CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Paige stared into the dredges of her glass of bourbon and felt absolutely nothing. The numbness that set in was a welcome relief from the burning agony she’d felt on set for the last four hours of shooting.
He’d pounced on her the second she stepped foot on site. And she’d held him off with the iciest look she could muster.
“Now is not the time or place. Let’s be professionals,” she’d said coldly.
He’d tried to argue, had been ready for a throw down in front of everyone, but Cat had stepped in, dragging him off. Paige didn’t know what Cat said to him, but the sisterly advice had kept him away from her, and by the time Andy called cut on the last take, Paige was halfway to the van.
But once in her room, she felt the walls closing in on her, and she knew sooner or later he’d find her here. Or he wouldn’t. He could be too busy entertaining Meeghan.
The woman hadn’t returned to the set, and not a word was said about her by anyone. So Paige could only assume Meeghan was waiting on her shapely ass in the hotel’s air conditioning for Gannon to wrap for the day.
She kept her phone off, even left it in her room so she wouldn’t be tempted to listen to the voicemails or read the texts and then walked until she found a crappy bar. The bar top was sticky, and her barstool cushion was ripped, but at least no one knew who she was and what she’d lost today.
The bartender, a straight-faced beauty with an expertly drawn cat eye in black liner, pointed to her nearly empty glass. “Another?”
“Sure,” Paige said, neither enthusiastic about or opposed to the idea of drowning her troubles. She’d started with a beer and found it lacking before switching to the brand of bourbon Gannon had brought her once in a different hotel room in a different state.
The bartender poured. “Penis?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Paige blinked.
“Usually the only thing that makes a woman look the way you look is a penis that turns into an asshole.”
Paige snorted despite herself. How apt. “That’s a pretty accurate assessment,” she nodded.
The woman put the bottle back on the top shelf. “Eventually you learn they’re all assholes in their own special snowflake kind of way.”
She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, Paige noted without surprise. “So what are we supposed to do?”
She shrugged strong, lean shoulders. “Love ‘em anyway or switch teams.”
Paige drank to that.
“I don’t suppose your guy is ripped and tatted and looks like he wants to murder anyone who gets in his way?” the bartender asked, her tone conversational.
Paige’s gaze flew to the doorway where Gannon, his hard jaw set and his fists clenched at his side, stared at her. “Fuck.”
“Is this a cop matter?” the bartender asked blandly.
Paige shook her head. “No, just a temper tantrum waiting to happen.”
“There’s a back door through the kitchen if you need it.”
Gannon strode to her and then seemed to battle with himself when he got within striking distance. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped.
Paige could have iced him out if he led with a half-assed apology. She could have ignored him if he pleaded with her to listen to his side. But jumping on her as if she was the one who did something wrong?
The fuse was lit, and detonation was imminent.
“How dare you!” Paige hissed at him. The bartender eyed them from arm’s reach of the greasy phone mounted on the wall. “What the hell is wrong with me? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. The guy I’ve been sleeping with has been cheating on me with his girlfriend who showed up at my job and humiliated me today. That’s what’s wrong with me, you imbecilic asshole!”
“You get pissed off over a misunderstanding, freeze me out, and then I have to come looking for you, and I find you drinking alone in a bar in a city you don’t know!” Gannon plowed down his list of Paige’s offenses.
“A misunderstanding?” Her voice had reached dog whistle heights. She knocked back the rest of her drink, threw some bills on the bar, and rose. She wobbled a little and then righted herself, turning on him. “You want a fight? You got one. Let’s go.” She threw a little salute to the bartender and stormed out the front door.
He didn’t let her go far. She’d barely made it to the curb when he gripped her upper arm with surprising force. “Stop it.” He gave her a little shake that rattled her teeth, and she rounded on him.
“You’re giving me every reason in the book to break that pretty face of yours,” she warned him, enjoying the slow burn of alcohol and anger mix in her gut.
He hauled her down the sidewalk, ignoring the looks they got from the handful of late night wanderers. Paige noted none of them seemed remotely interested in intervening.
“Let go of me!” She tried yanking her arm free, but he only tightened his grip. In an impressive show of immaturity, Paige tried to kick him in the shin. She missed, catching him instead in his muscled calf. He solved the problem by slinging her over his shoulder and carrying her the half block to his pick-up truck.
He put her down and caged her against the door with his arms. “Now, I’m going to put you in this truck and you’re going to stay put and listen.”
She glared at him, her hair disagreeably falling over one eye. He brushed it back for her. “Please.” The word sounded like it pained him.
