Chapter 18

Riley

We'd parted ways after a few more minutes together, which was for the better. I was close to agreeing to just about anything he wanted. The goal was to build my career and give Mr. Ethan Lewis a good dose of reality, but it seemed like he was pulling me into fantasy instead.

The text I got shortly after getting back to my room and flopping down on the bed was a request for me to have dinner with him. I laughed at the thought of him trying to get through dinner without hitting on me, talking about his greatness or moving the conversation toward his cock in some manner or form. The guy’s modesty hadn't seen the light of day - ever.

I shot him a note back that I'd be in the kitchen at six and we could grab something to eat. After laying down the rules about the evening, I curled up in the bed and let my mind go wild. I'd not been daydreaming about what the night would have looked like if we were lovers in an old-fashioned movie for more than ten minutes when Deza walked in.

"You awake?" she whispered.

I rolled over and sat up. "Yeah. Just thinking."

"Everything all right?" She dropped down on the edge of her bed and ran her hands over her hair.

"Yeah. They're good. I'm excited about filming the boat scene next week. I love being out on the water." I propped myself up on my elbow and studied her. "You okay? You look like something is wrong."

"I'll be all right." She lay back and let out a long sigh. "I just wish I could figure out how to get Darren to trust me again. It's been ten damn years. It was a mistake to sleep with Zane. I know that now. Hell, I knew that then."

"Have you talked to him about it?"

"A million times." She turned over and crawled up into her bed. "He won't listen to me. He thinks that once trust is broken, that's it. There is no getting it back."

"Do you believe that?" I pulled the covers around me and snuggled under them, wishing I had some advice to share. I was nothing but a kid with a dream and very little positive life experience to back it up. There were days when I was surprised that I wasn't beside my mother, living the hard life in the midst of drugs and whatever else she'd gotten herself into.

"I don't know to be honest. I'd like to think I'm the kind of person that would give another person a chance if they fucked up, but I don't know if I would. Trust is such a delicate thing, you know? One lie can break it all apart."

I nodded, but kept silent. My lie about Jace was weighing heavy on me. I'd come clean with Ethan at the beach an hour before, but it still felt like a shitty move on my part. Compounding that was the lie about testing him in his kitchen during our first mentor meeting. He shouldn't trust me at all, and yet I knew that he did. He planned on the two of us protecting each other for a long time to come.

"Maybe I should just let it go." Deza's voice softened, lost steam.

"No." I sat up and brushed my hands over my hair. "No. You don't let it go. If you love him, you fight for it. He's worth fighting for, right?"

"Absolutely." She pressed her palms to her face. "You're right. I haven't been fighting. I've been tiptoeing around the edges of our fucked up relationship. I need to dive in deep and risk it all. Maybe then he'll see me for who I really am. I'm a good person. I was young and dumb."

"He'll see it. He's old and dumb now." I smiled as she chuckled. "Go all in. The worst thing that can happen is that you're rejected and then you get over it. You heal and finally move on."

"Have you always been an old soul?" She sat up and pulled her phone from her pocket. "I'm going to go call him while I have the nerve to do it."

"Good. I've got my fingers crossed." I moved to the edge of the bed and pressed my hands against my knees. "Deza."

She stood and turned to face me. "What?"

"I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm honestly considering Ethan's proposal for us to take care of each other."

"I think that's awesome. You guys are going to have to bind together. These films get harder and harder. Taking advice from the other and working to make sure-" She paused and tilted her head a little. "Wait a minute. Like protect each other or like... take care of each other."

"Both." I rolled my shoulders in and held my breath, waiting for the ass chewing.

"I see. Well, you're a woman. You know the consequences of giving yourself over to someone only to have the possibility of them rejecting you the next time. Ethan is a fickle creature. Just make sure if you decide to be stupid, and let's get this straight, I think you guys are being quite stupid, that you keep your heart out of the mix. He's an ass in the bedroom because of his issues."

"His issues?" I stood up as my stomach sickened. Why had I brought up my thoughts to sleep with Ethan with his agent? She and I were growing closer, but there was still a defined line between us. She wasn't my agent yet, even though she was taking care of me much better than Darren ever had.

"His size." She put her hands on her hips. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

"Why in the world would that be an issue? Men would pay millions of dollars to have what he has." Confusion raced through me. Was there more to the story that I wasn't getting access too?

"Yeah but, not that big." She let out a soft sigh. "Everyone sees what they want to see, Riley. I don't want Ethan to think I was talking about his personal life behind his back. He's like family to me. I'm just saying that he's way too big for most women, and he's incredibly frustrated because of it. It's not a joke or a positive scenario for him. He takes a huge risk every time he takes off his clothes. I honestly couldn't do that to myself if it were me."

"Wow." I sat back down on the edge of the bed. "It's that big of a deal."

"Absolutely. He's incredibly sensitive about it." She shrugged. "Do what you think is best, but you're going to have to understand that if you guys try each other on for size, the chances of that turning out as anything positive are slim to none."

I sat in silence, but nodded as she turned and walked out of the room. I couldn't remember having had a more awkward conversation in my whole life, and I'd been involved in a few doozies during my teenage years.

The conversation with Ethan over the size of his cock raced through my mind. He'd been so different after I teased him about it. I'd assumed he was just having another one of his emotional imbalances that he seemed prone to. That wasn't it at all.

Pulling out my phone, I pulled up his bio again and lay back on the bed. I had an hour before I needed to start getting ready for dinner and wanted to know more about him. If we were going to be friends or lovers or both, I needed to better understand who he was as a person. Who the man behind the mask was, and if I cared about him, or just one of the many faces he wore.