Chapter Twenty-Six #2
She snorts. “Only because you basically funded our entire season. By the way, I’m still not a fan of wealth and fame, so I’m going to pretend you have neither for as long as I can.”
Good luck with that, I think, unwilling to say it out loud in case it scares her off.
Tightening my hold, I rub my hand across her back as I search for the best way to pose the question I’ve been avoiding since yesterday.
I’ll have to ask it sooner or later, but the answer terrifies me.
“So what do we do now?” I murmur into her hair.
Donovan’s arms lock around my back, squeezing tight. “I don’t know. I have rivers to run.”
“I have a movie to film.”
And a press tour for a movie premiering in a few weeks. And screen tests for my next project, a script to prepare before the table read, an actors guild meeting to run, friends to check on…
I close my eyes and curse as life catches up to me quickly. How is this going to work? I barely made it out here for this trip, and I might have three open days total in the next two months, none of them consecutive.
“Let’s not overthink this,” Donovan says.
“Too late.”
“Red Earth’s season ends in September.”
Groaning, I drop my head onto her shoulder and hide my face in her neck as I shift my hands to grip her waist. This is exactly why I would have preferred to keep my question to myself. “That’s three months away. And it’s my busiest time of the year. I won’t be able to come—”
“What if I come to you?”
I lift my head. Slowly. Carefully. Like moving too fast will change what she just said. “To LA? But that’s—”
“The city of my nightmares, yeah.” Smiling softly, she reaches up and presses her palm to my cheek, though there’s a bit of fear in her eyes. “But if putting myself in proximity to Hollywood means I get to see you again…”
She has no idea how much I want that, but I shake my head. “No matter how secretive we are, someone will figure out who you are. Nova Tate won’t be lost anymore, and you’ll be—”
“Back in the spotlight?” She shrugs. “There are worse things.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I argue. The last thing I want is for her to regret giving me a chance, and being forced back into a life she worked so hard to leave behind… “Donovan, I can’t ask you to—”
Hooking her finger on my shirt collar, she leans up on her toes and presses her lips to mine in a kiss that steals my breath.
“You’re not asking,” she says without pulling away.
“I’m offering. I told you I want to try, and I do.
Besides, no one knows better than I do what comes with dating you, Derek Riley. I can handle your life.”
I curse under my breath and kiss her again, drowning myself in the taste of her. I can handle your life. Words I didn’t know I needed to hear until now.
Donovan’s hand runs up my chest and into my hair, knocking the hat from my head and sparking a fire inside me that blazes hot and wild.
My grip on her hips tightens, pulling her into me, and I tilt my head to deepen the kiss, consumed by this woman who is everything I’ve been searching for.
I can’t get close enough, and I slowly back her up against the stacked boats to give myself the leverage to kiss her thoroughly and show her how much her words mean to me.
“Derek!”
Someone calls my name, the word hazy and distant because my full focus is on Donovan. It’s probably Hunter or Janie. They can wait.
“Derek, over here!”
Can’t they see I’m busy?
“Derek, who are you with? Is this a new girlfriend?”
A bright flash lights up the shaded pavilion at the same time I freeze, my mind catching up to the moment and the unfamiliarity of the voice shouting at me. More flashes follow the first, and Donovan gasps, her kiss-drunk expression shifting to horror at whatever she sees over my shoulder.
I grab her head, gently tucking her into my chest so I can shield her with my body.
Where is Hunter? I don’t dare turn around and give whoever it is a good view of my face.
They obviously know it’s me, but there’s no way to know if they already got any clear shots of me.
I can’t risk the slim chance that we’re safe for the time being.
“Give her some tongue again, Derek!”
Using my peripheral vision, I look at the door to the office and wonder if we can make a run for it.
It’s partially open—Farah, Mason, and Thiago must have gone inside while I was recklessly kissing Donovan—but it’s on the other side of the pavilion.
Farther than I’m comfortable with. But we can’t just stand here and pray the paparazzi go away!
“Derek!” Hunter’s rough voice booms across the yard, followed by a menacing growl as he shouts at the paps to go away.
We have to take our chance and use the distraction he’s giving us. Keeping my arm around Donovan, I tug her in the direction of the office and start running with my head low and my other arm in front of my face. Hunter joins me a second later and blocks us from view until we crash inside.
