Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
“NOT LA.” Dumping an armful of clothes onto her living room floor, Ariella hunkered down to sort through them, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Anywhere but LA.”
“LA was the other option,” Allan said. “You fuck up with Collier, you go to LA, that was the deal.”
Deal? They’d never made a deal. Had they made a deal? Getting away from the media was the goal, she couldn’t move to their ground zero.
“I need something that’s not in Boston and not in LA.” And nowhere near a Collier. “Brooker have divisions all over the world.”
“You’ve got to succeed before you pick your ticket. This could be a problem, Elle.”
Losing this lifeline would be devastating right now. Ideally, yeah, she’d be able to split with Brooker and have a fresh, faraway start. She just didn’t have the financial resources to quit her current job. A new city. A new job. Would this ever stop?
“Can you find out?” she asked, trying her best to dampen emotion, she would not overreact. Be calm, take steps, solve the problem. “Please, Allan. I know I’m not the best bet, but I’ll do anything. I’ll be good. I promise. I really need this.”
He exhaled. “I’ll make some calls.”
And that was all she could ask. “Thank you.”
“Hell, if I get you off my books, maybe I’ll start sleeping at night.”
Even as she laughed through gritted teeth, she wasn’t so sure that was a joke… or a lie. Asking him to go out on a limb for her was rich when she’d disappointed him so many times. Relying on the kindness of others wasn’t natural, but what choice did she have?
A knock at the door raised her to full height. She’d left a message for the landlord. If he’d come over, maybe it would be easier to tempt him into letting her out of her lease in person. Did she have that level of charisma? Man, she’d have to dig deep.
A cleansing breath didn’t do much. Didn’t matter. She had to answer the door with a smile on her face no matter what was going on inside her head. And when she did?
There was Roxie, forearm draped on the outer doorframe. “I’m a sorbet…” Uh…What? “We don’t send the men into the pressurized environment. We send me, and you decompress, no pressure.”
“Ms. Kyst, I—”
“I’m sorry,” Roxie said, more solemn as she straightened up. “About the camera thing. I had no idea Cam—we’re not like that. We don’t—”
“You take care of your own.” Exactly what Cam said. “I’m on my way out, so…”
Roxie leaned to the side to look around her. “I see that.”
Her suitcase was open in the middle of the floor, her gym bag strewn with things she hadn’t yet got through.
“Need a ride to the airport?”
If she had the slightest clue where she was going, maybe.
“I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m excellent at packing. If… You’ve been on your own a long time, huh?” A lump lodged in the middle of her chest. It wasn’t emotion so much as it was acceptance. “You don’t have to run out on him. He wanted to come over here and—”
“I can’t have a Collier here.”
“Figured as much,” Roxie said quickly.
And in saying that, Collier wasn’t the only family she should fear being pictured with.
She stepped aside. “Do you want to come in?”
“Before someone sees me?” Roxie asked, complying. “I have incredible stealth mode. No one followed me.”
After closing the door, she went back to her mound of packing. “No offense, but I find that hard to believe. When they want to get you, they get you.”
“It’s the men,” Roxie said, sauntering to her almost fireplace.
It didn’t actually have a fire, but, yeah, it was supposed to be the focal point.
“Going anywhere with Z is like walking with our own Mardi Gras parade. He comes with cars and security and… well, a circus. Cam’s not like that.
He walked away so long ago and lives such a boring life, the press gave up.
He never does anything interesting. He works and works and… works.”
She didn’t have to be told how seriously he took his work. Roxie probably knew that, the woman was trying to make her feel better. To mend something, maybe. It wasn’t broken. She’d seen his life, or thought she had, until the truth of his family spilled into his living room.
“This isn’t his fault. And what you saw this morning was… Last night was a party and, you know, tension and there was residual… energy…”
“You don’t trust him?”
“I wasn’t doing that great in Boston anyway, a fresh start is overdue.”
“How many of those have you had?”
She couldn’t get into this. If she wasn’t talking to Cam about it, she sure couldn’t be talking to Roxanna Kyst-Lomond. Shit, it was almost unbelievable. A woman like this, part of such a sprawling, high-profile network, was right there in her crappy studio apartment.
