’d known the loss of her parents in her early teens, and more recently had lost her aunt, she’d been forced to come to grips with their deaths. But Alex was alive, and the knowledge that he was involved with someone else was killing her.