Chapter 14 Sloane
Sloane
A month later
“Celebrity’s own Alexis Logan caught up with That’s Us actor Beckett Giles on the red carpet last night, where Giles confirmed he and girlfriend Brooklyn O’Dell are engaged.”
“Brooklyn just really worships the ground I walk on, and I really need that right now.”
“The two have been linked since the actor’s split from long-time girlfriend, Sloane Rivera. The pop star is said to be licking her wounds back in her hometown of Chicago, though it’s unclear if news of her ex’s engagement will bother her at all.”
“Gah!” I jabbed my finger into the TV remote, going for the power button but merely pausing it instead. I took a deep breath and pressed my fingers to my temple. “Licking my wounds,” I murmured under my breath. “As if.”
There were no wounds to lick. Beckett and Brooklyn were the furthest thing from my mind.
Most days. Usually. Unfortunately, every time I made the news—starting that night with Olivia at Eagle’s Loft and throughout the past month as I traveled from Chicago to New York to Florida and back to New York City—the two of them had always done something to regain the limelight.
Bringing them right back to the forefront of my mind.
Engaged after just months when I’d dated him for almost eight years, and we hadn’t even fully moved in with each other.
It still hurt somewhere deep inside. Brooklyn had been my best friend, and now she and Beckett were just thorns in my side, drawing blood with all their antics.
As I reminded myself daily, she did me a favor.
She took the one thing holding me back off my hands and showed me her true colors at the same time.
In this business, I didn’t have time for backstabbers and hangers-on. There was no room in my life for fake people or fake relationships. Making my dreams come true wasn’t going to happen if I allowed my insecurities to drag me down.
“Screw you, Beckett.”
I was so thankful I had Olivia as a friend. She was the kind of support system and cheerleader I’d never had before. As much as it hurt to see Brooklyn and Beckett together, seeing them like that ripped the Band-Aid off and forced me to face the one thing I’d been hiding from for years.
Beckett Giles loved no one more than he loved himself, and everything he did was done to lift him up while tearing other people down.
Now, I wasn’t his to tear down any longer.
Now, I could rise up.
Throwing myself backward into my oversized armchair, I pulled my feet up near my butt and massaged my temples.
With my eyes closed, I took a deep breath in, holding it for ten seconds before I let it out.
Let all that negative energy flow out of me so I could focus on the small show I had scheduled for the children’s charity this afternoon.
This was my dream. To give back to those in need while I had plenty to give.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the TV screen between the V of my legs. What was on the screen did nothing to relieve my agitation.
It’s unclear if news of her ex’s engagement will bother her at all.
The meaning behind those words suddenly became clear.
That was me on the screen, coffee in one hand and cell phone pressed to my ear with the other. But it wasn’t me that was the problem.
The problem was my bodyguard.
Kolton was standing behind me, a dozen of my shopping bags slung over his arm and a coffee cup matching mine in his hand. And his other hand? It was pressed to the small of my back. You could just see his fingers as they seemed to creep under the hem of my shirt.
A flare of heat flashed through me as something in my chest fluttered and my toes curled up. My earlier agitation came raging back, but this time, it was directed at myself.
How could I have allowed myself to be in this position? Three months removed from breaking up with my childhood sweetheart, and now I looked like some bed-hopping floozy cuddling up with my sexy bodyguard.
I didn’t need that kind of reputation. Not if I was going to make my dreams come true. I had big goals. I had people looking up to me. I didn’t need my picture splashed all over the tabloids, as if what I did in my bedroom had any relevance to who I was.
Still…
I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.
I remembered that moment. When Kolton’s hand skimmed my back, the shivers his touch left dancing on my skin and dragging my attention away from my sister on the other end of the line.
I hated it. Hated him.
Even if, maybe, I didn’t.
Even if, as Olivia had suggested, it wasn’t Kolton I hated so much as this whole damn situation I found myself in.
There had been more than one moment like that.
Where his chocolate gaze had me melting, where his proximity left me weak in the knees.
Each time he laid as little as a finger on me, the thing inside me that insisted I could do this on my own—I could do this without a man—pulled out a little white flag and tried to admit defeat.
I didn’t want a bodyguard. Not then and certainly not now. I wanted freedom. I wanted happiness. I wanted…
My cheeks flushed at the thought of Olivia’s words.
Sometimes you just need to get laid.
But that was the problem. I may have wanted sex, but I wasn’t about to have it with some random stranger.
And I couldn’t for the life of me put myself out there with someone new.
Someone I didn’t know. Someone I didn’t care about.
I may have gotten my freedom, but Beckett had done a number on me. No one would want me. Not after him.
The only man in my life now was the bodyguard whose presence left my brain addled and my body hot and aching every time he got close.
And I wasn’t happy about it. I didn’t care how nice he was.
How sweet he was. How gentle and level-headed and kind-hearted he was.
He was an intrusion in my life, and his insistence on calling me Diva proved he was nothing but an ass.
A sigh left me, like a full body shudder.
Because that ass.
My god, that ass.
It was perfect—the kind of ass all those fitness gurus on social media would die to have.
