Bad Reputation

Chapter 21 EXT. AIRPORT CURBSIDE PICKUP/DROP-OFF ZONE

Chapter 21

EXT. AIRPORT CURBSIDE PICKUP/DROP-OFF ZONE

Two Weeks Later

Cole leaned up against his car outside the arrivals terminal at LAX, trying not to fidget. The heather-blue T-shirt had been the right choice. Much better than the black Henley and not as obvious as the red.

He tugged on the hem. Damn it, maybe he should have gone with the white.

No, it was fine. Well, it had to be fine. He hadn’t brought a backup choice with him. At least he’d gotten flowers.

He hadn’t seen Maggie since waking up after the greatest night of his life, when he’d unwrapped himself from her soft body and gotten on a plane back to the States for the GQ cover shoot. It had been far too many days of emails (so impersonal) and texts (basically shorter emails) and a few hurried phone conversations (which were hardly better).

They’d seen each other on set virtually every day for four months. While Cole thought he’d made a good case for them being together the night of the wrap party, he did worry that the distance might have allowed her doubts to creep in, like ants at a picnic.

For him, the distance had proved that he had absolutely no self-control when it came to Maggie. He’d had to stop himself from texting her about every meal he’d eaten and everything he’d seen and laughed about. He could only hope it had been the same for her.

He exhaled for the first time in two weeks when Maggie emerged from the terminal, dragging a suitcase behind her, struggling with a bulging canvas bag under one arm and a bulky backpack on her back. She scanned the crowd, her mouth breaking into a wide grin when she saw him. If he hadn’t been in love with her before, that response would have sent him over the edge.

Maggie wove through the crowd, narrowly avoiding clipping a metal bollard, before stopping in front of him. “Hey.” She was trying not to look ecstatic. She was failing.

“Hey yourself.” He shoved his hands into his pockets so he didn’t reach for her. He’d explained how paparazzi tended to stalk LAX, but it felt wrong not to pounce on her immediately.

Play things safe. Follow the rules. He’d done it for so long, he could keep doing it now. He’d keep doing it until she was ready to be public.

“How was your flight?” he asked.

“Fine.”

If she kept biting her lip like that, he was going to snap. That was just ... physics. That Isaac Newton dude probably had a law about it.

“And Savannah is going to keep watching your houseplants?”

“Yup, until I figure things out.”

Until Maggie decided whether to stay past the job she was starting tomorrow—and until he could convince her to move in with him. But he was waiting to spring that part on her until he’d plied her with more orgasms, a few fantastic meals, and several weeks of perfect weather.

She was going to be putty in his hand. LA had him on the assist.

“Let’s get your stuff in the car.”

They left the airport a minute later, but once they were in Inglewood, Cole pulled over into a neighborhood and killed the engine.

“Here so fast? I assumed stars weren’t fans of jet noise.”

“Nope, I want to greet you properly.” He hopped out of the car and strolled around to Maggie’s side.

She watched, amused, as he opened the passenger door and offered her a hand. “You don’t have to seduce me,” she said. “I think we’ve pretty much cleared that hurdle.”

No, they’d incinerated it.

“But I want to.”

She stepped out and into his arms, and he finally, finally got to kiss her. It was familiar and jolting at once. His body immediately went into overdrive because, yeah, they hadn’t done this enough. That night in Glasgow, he’d be dreaming about it for the rest of his life. But that had been one night. Okay, so they’d tallied more than half a dozen orgasms together, but that wasn’t enough.

Not nearly enough.

So not enough that he couldn’t resist deepening the kiss and tipping her backward over his arm, like something out of an old movie poster. At last, he lifted his head. “How am I doing?”

She reached up and traced his lips. “Tell me we’re close to your place?”

“Ha, no. You’ll have to wait about another hour, give or take the traffic.” He straightened them both up and retrieved the bouquet he’d gotten for her from the back seat. He’d kept it, quite literally, under wraps. “These are for you.”

Maggie pulled the white paper back with a gasp. “Wow.”

“The florist told me flowers have a language.”

“I’ve heard that, though honestly, ferns and houseplants are more my style.”

