Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Irina's phone rang, and she slowed the treadmill to a stop, her chest heaving with exertion as she fought to drag in a breath. Her leg muscles wobbled like Jell-O as she stepped off the machine, a result of the hour-long jog she had just endured as an excuse to stay hidden from Roman.
She couldn’t believe she had spilled her guts to him about the drugs.
She never told anyone her business—not even Aster, who was her assistant.
But Aster's loyalty, first and foremost, lay with Louis and the studio. She did her job, whatever she had to do, and Irina wouldn’t jeopardize that for her.
Seeing Roman’s anger on her behalf reinforced her decision to not take the medication.
Unfortunately, seeing that protective side of him had sent her heart skipping erratically in her chest. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had stood up for her like that.
Maybe never. Show business was cutthroat, and it was every man—or woman—for themselves.
Roman couldn’t care less what anyone thought about him, that much was obvious, and that confidence was a huge turn-on. So, she had done what any woman with a sense of self-preservation would do. She hid.
For the last three days, she had been practically under house arrest, and she was doing everything in her power to escape him every waking second.
She was terrified that if she spent more time with Roman, she would end up throwing herself at him again, and she couldn’t bear the rejection that was sure to follow.
She shuddered. No way. She swore she would never let him see how attracted she was to him.
She rolled her eyes as she picked up her phone from where it lay on the yoga mat and saw the number on the screen. She bit her lip, already dreading the conversation ahead. There was only one reason to be getting a phone call from the Butler County Jail back home where she had grown up.
“Hello?”
“Irina, thank God!”
She closed her eyes. “Hey, Mama. What’s up?”
She heard some shuffling in the background as Mama moved around. “I need your help, baby girl. These idiots arrested me, and they won’t let me out.”
She bit her tongue. That was precisely what happened when someone was charged with possession multiple times. Of course, it never occurred to her mother to follow the rules and not break the law. “Just do what they say, Mama.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” Mama cried on the other end. “I swear!”
Irina didn’t believe that for a second. Tears burned the back of her eyes. It was the same old song and dance, the same thing her mother had said the last four times. For years, she had held onto the hope that her mother would get her life together, but it never happened.
As soon as Irina turned eighteen and took full control of her finances, she set her mother up with a monthly allowance.
She thought her mother would have been happy enough to have a steady income, but she always complained that it was never enough.
Irina finally cut her off two years ago when her mother was busted again for possession.
Mama would never change, and Irina was tired of having her heart broken holding out hope that she would.
Her mind floated back to that awful day she had come home from school at ten years old.
The house was eerily quiet, and she hadn’t noticed Mama at first, lying prone on the couch.
As soon as she saw her mother’s eyes, glassy and lifeless from a drug overdose, she called the cops, who showed up within minutes.
It wasn’t the first time they had been at their house, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. It was, however, Mama’s first real stint in jail. When the judge sentenced her to eighteen months, Irina was sent to live with her grandmother.
Rosewood was a tiny town that housed little more than a handful of churches and a family-owned market, but Irina wasn’t going to complain about the lack of things to do; she was just glad to be free of her mother.
Gram took her to church for the first time in her life, and she quickly found her place there in the choir.
She eagerly anticipated those Sunday services, and that year-and-a-half was the best of her childhood.
When Mama got out of jail, she came to live with them, and for a while, things were better.
She kept her nose clean, or at least kept it from Gram, who wouldn’t put up with that behavior for a second.
During the summer Irina turned fifteen, everything changed.
Gram had been diagnosed the previous winter with cancer, and by spring it had spread into the rest of her organs.
She passed peacefully in the middle of the night the first week of June, and Irina mourned the one person who had truly cared about her.
Two days after Gram’s funeral, Mama packed up their tiny, beat-up Chevy and drove them back to Hartford, Kentucky. There, they moved in with Burt Henning. He was two years older than her mother, but they had gone to school together and apparently had reconnected over Facebook.
While Irina was glad to be back in her hometown with the friends she had left behind, she hated the situation at home.
Burt had a list of priors as long as his arm, and he always looked at her funny, his beady eyes hungry and calculating.
One day, about two months after they moved back, Mama sprang a surprise trip on her.
“Pack your things,” she had said. “We’re going to Nashville to visit a friend. ”
That friend, it turned out, was Earl Wieden, a talent agent.
Mama had apparently sent clips of Irina singing in the choir to various recording studios and agents, but Earl was the only one who had responded.
He listened to her sing and immediately presented her mother with a contract.
With the scribble of her signature and a quick goodbye, Mama had disappeared, leaving Irina with Earl while she went back to Burt and their life in Kentucky.
That thought drew Irina back to the present.
“Why doesn’t Burt help?”
“I’m not seeing him anymore.”
That was news to Irina. Her mother and Burt had been together for the past eight years. “What happened?”
“Oh, you’ll never believe it, Irina honey.” Irina barely held back a snort as her mother continued. “I was at Kroger a couple months back, and you’ll never guess who I bumped into.”
Irina sat on the yoga mat and tried to summon some interest as she stretched her sore muscles. “Who?”
“Your daddy.”
Irina blinked. “What?”
She wasn’t honestly even sure her mother knew who her real father was. All she had ever told Irina about him was that they had had a whirlwind affair before he had left her pregnant and alone.