It wasn’t crappy, she’d made something of the place, separated out the rooms with bookcases and furniture. It was her sanctuary. And now she was fleeing. It was fine, she hadn’t connected. Home was an abstract idea, had been for a long time.
The next knock on the door brought her around in her crouch. Had to be the landlord this time. Roxie was closer, damn, she surged up but Roxie was already there opening the—oh good God, was that Zairn Lomond on her threshold?
Roxie cocked a hip. “Hello, strange, random man I didn’t call.”
“No need. I anticipate you, LoLo.”
“I called Astrid for—” He raised a large tote hanging on his index finger. “Ah, are we role playing, Errand Boy? I love it when we improvise. One note? Try it with less clothes next time. At least lose the shirt.”
His attention rose over his wife’s head as he removed his sunglasses. “Ariella, grab anything sentimental,” Zairn said, entering as Roxie raked through her bag and closed the door behind him. “And anything particularly fragile.”
“What? I—”
“Everything else will be packed and brought to you.”
“Brought to me? No. I have to speak to my landlord and—”
“That’ll be taken care of.”
“I’m still in lease—”
“We’ll compensate your landlord,” he said, hooking the temple of his glasses into his shirt.
“I didn’t ask for—I know the Colliers have money, I didn’t—”
“This isn’t Collier money,” he said and turned just enough to look at Roxie. “I work for her.”
The woman—who apparently hadn’t called her husband—came to them, hand full of… hair. Were those wigs? Blonde, brunette, tangled between different colored sunglasses. What the hell?
“Perfect. So perfect it’s almost like Jane packed it. Astrid is pure gold.” Roxie dropped everything back in, hand staying inside while addressing Zairn. “People are here?”
“Waiting for your instruction, Empress.”
Husband and wife oozed devotion in their back and forth.
“Salad?” Roxie asked. “Dunlap—”
“Even Ogilvie.”
“Mm, interesting. Ballard will—”
“It’s covered.”
Moving closer, Roxie relaxed her weight against him, tipping her head back to shine her broad smile on him. “You’re so efficient.”
“Thank you.”
“Businessy stuff?”
“Doesn’t exist,” he said. “Think I’d stay put when you’re punishing yourself?”
“You could’ve got your brownie points from calling,” Roxie said, slowly licking her upper lip.
“Don’t get laid over the phone, do I?”
“It’s been less than a week.”
“Too long,” Zairn said, stooping. “I’m jonesing.”
“Hungry boy.”
“New York’s just a blink away.”
“Hatfield will go crazy.”
“Got to give him something to look at; you’ll be too busy with your girl.”
“Some woman should really tie you down,” Roxie said, rising to her tiptoes. “What a prize you are, Casanova.”
Just before the couple got to the kissing, her senses spluttered back to life.
“What is going on?” Ariella asked.
Both heads turned to her.
“Right, sorry,” Roxie said, boosting away from her guy. “Ariella, this is my husband, Zairn—”
“I know who he is,” she said. “I don’t understand what—”
“Everything is under control.” Zairn was so… sure. Composed, completely in control. “We’ll empty your apartment, pay your lease—”
“Cam asked you to—”
“I haven’t spoken to Cam,” Zairn said.
“I thought he was your friend.”
“He’s family.”
“But you haven’t spoken to him?”
“No. My presence has nothing to do with him.” He hooked an arm around Roxie. “My wife has a compulsion, some might call it an addiction.”
“To what?”
“Helping people going through something.”
“No one has to—I’ll be fine.”
“But she won’t,” Zairn said. “The second she walked in with that camera crew, you were it.”
And she still didn’t understand.
“You don’t have to cover for him,” Ariella said, “neither of you. He’s a good guy and I get he’d do anything to help me, but—”
“Cam again?” Zairn asked. “You work for him. How personal we talking?”
“No, not personal. We—”
“They’re a teensy bit personal,” Roxie said, pinching her thumb and forefinger close. “A little, itty bit.”
“Is this another one of your girls’ no sex things? Or only sex things?”
