by Piper Rayne
As much as the idea gives me anxiety, he’s right. Before everything happened, it’s exactly the type of thing that I would have planned to help a brand launch. Frankly, it could make a huge difference.
It should be easy enough to hide from the cameras. This wouldn’t be about me anyway—it’s about the product and the location. No one ever has to know that I’m involved.
“I don’t want to be on camera. Or to be mentioned in the video. Just keep it about Granny’s and the sauce.”
He looks down at me. “Are you sure? I think the camera would love you.”
“I’m sure,” I say too quickly.
Brandon nods. “Okay. We can do that.”
It calms the anxiety that’s building in my chest. “Who do you think you’re going to ask?”
“I promise you I don’t know yet, but I also promise that it’ll be amazing. Will you let me surprise you?”
I take one long breath in and out. “You’ve done this before, and you know what we’re trying to do. I trust you.”
He smiles at me, and it’s a beautiful smile, because he knows that only a month ago I would never have been able to say that. And still, it makes me nervous. But if there’s one thing that I know now, it’s that Brandon isn’t here to steal from me or cheat me. He wants this to succeed. And I can trust that past all my anxiety.
I pull his face down to mine and kiss him, the perfect antidote for all my worries.
15
Brandon
Granny’s is swarming with people, and they’re not customers. Today is the day of the video shoot, and I’m vibrating with excited energy. It’s been a while since I’ve filmed anything, and while it’s exhausting, I love the frenetic energy of film sets.
I’m even more excited to introduce Ellie to the person I’ve brought in to do the shoot with me. Chris Sterling. He’s one of my good friends and also one of my oldest. We met in New York back when we were both on our rise to fame. He’s an actor and a musician, and because our paths are different we haven’t seen each other nearly as much the past few years. But we have when we can.
Chris is the perfect person for this video. We’ve never done one together before, but he’s young, sexy, and exactly the kind of person people love to see get messy with barbecue sauce, and then go out and buy to be just like him.
Not to mention that he’s the one that set me on this path. He said offhand that he’d heard there was a place in Arizona that people were raving about, knowing that I was always on the lookout for fascinating finds. So the refurbishment of Granny’s, finding Ellie, it’s all because of him.
Luckily for me, I was able to keep it quiet so it’s a surprise, and I haven’t seen any paparazzi stalking the shadows. Chris is due to arrive any minute, but Ellie is nowhere to be found. I know she doesn’t want to be on camera, but I want her to at least meet Chris. I think they’ll get along great.
The door opens and a man talking rapidly on a phone comes in, followed by Chris. “Hey!”
“Hey,” he smiles. “Long time no see, man.”
“Tell me about it. I can’t believe you dragged me all the way out to the desert to come and see you. If you wanted to get a drink, there are plenty of places in Manhattan that I’m sure would be happy to take us.”
“You know me,” I say. “Can’t resist the pull of a local delicacy. I owe you a big one for pointing me in this direction, by the way.”
Chris waves a hand. “Don’t mention it. I don’t think I can take credit for a rumor.”
The man that came in with Chris hangs up the phone and drags over our director. “All right, I need to have Chris back to the airport in four hours. So let’s get this show on the road.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say, looking over at Chris. “I had the cooks here prepare a bunch of classic bar and barbecue foods, and it’ll just be a classic taste test. Tell the audience what you honestly think about it—though I have no doubt you’re going to love it. It’s truly amazing stuff.”
He takes off his suit jacket and heads towards the portion of the bar we’ve lit for the shot. “Sounds perfect.”
Looking around, I still don’t see Ellie. “I was hoping to introduce you to the owner before we started, but she must be running late. You’ll like her.”
“I’m sure I will,” he says with a smile.
Quickly, I type out a text to Ellie asking if she’s okay and if she’s planning on coming to the shoot before we start. And then we’re off.
Chris and I have always been the type to have easy banter, and that easy dynamic fills the space as we film, making the crew—and ourselves—laugh as we work through a diverse menu of everything from ribs to cornbread.
The formula that Ellie and I perfected is truly amazing, and some of the ingredients I never would have guessed, even knowing food and flavor as well as I do. It’s a secret that I’ll take to my grave. Because I would never betray Ellie or Dorothy in that way, and it’s legally required in the contract.
It’s definitely a hit. Chris loves the sauce, and there’s not one thing on our plates that isn’t made delicious or at least interesting with its addition. We even have one of the crew members step into the video and taste it just to make sure that the audience knows that we’re not blowing smoke up their asses.
I’m not on the other side of the camera, but I can already tell that this is perfect. Exactly what we need, and the kind of thing that will easily go viral.
It only takes an hour, and then we’re wrapped. “Thank you again for doing this,” I say.
“It was fun,” Chris says, putting his jacket back on. “But next time don’t drag me half-way across the country, no matter how good the barbecue.”
I laugh, and my phone chimes in my pocket.
* * *
Here, the text reads. Coming in the back.
* * *
“Stay put for two minutes,” I tell Chris. “The owner is here, and I really want you to meet her before you leave.”
