Ten
Keaton stared at the monitor above the bar in his hotel’s lounge, but he wasn’t watching the game. His mind kept twisting and spinning all the possible reasons Brooke hadn’t texted or called him back yet. His fingers wound around his phone in a death grip so he’d feel it vibrate in case he couldn’t hear it ring above the noise around him.
Still, he kept checking the screen.
Still, no contact from Brooke.
He hadn’t decided if that was good or bad, but he was leaning toward the latter.
“Stop with the gloom and doom,” Cam said before tossing another few kernels of gourmet popcorn in his mouth. “Cruella DeVille is probably punishing her by forcing her to polish all her shoes or making her clean out the chimney or something.”
“That’s only one of the options I’m afraid of.”
“When she calls, she’ll be a whimpering mess, and you can bring her to your room and make her feel all better. Think about that and stop pouting.”
“I’m not pouting. I don’t fucking pout.”
Cam laughed, turned his head to the woman sitting next to him, and said, “Hey, gorgeous. Do you have a mirror I could borrow for a second?”
The woman grinned, her eyes bright. She’d been waiting for an hour for one of them to notice her. “Um, I think so…”
When she started looking through her purse, Cam said, “Good. I want to show this idiot what pouting looks like.”
“God, you’re an ass,” Keaton told Cam. Then said to the woman, “He owes you a drink.” He glared at Cam. “Buy her a drink, you idiot, and apologize.”
“That’s okay,” she said, drawing Keaton’s gaze. “I was really more interested in you. But I was hoping you weren’t quite so…nice.”
A hoot of laughter rolled out of Cam and fisted in Keaton’s gut.
He turned on his stool and faced the woman. “What the hell is it about me that makes you think, at first glance, I wouldn’t be nice?”
The sweet exterior melted away as the woman pulled out her attitude. She slid off her stool, crossed her arms, and tilted her head as she approached. When it was obvious she had no intention of stopping until she was between his legs, Keaton put out a hand and stopped her at arm’s length.
“That rock-hard body. The grungy jeans and boots.” Her hand took a fold of his light leather jacket between her fingers and rubbed. “The way you wear leather. The way you walk, the way you sit, the way you drink. Your scowl, those dark, intense eyes.” She laughed softly, sensually, with a small shake of her head. “A better question would be what about you doesn’t make me think rough, hard, screaming-great sex? Mmmm, and these scars. God, I love the scars…”
She lifted one hand toward his face.
Keaton grabbed her forearm, and her eyes widened a little. “Did I give you permission to touch me?”
A low laugh bubbled up from her throat. A hot, I-knew-it, you’re-exactly-what-I’m-looking-for laugh that added fuel to Keaton’s anger and hurt to his impending loss. Because if he couldn’t work things out with Brooke, this was what waited for him.
Superficial, hedonistic fucking for physical release.
After experiencing the kind of connection he’d craved for years yet not even known he’d needed until he’d found Brooke, the thought of hooking up with strangers again left him absolutely hollow. The fact that his past and his actions today might have pushed him closer to that barren place tested his temper’s limit.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice low and hot. “Just like that. But let’s do it upstairs—”
He shoved her hand away and opened his mouth to tell her to go to hell.
“Mr. Holt.” A man approached, breaking Keaton’s focus and defusing his frustration. He looked into the very familiar face of a desk clerk named Leroy. The man’s dark eyes held Keaton’s purposely, but the easy Southern air he always had was still in place. “A word?”
Cam took over with the woman, buying her a drink. Keaton turned his back to the others. “Hey, Leroy. What’s up?”
“You okay, son? You looked like you were about to start a fight off the set.”
By now, Keaton was on a first-name basis with everyone at the hotel from the managers to the maids. Leroy might have been a decade younger than Keaton’s own father, but the man still called him son. “It’s just been one hell of a long day. What’s going on?”
“This was just dropped off for you.” He held an envelope. “I saw you come in here, and I was on my way out, so I thought I’d swing it by on my way to the car.”
Keaton exhaled and frowned, taking the envelope from him and looking at the smooth, swirly handwriting on the front. Even though the hotel was filled with movie people—production assistants, crew, minor cast members—only key people had his cell number. This could be anything from an interview request to a schedule change to a script modification someone wrote down at the last minute and asked their assistant to hand off to him.
Even though there was only one assistant he cared about right now, Keaton pulled open the unsealed flap and drew out the folded paper inside. “Know who it’s from?”
“Pretty little thing. She came into the lobby, asked to leave it for you, and…”
Leroy’s words faded as Keaton scanned the note and focused on the signature: Brooke. A lick of alarm burned in his gut, and he was on his feet, turning toward the hotel lobby, even while he read the note.
My time in Austin has been cut short. It was fun, but I’m on to my next adventure. Take care. Brooke
“What the…?” He looked up and scanned the hotel lobby. “Where? Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Leroy said in that slow Southern drawl. “She was headed out when I started over here. Got waylaid at the door by one of those director types…”
Keaton rushed to the opening between the hotel lobby and the restaurant, but Brooke wasn’t among those milling there.