I was pretty sure I’d seen a quarter bounce off it and fly right up into the air.
I was pretty sure that ass had starred in my dreams, along with the rest of his perfectly chiseled body.
And I was sure—
“Ahem.”
My gaze flashed from the picture of that perfect ass on my TV screen to the owner of it, the man now standing in the open door of my hotel suite. He wore a crooked smile better than most men wore a suit, and he filled out his T-shirt and jeans even better than that.
And what was underneath?
I’d seen enough of that to give me a lifetime of fodder for my dreams. He wasn’t shy about his body, even when he continued to feed himself like he needed to watch his weight, something that irritated me right up until my attention would fall on his amazing body and those thoughts would just… float away.
Once again, heat flashed through me, his drifting gaze the cause. Because there I was, toes curled, legs spread, laying on my back while staring at a picture of the finest ass known to man.
And wearing the short skirt and matching black satin crop top Monica had insisted on for today's show.
“You alright there, Diva?”
Diva. Oh, how that word made my blood boil.
It was the reminder I needed that, no matter how well he filled out his clothes, whatever might have been between us was never meant to be.
Diva. As if.
As tempted as I was to call him out about it, though, I couldn’t. Wouldn’t that make me the diva he swore I was?
Lowering my legs, I smoothed down my skirt, trying to pretend I hadn’t been gawking at his fine ass on my screen while he had a nice view of my thong underneath my skirt. “I’m fine,” I told him as I sat up, my fingers still pressing into my temple.
His smile faltered then fell as he released the door and strode my way. Inside my chest, my heart pounded out a heavy beat that matched his quick steps across the room.
But it didn’t stop when he did.
That pounding continued as he halted a few feet in front of me, his brow furrowed as he looked down at me. “Did you take your medication?”
Kolton made it hard for me to hate him when he behaved like this. When he recognized the signs of my migraines, sometimes before I did. I gave him a shaky smile as I shook my head. “Of course, I did. I’m not an idiot.”
I was so an idiot.
He pursed his lips, and he looked like he was biting his tongue.
Then his gaze dripped down my body until the heat there had me wanting to cross my arms over my chest. He squatted in front of me, giving me a view of his muscular legs and something else I’d done everything I could not to look at, not to think about.
Except for in the privacy of my bedroom.
“You doing okay?” He reached out, brushing a hair out of my face before kneading the sides of my head with his—don’t say it, don’t even think it! Dammit!—extremely talented fingers. I barely stifled a moan and managed to nod, my eyes closing as he massaged my head.
A sigh left me as his hands traveled down my head to the back of my neck.
Shivers raced across my skin, the kinds of tingles I tried hard not to think about.
After a moment, he stopped, dropping his hands to my shoulders, his thumbs grazing my throat.
I felt a little better, though I certainly needed to take one of my pills.
“Feeling better?” With his thumbs, he lifted my chin, directing my attention to him. To his handsome face and his gorgeous eyes that left heat rushing through every inch of me.
My voice croaked when I managed to tell him, “A little.” And those two little words seemed to break whatever spell had locked him there in front of me.
He rose to his full height, staring down at me.
I tried not to look at the bulge in his pants, tried to keep my eyes on his face as his gaze trickled down my body before pausing on my bare feet.
“You need to get ready,” he said, something close to that annoyingly crooked smile he’d been sporting lately back in place. “We’re going to be late again if we don’t get moving.”
All those good thoughts and feelings raced right out the door.
Like it was my fault.
Like the last time we were late, it wasn’t the mob of fans outside the hotel that had slowed us down.
Asshole.
“I’ll be done in a minute.” I stood and brushed past him—brushed, because he didn’t bother getting out of my way—and raced to my bedroom.
I slipped on my booties and some dance shorts, so I didn’t give the crowd more of a show than I was supposed to, then rushed to the bathroom to grab my migraine pill.
My hair was a mess, and I took a moment to fix the damage Kolton’s fingers had caused, but each swipe of my brush just brought back my irritation.
At him. At Beckett and Brooklyn. At Monica and the whole damn world.
By the time I got back in the main room, Kolton had a bottle of my favorite caffeinated flavored water in hand, and he was staring at his watch in an exaggerated manner as he tapped his foot on the floor.
“You about ready?” His crooked smile irked me, sending a flash of heat right down to my core.
Snagging my purse off the counter, I rushed to where he waited at the door, stopping only because he wouldn’t get out of my way. “Ready.”
He slid his gaze over me once more, and it took everything in me not to cross my arms, to bite my tongue to keep from yelling at him to get out of my way even as heat flared and brought every inch of me to life.
Finally, his eyes locked on mine. That crooked smile he wore so well pulled at his lips, and he tipped the bottle in his hand my way.
“Off you go, Diva. Let’s get you to your show.”
I would have stammered any response if my brain could have put together words to say. But since it couldn’t, I forced myself to take the bottle, to nod my head, to step around him as he opened the door, his warm hand low on my back as he ushered me through.
I forced myself to take deep breaths to control the tipping of the boat I felt I was floating on, the man behind me throwing me off center once again.