8. Summer
8
SUMMER
“T his feels wrong.”
Claudia laughed and gave me a playful shove as we walked down Rodeo Drive, window shopping since there was no way on Earth we could afford to buy anything. “Only you can take a day like today and turn it into something negative.”
“There’s so much work to do. And here I am, strolling around like I’m somebody I’m not.”
“What does that even mean?” she asked, lowering her sunglasses so I could see the puzzled look she was wearing. “Somebody you’re not. Who do you think you are, anyway? Last I checked, you’re making a movie at a major studio, and it’s going to be fucking amazing when it’s finished. Maybe this is the sort of life you need to get used to living.”
The problem was, I couldn’t imagine that time ever coming. “You know how it was when I grew up,” I pointed out. “All the pressure. All the ideas they shoved into our heads.”
“I do know how it was.” She wound an arm around mine as we walked. There was something comforting about that. “Your parents were never fair to any of you girls. Their art and whatever. They were too hard on you, and they gave you all these ideas.”
“I didn’t know you saw it that way.”
“How can I not? You’re my best friend. I’ve known you all my life. And they were the ones who gave you all these ideas about your vision and never compromising on it.”
“Look at me now,” I reminded her. “It must’ve worked, right?”
“Sure, you’ll never be able to enjoy it because you’re always going to feel like you should be living in a yurt or something.” She shuddered dramatically. “Washing your clothes in a nearby stream or some shit, all because you’re a pure artist who doesn’t need money. Guess what? The whole world needs it!” She waved an arm overhead, laughing. “I mean, don’t pretend this isn’t cool… being part of this place. Yeah, a lot of it is fake as hell,” she admitted. “But as long as you remember that and you’re smart about who you trust, there is no reason you can’t enjoy a beautiful life here. Rubbing shoulders with big shots. Getting spa treatments next to last year’s Oscar winners and talking about projects you could do together.”
Damn, that sounded good, especially the part about networking over spa treatments. It would mean I turned into the snobby elite, the sell-outs. “I’m not supposed to want to do that,” I groaned.
“You and I both know you do.” We stopped at a red light, and she turned to face me. No more joking, no more smiling. She lifted her sunglasses on top of her head and nestled them in her dark curls. “It’s all right to want that. There’s nothing wrong with it. You want to make a lot of money. You want to be able to fund your own projects one day. You want to live a comfortable life. That’s totally natural.”
“I know you’re right,” I admitted with a sigh.
“And here’s the thing, babe. If this movie does well… we both know it will, you’re going to be a hot commodity around here. You’re gonna be pulled deeper into the machine or whatever you want to call it. And then what?” she asked. “You’ll never be able to enjoy it unless you work through this shit now. It’ll never be enough. You’ll never feel fulfilled because you’ll always have guilt over enjoying your success. Put a stop to that shit now before you ruin your life.”
“Damn.” I was standing on the corner of Rodeo and Santa Monica, fully dressed but completely exposed. She knew me too damn well. “You’ve been giving this some thought.”
“Yeah, you give me a few minutes every day to actually have thoughts.” Her laughter rang out over the traffic noise as we crossed the street. “Which is why we both needed a day away from the studio, away from your office, away from everything. If the cast deserves a break, so do you.”
“I don’t want a break,” I grumbled as we walked past a flashy Armani store. “I want to work.”
“I swear, you are impossible.” She said it with love and maybe a little exasperation.
I lost my breath when a cherry red sports car passed on Rodeo and immediately grabbed my attention. I expected to see a handsome, sharp-jawed man behind the wheel with eyes like black coffee and a smile with the power to turn my knees to jelly.
“It’s not him,” Claudia whispered, and she was right, but how the hell did she know what I was thinking? My head snapped around so I could gape at her. “Oh, can we drop the crap?” she asked with a sigh. “The sparks have been flying between you two for weeks and weeks. I’ve lost track of the number of times I almost told you guys to get a room.”
It was a good thing I still had an arm linked with hers since I tripped over my feet in shock. “Shut up! No way!”