“Well, these are red tulips, daisies, and apple blossoms.”

“Which mean?”

Cole couldn’t quite make himself say I love you , I love you truly , and I prefer you before all others . But as certain as he’d been that night in Glasgow, some doubt had crept in. Could she possibly want this life forever?

She’d taken the job on Waverley to run away, and she’d been great at it. But was working in Hollywood really what she wanted forever? He wouldn’t blame her if it wasn’t. As much as this was his world and he couldn’t imagine leaving it, she still had a chance here. The bug hadn’t bitten her yet.

So “You’ll have to look it up” was all he said.

Her expression was intrigued and a little frustrated, and it revved him up like an engine.

They chatted as they drove, the kind of meaningless banter that was easy with her, about his photo shoot and the scripts he’d been looking at, about the weather in Oregon and the conversations she’d had with the director of the movie she was going to start working on tomorrow.

When they turned into the Beverly Hills Flats, Maggie plastered herself to the window to gawk at the palm tree–lined streets. “I feel like Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop .”

“I can’t believe you’d admit having seen Beverly Hills Cop .”

She flipped him off, and he captured her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“I’m glad you’re here.” That seemed safe enough to admit. Besides, it was written all over him. There was no way he could hide it from her.

“Me too.”

Cole pulled into his driveway. A few years ago, when his career had started showing signs of life, he’d bought a bungalow that might have started out humble. But someone had added an enormous back wing and tricked the thing out like a home-improvement catalog on steroids.

Inside, Maggie took in the undercabinet lighting and ultra-high-end appliances and closet engineering and state-of-the-art security system without emotion. “Over the phone, you emphasized that your house has three different burrito shops in walking distance. I wasn’t expecting, well, this.” She gestured at the glass-bubble chandelier over the dining room table.

“I bought it primarily for the access to high-quality burritos. I’ve been meaning to change that out for something less gaudy.”

She snorted. “And I thought the real draw would’ve been that it’s close to Hollywood.”

“Well, I do work there sometimes. And you do too.” He’d been showing her the house as if he were a real estate agent trying to sell it to her, as if she might decide to stay based on the house and not because of him.

“For the moment.”

“Let me show you the bedrooms.” He hoisted her suitcase and shuffled down the hall. “This is the guest room. I asked my housekeeper to make up the bed and stock the bathroom, because I didn’t want to presume. But ...”

“You can presume.”

Thank God. “Noted.” And with that, he led her back to the master suite.

He heaved her bag up onto a luggage rack while she sat in a huge leather armchair and slipped her shoes off. “You’re certain I’m not putting you out?”

“Not at all. I would’ve been hurt if you’d gone to a hotel.” Or if she’d gotten an Airbnb, which she’d discussed. “And you gotta take one of my cars.”

“You have two?”

He felt his cheeks darken. “Yes.”

“More than two?” she pressed.

“Cars might be my weakness.” He’d bought a cheaper house than he could afford, painfully aware that his current level of success wasn’t guaranteed. But he hadn’t been able to resist the lure of several very sharp sets of wheels.

Maggie laughed. “And there it is, he owns an unspecified number of vehicles. I knew you couldn’t be perfect.”

He could’ve told her that. Presumably everyone on earth knew he wasn’t perfect. “I plead the fifth. But we could also get you a car service if you don’t want to drive.”

“No, if I’m going to move here, I have to learn to deal with it eventually.”

Oh, he liked the sound of that. Trying to keep things light, he said, “What do you want to order for dinner?”

“Burritos.”

“The sky’s the limit, Maggie. We could get something fancy, something with Michelin stars and courses and stuff—”

“I don’t need fancy, Cole James. I’ve already got you.”

He really, really liked the sound of that.

INT. COLE’S HOUSE

Maggie almost didn’t let herself into Cole’s house after her first day of work. It felt so intimate to use his security code and key. Then again, if she hadn’t used them, that would have felt like a rebuff. She didn’t want to insult him, so as much as it pained her, like literally pained her, she let herself in the back door.

“Cole?” she called, her voice sounding small in the marble-floored sunroom.

