That evening Rhea sat in in the hotel room looking out the window, watching the boat traffic on the river. She wondered if anyone else in the world was a screwed up as she was. She had an amazing man that loved her, he called her his heart and soul, his muse, and all she could do was run away.
But he was her heart and soul too, and it would crush her if her love for him ruined him. She wiped away the tears that ran down her cheeks as she hugged her knees to her chest.
The knock at the door startled her and she jumped when she heard it. The press at the dock and the hotel had been a nightmare and she had been a little on edge since she had arrived. She slowly made her way across the room looking out of the peephole. Lola was waiting with a large bag on her shoulder and a rolling suitcase behind her.
Rhea opened the door and when Lola looked at her with only sympathy and no judgment Rhea broke down all over again. Lola pushed her into the room and closed the door behind her.
"I've brought you a few things. Eli mentioned that when you left you didn't take anything with you."
Rhea nodded as she crossed the room and curled up into a ball on the bed. "I'm a terrible person Lola," she whispered as she closed her eyes.
"No, you're not, your only confused, so we're gonna talk it out. Remember when my father left my mother all those years ago?"
Rhea nodded.
"We talked it out, you helped me figure out why I was mad and scared and it helped me." Lola walked over to the chair in the corner and dumped the luggage. She pulled from the bag all kinds of goodies and threw them on the bed, then she pulled out her laptop and some of their favorite movies.
"First, we're going to stuff our faces and not think. Then were going to have this," she held up a bottle of wine, "and cry a little, then we will start to figure it all out." She unzipped the suitcase and pulled out a pair of pajamas throwing them at Rhea. "Put these on, they're extra fuzzy." Lola pulled out a pair for herself and they quickly changed.
Then Rhea did what Lola said and forgot about everything for a few hours as they watched some of their favorite movies. It reminded her of when they were kids and they would have slumber parties and their only problems were the homework that was due on Monday and who was going to ask Lola out next. Rhea rarely ever got asked out because she was always so shy.
"This reminds me of when we were kids and we had no real problems."
Lola nodded, pushing the laptop aside and reaching for the wine. "It's time for phase two." Lola poured them each a glass and when they were snuggled back under the covers Lola looked over the rim of her glass at Rhea. "What the hell is wrong with you girl?" she asked with a shake of her head.
That was all it took, Rhea started to ball like a baby spouting words so incoherently that Lola didn't try to understand as kept reminding Rhea to take sips of wine in between her gulping sobs.
Eventually, she handed Rhea a box of tissues and settled back, watching her friend as she dried her eyes and blew her nose.
"Now, phase three, start at the beginning. And I would like to go on record as saying that, perhaps, if you had trusted me from the beginning and shared, you wouldn't be in this mess now."
"I probably wouldn't." Rhea agreed sullenly.
"So, tell me, how did you get your job with Elias Emory and Victoria Hewitt?"
"One of my teachers at the culinary school was friends with Victoria's personal assistant. When the job came open I was suggested. Most jobs in L.A. are landed by word of mouth. You have to know someone who knows someone. A job is very rarely advertised."
"What was it like, meeting him for the first time, was it love at first sight?"
Rhea smiled. "Hardly, I couldn't even look at him for the first few months I worked there. It took Mason to relax me enough to even look at him. Mason has a way of making everyone relax, it's that easy going charm of his. He said I was like a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy house and Eli agreed. That was the first time I really looked at him, I wanted to see how serious he was. He told Mason that they would call me Sunny and that's how I got the nickname."
"Why was the house gloomy?"
Rhea looked at Lola, trying to determine how much she could say.
"Never leave this room!" Lola held her hand over her heart.
"He and Victoria would have the most horrible fights, she was a nasty woman and Eli would just take it. At first, they would have only minor arguments in front of me, but towards the end they were vicious, at least on Victoria's end. Eli almost never said a word. He told me once it was because he didn't really care."
"But you and he never had an affair?"
"No, I loved him and would have gone on working there indefinitely but Victoria decided that she was going to use me as a reason for a divorce, she was going to claim that the two of us were having an affair. She wanted a divorce and he was willing to give her one but he wasn't going to take the blame when-," Rhea couldn't share the rest, it went against her nature to share as much as she had.
"When she was the one having an affair, with Eli's drummer no less."
Rhea shrugged, knowing that the drummer was just the tip of the iceberg, but she couldn't share that. "Eli and I talked and I told him I would leave if it would make his life easier, and Dad had called me home so I had a reason to go, we told Victoria immediately, before either one of us could change our mind," Rhea said the last part in a whisper, realizing it was true. There hadn't been a pause between them as they had told Victoria that night.
