Chapter Sixteen
I want to hear it too goddamn much.
The words floated to the forefront of Quinn’s pleasure-saturated brain, as strong but surprisingly gentle fingers pushed her hair back from her face.
Forever. He wanted forever. With her. She lifted her cheek from his chest and pressed her lips to the spot where his heart thundered. Vaguely, she realized the tide had caught them. Waves swirled over their tangled legs while they lay in the sand like shipwreck survivors washed up on shore.
“You think you can handle forever with a neurotic, narcissistic actress?”
Another hand, not quite as gentle, smacked her ass. Over her startled yelp, he said, “I know exactly how to handle you, Trouble. Think you can handle forever with an arrogant fitness Nazi with…what was it again?”
“The world’s smallest dick?” She laughed at the memory. “I…um…” Laughter dissolved into a shivering sigh as he slowly slid the dick in question out of her swollen, orgasm-sensitized body. “I might have been wrong about that part.”
The comment earned her ass another playful slap. “Might have?”
“Ow! Okay. Okay. I was wrong.” In self-defense, she reached between them and wrapped her fingers around him. He twitched in her hand. “And yes, I know exactly how to handle you.” And then, because this was an important moment, despite how irreverently she’d asked her question, she went on. “I don’t need someone to focus solely on me to feel like I matter to them. We both have professional commitments. I don’t want to get in the way of yours ever again, or drag you into the middle of mine.”
The corner of his mouth lifted into a half smile. “I’m not worried.” He ran his thumb along her cheek. “We’ll work out the logistics—”
The chime of a phone in the distance put some turbulence under her soaring heart.
“That’s you,” he said, and gave her butt a reassuring squeeze before releasing it, shifting them both into a sitting position, and handing her waterlogged bikini bottoms back to her.
Indecision tore at her, but family worry won out. She took the bikini and scrambled up. “I better check. Callum might have surfaced.”
She snagged her top from the sand on her way to where they’d parked the bikes. Her phone fell silent in the outer pocket of Luke’s backpack. After slipping her bottoms on, and looping the top around her neck, she lifted her phone, tapped the screen and saw Eddie had called. A text from him arrived in the next second. Two words, all caps. CALL ME!
Sensing Luke behind her, she glanced over her shoulder and tried for calm. “Eddie. He wants me to call.” Jesus. So much for her acting ability. She sounded like a nervous wreck. Apparently Luke picked up on it, because warm, steadying hands folded over her shoulders. For a moment, she let herself lean against him. Let his strength support her. Seep into her.
“It will be okay, Trouble. Trust me. Whatever happens, I’m here.”
She swallowed the ball of emotion trying to choke her throat, and managed a nod. After hitting the call icon, she wedged the phone to her ear with her shoulder, and reached behind her to tie her bikini top.
Luke’s long, nimble fingers took over the task. The second ring ended abruptly as someone picked up on the other end.
“We have a problem.” Eddie’s no-nonsense voice snapped over the line.
“Callum?” Her pulse raced, thrumming loud in her head. She pressed the phone more tightly to her ear.
“No. I haven’t heard from him, and none of the feelers I put out have come back with anything yet. Quinn, this is about you.”
Worry for her brother subsided slightly, but a nameless new anxiety licked along her spine. “Me? What have I done? I’ve been here.”
“You posed for some pictures. Based on how you look, I’m going to say the photo session occurred about six weeks ago. Needless to say, they were not your best shots.”
“I posed for pictures? Impossible. I haven’t had a shoot since…” Her mind went blank.
“There are four shots—one from every angle. You’re wearing underwear.”
“Those sound like my—” Her world took a sickening turn, and only the solid feel of Luke at her back stabilized her. “Oh God. I know what they are.”
“They hit the tabloids today. All four. Along with some snide speculation about whether the Lena Xavier cat suit comes with Spanx.”
“That’s impossible.” A fog of denial clouded her thoughts, and refused to lift. “I’m the only one who has them.” Except Luke. He had them, of course, because he’d taken them, but he wouldn’t share them with anyone. “A hack?”
“Doubtful,” Eddie said. “We set you up with state-of-the-art security. I wouldn’t let any of my clients run around with anything less. Once you’ve had a high-profile client’s personal data compromised, and experienced the joy of FBI agents sniffing around your systems searching for the source of the security breach, you get to be kind of a stickler about stuff like that. But Quinn,” he went on, “how they leaked is a secondary issue at the moment. What matters is the studio brass panicking. The Dirty Games executive producer called me a half-hour ago wanting to cancel your contract. I told her the pictures are old, and you’re in the best shape of your life. Then I talked her into meeting with us before she made the stupidest decision of her career.”
“When?” She forced the word through numb lips. The cold seeped bone deep. Sharp, icy pain lanced through her chest.
“Tomorrow afternoon, at the studio. Lisa’s booking your return flight as we speak. She’ll send you the itinerary as soon as it’s final.”
“Just sent it,” his assistant broke in. “You fly out this evening. Everything is taken care of. A car will pick you up from the villa in ninety minutes.”
“Okay. All right.” An hour and a half to get back to the resort. Clean herself up. Pack. She scrubbed a hand over her face. “I have to get moving.”