It, like the rest of his house, was beautiful, but also ... sterile. There were no plants, no piles of magazines or books on the side tables, no rumpled throw blankets on the couch or shoes in the mudroom. He’d just been on set for four months, true, but was it always like this? And if so, could it honestly feel like home?

“In the kitchen,” he called back.

The smile in his voice was unmistakable, enough to melt her worries.

She found him setting the table—that gleaming Scandi edifice under the most beautiful chandelier she’d seen outside a theatre—with stark-white plates and minimalist silverware. He had really good taste, or he’d hired an amazing decorator. Probably both.

And it still felt unreal when he took her face in his hands and kissed her until she was breathless.

He had good taste, and he’d chosen her .

Coming up for air, he asked, “How was the first day?”

“Good.”

“Let me get the food.”

He brought in massive bowls of chickpea pasta with roasted veggies and salad while she told him about the director and the production. Compared to Waverley , this was low to the ground, though no less professional.

“Honestly,” Maggie said, sipping her ice water, “I wish I could’ve started with something like this. I don’t feel out of my depth at all. I feel like ... I know what I’m doing.”

“Of course you know what you’re doing.” Cole seemed so offended on her behalf—offended at her own low opinion of herself. “You were amazing on Waverley from day one.”

“Oh yes, day one of rehearsal, when I pushed Tasha away?”

“That was not your fault, and you got her back. Got her back and supported her in going public with her story.”

“Which may blow back on her and on you and everyone else who’s helping her.”

“It won’t. And even if it does, I’d still talk to Libby again,” he insisted.

“I know you would, that’s why I”—she stopped herself from blurting out love you —“think you’re the best.” She smiled like a doofus, hoping that he’d bought her misdirection.

It wasn’t that she doubted loving him. And it wasn’t as if it were too soon in an absolute sense. She’d known the man almost five months. But she’d only kissed him for the first time sixteen days ago. You had to give these things at least the same amount of time it took for a bag of carrots to go soft in the fridge.

“Anyhow, that’s enough about me. Tell me about your day.”

He’d started training for a boxing movie, so his day had been stuffed with working out, meeting his trainer, and carbo-loading. Maggie wanted a nap by the time he’d reached the end of it.

When he’d finished explaining everything she’d never wanted to know about punching bags, she leaned forward. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Why do you want to revive your career? That sounds like a skeptical question, but I’m honestly curious. You don’t seem to love being famous. And it’s a hard job, one without the promise of success even if you work your butt off and are good at it—and you do both. So why?”

He wiped some condensation off his glass with his thumb. “I’m usually too focused on the plan, on putting one foot in front of the other, to think about that. Sometimes I make the mistake and look down, and it’s like when you’re rock climbing. It makes me dizzy. I think ...” He eyed her. “You’re not going to yell at me about how I shouldn’t feel guilty again, are you?”

“I didn’t yell. I cajoled with feeling.”

“Right, of course. Important distinction. But there were things I got that I didn’t earn. Good things, like jobs and publicity, but maybe also bad things, like tabloid headlines and broken self-esteem.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, and he laughed.

But his expression fell serious again. “Restarting my career would be a chance to balance the scales. I want to get back to the top by being a good person. Doing things the right way. I want to be a good coworker and a good friend. For me, but also for the industry. I mean, I’m selfish, don’t get me wrong. I want to pay this house off and save for retirement, and I like getting to write my own ticket. But when I’m in something like Waverley , it’s hard to believe that Central Square —with all its mess—existed, you know?”

“I can imagine,” Maggie said. “But if it’s about the system, like movies and television itself, do you ever wonder if there’s another way?”

“Buying a movie theater?” he asked, confused.

“Producing. Directing. Something like that.”

“Oh, the dark side.”

“Hey.” She flicked his forearm with her finger. “I live on the dark side. I just wonder if the problem is people like Vincent Minna. Could you make more of a difference if you became the anti–Vincent Minna?”

“Drew is always telling me that I’m an ‘entrepreneur.’” Cole put the word in sarcastic air quotes, as if nothing could be more ridiculous. “And look, acting is only part of my income. Endorsements, side hustles, those are part of the gig. But I became an actor because I didn’t want a real job with memos and, like, TPS reports.”