She gave me an epic eye roll, groaning. “Yes! God, I’m glad I can finally say something. I wanted to all this time, but I didn’t want to mess up anything with the movie.”
“Wait.” I pulled her to a stop in front of Louis Vuitton and let people walk past us in both directions. “I’m being serious. Is it obvious?”
“To me?” she asked with a giggle that didn’t make me feel better. “Babe, we’ve known each other almost our whole lives. I know what it looks like when you’re into somebody.”
Shit. I was trying so hard to hide it. I barely spoke to him at the studio for fear of somebody seeing or hearing something they shouldn’t. It was bad enough thatI blushed whenever I noticed him and got tongue-tied whenever our eyes met. No matter how I fought it, there was no forgetting the way he lit me up with his kiss. How natural it seemed in the moment, all swept up in him, to give in to the deep, incessant craving he stirred.
Even now, shaken to my core, there was a flutter in my chest at the memory and much lower too. “This isn’t just somebody,” I whispered.
“You don’t need to tell me that.” She was still laughing it off like it was all a big joke, like I had the luxury to take any risks.
“Do you think anybody else has noticed anything? I’m serious.”
“How could they? Wait a second.” Her narrow eyes and pursed lips told me I was in trouble. “What aren’t you telling me? Have you been keeping secrets? We don’t keep secrets.”
She was right. I went too far with the questions. Now, it was obvious I was hiding something. “Okay. We might have had a moment…”
“What?” Her shriek was loud and shrill enough to grab the attention of people walking past.
My face went hot while I shook my head. “I don’t feel like getting into it in the middle of Rodeo Drive.”
“Oh my God.” She covered her mouth with one hand.
“Claudia, I’m serious. We can talk about it when we get home.”
“For fuck’s sake, let’s go home now!” She was already halfway to the curb, ready to flag down a cab, when I grabbed her arm.
“I’m dying for caffeine, and there’s a Starbucks around the corner.” I might have been stalling. The longer we stayed out, the longer it would be before I had to spill my guts. I was going to end up looking like the world’s biggest hypocrite for kissing, only stopping when Lex put an end to it, even if it was a one-time thing. Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to it.
On the other hand, I was tired of keeping secrets. It wasn’t so easy to do with Claudia sharing the apartment and the two of us working so closely together every day. It was a minor miracle I hadn’t spilled the beans yet.
“Then let’s get moving,” she urged. How the hell she walked so fast in espadrilles, I had no idea. I only knew we were practically jogging by the time we reached the coffee shop. There were a handful of benches nearby, and I sat on one of them to check my email. She muttered something that sounded like ‘workaholic’ but went inside to order.
It seemed like I wasn’t the only one trying to make the most of a day off since there was hardly anything waiting for me when I opened my inbox. Nothing from Lex. No texts, either. That was a good thing. I knew it was for the best. Nothing mattered more than the movie and then, after that, my career. Getting caught screwing the executive producer wouldn’t turn out well for me.
A shadow fell over me, and at first, I thought it was Claudia. That was why I didn’t hesitate to look up, shielding my eyes from the relentless midday sun. “You got in and out that fast?” I asked. The question was out before I realized who I was looking at, backlit by the sun but plainly visible. The golden-blond hair and the icy blue eyes that used to intrigue me now looked empty.
My brain didn’t want to accept it at first. I had to be imagining this. He’d never, under any circumstances, casually approach me this way. Bile rushed into my throat, and a steady pounding in my head drowned out everything else around me.
“Hey there, stranger,” Eric Danvers had the nerve to murmur, wearing an easy grin. “Long time no see.”
I had imagined this moment so many times—seeing him again. What I would say, how I would act. I couldn’t have predicted how just being in his presence wiped everything out of my mind. There was only one word I could get out. “Eric.”
“Were you planning on ignoring me indefinitely? It’s a small town, after all.”
How did I never see the person he really was? Was it possible I was willfully blind to the real Eric? The man had to be a straight-up sociopath to stand in front of me, smile, and sound friendly after stabbing me in the back.