“Get moving,” Eddie agreed. “And Quinn?”
“Yes.”
“If you want to keep the role, focus on this. Focus on knocking them on their asses during the meeting tomorrow, because you need to convince them you’re the only actress on the planet who can play Lena. I know you’re worried about Callum, and you’re wondering how the tabloids scored those pictures. I’m on both of those situations. Don’t waste time and energy speculating on the what-ifs. I’ll update you as soon as I know anything.”
“Thanks Eddie. I—” She wanted to tell him there was only one other possible source for the photos, but the words wouldn’t come out. “Thank you.”
“This is why you pay me fifteen percent. Travel safe, and bring your A game to the meeting.” With that, he clicked off the line.
Behind her, Luke’s hands stilled. She stepped away from him, and despite the heat of the day, a prickly chill tightened her skin. She dug deep for the nerve to turn and face Luke. He stared at her, eyes intense, his handsome face full of concern.
“What’s going on, Trouble?”
“There’s a problem.” You were careless, or your security sucks, or… “I have to go meet with the Dirty Games producers pronto and fight for a role I already won once.” Her clothes lay in a little pile on the sand where she’d dropped them…what? Twenty minutes ago? Funny how forever could go by so quickly. Trying to keep her mind blank, she picked up her shorts and dragged them on.
“Why?”
“I don’t have time to get into it.” Frustration sharpened her tone. She turned away and pulled on her shirt before adding, “I have a plane to catch.”
“Talk to me, Quinn.”
Not a question this time. A command. One she planned to ignore, but when he took hold of her upper arm and tugged her around to face him, she lost her battle for self-control. “The ‘Before’ pictures you took of me are all over the goddamn internet. The producers are freaking out. They called Eddie to kill my deal. He talked them into meeting with me in person first. But if I don’t measure up to their expectations, then…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
He simply stared at her for a moment, while the implications seeped in. “Then it’s their loss and you’ll get another role.”
“Yeah, right. I don’t know what color the sky is in your world, but in mine, it’s not quite so rosy. Word will get out that they fired me because I didn’t look the part. My reputation will take a hit. I’ll be lucky to land a commercial, much less another movie, and I need to work. Callum’s rehab doesn’t come cheap, and if we ever find him, clearly he’s going to have to go back.”
He ignored the tirade and focused on the million-dollar question. “Who has access to your digital photos?”
“Nobody. They didn’t come from me,” she replied. “If you really want the answer to that question, I suspect you’ll have to look a little closer to home.”
“You think someone got them from me?” He released her and shook his head. “That’s impossible.”
“Look, you rarely deal with celebrity clients anymore, so cybersecurity probably isn’t much of a priority for you. Or maybe someone on your staff decided to make a quick buck?” She shoved her foot into her shoe. “Let’s just call it an oversight, unless and until the facts say different.”
“No.” His voice was soft, but with underlying steel, like freshly poured concrete over rebar. “We secure all our electronics. We have to. We handle peoples’ confidential health information and we fully comply with the privacy regulations applicable to that data. Add to that, my staff’s ethics are beyond question. Regardless of the conclusions you’ve drawn about my business, I run a professional operation. Granted, nothing’s impenetrable, but in this case, I guarantee nobody hacked your photos from McLean Fitness files, and no member of my team was involved in leaking them.”
She shoved her other shoe on, and then braced her hands on her hips. “How can you be so sure?”
He pulled his phone out of the backpack, and then stepped up until they stood toe-to-toe. “Because the photos never went farther than right here.” He held up his phone and tapped the screen. “I took the shots, I sent them to you, and then I deleted them. Nothing goes to a cloud. Nothing goes to a storage app. And nobody has access to my texts except me. So you see Quinn, if you’re saying the pictures came from my end, what you’re really saying is the pictures came from me.”
A fist of dread gripped her lungs, and made it hard for her to pull in air. She stepped back. “I don’t have time to discuss this right now.”
He stepped forward. “Do you really think I’d sell you out? Why would I do that?”
A fragment of their conversation from that morning floated through her mind.
I love a grand gesture as much as the next girl, but this has real consequences for you. For your business. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
It will work out. I have a contingency plan.
“You had a contingency plan,” she whispered. “Those sites pay good money for really embarrassing celebrity dirt.
His eyes narrowed. “Holy shit, woman. In case you missed it, I just spent five weeks of my life helping you keep this role.”
“And then forfeited payment, which put a dent in the books of the important, life-altering business you run.” The fist around her chest tightened. “Meanwhile, my career is nothing but a stupid ego jerk-off anyway. I’ll get another role, right?”
Dead silence met her question.
“Right. Enough said. Get out of my way, Luke. I have to go.” Tears threatened. Where the fuck were her sunglasses?
He crossed his arms, but stood directly in front of her, hemming her in between his body and the bikes. “You’re not going anywhere like this. Calm down and tell me what Eddie said.”
Ice could burn, she discovered. It could burn white hot. “Calm down? Sure. Let’s be calm. Were you calm when you sold me out to some bottom-feeding gossip site? Or did you laugh at what a sad case I was?” She let the sneer stretch her lip. “You bastard. I’ll bet you laughed.”
