Chapter 9

“I don’t want to go back. Let’s just stay here. You can move in, we will start fresh in the morning,” Allison joked.

Drake wasn’t that far from agreeing to her plan. They had spent a great day together and he liked the idea of spending more time with her. Allison was certainly one of his top picks from the week and he couldn’t think of a single thing that he would change about her.

“How about we rest our eyes for just a moment before we go back?” Drake said as he pulled Allison next to him and yanked the covers up over them.

“We do have a few more rooms we need to christen,” she joked.

“Oh, God I can’t even move.”

“I know, I know, I was kidding. I think I’d fall over if I stood up right now. Let’s just stay right here and not move at all.”

“Allison,” Drake said in his manliest voice.

“Yes.”

“I need to tinkle.”

They both broke out laughing uncontrollably. Drake certainly couldn’t pull off the ‘tinkle’ word at all. It was so funny that he had made the effort, though. But Drake wasn’t able to carry off the word quite as well as her assistant Michael had done.

“You should definitely make that part of your vocabulary,” Allison said through her laughter that turned into tears.

“I think I’m going to throw it out there and see if I can surprise some people.”

Drake made his way to the bathroom and Allison hurried out to the front door to lock it and grab her cell phone. She was paranoid about being in her house without the door being locked because she’d had a few incidents with stalkers. They had been harmless fans who just wanted to get close to her, but Allison was still worried about them.

If a harmless fan could get into her house then someone who wanted to do her harm could easily get into the house as well. She had heard some wild stories from her friends about people and the lengths they would go to in order to get close to a celebrity.

“Put that thing down,” Drake said went he came out of the bathroom and saw Allison flipping through her phone.

“Just one more second. You can grab yours too, if you want,” she said as she flashed him a huge smile.

“That thing is super dangerous,” Drake said. “I think your smiles should be registered as weapons. You could get a guy to do just about anything.”

“My legs are insured for a million dollars. Maybe I should check into getting my smile insured, just in case.”

Drake made his way out to the living room to get his cell phone and check his messages. It was appealing that Allison also had a busy life like he did and had to check her phone every now and then. It would be difficult to be with a woman who didn’t truly understand what his life was like.

“Are you expecting someone?” Drake said from the living room.

“No, why?”

“There is a car in your driveway that just pulled in.”

Allison jumped up and threw her t-shirt back on as she ran out to the living room. She looked out the window and saw one of her least favorite people in the world. There weren’t many people that Allison could honestly say she hated. But the person sitting in her driveway was probably as close to hate as Allison had ever felt.

“Crap, it’s the Sun News Tabloid. Anytime I have someone over, even if it is just to visit. They come and run the license plate to see who it is. They are the biggest jerks in the world.”

Allison had dealt with the media and paparazzi for years and had thought she could handle them. But their underhanded tricks and ability to twist the truth made it impossible to even trust one of them.

Even when the story was very simple and clear, the paparazzi twisted it to their favor so they could sell it or make more money. Nothing they did was about sharing real honest facts with the public. Because the truth was that Allison’s life was really boring and that didn’t make for very good news stories.

Drake pulled his tuxedo pants on and before Allison knew what was going on, he had the door open and went straight up to the vehicle that was parked out there. Allison couldn’t hear what was said, but the conversation seemed pretty friendly and ended with Drake shaking the man’s hand and the man pulling out of the driveway.

As Drake walked back into the house he smiled from ear to ear at how easy it had been to get the man out of her driveway. He really didn’t know why people complained so much about the paparazzi. That man had been more than willing to have a decent conversation and said he had no problems with staying on the sidewalk next time.

“Geeze, what did you say to him?”

“I just reminded him that your driveway was private property and he could be arrested for being there. I suggested in the future that he park on the street and read your visitors license plates from there.”

“Drake! I don’t want him reading anyone’s license plates. And did you tell him who you were? Is that why he left so quickly?”

“No, I didn’t tell him, but I’m sure he’ll find out soon enough when he runs my plates.”

“You don’t understand. Those paparazzi are vultures. They won’t stop just because you asked them to.”

“He’s gone for now. Let’s get some rest and we will head back over to my house in a little bit.”

They climbed back into bed and within moments both Drake and Allison had fallen asleep. It was comfortable to be at her house and have the peace and quiet they both wanted. They didn’t have to worry about what time it was or where everyone else was at.

Unfortunately, they were so comfortable that they ended up sleeping right through the night and all the way to the next morning when the sun came up.