“Actually, I was planning on ignoring you,” I told him, then stood and walked away. Claudia had to find me. It wasn’t like she couldn’t call my cell. She’d understand when I told her. There was no way I would be able to breathe the same air as that man for another minute without clawing his face to pieces.
Of course, he didn’t have the decency to let me walk away. “I hear things are going well over at Landry International,” he called out, his voice loud enough that he couldn’t be more than a few steps behind me. “Come on. We’re both making our way out here. Can’t we bury the past and move forward as potential colleagues?”
I stopped and turned so suddenly he almost ended up slamming into me. “Colleagues? That’s a new one. As for the past, I’d much rather bury you.”
He sucked in a breath, teeth clenched in a grimace. “That’s harsh.” The worst part? He seemed to mean it. He couldn’t. It wasn’t possible.
“It’s not nearly what you deserve, but we’re sort of in public,” I spat. “Pretend all you want, but we both know you’re riding high on a reputation I built for you. How can you live with yourself? How do you sleep at night?”
His deep sigh came right on cue. “There you go again. Overselling the amount of work you did on the movie.”
“I made that movie while you were in the middle of… what did you call it again?” I asked, tipping my head to the sideandfolding my arms. “Oh, right. A low point. You were feeling full of doubt. Like you were an imposter. Wasn’t that the word you used?”
“You know that was a confusing time for me. I can’t remember exactly what I said.”
“Right, because you were drinking from the moment you regained consciousness until you passed out again,“ I recalled, nodding. “You cracked under the pressure. No, you crumbled under it, and I picked up the pieces.”
His thin mouth went even thinner when he drew his lips together in a smirk. “That was then.”
“Right. That was then, when we were working on a small-budget indie movie you were hoping to pedal around the festivals. What’s going to happen when the pressure breaks you again?”
He lifted his chin and scoffed, pulling a pair of aviators from where they hung on the collar of his T-shirt. “It won’t. I’m in a much better place now.” His cold smile paired well with the glasses once he slid them into place.
“For your sake, I hope so because you won’t have me around to pick up the pieces this time. And no matter what you believe, I don’t actually want you to fail.” I waited a split second for relief to touch the corners of his mouth before adding, “I only hope I’m around if and when you do.”
He leaned down a few inches, close enough for me to see how his jaw ticked. “Clyde was right about you. You’re impossible.”
He always knew how to push my buttons. “Fuck you and fuck Clyde,” I gritted out.
“I hope the two of you are happy together. You’re exactly the same sort of scumbag.” I looked past him to find Claudia now on the sidewalk, an iced latte in each hand, her head on a swivel. My salvation.
“Do us both a favor and get out of my face,” I concluded, sidestepping him and walking away without looking back. This time, he didn’t follow. Probably because he now knew he’d be outnumbered, and judging by the way Claudia’s face hardened into pure fury as she stared over my shoulder, things wouldn’t have ended well for him.
Her mouth was hanging open by the time I reached her. “Oh, shit. I’m so sorry I wasn’t out here with you. Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sipping the icy drink didn’t do much to cool off my insides, but then not much would when the surprise of seeing him was fresh.
“I’m going to take a wild guess that he approached you and not the other way around?” She glanced over my shoulder and sighed with relief. “He got the hint and is rounding the corner. Which reminds me, there was something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”
Maybe the coffee wasn’t such a good idea now that my heart was already pounding. “What?” I asked.
“Is it just me, or does he not have an ass?”
I turned my head at the last second and managed not to hit her with the coffee I had to spit out. “Oh no!” She laughed while I choked on my laughter. “I’m sorry! Bad timing.”
It was what I needed. To laugh like that, even if I almost sprayed latte through my nose. “Now that you mention it, his ass is really flat,” I agreed.
“Maybe that makes it easier for him to shove his head up there.” She waved at an approaching cab. “Come on. Don’t think I forgot what you said you’d do when we got home. I need details.”
I had dreaded the idea. Now, I was grateful for the distraction. Lex might have been dangerous and all wrong for me, but for today, he was my solace.