The minute his thumb left her mouth, he dropped down atop her, his hand gripping the back of her head, his mouth crashing onto hers, and he kissed her like he’d wanted to from the start, rough and wild, her tongue fighting back, their kisses missing their mouths as much as they hit them.
Cole grabbed her, rolling onto his back and putting her above him, his hand yanking the sheet down, pulling the clasp of her bra, and the piece was suddenly gone, and her breasts were tumbling free onto him, and he groaned, pulling her down, the soft weight of them against his chest so beautiful, so incredible that he lost his fucking mind. He bit her ear, wrapped his hand deep in her hair, and pulled it tight, his mouth going to her throat, and then he was back to her mouth, and her hands were covering her chest and he remembered the scene, the fucking scene, and rolled back over, shielding her from the camera, his mouth softening as he pulled the sheet back up, his whisper at her ear almost silent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
She tugged on his hair and brought his mouth back to hers, and he didn’t apologize again.
What happened between them when they touched… it was nothing like Nadia and nothing like the blonde and nothing like every other woman he’d ever had.
And that difference scared the hell out of him.
CHAPTER 91
“This is bullshit! Learn your marks and stay on them!” Cole threw up his hands and glared at me, and sohelpmeGod if there weren’t a hundred people staring at us, I would have his nuts in a vice. A steel one. With teeth.
“You’ve moved the marks five times in the last two hours. Make up your mind and there won’t be a problem!” I pushed on his chest with both hands, and the damn man barely wobbled. This was what I got for neglecting my chores and spending my days prancing around a movie set. Cole stepped closer to me, and his voice dropped.
“Touch me again, and I’ll put you on your damn mark and hold you there.”
I stepped back. When he was that close, something in my body lost control. I thought it would fade. It hadn’t. We’d shot four scenes since our fake bedroom scene. None of them had been sexual in nature, yet I still wanted to hump this man like a dog in heat whenever we were in arms’ reach. It was getting ridiculous.
“Cole, Summer,” Don’s voice rang out. “Let’s take five. Summer, you’re looking a little shiny.” Makeup ran forward, a powder brush in hand, and I looked away from Cole and smiled a polite greeting. We were in the front room of the Frank plantation, lighting crews angled up the grand staircase, beaming a thousand watts of hot light down on us. Mary stuck a Tervis tumbler in front of me with iced tea. I took a sip, careful not to mess up my lipstick. We were on our nineteenth take, hours spent on a simple scene that should have been knocked out easily. Interesting that the quickest scenes we did were the ones that had heat. I didn’t know what that said about us.
When the front door swung open, it was lost, no one looking up, our mid-shooting break taking center stage. But when the door shut, the wind caused a suction, its slam a little too strong, and the sound caught my ears. I turned my head and there, in the doorway, stood a tall woman with white hair, blood-red lipstick, a pencil skirt, and sky-high heels. She was looking right at me, a cell phone to her ear, briefcase in hand, and my stomach twisted. Brecken’s boss. I knew who she was, had seen the senior publicist meet with Cole countless times, the clip of her heels always causing a scowl to come over his face. But this time, her steps effortless despite the heels, her face hard and stressed, I knew she wasn’t coming for Cole. I knew, this time, this was about me.
Don intercepted her, his hand held up, his headphones pulled off. “Casey, we’re filming. Not now.”
Cole waved his hand, frustrated, a growl in his throat. “Make it quick, Casey.”
“We’re rolling in two,” Don said, squaring off with Cole. “Whether you’re done or not.”
“I’m not here about Cole.” I think I was the only one who heard her perfectly modulated tones.
“Don, run through Summer’s marks with her; that’ll eat up another ten minutes, easy.” Cole’s jab was tossed out with a glance in my direction, to make sure I was listening. I wasn’t. I was pushing to my feet, off the folding chair, the makeup applicator chasing me down with a big fluffy brush. I knew I couldn’t run from this, a part of me, in the gut, had known since the day Ben mentioned this job, that this was a side effect.
The Rehearsal Dinner wouldn’t go quietly into the night. Not now that I was a celebrity or was going to be a celebrity. Casey skirted by Don, and I stepped forward, and we met like enemies on the Persian rug in the middle of the Frank parlor.
“Summer.”
“Yes?”
“We have something we need to talk about.”
CHAPTER 92
It had been a simple enough prank. And that was really all it was meant to be: a prank. Something to smack my wedding party on the back of the head and punish them for their betrayal.
Because they’d all known. I’d left Scott’s house that day and had driven to Corrine’s house. Walked into a houseful of my bridesmaids, their hands busy with net, lace, and rice, their bubbly chatter stopping when I’d walked in. Stacey, Scott’s secretary, had been the first to speak. “Hey,” she’d said, and my sensitive ears heard the red flag in her cautious tone. “I thought you were in Tallahassee today.”
