Chapter 39
Lila Logan Cameron
Call sign: Cassiopeia
A wannabe-runaway teenager was such a cliché Lila could almost laugh about it.
So Tia wanted to leave it all behind, hmm? She had looked back on her childhood of flying in private jets between three houses,
taking summer trips on the family yacht, attending expensive schools and red-carpet events, and she had made the decision
that she could do better alone?
Lila did start laughing. Her shoulders shook, and her lips peeled back. She was out of the horrible little cave of an anchor
locker, leaving behind Francis to tend to Rylan. Perhaps she should track down her daughter belowdecks and give her an idea
of just how selfish, how stupid she was being.
Since when had Tia Cameron run away from anything? Since when did she give up? Lila felt even more disappointed than she did
betrayed. She wasn’t certain she would miss Tia if she did run. It had felt something like paradise without her this past
year. But Rylan would never be the same if Tia left for good.
And Lila had tried to be a good mother.
God had she tried.
She’d read books like Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child and Parenting in the Spotlight. She had found good psychologists and teachers. She left discipline up to Francis so she could be the person her children
felt safe with.
Perhaps what hurt more than anything was that, in this one way, Tia was finally acting a bit like Lila, who had left behind
her parents the moment she’d landed a role in her first movie.
But that was different.
Patrick and Lori Logan were indifferent to Lila’s ambition. They were tedious, uninspired nobodies who had lost interest in
Lila the minute she no longer looked like their doll.
Lila realized she had locked her jaw from clamping down so hard. She massaged furiously below her ear and loosened the tension
until her jaw clicked. She wished there was a perfectly placed vase nearby for her to throw against a wall.
She headed belowdecks. She needed an aspirin. And something to aim her bad energy at.
Alejandro.
Lila went to his room, pressing her index fingers into the sides of her head.
She ran right into someone’s chest. “Jesus!”
Lila looked up, ready to slide her hands over Alejandro’s shoulders and tote him by his belt to her bed, but it wasn’t Alejandro.
It was Nico holding, of all things, a packet of condoms.
“Mrs. Cameron!”
Oh God. Lila studied the young man, trying to remember if she had ever exchanged two words with him this entire trip.
“Nico. Hello.”
Nico slipped his hand casually in his pocket and gave Lila a winning smile that was shaped somewhat like his uncle’s. “You
look lovely.”
Lila let herself lean against the doorway. “And you look guilty.”
She was half Nico’s height but more than double his age with the nice bonus of being the wife of his boss.
He didn’t dare push past her. It gave Lila the chance to examine him.
Closely. Was he trying to sleep with Tia?
She had seen them flirting a few times. What Lila wanted to know most was whether this was the first time.
Could Tia, careless and bombastic as she was, really have been able to get away with having secret sex on a sixty-foot boat?
Lila doubted it. This must be the first attempt, then.
She reached up and fixed Nico’s shirt collar, which stuck up on one side.
“I would put those back if I were you. Besides, my daughter is seventeen. A minor, at least for the next few days. And you’re . . .
let me guess. Twenty-one?”
“Twenty-two,” Nico said quietly.
“Right.” She patted his chest. “A bit old for a teenager, wouldn’t you say?”
“Meant no disrespect,” Nico murmured, keeping eye contact with Lila, which was impressive considering he’d just been caught.
Most boys his age would be inspecting their feet.
“Of course not.” Lila stepped to one side of the doorway to allow him to leave. “I am ecstatic, however, that you were putting
safety first.” She nodded at his pocket where he’d put the condom packs. “Even if those aren’t yours.”
Nico dropped his head, sheepish, and returned the condoms to Alejandro’s sock drawer. He walked back to the doorway. Lila
gave him a dazzling smile and turned to go, but Nico reached out, suddenly, and placed his arm on the doorframe, blocking
her path.
“How did you know those weren’t mine?”
“Excuse me?” Lila said, giving him the chance to back down.
He didn’t. He leaned into his arm so his face was hovering just above Lila’s.
Lila looked into his eyes and no longer saw a resemblance to Alejandro.
She saw Francis. She saw a litany of slimeball film directors and handsy costars and strangers watching her from the street, knowing they’d never get close enough to touch her, but if they could have, they would.
“Familiar with my uncle’s condoms, Mrs. Cameron?” He tilted his head, trying to pass off this exchange as playful.
“I could get you fired, Mr. de la Vega,” Lila replied evenly. “I could get you blacklisted from every Unwind Yachting boat in the world.”
Nico was nodding, tongue between his teeth. “True, true. And I could ruin your marriage.”
Lila did not consider herself an angry person. But right then, if that perfectly placed vase had been in arms’ reach, she
might have shattered it into Nico de la Vega’s skull.
“Well, thank you,” Lila said after a long moment.
The boy had the decency to look confused. “For what?”
“For showing me exactly who you are.”
Lila ducked underneath Nico’s arm and dusted off her cover-up. She looked back at him over her shoulder with the most girlish,
unruffled expression she could muster.
“Oh, and sweetheart? Stay the fuck away from my daughter.”