Steal

“No names?”

“Names cause a certain familiarity I’m not comfortable with. Next time lead with where you want me to screw you, and for how long… If you lead with a name then that means you want me to remember it, which I won’t.”

Her eyes widened.

“I’m late.” I winked. “But it was nice meeting a fan.”

“I can’t decide if you’re an ass on purpose or just really blunt,” she called after me. “But my name’s Cassidy if you change your mind.”

Ah so hopeful even when I turned on jackass mode.

I smirked. “Cassidy with two S’s?”

She gave me a hopeful look.

I walked away.

Always hopeful.

Until they discovered that the guy they fell in love with on stage was long gone; so far gone, he might as well be dead.

Destroyed the day his heart was wrecked.

A shell.

I was a shell.

At least I had a purpose.

And it had everything to do with the girl currently walking toward me with her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes.

“Where have you been?” Angelica seethed. “I called you three times! I don’t have a car here, and the hotel that the cast is staying at says it doesn’t have a reservation for my room!”

I walked by her.

She bit out a curse and fell into step beside me.

“That’s because they don’t.” I shoved my glasses back on my face and took in a deep breath. The salty air gave me a much-needed reprieve from my dark thoughts.

“Don’t what?” Her voice dropped. “Look, I know you still hate me, I get it—” Bullshit, she got nothing. “—but I need a place to sleep that isn’t the windy beach. It’s freezing here at night.”

A kid walked by with his kite; he waved at us and skipped ahead onto the sand, kicking it up into the air with wild abandon as his parents chased after him.

A sick feeling punched me in the gut.

Making it hard to breath.

Angelica froze next to me.

I gave my head a shake. “They don’t have a reservation because I didn’t make you one. I can’t keep an eye on you at the hotel, especially with at least two cast mates who have a drug past. You aren’t staying there.”

She brought her thumb to her mouth and started chewing on her perfectly polished nails.

My eyes narrowed. “You’re chewing your nails.”

She immediately stopped, while a blush crept up her neck. “Well you’re making me nervous.”

“You don’t get nervous.”

“It’s new.” She gulped and looked down. “You know, along with sobriety.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to lash out again, to hurt her.

But I was too tired to spar and too afraid she’d pack too many punches with her own words, punches I couldn’t receive without taking a hard hit in the chest.

“Let’s go.” I grabbed her elbow and led her to my waiting Mercedes.

She crawled in without argument.

And started chewing on her nail again.

“Not the least bit curious?” I asked with a smirk firmly in place so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea. I wasn’t flirting. I was baiting. Big difference.

She huffed out an exhale. “I’m too smart for those games, Will. If I stripped naked and begged on my hands and knees for information you’re more likely to steal my clothes and make me walk the streets naked while you follow yelling ‘Shame’ behind me as I make my way through town.”

“Been watching a lot of Game of Thrones, have you?” I barely suppressed my chuckle.

“It’s me.” She said in a calm voice.

“The mother of dragons?”

“Cersei.” She dropped her hand into her lap and looked out the window. “Let’s just say I identify with her as a character, especially the book character.”

I almost slammed on the breaks. “You’ve been… reading?”

“Yeah, well, when nobody gives me any scripts, what do you expect me to do to fill my time? Become a mermaid?”

“Or get a job,” I suggested. “You know reasonable employment, mopping floors, asking people if they want to super-size something — extra ketchup—”

“I get it.” She held up her hands. “Fine, where are we going?”

“Say please.”

“Please, Will.” Her voice softened, it was like a punch to the gut.

I refused to look at her.

I already knew what I’d see.

She was a talented actress, one of the best. Her lips would part on a breath, her skin would look so damn kissable my hand would flinch, and then her eyes would draw me in until she had me in her web — bloody, beaten, half-dead.

Angelica Greene was a black widow.

And I refused to be her prey again.

“Me.” I said as I pulled down the long driveway where my clients all owned houses. Seven beach house mansions lined the cliff.

I was renting the one in the middle.

Smack dab between three of Hollywood’s hottest musicians, their wives or significant others, and Jaymeson.

She’d look out the window and see beach houses.

I looked out the window and saw emotional support for both of us.

But mainly.

Her.

Because the past had finally come knocking.

And it was time to stop running.

For both of us.

“Me?” She repeated, “What does that even mean?”

“You’re going to be living with me during filming. Just think, I won’t have to put a bracelet around your ankle that way.”

YOU KNOW THE dream people have when they’re kids? You’re naked in front of all of your classmates. They point and laugh while you try to cover up whatever parts you can with two hands all the while wondering why your feet are frozen in place. I mean, why don’t you ever run in those dreams? Why do you just stand there? Logic would say to run, right?

Instead, you stand, paralyzed with fear.

And the worst part?

It feels so real.

Like it’s really happening.

Like something you won’t ever recover from.

I was experiencing one of those moments, only I wasn’t dreaming — trust me I even pinched my arm to make sure.

Because standing in front of Will’s beach house wasn’t just my brother, actor Lincoln Greene with his girlfriend, Dani — because that would be normal right? He was in town shooting, he was blood, end of story.

I could live with that story.

But no.

It was my nemeses.

My past coming back to my present.

In the form of every single Hollywood heartthrob I’d either kissed or been semi friends with staring back at me. Seaside was the new it town, and they were the ones who’d made it that way.

Rock god Zane Andrews smirked at me and gave a little wave before shoving a marshmallow in his mouth and wrapping an arm around his girlfriend, Fallon. I thought he was still on tour.

I’d thought wrong.

My eyes fell to the couple next to them.

Demetri and Alyssa.

His smile was strained, just like it always was whenever I was in his presence. Years ago, we’d had a thing, or maybe it had just been a thing on my end. I’d been so desperate for any sort of attention that when it was encouraged by my publicist at the time to be seen with either Demetri Daniels or Alec Daniels — I decided on both.

It was a bad choice.

Followed by a series of bad choices that ended up landing me in the hospital and losing everything I’d worked my ass off to build.

My chest felt like someone had pressed down on it, like my heart was failing and the only way to save me was compression after compression until my sternum cracked.

Alec Daniels stared right through me like I was the devil.

Satan.

Darkness itself.

I flinched when he put a protective arm around Natalie, his wife, and the baby girl she was holding.

And suddenly it was too much.

The pain.

The loss.

The memories of what I could have had with these people if I hadn’t been so selfish — so afraid.

I could have been friends with them.

I could have had a life with them.