“That was this morning.” I’d breezed through the girls and into the kitchen, ripping a paper towel from the roll and dabbing at my eyes, grabbing the wine bottle, freshly opened on the counter, and taking a generous swig. I’d pasted a smile on my face and stepped back into the doorway. “Where’s Bobbie Jo?”
Four girls didn’t lie well as a group. There was an uncomfortable stammer, someone saying ‘Working’ at the same time as Bridget said, “She isn’t feeling well.” With another swig of wine, I’d turned back to the kitchen.
“I’m gonna head home,” I’d called over my shoulder. “I don’t feel well.”
The girls had chimed in a chorus of regrets, their vocal cords suddenly working just fine. I’d stuck their extra, unopened bottle into my purse and pasted a smile on my face. Wiggled my fingers at them and heaped out my thanks for their tireless bridesmaid efforts as I walked back through and out the door.
It was what I had deserved, befriending the cool crowd of women in Quincy. They hadn’t really ever been my friends. They’d ignored me in high school and only buddied up when I’d started dating Scott. Scott’s friends had been their boyfriends, husbands, and brothers, our three-year relationship the only grounds that our friendship had been built on.
I had driven home to Momma, tears dripping down the stupid purple mascara that Avril Lavigne looked good in, and Bridget had raised her eyebrows at. And that night, one pruned toe playing with our bathtub drain, I had devised My Plan.
My Plan had been simple. My Plan had been foolproof. My Plan had been, according to Variety Magazine in that fateful issue that changed my life, diabolical.
I thought diabolical had been a strong adjective, used by a magazine editor who had clearly never read stories of Herodias or Jezebel. I mean, let’s face it. Nobody died.
CHAPTER 93
“How did I not know this?” Cole exploded, throwing a Coke can against the wall, the contents splattering on some poor PA. “How did we not know this?” He held up a magazine and waved it wildly, the flap of its pages loud in the quiet room. I couldn’t see the cover from my seat, his motions too fast, but I had seen him reading it, had seen everyone reading it, copies passed out like candy. I hadn’t taken one. I had simply taken my seat at the end of the table and waited for punishment.
“We didn’t think we needed to do a full work up on her.” Some man I’d never seen spoke up, his hands nervously adjusting the bridge of his glasses. “I mean, look at her.” He gestured in my direction, and I looked down at the table, the chastised child. “We ran criminal, background, and porn searches—did the blood work. Everything came back clean.”
Porn searches?
They talked about me like I was a prop in the scene, one without feelings or emotions or explanations. Though, as far as explanations went, I had none. What I had done was terrible. And whatever was printed in that magazine… it probably painted it exactly in that light.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” I spoke up from my corner of the table. “And it was years ago.”
“So you already know what this is about?” Casey rested her weight on the table, her long red nails matching her lips.
“My rehearsal dinner?” I guessed.
“The Rehearsal Dinner From Hell,” she read loudly, her words over enunciated, her fingers shoving a glossy cover in my direction. It skidded halfway down the table and stopped. No one furthered its journey, but I could see the cover picture from where I sat. It was Scott’s and my engagement photo. Some creative mind at the magazine had drawn horns on my head and given me a tail. I looked away and saw Cole, staring at me, his weight against the wall. Our eyes met, and I couldn’t look away. I tried. I failed.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Her voice rang out across the room, and I felt like I was eight years old, in Mrs. Wilson’s class, fessing up to forgetting to feed Sparky the Goldfish. I wanted to look at Casey, wanted to look at the floor, wanted to look anywhere but couldn’t pull away from Cole’s stare.
“Clear the room,” Cole spoke, a copy of the magazine crumpling in his fist. “I need to speak to Summer. Alone.”
No one moved, save for that Coca-Cola-drenched PA who started to stand, then realized no one else was, and plopped back down.
“I mean it.” Cole turned to Don, who sat next to Casey, his hands pressed to his temples. “Film the entry scenes. Have extras stand in for us. I want a chance to talk to her alone.”
Don looked at Cole for a long moment, then stood. No one, out of the ten who left, looked at me. It was three years ago, all over again.
When the door shut, I spoke. “Cole…” I didn’t even know what I had planned to say. I just knew I had to speak; we had to have something between us other than empty space.
“You should have told us. We can control something that we know about. This…” he set the crumpled magazine down on the table and tapped at its surface, “this we can’t control. Not now. Right now every tabloid and entertainment publication has someone, as we speak, getting on a plane and coming to Quincy. And they will talk to every one of your friends, and every Chatty Cathy they can find, and you will be a Trivial Pursuit answer before the end of the week.”
Every one of your friends. Ha. Good luck finding those.
“I don’t care.” I looked down at the table when I spoke, a dried glob of something… was it ketchup?… on its surface. With all of the Franks’ money, you’d think someone here would have cleaned that.
There was the sound of slickness on wood, and I turned my head, watching him walk down the long length of the table, his fingers braced on the wrinkly magazine, sliding it down.
Closer to me.
Three places away.
Closer to me.
Two places away.
He stopped. “Repeat that?”