He scanned the front doors and sprinted that direction. He hit the metal bar on an exit door, slamming the door open and scanning the drive. A black Lincoln town car sat off to the left, the engine running.
And Keaton caught the split-second sight of Brooke’s dark head disappearing inside. Disbelief clashed with confusion and exploded in anger. He sprinted to the car as the driver turned to look over his shoulder, preparing to pull away from the curb.
“Stop!” he yelled at the same time he slapped his hand against the windshield on the passenger’s side. But he didn’t even pause to see if the driver looked his way before he lunged for the back door handle. “Brooke?”
And when he dragged it open and found a stunned, borderline-angry Brooke staring back at him, the wall Keaton had erected to hold his hurt back crumbled.
“What in the fuck is going on?” he demanded.
“Hey,” the driver yelled back at him. “Get away from the car—”
“Henry,” Brooke said to the driver. “It’s okay. I know him.”
That—like everything at the moment—hit Keaton wrong. “You know me? What, like you know the valet? Like you know the desk clerk? What does that mean?”
“Keaton, please don’t—”
“What the hell is happening, Brooke? Why haven’t you returned my calls? Why are you leaving? And were you seriously going to bail with nothing more than a fucking note?”
The truth showed on her face. She’d been about to do exactly that. But she didn’t look guilty. She released her seat belt and stood from the car with an air of let’s-get-this-over-with dread.
And when she met his gaze, those beautiful blue eyes that had always held such a spark or passion or affection were now flat and resigned. The sight stabbed at his heart. And he knew instantly what had happened.
“Jillian fired you, didn’t she?”
Her gaze slid away, and she drew a deep breath to speak, but everything in her expression, everything in her posture, told him she was already gone. She’d already shut him out.
“It was inevitable,” she said. “Bad timing, but there really wouldn’t have been a good time.”
She was working that positive streak hard, but she still sounded miserable. As miserable as Keaton suddenly felt.
“Why didn’t you call and tell me?” he asked, guilt flooding into his gut. “I can talk to her. If I can’t get her to change her mind, there are other avenues, Brooke, legal avenues—”
“No.” Her rejection was sharp and resolute, and it sparked anger in the pit of his stomach. “You cannot talk to her. It’s over. She’s made up her mind.” Brooke lowered her gaze, took a breath, and softened her tone. “Look, our time together was great, but we both knew it was ending soon. Like I said in the note, it’s just time for me to move on.”
“Move on?” The sparks inside him caught fire. He stepped around the door, took her by the arms, and turned her to face him. But even without the door between them, there were still barriers. Her barriers. “So you can find another adventure? Is that what I’ve been to you?”
“Keaton, this isn’t a big deal.” But now she sounded a little more like Keaton felt, distressed and upset. She tried to pull away. “Tomorrow you’ll find someone new, and—”
“Don’t.” He held tighter, desperate to get her to listen. To admit she didn’t want to walk away from him. “Don’t minimize what’s between us. I know it happened fast, but you know it’s real. This isn’t you. This is her. Don’t let Jillian do this.”
Brooke’s gaze cut to his, and a flash of hurt there burned so deep, it stole his breath. “No, Keaton, this is you. You did this.” Hurt gave way to anger, and she yanked her arms from his grasp. “You know what she’s like. I warned you what would happen. I asked you not to confront her, but you did anyway. And just like I said in the beginning, if she caught even a hint of favoritism toward me, I would be the one to suffer.”
“I didn’t show favoritism. I purposely made a point to include her treatment of everyone on the cast and crew so I didn’t look partial. You think I’d do that?” That cut him. Deep. “You think I’d deliberately hurt you?”
“Brooke, honey…” Their gazes both swung toward the driver, who was standing in the open driver’s door. “We have to go, or you’ll miss your plane.”
She nodded and turned back around but didn’t meet Keaton’s gaze. “None of this matters…” Suddenly, she sounded broken, as if the bottom had dropped out of her fight, and another wave of guilt crashed through Keaton. “This is why I left you the note. Because I knew this would happen. Because I didn’t want to end things like this.”
“Miss the plane, Brooke,” he pleaded softly, running a hand over her hair. He craved the feeling of her leaning into him. Yearned to hear the word “Yes” from her lips. “Let’s talk about this.”
A sound escaped her, part exhale, part sob. She shook her head, straightened her shoulders, and met his eyes in a soldier-like way that left Keaton bemused. “Sorry, I can’t. I have to get home. I need to get back to my family.”
Another stab cut Keaton, this one dead center through his heart. She turned away, but he grabbed her arm to stop her. “I’m only asking for enough time to talk this through, Brooke, because I already think of you as family.”
A tremor passed through her small frame. Her free hand gripped the doorframe, and she turned back to him with the strangest expression, one he could only identify as a mix of agony and affection.
“It’s over, Keaton…” Her voice shook, but the words cut Keaton straight down the middle. “Let me focus on what matters.”