“Sadly, I can confirm that real jobs do in fact suck. I just ... wondered if there’s another way. Or maybe an additional way.”

“What, you’re saying my performance as mega-hottie and mega-asshole Geordie Robertson can’t change Hollywood?”

“Alas, no. But in fairness, your ass is totally revolutionary.”

“That’s probably why Zoya cast me.” Cole set his hand over Maggie’s. “You know, Drew has never asked me why I want this. He just took it for granted that I did, and ... I did. For nearly two decades, it was always about what we were going to get, how we were going to get it. That was what I needed, so I didn’t mind. But I’m glad you’re here now to ask me those hard questions. Because I don’t think I’ve ever answered them out loud. Maybe I was afraid to.”

She flipped her hand around under his, linking their fingers together. “You say that like it’s good now , but give it a few months ...”

“No, I’ll always appreciate it.” His words were firmer and more serious than the Pledge of Allegiance.

Maggie knew she should treat his vow lightly, act as if it were pillow talk because it was just too soon, but it was all too easy to see how they could sit and talk like this every night. How he could tease her out of her tendency to take things too seriously and pick them apart until they were threadbare. And how she could take him seriously, asking questions and validating him in the ways clearly no one else in his life did.

If only it weren’t for how they’d met, because Waverley was always going to be there. It would always be the first line on her résumé, and it would always be the vehicle for his renaissance. That was never going to change. Cole and Maggie meeting on that set, even if they hadn’t touched until filming was over, was always going to be a little bit sketchy.

Maybe more than a little bit.

But despite her fears about how they’d gotten started, all Maggie could do was squeeze his hand and ask, “So what do movie stars do on weeknights?”

INT. COLE’S BEDROOM

Maggie hadn’t ever seen a K-drama. Like ... ever. So after dinner, Cole introduced her to the glory that was Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin—“No, seriously, no one on Waverley has ever had this kind of chemistry”—and then they headed to bed.

The night before, Maggie had gone on and on about his shower—“Seven jets? Like, as many as Snow White’s dwarf friends?”—and it looked like they were in for a second round of her oohing and ahhing orgasmically while he lay in bed and tried to think calm, nonerotic thoughts.

“I could move in with you just for that,” she called to him in the bedroom when she’d turned the water off.

His heart tripped in his chest. Be cool, be cool, be cool. “Then my evil plan is working,” he shouted back.

“Your plan to ply me with luxury?”

“That’s how I get you.”

“And how do you keep me?”

He probably didn’t. Compared to Maggie, Cole felt hopelessly flat. For decades, he’d been so focused on saving his own butt and career, while at dinner that night, Maggie had proposed fixing the entire industry.

God, but he loved her. Now that she was here, with him, in his own house, it was so hard to keep that inside. His plan, because he honestly did have one, was to make her giddy with happiness. To feed her every night. To hold her every night.

And to give her as many orgasms as she could handle.

Last night, she’d passed out on his chest as soon as they’d gotten in bed. Which meant he needed to work overtime now. He marched into the bathroom.

She was at the vanity, brushing her wet hair. She locked eyes with him in the mirror and raised her brows as if to ask what he was doing there.

He strolled over and set one hand on her waist. The fingers of his other hand trailed down the white towel she had wrapped around herself. It was thick, plush, and soft—but also just scratchy enough to catch on his fingertips.

A riot of sensation, really.

“The way I keep you is by doing this.” He pressed the heel of his hand against the V at the top of her thighs, and Maggie’s eyes went wide with understanding and heat.

Her palms smacked onto the marble vanity, the brush clattering to the floor. Cole nudged her feet wider apart with his toe. He squeezed the towel into the space she’d made for him. The space where he hoped she was aching for him.

“Cole.”

“That a yes or a no?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so.” In the mirror, he watched his forefinger rub over the towel, feeling for her cleft. He traced it, pressing the fabric, soft and scratchy at once, into her flesh.