He nods. “I can do that. I want to meet the person behind that sauce.”
Ducking into the back, I meet Ellie as she’s just slipping in the door. “You made it.” I lean down to drop a kiss across her lips. “We’re just finishing up, but you can meet them before they leave.”
“Okay,” she says. “Sorry I’m late. Lunch with Jenna went longer than I expected. And I figured you guys would be here a while.”
“It’s perfect timing.”
We head back out, and I stride across the space, “Chris, over here.” It’s only when I reach him that I realize that Ellie isn’t directly behind me. No, she’s frozen to a spot on the floor, staring directly at Chris, and I’ve never seen her look so pale.
A curse sounds from behind me. Chris’s agent—the guy with the phone. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
And then Chris. “Hello, Ellie.”
My stomach drops. Something is happening here that I don’t know about. The look on Chris’s face isn’t one that I recognize. He’s smirking and victorious, but cruel. He’s staring down Ellie like she’s some kind of prey, and I don’t like it.
Protective, possessive energy surges through me, but I don’t know what to do with it because I don’t understand the threat. They know each other?
Ellie’s looking at me now, sheer horror on her face. I see her swallow. “What is he doing here?”
I shake my head. “Sorry?”
Her voice is firmer this time. “I asked you what in the fuck he is doing here?”
“I—” I clear my throat. “It’s exactly what I told you. The taste test video. I thought Chris would be perfect for the brand.”
“It’s good to see you, Ellie.” But the look on Chris’s face says that it’s anything but. He’s practically gleeful at seeing her shrink into herself. I’ve never seen this side of him, and I’m suddenly wondering what the hell I walked into and who this person is.
“As soon as I confirmed you were the owner of this place, I knew that I had to accept Brandon�
�s invitation to come here. I needed to see it for myself. Turns out it was everything I wanted and more. Quite the trade down, El. And no amount of barbecue sauce will ever change that. But still, I suppose it’s an okay place to slink into the shadows. Seems like this place could use some more photographers though.”
Ellie shakes her head, her fingers flaring out and curling into fists over and over. “I’ve kept my side of the agreement,” she says. I hate how terrified she sounds. “You can’t do that.”
“On the contrary, Ellie, I can do pretty much whatever I want.”
What the hell is going on?
Ellie looks at me then like she’s seeing me for the first time. There’s only pain in her eyes. “I should have known that it was too good to be true. Never trust a man in a fucking suit. I should have kicked you out of my bar the minute I saw you sitting there and never looked back.”
“Ellie, I—”
“I trusted you. You convinced me that you wanted to help me.” Her voice breaks. “That you wanted me. Guess you were here to ruin me after all.”
She spins on her heel and retreats, and I follow her. “Ellie, wait. I don’t know what’s happening here.”
“Really?” She shouts as she reaches the back door. “There aren’t enough numbers in the universe to calculate a coincidence that big, Brandon. The simplest answer is usually the right one. And the simplest answer is that you came down here to take the only things that I had left. Fuck off.”
The door slams behind her, and I’m left staring after her, mouth open. What the fuck just happened?
I walk back into the main room to the agent’s voice. “Well, clearly this can’t be used. It would violate both of your agreements.”
Chris laughs. It’s a low, sinister sound. “Don’t worry. I was never planning on letting this go anywhere.”
“Can someone please explain to me what just happened?”
“I’m going to need you to sign this,” Chris says, still smiling, and hands be a piece of paper.
The very clear print at the top tells me it’s an NDA. “Why?”
“To make sure that you can never, in no uncertain terms, ever tell anyone that I was ever here in this shit hole.”
I shake my head. The pieces still don’t fit, and I can’t see the big picture—there’s too much information mission. But the one new, big piece of information that I have is that Chris Sterling is not the man I thought he was.
“You came all the way down here to waste my time? To film something worthless? Why?”
He’s smug as his agent hands me a pen. “Oh, I didn’t actually come down here to film anything at all. The sauce is good, don’t get me wrong, but no. The only reason I came down here was to make sure that Ellie knows that she’s still nothing. That she’ll always be nothing, and no matter what she tries to do with this hole in the wall, it won’t be enough.”
My fist is moving before I consciously realize it, slamming into Chris’s jaw with the force of a hammer. He goes down hard. I don’t need to know the details of why this is happening and I don’t care. All I hear is him calling Ellie nothing.
She’s not nothing. She’s fucking everything.
“Sign the paper,” Chris says, not even reacting to the fact that I just punched him in the fucking face.
“No.”
He rolls his eyes, and the agent steps forward and picks up the paper from the ground and shoves it towards me. “We really need you to cooperate with this, Mr. Wolfe.”
“And I need you to fuck off. I’m not signing that. Now get the hell out of here before I call the Sheriff and have him escort you off private property.”
I hate the smirk that’s on Chris’s face. He dusts himself off. “You used to have a rule about not fucking your clients, Brandon. What changed?”
“Get. Out.”