“Cam doesn’t have sex,” Roxie said to her husband then double checked. “He doesn’t have sex?”
Ariella answered, “Not with me.”
Roxie nodded once. “No sex. You can be personal without the sex. We weren’t having sex between the end of the tour and New Year’s, you think that gave you the green to screw around?”
“I loved you. No other woman existed.”
“Cam could love Ariella.”
Her real name was just thrown around and it jarred every time.
“We’re not doing this for Cam.”
“No,” Roxie said. “I know. I’m just saying.” The beauty blew out a breath. “Two years. I’d bet he’s finishing himself off in the bathroom after kissing her though. Phew, that was hot.”
The kissing.
“There was kissing?” Zairn asked.
“Yeah.” Roxie gasped. “But no one else saw it. I don’t know if Thena knows.”
“Mimi was in the room?”
“Not while there was kissing.”
“But with the two of them?” Zairn asked. “She’ll know. She has your radar plus a few decades. She knows.”
Ariella didn’t want to think about that. “I have to finish packing and I’m waiting for my boss to call.”
Though he hadn’t said if he’d get back to her that day, or that month.
“You don’t have to worry about work.”
“Uh, I think I do. My bills say I do.”
“You will pay them, if not with Brooker, then with Rouge.”
Rouge? Who exactly was Rouge?
“Cam’s not going to fire you,” Roxie said, then appealed to her husband. “Is he going to fire her?”
“It’s Cam, so, no.”
“Kind of a risky game to make out with your employee then dump and fire them.”
“Which is why I say this now, beautiful wife, cut Knox some slack.”
Roxie’s eyes slunk upward. “Have I ever done that?”
“No, but you have to do it today.”
“What did he say? Did he come crying to Daddy?”
“That’s the last time I want to be referred to as Knox’s dad, but, no, I haven’t spoken to him. He’s got a lot on his plate and it’s Cam. He’s Knox’s hot button.”
“So instantly Ariella is to blame for something? She already said they aren’t having sex, she hasn’t corrupted the parfait Collier. And what do you mean Knox has a lot on his plate? Guy should be on Cloud Nine. We should get happy, chill Knox, not uptight and twitchy Knox.”
“You bring it out in him, Lo.”
“Mm,” Roxie said, unconvinced. “He can be protective of Cam—”
“But you’ll be protective of Ariella. Sometimes I think you two orchestrate being on opposite sides. Where’s all the goodwill from the wedding? Remember the cherry blossom… Jane’s face…”
Roxie exhaled. “Okay, I’ll be nice if he is. You can only use the cherry blossom thing for so long.”
“I have a feeling he’ll be lining up the big romantic gestures this year.”
“He better.” Roxie folded her arms, bag still on a forearm. “Where are my cherry blossoms?”
“You got your own TV show.”
“Because of me. And Jane could have her own show, if she wanted. She could have her own channel, she’s a Collier now.”
“It’s frowned on to rain live rabbits down from the sky.”
“That’s a technicality.”
“Want me to rain Gin & It from your showerheads? Rubies in your closet?”
“My closet is already full of rubies.”
“A shower of shoes could cause an accident,” he said, leaning in. “Our cherry blossoms happen behind closed doors.”
“Because what we are is not their business.”
“You got it, baby.”
Lovely as the sight was, she could, honestly, do without the display. Two people in love was one thing, but with their lives so together and their ability to be completely open and free with their relationship… The longer time went on, the more that seemed unattainable.
Roxie turned from Zairn’s kiss almost before it even made contact. She pushed back a step and set her certainty on Ariella.
“We should get back to the hotel.”
“The hotel?”
“It’s easier to police,” Zairn said.
“You can eat, sleep, walk around without people hammering at your door.”
Yeah, her building wasn’t exactly Fort Knox. “I appreciate that, but—”
“If you’d rather we build our base here…” Roxie’s drawn-out words suggested that wasn’t the best idea. “We can.”
“No,” she said and crouched just long enough to grab her purse. “Can you take me to Cam’s?”
The slow smile that formed on Roxie’s lips couldn’t have been more proud. “Oh, yes, honey, that’s definitely something we can do.”