Maggie was breathing hard now, and her green eyes were huge. He bit her shoulder. Sucked her flesh until it pinkened. He wanted to leave a mark right there. Something permanent and bright red that everyone could see.

This woman is mine.

But she hadn’t said that, not yet.

So he set about kissing her neck, her ear, her temple, all while he watched himself rub her into oblivion. Working her into a frenzy of feelings, until she was buckling between his hand and his crotch. Until she was crooning. Until she was begging him to fuck her.

Maggie kept her eyes open, holding his gaze. Then she was nodding frantically when her release started. Her lids slammed shut, and her face became a mask of pure ecstasy.

He’d done that, he was doing that, to her. Maggie was so contained, so poised, that the way she absolutely lost control when she came, it made him feel ten feet tall. Like a real-life hero, not the ones he played in Tinseltown.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, God, yes.”

The sweetest melody on earth, right there.

When she collapsed forward onto the counter, he gently pried the towel open, revealing the column of her spine, the flare of her waist. Her body was a miracle. An absolute miracle. He dropped the towel to the floor.

Against the counter, she mumbled, “That was ... holy cow.”

He turned her around before boosting her into his arms and setting her, naked, on the counter.

She looped her arms around his neck with a smile that was a little drunk. “What are you doing now?”

He set about kissing her until they were both breathless. The kind of kissing where nothing is held back, more like fucking than kissing. A grappling, sweaty thing that you did with your whole body. And it would’ve been embarrassing, how desperate he was for her, how needy she made him, if Maggie hadn’t been clinging to Cole just as hard as he was to her.

His lips skidded down her neck. “I’m going to die if I don’t get your sweet tits in my mouth.”

“No one has ever died from that. And Cole, I—” Whatever else Maggie was going to say turned into a moan, because the woman really, really liked that.

Sadly, with his face buried in her skin, he couldn’t see her expression anymore. But he still had her noises. Her legs wrapping around him, trying to pull him closer. Her fingers in his hair, holding him in place.

When he couldn’t take it any longer, he released her nipple with a pop, and he began digging in a drawer for the condoms he’d stashed there. He didn’t normally make good choices, but when he did, they involved Maggie.

He stripped off his boxers and sheathed himself. “This okay?”

“God, yes, please.”

Cole scooped Maggie up again, turning her toward the vanity. He plunked her feet onto the tile and bent her over the counter. “Watch me fuck you.”

There was that blaze in her eyes again. She liked it when he talked like that to her. She liked it when he gripped her hips and pushed into her, firmly, a little roughly. When he set a pace that was a bit too fast, a bit too hard. Because he could see the pleasure in her hands gripping the vanity, the hunger in how she met every thrust.

“Touch yourself,” he instructed.

She nodded, choppy. Then her fingers were there, on her most sensitive flesh and the place where he entered her, stretched her. Her eyes closed, and now he was the only one watching. The only one who saw his expression: snared and desperate and down for the count.

Which was probably why he buried himself in her and said against her neck “I love you.” One last thrust; then he choked out “I am totally in love with you.” Because he was, and there was nowhere he could hide. He didn’t even want to. He adored this woman.

When the last shiver had racked through both of them, he disposed of the condom and pulled Maggie back into the shower. He held her under the jets until his legs were strong again, until the emotions that had been churning him like a storm were back in place.

“Sorry, that was too much. Sex with you—it’s intense.” Every time he touched her, it was going to be like this, of that he was certain. He just had to get used to it.

“Did you mean it?” She tipped her chin back, watching him steadily.

“Yes.” He shouldn’t have said it, but it wasn’t because he didn’t mean it.

“Then don’t you dare take it back.” Maggie popped onto her toes and kissed him. A kiss so sweet, he almost felt guilty for fucking her over his bathroom counter. Or at least he almost felt guilty until she broke from his mouth and said, “Because I love you too.”

Her words were a day at the beach and runner’s high and Christmas morning, all hitting him at the same time.

“Thank God.” He kissed her back hard, slamming his hand on the wall to keep them both upright. “Thank God.”

Sometimes, you got everything you ever wanted—and wasn’t that a kick in the pants?