I looked up into his face, and forgot, for a moment, how much I hated him. “I don’t care.”
“You will. Maybe you don’t right this second, but you will.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’ve been an outcast in this town for three years. I can’t imagine caring if some soccer mom in Nebraska also thinks I’m psycho.”
“It’s not just moms in Nebraska. It’s everyone in this industry.”
“No offense, but I hate your industry. This is a one-shot thing for me. Then I’m taking my money and running.”
“Really.” He laughed. “You get a lead role in a feature film, and then you are going to just disappear?”
I didn’t smile, I didn’t smirk, I just stared at him and made sure that he understood the words out of my mouth. “Yes.”
He slid the magazine the last seat length toward me and stopped. My thigh jiggled against the seat, and I wanted to stand, wanted to change this dynamic of him looking down on me, but I didn’t. I sat in my chair like a good little girl and tried not to look at the front of his pants. He half-sat against the edge of the table, pulling the magazine around and before me, and his new position was even worse. There, one leg cocked up, the other one on the floor, I could see the outline of him. He was not hard, but I… in this horrible situation, was turned on. I couldn’t help myself. It was a chemical reaction between us that didn’t understand anything else.
He moved his hand from the magazine, and I forced myself to look at that instead, at the glossy photo from a time when I thought that teasing my hair made me look sexier. It didn’t. It made me look trashier. I see that now, and I have no doubt the observation will be so helpfully pointed out by someone like Nancy Grace or Kelly Osbourne or… I swallowed hard. I told him I didn’t care, but part of me did. Part of me had just recovered from being ignored. I didn’t know if I had the strength to now be ridiculed.
When he said my name, it was an exasperated sigh, and I looked up to see him rubbing at his neck, his eyes closed, his features tight. “Summer…” he let my name fall and stretched his head back. “You are so different from every other woman I know.”
“Thanks.” I said the word without the slightest bit of sarcasm, and he laughed.
“Whether you value your reputation or not, we need you to meet with Casey. Let her do her thing. You may have to go on a couple of talk shows and tell your side of it.”
I frowned. I had a hang nail on my left thumb, and I picked at it, my hand twitching when my nail dug too deep. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” It was none of anyone’s freaking business; that was the truth of it. And plus, dragging out my drama with Scott now… when he had a wife and baby… it seemed dirty. Rotten. Whether or not I had forgiven him was secondary to the life he was currently living. A life, which was most likely already being rocked by this article.
“You don’t want to talk about it on camera? Or with me?”
I choked out a laugh. “With you? Why would you care?”
“I need to know if I should keep ambulances on speed dial for the crew.”
I twisted my mouth and tried to hide a smile. He was too close, sitting there. I could smell a hint of his cologne, and I wanted to lean forward and get more of it. “The crew? I’d be much more worried about you, Mr. Masten.”
“Don’t do that.” His words were husky, and I looked up in surprise, my hangnail forgotten and saw his eyes on mine, and in them… I have seen that look before. In my bedroom. Right before… well…
“Don’t do what?” I shouldn’t have asked the question. I should have looked back down and changed the subject. But I didn’t. I pressed.
“Call me that. Not here anyway.” He sat back in his chair, his stare still on me, that feral, dominant stare that told me exactly what he had on his mind.
“Then where, Mr. Masten?” I dragged out his last name, and his eyes darkened, the left edge of his mouth curving up. It was official. I was going to hell.
He chuckled. “I’m not playing that game with you. Last time I walked into my house with an erection the size of Texas and you weren’t there.”
“I’m here right now.” A woman I didn’t know, one who had hidden inside of me for a long time, stood up, emboldened by the look in his eyes, by his words. I reached up and undid the top button of my shirt, then the second, his eyes closing for a minute before he reached forward.
“Stop.” His hands closed on mine, and they were so warm, so strong. I looked up into his face, which was tight with regret. “Not here. I did a half-ass job with you last time. I’m not making that mistake again.”
I digested the words, then slowly nodded. “It was pretty half-ass.”
He laughed. “Easy, Country. You’re dealing with a movie star. We’re known to have fragile egos.”
I pulled my hands free and reached for my buttons, but he brushed my hands a
side, his fingers doing the job, the simple act of a man buttoning up my shirt causing something in me to weaken. “Why are you suddenly being nice to me?” I didn’t look at him when I asked the question. I couldn’t.
His hands lifted from my top button and cupped my face, turning it up, forcing the connection of our eyes. “I broke something over a man’s head when I caught him fucking my wife.” He shrugged. “Maybe you and I are more similar than I thought.”
“Not likely.”
He pulled forward with his hands and brought my mouth to his in a kiss completely different than the others—a quiet and soft kiss, one that tasted me and then let go, my eyes still closed when his hands left my face. “Don’t push me away, Summer,” he said. “Right now, you need a friend.”
“A friend.” I opened my eyes, and he was right there, those famous green eyes on mine. I laughed to take away any relationship reference he might infer. “You?”