“One thing led to another, and…” Her mother paused, and Irina could practically see her gesturing excitedly. “Well, we’ve been seeing each other ever since.”
“So, call him.”
“He—” There was a scuffle in the background, and Irina heard the agitation in her mother’s voice. “Just hold your horses! Why don’t you go do something besides harass innocent people? God. Anyway, Irina baby, I need you to send some money real quick-like so I can get outta here.”
Irina sighed. “I’m sorry, Mama. I can’t.”
On the other end of the phone, her mother sucked in an outraged breath. “You have to. This isn’t my fault! They set me up!”
Sure. Just like the other times. “I won’t do this anymore,” Irina replied quietly.
“You ungrateful little bitch! After everything I’ve done for you—”
Agony ripped through Irina’s heart at her mother’s harsh words, and tears stung the backs of her eyes, burning across the bridge of her nose. She swallowed down the lump in her throat so her mother wouldn’t hear it. “Goodbye, Mama.”
She hit the end button then dropped her phone to the floor as a tear slipped down her cheek. She thought by now she would have learned; people never changed. They put on a show, said all the right words, but deep down it was always the same.
Her mother was never going to change.
Angrily brushing the tears away, Irina pushed up off the floor and headed across the hall to her room.
The TV was on in the living room, and she hoped that Roman would stay there until she was out of sight.
He and Irina had been taking turns using the workout equipment that she had put in the spare bedroom.
So far, they had managed to stay out of each other’s sight. Now, she had to bite the bullet.
She quickly showered and dressed, then made her way out to the living room. Roman’s gaze snapped to hers as she paused at the end of the hallway. “I need to get out for a bit.”
He gave a little shake of his head. “No can do. Orders are to stay here.”
Her anger bubbled up and over—anger at her mother, her anger at whomever was sending her these ridiculous notes, her anger at Roman, the overbearing jerk she lusted after but could never have.
“I don’t care what your orders are. I’m leaving this house. You can either come or sit on the couch and wait for me to get back.”
Cutting at a diagonal across the room, she snatched her keys from the bowl on the hall table and made for the door that connected to the garage. She had just grabbed the handle when his hand appeared over her shoulder and slapped against the cool metal.
“Not a chance.”
She whipped around and shoved against him as hard as she could. The big jerk didn’t budge an inch, and it just pissed her off further. “I’m not your prisoner! This is my house, my life, and I’m done!”
Annoyance crossed his face. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
Hearing those words stung more than she thought they would. The bridge of her nose burned as she fought the tears stinging the backs of her eyes. She refused to let him see her upset, so she lashed back at him. “And you’re an arrogant prick.”
Without waiting for a reply, she reached behind her and grabbed the handle, then threw the door open. She stomped down the steps but was spun around as Roman grabbed her elbow, halting her progress.
“Seriously, Rina, stop.”
She glared up at him. “Let me go.”
His jaw tensed, and fire flashed in his eyes as he stared down at her. “No. Stop being a spoiled little brat for once in your life and learn to listen.”
The hand at her elbow tightened a fraction, and she pulled against his hold. He squeezed her arm, just enough to make a point, and she stumbled back as he released her. “You’re such a jerk. Of all the people in the world, why do I have to be stuck with you?”
He scowled at her. “Is that the problem? You want someone else?”
What she wanted was for life to go back to normal.
She wanted the police to catch the crazy idiot sending her love notes.
She wanted Roman to want her the way she wanted him.
She couldn’t stand to have him in her house, sleeping on her couch, knowing how much he despised her.
Was it too much to ask for some pot-bellied bodyguard she wasn’t attracted to in the least?
“Yeah,” she snapped. “Maybe it is.”
He gave a slow shake of his head, then finally extended his hand toward her car. “Fine. Let’s go. You and Knox can figure it out.”
She glared at him. “You should count yourself lucky you won’t have to put up with me anymore.”
She spun on a heel, then stormed to her car and slammed the door behind her. Using the app to lock her doors, she wasn’t paying attention and jumped when Roman knocked on the driver’s side window, a dark look on his face.
She cranked the engine and rolled the window down. “What?”
His blue eyes crackled with anger. “Do you even know where you’re going?”
She waved her phone at him. “GPS. I’ll figure it out.”
His jaw tensed and for a second, she thought he might drag her from the car and haul her back into the house. She held her breath until he huffed out a breath. “Fine. I’ll be right behind you.”
She let out a deep breath, then rolled up the window, watching in the rearview mirror as Roman climbed into his truck parked across the street and started it up.
She reversed out of her driveway, hit the button to lower the garage door, then put the car in gear and started down the street.
Throwing a glance Roman’s way, she saw him on the phone as he pulled a K-turn in the middle of the road and fell in behind her.
The voice from the GPS spoke up, telling her to make a right as the intersection at the end of her subdivision came into view.
Beyond the stop sign, cars whizzed past on the busy four-lane road, and she pressed down on the brake.
Her foot went straight to the floor, and her heart jumped into her throat as she pumped the brake several more times.
Cars became a colorful blur in her peripheral vision as she clenched her fingers around the wheel and sailed past the stop sign and right into traffic.