"So, he didn't want you to go?"
"He didn't want Victoria to ruin my life with her lies."
"Which she is doing now anyway," Lola rolled a sip of wine around her mouth before she swallowed it. "The next time you saw him was at the concert?"
Rhea nodded. "We snuck away that night, it was wonderful."
Lola nodded. "And then you ran away, again. Even though the coast was clear and you two could be together."
"I had to." Rhea stood up and started to pace. "That night he was upset when he saw me, he thought I was after his fame and money since he was finally single, by the time he had realized the truth so had I." Rhea ran through it all in her mind once more, trying to figure if a different outcome could have been possible.
"What was the truth?"
"I had a family with money problems, if he found out about it he would think that that was why I had chosen to be with him. If I ran from my family, which I did think about doing, then he would have thought I was all about the fame. There was no way I could have won, he would have hated me in the end."
"I see your problem, have you two talked about it or is it still a problem."
"No, it's no longer a problem since he decided, without me, to take a long-term lease out on the island."
Lola laughed. "He's wonderful!"
Rhea conceded that fact with a small smile.
"So today you found out you were Sunny?"
Rhea fell into a chair with a groan. "Yes, is that what you meant that day when you said 'your Sunny'."
"Yes, Eli and Mason begged me not to tell you, the interview was going to be his way to prove to you that his love for you had been constant for the last five years." Lola stood up and moved towards Rhea, kneeling in front of her. "Do you realize how unbelievably romantic that is? He is going to tell it to the world." She gave her a little shake. "The Elias Emory loves you, he is crazy about you, Rhea Harris, and you're about to throw that all away! Why?"
Rhea reached over and pulled the laptop onto her lap and Googled Elias Emory, everything that popped up was about his breaking Victoria Hewitt's heart and wrecking her career, she was named as the co-conspirator. It was all hateful and false.
"They'll kill his career, and what will happen to my parents when people stop coming to the inn and the restaurant because of this."
"I don't buy it, what is it really. None of this will have a negative effect, if anything your inn and restaurant will take off, bad press is still press. Why do you keep running from him?"
"I don't know!" Rhea had thought about that over and over and she still couldn't figure it out.
"Perhaps it's not Eli that your running from."
"Of course, it is?"
"Perhaps its Elias Emory."
Rhea's eyes widened in shock, was it really that simple? Was she still afraid to look at Elias Emory, was she still that young girl who couldn't look the famous man in the eye?
"But why? Why are you afraid of him?"
"You and Otto, my best friends, didn't even believe it when I told you that he and I had an affair, if you can't believe that he would want me, who else will?"
Lola blanched and paled as she said the words, but Rhea didn't notice Lola's reaction as her mind raced back over the past. The only times she felt truly comfortable with Eli was when it was only the two of them. That was when she could see them together forever, when he was just Eli. But when any other outside sources, the press, his agent, or his band came around she remembered exactly who he was and she got spooked. She had used the money and family issue as an excuse, and it may have been a valid one, but she should have at least given him the benefit of the doubt.
"Then it's our fault, not yours?" Lola said as she slumped onto the bed.
Rhea's eyes grew wide as she looked at her friend in confusion.
"Me, Otto, your family. We take you for granted, we never tell you how wonderful you are. Eli sees it, he gets that you are the glue that holds everyone together. The one that we rely on to take care of us. He asked me why I thought he couldn't be interested in you..."
Rhea sat next to her friend. "What did you say?"
"Because you were Rhea." Lola started crying. "I'm an awful person."
Rhea thought about it. She was Rhea, as simple as that was, but was Rhea good enough for Elias Emory.
"Stop it!" Lola shook her again. "Stop it, you are more than Rhea, you're Sunny. You're Elias Emory's Sunny, and you are freaking amazing. I'm only sorry it took someone like Eli to see it, it should have been all of us, those that love you the most. We should have been telling you your whole life just how awesome you really are."
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Sunny!" Lola used Eli's name for her as Rhea took her in her arms and they hugged and cried.
"Now, we have to figure out what you want and go for it," Lola said as she pulled away and wiped her tears.
"I want Eli and if I have to take Elias Emory with him, so be it," Rhea said as she also wiped away her tears.
"Then we need a plan, something that won't allow you to runaway again, something that will keep you with him."
Rhea nodded with a smile. Eli wasn't the only one that could come up with a plan.