More silence met her accusation. The sun picked up the gold in his eyes, and turned it molten. A muscle ticked in his jaw. Finally, he shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know for sure is that you owe me an apology.”
“Sorry, my mistake. You’re not a bastard. I take that back. You’re a lying bastard.” The insult left a bitter taste on her tongue. She swallowed the venom, and tipped her head back because it was the closest she could come to looking down at him.
He stepped closer and took hold of her chin. “I have never lied to you, Quinn. That’s one of the rules, remember?”
His level, unblinking stare almost convinced her. Almost. But by his own admission, there were only two people in the world with access to the photos, and she hadn’t sold herself out. “We don’t have any rules, remember? You canceled our contract.”
“Be careful what kind of accusations you fling at me.”
Careful wasn’t her strong suit. She jerked her chin out of his grasp. “Say you didn’t do it. Let’s hear it. I dare you.”
“If you honestly think I would do that to you, Trouble, there’s no point in me wasting my breath. We have nothing left to discuss.”
Oh no, he was not going to turn her into the villain. She turned away and spotted her sunglasses in the sand. “You don’t give a crap who plays Lena Xavier.” She bent to retrieve them. “You consider the whole industry pointless and shallow.” Straightening, she slid the glasses over her eyes. “A bunch of bullshit you want no part of.”
His expression shuttered, and he took a deliberate step back. Some of her anger fizzled in the face of his withdrawal, and panic ran cold fingers over her skin. Mission accomplished, Quinn. You’ve pissed him off.
“I consider this, right here, a perfect example of the type of bullshit I want no part of.”
She turned away and strode to her bike. “Good news, Luke. Me and my bullshit are out of here.”
…
Luke followed Quinn back to the resort to make sure she didn’t end up on the side of the road, and then went back to his room, cracked open a water from the mini-bar while hoping Quinn remembered to hydrate after her ride, and called Eddie. Lisa picked up and put him through.
His friend came on the line with a “Hey, man. Looks like your final week in Paradise will be a vacation.”
Yeah, right. He had a business to get back to, and no interest in staying in Paradise Bay without Quinn. He skipped the preliminaries and went straight to the question at hand. “How’d the pictures end up public?”
“I don’t know. I’m working on that, but it’s going to take some time. Before I get the FBI involved to determine who skimmed whose phone, any chance someone on your team sprung a leak?”
Luke walked out onto his balcony, and sipped the beer. “None. I trust my team, but that’s irrelevant because I never saved the pictures. The only thing I did was text them to Quinn.”
“Maybe someone got them off your phone, directly?”
“No way. Like all my devices, my phone is password protected, and I keep it with me most of the time. Even if someone from housekeeping spent five unattended minutes with it, my phone locks when it’s not in use, and nobody has the password except me.”
“Hmm.”
“Somebody got to them from her end.”
“I don’t think so. We take measures. I’ve seen too many celebrities hacked to allow my clients to walk around with their asses hanging out, electronically speaking. She says she didn’t share them with anyone.”
“She saved them. I told her to, because I wanted her to look at them regularly. Somebody has access to her saved files. A PR person? Whoever updates her social media?”
“No. There’s a protocol for that. She would have had to transfer the photos to her publicist. She didn’t.”
“Somebody’s got access,” he insisted.
“Apparently,” Eddie said. “Look, don’t sweat this. It’s being handled. My guess is the leak won’t be difficult to track down. These web outlets aren’t like the Washington Post. They’re not especially protective of their sources. I’ll have a name within a couple days.”
“She thinks I did it.”
“What?”
He took another sip of water to wash the bitterness out of his mouth. “You heard me.”
“Christ, I hate it when my friends start sleeping together. My life is already complicated enough.” He expelled a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Don’t bother. I think we covered the relevant facts before she left. I just want to know who’s responsible, and make certain she knows.”
“Suuuuure that’s all you want.” He imbued all kinds of skepticism into the reply. “But before you shove that stick any farther up your ass, keep in mind that she’s rattled. Private, unauthorized photos of her are splashed everywhere. Internet trolls are having a field day, and more seriously, the Dirty Games producers want to drop her. All she can see right now is that somebody betrayed her, and put something important to her at risk as a result. Maybe cut her some slack and give her a day or two to recover from the shit-storm? Quinn’s one of the most loyal people I know, but she isn’t used to someone having her back.”
“You have her back,” he added.
“I don’t count. I’m paid to have her back. And I’ve known her for a long time. She doesn’t have to hide anything from me, because I already know her situation, vis-à-vis Callum.”
Her situation. He rolled his shoulders, which did nothing to dislodge the heavy, hollow ache in his chest. “Any word from the brother?”
“Nope. I’m working on that, too.”
“He lived with her for how long? Couple months?”
“About five months, I think.”
“He bails on rehab, drops out of sight, and less than twenty-four hours later somebody sells private photos of Quinn to a sleazy media outlet. Am I the only one who finds the timing interesting?”
“You’re not. But I’m hoping it’s just a coincidence because otherwise, it’s going to break her heart.”
Yeah, he knew how that felt. It fucking sucked.