Drake was the first one to wake up and he looked at his watch and just smiled. He didn’t feel bad about spending the night with Allison. She had missed out on time with him all morning because he had been at work. But Drake did have a bad feeling about something and he just couldn’t figure out what it was. He felt like he was being watched or something like that.

He tried to shake the feeling as he looked around the room to see if Allison had a security system or something like that. But he couldn’t see anything that looked like a security camera. As he moved and adjusted himself in bed, Allison started to wake up as well.

“Good morning,” she said as she stretched her arms over her head.

Her hand hit the blinds and there was a quick movement outside the room. Drake jumped up and looked out the window just in time to see a man running away.

“I’ve got him,” Drake yelled as he ran toward the front door and flung it open.

“Drake, be careful. I’ve had stalkers. They can be dangerous,” Allison yelled after him.

She slid a pair of sweat pants on and made her way out to the front door to see if it had been a paparazzi or a stalker who had been looking in her house. But the closer she got to the living room the more noise she heard and it sounded like the click of cameras.

“Get back in the house,” Drake said as he stepped backwards from the front porch back into the house and shut the door.

He started to laugh at the crazy scene that was going on in Allison’s front yard. Obviously, the paparazzi didn’t care about threats of getting arrested. The man he had threatened was now in the front yard with a dozen of his friends taking photos of shirtless Drake as he ran out of the house to chase the man who had been looking in Allison’s window.

“Oh, yeah, that sometimes happens when they know the person who is staying over,” Allison said as she calmly went to the kitchen to get some coffee.

“That is insane!” Drake said as he looked out the window. “Does this happen often?”

“Not too much, but they all know I don’t drive, so when there is a car in my driveway they get excited. And seeing you last night probably got them really worked up. I bet they will get a couple thousand dollars for those shirtless photos of you.”

Drake couldn’t believe what he saw outside and he was impressed with just how well Allison handled it.

“So, what do we do now? How do we leave?”

“Oh, we can wait them out and stay in here, or just go out there and get our picture taken for them so they will leave.”

“That’s blackmail!” Drake said in disgust. “They can’t just stay out there until we come out.”

Drake obviously hadn’t been exposed to the level of paparazzi-hounding like Allison had. She knew that he was being naive but she just didn’t know how to describe just how ruthless they were to her. Most people thought that paparazzi were just like normal people and would follow normal people logic; but they weren’t normal people. The paparazzi followed their own rules and didn’t listen to the confines of society’s.

“Oh, yes. Actually, I’ve had them stay out there for two whole days before just waiting for me and a friend to leave. They are determined. If you actually want to get back to your house today we should just get dressed and go out and pose for a picture.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Allison laughed at how angry Drake was about the paparazzi. She was so used to them that it wasn’t something that bothered her at all anymore. Instead, she had learned to deal with it.

“There is one other option,” Allison said with her huge smile.

“What’s that?”

Just as Allison was about to tell Drake about her plan to distract the paparazzi, one of them jumped up from behind the couch and started taking a ton of flash photos before he ran out of the house.

“I’m calling the police,” Drake yelled out after the man. “Are you alright? He must have gotten in the house when I ran after the other one. Do you want me to call the police?”

Allison had shrunk down to the floor of the kitchen out of shock when the man jumped up. She had been in the home when a stalker jumped out before and tried to kiss her. It was scary as hell and she felt her body start to shake as she thought back to that incident. Luckily, this time it was just a paparazzi.

“I’m okay,” she said as she stood back up and steadied herself against the counter.

Drake locked the front door and made his way over to Allison. She trembled in his arms and he just wanted to do something that would help her calm down. Her hands shook as he wrapped them up in his.

“I’m sorry, that was all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone out and talked to that guy last night.”

“No, no, it’s alright. They are jerks. There is nothing I can do to change that.”

Drake held onto Allison as he pondered the situation. He hated that she felt so exposed to those paparazzi. They treated her much differently than they treated him anytime he had interactions with them.

“Is that your phone?” Allison asked as they both acknowledged the buzzing noise coming from the couch.

“Hello,” Drake said

“Turn the television to NBC, what the hell are you doing, Drake?” Samantha said into the phone.

“What do you mean?”

“Just turn it on and get back to the house, we need to do some damage control.”

“Where’s your remote?” Drake asked as he looked at the television.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, Samantha just said to turn on NBC.”

As Allison flipped the television on and turned it to NBC they both covered their mouths in shock as the entertainment news show of the night blasted their headline story.

“Drake Leblanc found having sex with two men in Hollywood,” the reporter said as a picture of Allison’s assistant and his boyfriend popped up on the screen.

“Oh, shit,” Drake said as he dropped his phone.

The Billionaire’s Hunt