She didn’t agree, and he didn’t wait for it. He opened the passenger door, manhandled her inside, and strapped her into the seat. When he slammed the door, he locked the truck with the key fob to slow her down if she tried to make a break for it before he could get behind the wheel.
Paige didn’t want to run. For once in her life, she wanted to fight.
Gannon climbed in and relocked the doors but didn’t make any moves to start the truck. “What in the hell were you thinking?”
Paige waded in with every ounce of hurt and rage that her body held. “I’d ask you the same thing, but judging from Meeghan’s, rack I can take a wild guess.”
Gannon slapped the steering wheel. “There is nothing between me and Meeghan!”
Her gasp fogged up the windshield. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think I have no mental faculties whatsoever, and I’ll just decide that I’m fine being the other woman?”
“I expect you to trust me! Do you honestly believe that I’d put you in that position? How can you think that?” Volcano Gannon had just erupted. But this time, it wasn’t Paige’s job to calm him down and refocus him.
“Trust you? Your girlfriend—that I asked you about repeatedly—showed up on set to surprise you, suck your face off, and then I saw you dragging her into your hotel room!”
That shut him up for a second. “Ah, Christ. That wasn’t what it looked like, Paige.”
The look she shot him would have felled a lesser man.
He clenched and relaxed his fists, took a deep breath and then another. “Look, I know exactly how it looked and how that sounded. I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry you were ever put in that position. But I thought you knew me. I thought you trusted me.”
“You aren’t making any arguments about the facts, Gannon.”
“What the fuck do you want me to say? That that,” he gestured in the direction of the hotel, “could never on its best day be real? That it never was anything and that it kills me that you don’t believe me or that she thought she could come in here and stir up trouble for you so she could get attention and ratings? She’s a fucking piranha, and she’s nothing to me. It was the network, and I told you that.”
She felt it, that unwelcome spark of hope burst to life inside her aching heart. But she shook her head, trying to ward it off. He lied. He made her look and feel like a fool. Her job, her reputation, was at risk because he’d played games with her.
“Don’t shake your head, Paige. That was never real. But what I feel for you and what I think you feel for me? That’s fucking real. I need you Paige. I…”
He trailed off fighting the words.
“Just say it,” Paige murmured, staring woodenly at the dashboard.
“I love you.”
She took the words like a hit, crumpling in on herself. Nothing he could have said could have produced more pain than those words.
“I had my suspicions,” he continued. “But when you walked off set today, I felt like I was watching my life walk away. And I knew. I love you, Paige, and you’re killing me by not trusting me.”
“Don’t you dare say that! Not now, not because of this. That’s cruel, and that’s one thing I never thought you were,” Paige said with a sob. No, she didn’t want the hurt. She didn’t want those words as an apology. She wanted to get back to the anger. It was safer, meaner.
She reached for the door handle, but Gannon was grabbing for her over the console. “Don’t go.” She heard the desperation, the pain, and hated how her skin heated at his touch.
“You can’t go,” he said as if he’d made the decision for her and that was that. She shoved at his hands, but he was pulling her back. When she turned to tell him exactly how much she hated him in that moment, his mouth was so close.
Looking back, she couldn’t remember which one of them made the move, but in one heartbeat they were fighting each other, and in the next their mouths were fused together. There was so much heat, so much anger, in the kiss.
It felt mean and desperate and needy. His hands were everywhere, and it vaguely registered to Paige that hers were greedily trying to drag him across the console to her. She needed him like oxygen.
His lips bruised hers, teeth dragging over her, tongue delving into her. “I love you, Paige. I love you so fucking much.”
She barely heard the words over the racket of her heart pumping thickened blood through her veins. She tasted something salty but didn’t care. She poured herself into the kiss. But it was Gannon pulling back.
“Honey,” he breathed, his voice ragged with pain. Gannon dragged his thumbs over her cheeks, and it was only then that Paige realized she was crying. “Please don’t cry. You’re killing me, Paige.”
He pulled her to him again, but this time it was to cradle her against his chest. He kissed the top of her head, and her heart broke just a little bit more. This was the Gannon she knew, the Gannon she wanted. But who was the man who dragged Meeghan Traxx into his hotel room?
He couldn’t be both.
“Take me back to the hotel, please,” she said, her voice flat as she looked away from him and leaned against her door.
“Paige—”
“I can’t do this Gannon. You obviously have things that need to be worked out, and I can’t risk my reputation on a mess like this. Not when I’m so close to really doing something.”
Without his warmth, she felt cold, empty. Alone.
“This isn’t over.”
“It is for tonight.”