CHAPTER 93
“How did I not know this?” Cole exploded, throwing a Coke can against the wall, the contents splattering on some poor PA. “How did we not know this?” He held up a magazine and waved it wildly, the flap of its pages loud in the quiet room. I couldn’t see the cover from my seat, his motions too fast, but I had seen him reading it, had seen everyone reading it, copies passed out like candy. I hadn’t taken one. I had simply taken my seat at the end of the table and waited for punishment.
“We didn’t think we needed to do a full work up on her.” Some man I’d never seen spoke up, his hands nervously adjusting the bridge of his glasses. “I mean, look at her.” He gestured in my direction, and I looked down at the table, the chastised child. “We ran criminal, background, and porn searches—did the blood work. Everything came back clean.”
Porn searches? They talked about me like I was a prop in the scene, one without feelings or emotions or explanations. Though, as far as explanations went, I had none. What I had done was terrible. And whatever was printed in that magazine… it probably painted it exactly in that light.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” I spoke up from my corner of the table. “And it was years ago.”
“So you already know what this is about?” Casey rested her weight on the table, her long red nails matching her lips.
“My rehearsal dinner?” I guessed.
“The Rehearsal Dinner From Hell,” she read loudly, her words over enunciated, her fingers shoving a glossy cover in my direction. It skidded halfway down the table and stopped. No one furthered its journey, but I could see the cover picture from where I sat. It was Scott’s and my engagement photo. Some creative mind at the magazine had drawn horns on my head and given me a tail. I looked away and saw Cole, staring at me, his weight against the wall. Our eyes met, and I couldn’t look away. I tried. I failed.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Her voice rang out across the room, and I felt like I was eight years old, in Mrs. Wilson’s class, fessing up to forgetting to feed Sparky the Goldfish. I wanted to look at Casey, wanted to look at the floor, wanted to look anywhere but couldn’t pull away from Cole’s stare.
“Clear the room,” Cole spoke, a copy of the magazine crumpling in his fist. “I need to speak to Summer. Alone.”
No one moved, save for that Coca-Cola-drenched PA who started to stand, then realized no one else was, and plopped back down.
“I mean it.” Cole turned to Don, who sat next to Casey, his hands pressed to his temples. “Film the entry scenes. Have extras stand in for us. I want a chance to talk to her alone.”
Don looked at Cole for a long moment, then stood. No one, out of the ten who left, looked at me. It was three years ago, all over again.
When the door shut, I spoke. “Cole…” I didn’t even know what I had planned to say. I just knew I had to speak; we had to have something between us other than empty space.
“You should have told us. We can control something that we know about. This…” he set the crumpled magazine down on the table and tapped at its surface, “this we can’t control. Not now. Right now every tabloid and entertainment publication has someone, as we speak, getting on a plane and coming to Quincy. And they will talk to every one of your friends, and every Chatty Cathy they can find, and you will be a Trivial Pursuit answer before the end of the week.”
Every one of your friends. Ha. Good luck finding those.
“I don’t care.” I looked down at the table when I spoke, a dried glob of something… was it ketchup?… on its surface. With all of the Franks’ money, you’d think someone here would have cleaned that.
There was the sound of slickness on wood, and I turned my head, watching him walk down the long length of the table, his fingers braced on the wrinkly magazine, sliding it down.
Closer to me.
Three places away.
Closer to me.
Two places away.
He stopped. “Repeat that?”
I looked up into his face, and forgot, for a moment, how much I hated him. “I don’t care.”
“You will. Maybe you don’t right this second, but you will.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’ve been an outcast in this town for three years. I can’t imagine caring if some soccer mom in Nebraska also thinks I’m psycho.”
“It’s not just moms in Nebraska. It’s everyone in this industry.”
“No offense, but I hate your industry. This is a one-shot thing for me. Then I’m taking my money and running.”
“Really.” He laughed. “You get a lead role in a feature film, and then you are going to just disappear?”
I didn’t smile, I didn’t smirk, I just stared at him and made sure that he understood the words out of my mouth. “Yes.”
He slid the magazine the last seat length toward me and stopped. My thigh jiggled against the seat, and I wanted to stand, wanted to change this dynamic of him looking down on me, but I didn’t. I sat in my chair like a good little girl and tried not to look at the front of his pants. He half-sat against the edge of the table, pulling the magazine around and before me, and his new position was even worse. There, one leg cocked up, the other one on the floor, I could see the outline of him. He was not hard, but I… in this horrible situation, was turned on. I couldn’t help myself. It was a chemical reaction between us that didn’t understand anything else.
He moved his hand from the magazine, and I forced myself to look at that instead, at the glossy photo from a time when I thought that teasing my hair made me look sexier. It didn’t. It made me look trashier. I see that now, and I have no doubt the observation will be so helpfully pointed out by someone like Nancy Grace or Kelly Osbourne or… I swallowed hard. I told him I didn’t care, but part of me did. Part of me had just recovered from being ignored. I didn’t know if I had the strength to now be ridiculed.
When he said my name, it was an exasperated sigh, and I looked up to see him rubbing at his neck, his eyes closed, his features tight. “Summer…” he let my name fall and stretched his head back. “You are so different from every other woman I know.”