“Fine. Come on, Jeremy. Brandon is as stubborn as they come. He’s not going to sign. But if anyone knows that I was here to endorse this piece of shit bar and not some celebrity flight of fancy, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
He turns to go, and then turns back, stepping close so that I’m the only one that can hear him. “Her pussy is good, but you can do better. No need to settle for something that was mine first.”
Cold, rigid anger roots me to the ground. The only thing keeping me from pummeling him into the ground again and not stopping is the fact that I need to get to Ellie. I need to find out what the truth is and help her through this. Explain that it was an accident. I didn’t know.
“You have one chance to walk away, Chris.” My voice is deadly smooth and even. “If I ever see you again, you’ll get more than a punch.”
One side of his mouth turns up into a smirk. He puts on a pair of sunglasses and strides out of Granny’s followed closely by his agent.
The crew is still here, stunned and silent by what has transpired. I need to get them out of here and lock up the building, because I need to find Ellie. As soon as possible.
The thing that I’ve been missing, or unwilling to admit, was what surged in me when Chris was striking out. The sheer anger and need to protect what is mine.
Ellie.
I love her.
The headstrong, badass, red-headed bartender that could take down a man twice her size but was so vulnerable that she made me ache. I’m in love with her, and I need to tell her that. Need to find out the truth so I can help.
I can already tell the look on her face is going to haunt me, and I don’t ever want to see that look on her face again.
16
Ellie
The sobs that are coming out of me are not ones that I can control. Deep, wracking sounds that are rising from the depths I’ve shoved them down into. Everything that I’d pretended didn’t exist in order to try to move on…it’s all crashing down on me again.
I thought that I was more past this. I thought that I’d let go of the hurt and betrayal, but it slices me open just as deeply as it did when it first happened.
Chris’s smirk. The fact that he came here to humiliate me. And Brandon knew. He was friends with Chris, and he knew. There’s no other explanation. From the very beginning he targeted me because of my connection to Chris. And my douchebag of an ex must be working overtime to make sure that everything that I touch dies.
I feel sick. Everything I did with Brandon. The way I trusted him and opened up to him. It’s all a lie. He took my heart in his hands easily and I just gave it to him. And then he threw it on the floor of Granny’s and stomped on it.
Seeing Chris standing in the middle of the bar…it was like seeing all my nightmares come to life at once. The panic and the dread…I’m not going to recover from this. My heart won’t. I could survive the one break.
But two this deep?
I’m done with love. With everything. I’m putting the walls back up and this time they’re not coming back down. This is what happens when you let people in.
I love Granny’s, and now that it’s mine, I’ll put everything into it. I’ll let Brandon do what he wants and kick him out. There’s nothing in the contract that says he has to stay here.
This town was good enough for my grandmother, and I will let it be good enough for me. I will put down roots and make friendships and I would create a life here that was worth living. Alone. With Jack.
My little kitten doesn’t know what to make of my grief. When I collapsed on my bed, unable to do anything but cry, he was with me in moments, staring at me, confused. I didn’t know what to do with him, and I was so far down that I couldn’t stop. Eventually he curled up against my chest and purred, comforting me in the only way that he knew how to.
It’s exactly what I need. Jack’s little purrs resonate through me and allow me to breathe a little more evenly. Stop the desperate moaning that comes from the deepest form of grief. All I want to do is stay here with Jack and sleep.
At least then I wouldn’t have to think. I could pretend that it was three hours ago when I was having lunch with Jenna and I was
falling in love with a man that I finally thought that I could trust.
My phone rings, and I ignore it. It’s probably Brandon calling to tell me another lie. I don’t want to talk to him, so I let it ring. And then again, and again. Finally I reach over to turn off the volume, and the call isn’t from Brandon, it’s from my grandmother.
“Hello?”
“You’re not picking up your goddamn phone?”
I try to hide the fact that I’ve been crying. “Sorry. I thought that you were someone else.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s a haboob coming. Looks like a bad one. It’s moving fast.”
Shit. With her house being on the very edge of town and the view of the desert, she can see the storms coming for miles. Despite the name that everyone outside the southwest makes fun of, haboobs weren’t something that we took lightly. They sprang up seemingly out of nowhere, and could wreak havoc and destroy things if they weren’t properly bolted down.
“I’ll be right over. I can help you get everything closed up.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I’ve already got the shudders closed and I brought in the potted plants. You need to get over to the bar. They haven’t done the repairs to the roof yet, have they?”
I pressed my head back into the pillows for a second. “Fuck.”
The repairs on the roof were the last on the schedule. And there were pieces up there loose enough that they could be in danger of being ripped off if I didn’t do anything to fix them. And I needed to fix them, because like hell was I going to take a dime more of Brandon’s money than was absolutely necessary via the contract.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll go right now.”
“Hurry. You don’t have much time. And shut your house first.”
The second she hangs up I turn into a whirlwind. There’s a window up here and I have to reach out and pull the shutters closed. I can see the sand shifting on the horizon. My grandmother is right. It’s coming fast.