“Whoa!” Mason says as Hunter slams the door shut, locking it behind him. “What’s going on?” He and Farah are standing in the little kitchen in the corner of the room, gaping at us as Hunter stalks to the front door and locks that one too.
Ignoring the two guides, I glare at Hunter. “What took you so long?” I demand.
He barely looks at me, keeping his focus out the glass pane in the door. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” My jaw drops, and I run a hand through my hair as my mind starts running through all the possible disasters that could be heading my way.
How long were the cameras flashing before the paparazzo started talking?
Did they get video? Probably. And now Donovan…
This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to avoid! “You have one job, Hunter! One!”
His jaw grows tight, but he doesn’t have a response for me.
I curse loudly, wishing I had my phone so I could get ahead of this thing. But no, I thought it was a good idea to leave it with Janie, who should have been here ten minutes ago. Cursing again, I start pacing only for Donovan to step into my path and stop me.
“Hey,” she says and holds her hands up like I’m a wild animal. She’s pale, a tremor in her fingers, and I can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now. “Calm down.”
I choke out a laugh. “Calm down? Are you serious?”
“Uh, yes?”
She’s been away from this for too long. She doesn’t know how fast things are going to spread. Was it Brody? I’ll ruin him.
“Where the hell is Janie?” I ask Hunter sharply, stalking over to him. I need my phone. I need to know how they found me so quickly. I need to fix this.
Hunter’s worried expression hardens into something closer to anger. “She’s coming,” he growls. “This isn’t her fau—”
“Let me use your phone.” I hold out my hand. “Please.”
Sighing, he pulls it from his pocket and unlocks it before handing it to me. It’s open to Hollywood Hot Scoop’s website, which fills me with a level of frustration I rarely feel. This is why he wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings? Because he was reading this garbage?
I don’t care that my name is front and center of the article’s headline.
Hunter isn’t my publicist. It’s not his job to care what insecure people are saying about me.
He’s supposed to keep them away from me and the people I care about.
Not let them walk right up to me and give Donovan every reason to hide again.
Pulling up Hunter’s text thread with Janie and verifying that she really did say she was ten minutes out, I’m about to hit the call button to demand where she is when my eyes catch on the texts they’ve sent back and forth.
Some of them were sent yesterday. While we were on the river.
As my breath catches in my lungs, I scroll up to see they’ve been sending satellite messages back and forth all week.
Snippets of their texts jump out at me as I go, but my tired and frazzled mind can barely comprehend what I’m reading.
…his anxiety is getting worse…
…Derek should go to therapy…
…he’ll have a mental breakdown…
…don’t know how to fix it…
…not going to tell him…
I messed up, Hunt. I did something bad.
“Derek,” Hunter says, his voice full of wariness. He’s clearly not going to pretend he doesn’t know what I’m seeing, and I don’t think he’ll try to excuse it either. He’s smarter than that.
“Derek, what’s wrong?” Donovan asks.
Ignoring her, I struggle to breathe as I keep scrolling.
The texts go back way beyond this week, conversation after conversation about how messed up I am and how I need help but am too stubborn to get it.
Conversations about how hard it is to work for me.
How they wish they could leave but can’t because I’ll fall apart if they do.
With a shaking hand, I scroll back near the bottom of the thread and stare at a text Janie sent Tuesday evening, around the same time I figured out who Donovan was.
Janie:
I messed up, Hunt. I did something bad, and Derek is going to kill me if he finds out.
Hunter:
I know, J.
Janie:
You know?
Hunter:
I’ve known for a while, but don’t worry. I’m not going to tell him.
Janie:
You’re not? It doesn’t matter. I told them about her. This is going to break him, and I don’t know how to fix it. What do I do?
Hunter:
We’ll figure it out.
Janie:
You have to tell him. I thought I was doing the right thing and helping him and his friends, but it just keeps getting worse. Maybe he’ll know what to do. I can’t keep lying to him.
Hunter:
No. He’s already hanging by a thread, and telling him isn’t going to help anything. He’s losing it, J. We have to keep this from him as long as we can.
Though I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret it, I go back to the Hot Scoop article and start reading, feeling worse with each word.
So it wasn’t Brody…
How many people in my inner circle have been lying to me?