“Thanks.” I said the word without the slightest bit of sarcasm, and he laughed.
“Whether you value your reputation or not, we need you to meet with Casey. Let her do her thing. You may have to go on a couple of talk shows and tell your side of it.”
I frowned. I had a hang nail on my left thumb, and I picked at it, my hand twitching when my nail dug too deep. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” It was none of anyone’s freaking business; that was the truth of it. And plus, dragging out my drama with Scott now… when he had a wife and baby… it seemed dirty. Rotten. Whether or not I had forgiven him was secondary to the life he was currently living. A life, which was most likely already being rocked by this article.
“You don’t want to talk about it on camera? Or with me?”
I choked out a laugh. “With you? Why would you care?”
“I need to know if I should keep ambulances on speed dial for the crew.”
I twisted my mouth and tried to hide a smile. He was too close, sitting there. I could smell a hint of his cologne, and I wanted to lean forward and get more of it. “The crew? I’d be much more worried about you, Mr. Masten.”
“Don’t do that.” His words were husky, and I looked up in surprise, my hangnail forgotten and saw his eyes on mine, and in them… I have seen that look before. In my bedroom. Right before… well…
“Don’t do what?” I shouldn’t have asked the question. I should have looked back down and changed the subject. But I didn’t. I pressed.
“Call me that. Not here anyway.” He sat back in his chair, his stare still on me, that feral, dominant stare that told me exactly what he had on his mind.
“Then where, Mr. Masten?” I dragged out his last name, and his eyes darkened, the left edge of his mouth curving up. It was official. I was going to hell.
He chuckled. “I’m not playing that game with you. Last time I walked into my house with an erection the size of Texas and you weren’t there.”
“I’m here right now.” A woman I didn’t know, one who had hidden inside of me for a long time, stood up, emboldened by the look in his eyes, by his words. I reached up and undid the top button of my shirt, then the second, his eyes closing for a minute before he reached forward.
“Stop.” His hands closed on mine, and they were so warm, so strong. I looked up into his face, which was tight with regret. “Not here. I did a half-ass job with you last time. I’m not making that mistake again.”
I digested the words, then slowly nodded. “It was pretty half-ass.”
He laughed. “Easy, Country. You’re dealing with a movie star. We’re known to have fragile egos.”
I pulled my hands free and reached for my buttons, but he brushed my hands aside, his fingers doing the job, the simple act of a man buttoning up my shirt causing something in me to weaken. “Why are you suddenly being nice to me?” I didn’t look at him when I asked the question. I couldn’t.
His hands lifted from my top button and cupped my face, turning it up, forcing the connection of our eyes. “I broke something over a man’s head when I caught him fucking my wife.” He shrugged. “Maybe you and I are more similar than I thought.”
“Not likely.”
He pulled forward with his hands and brought my mouth to his in a kiss completely different than the others—a quiet and soft kiss, one that tasted me and then let go, my eyes still closed when his hands left my face. “Don’t push me away, Summer,” he said. “Right now, you need a friend.”
“A friend.” I opened my eyes, and he was right there, those famous green eyes on mine. I laughed to take away any relationship reference he might infer. “You?”
“Yeah.”
“I have to like someone for them to be my friend.” I stepped back and hit the chair, stumbled. Of course I did. I couldn’t have one well-executed semi-witty comeback.
“Do you have to like someone to fuck them? Tonight?” My attention turned from the execution of my dramatic exit and back to him. He sat, hunched forward, against the side of the table, his hands now gripping its edge, his eyes tight to mine.
“Tonight?” I stalled, and I could literally feel the stick of my panties to me.
“Yes.” If eye contact had a leash, his would have been wrapped tightly around my heart.
I had a plethora of options in my response:
Oh… sorry. The Bachelor’s on tonight.
I have to run lines due to your incessant script changes.
Yes, I do have to like someone to fuck them, so no, tonight is not good.
I said none of those. When it came to him, I could only nod. Just off the cliff that I was going to eventually trip down anyway. “I’ll see you tonight, Mr. Masten.”
His mouth twitched, and his shoulders loosened a little. “Good.”
I had absolutely nothing intelligent to say to that. I swallowed, reached for my bottle of water, and headed for the door.
When I opened it, Casey stood there, her arms folded, nails rapping. “Let’s go, Summer. Right now. We need a game plan.”
I let out a deep sigh and let her take me. Through the kitchen and into the office. I let her walk me through containment and recovery process, one that would involve little on my part other than to behave. I nodded politely, tried to listen but all I could think about was my face on that cover, the words in those pages, what they’d say and how they’d paint me.
And, for the first time since he landed on this spit of country soil, I appreciated Cole’s magnetic sexuality, the obsession my skin seemed to have for his touch. Because the only thing I could focus on—the only light at the end of my tunnel, through Casey’s lectures and pen taps and gripes of dismay—was the fact that in just hours, I’d be at his house. I’d have his hands and his mouth on me. And I knew, in that moment, I wouldn’t be thinking about Scott, or The Rehearsal Dinner From Hell, or the article at all.
He would be my distraction. He would be, for this one night, my salvation.