by Marie Force
“I can’t wait to see the movie,” Natalie says. “I haven’t seen it yet. I wanted to wait to see it in the theater on the big screen.”
“It’s so cool that we get to see it before everyone else.”
“That’s what we get for s-l-e-e-p-i-n-g with the producers.”
My face heats with embarrassment at realizing everyone has figured out we’re sleeping together.
“What does that spell?” Maddie asks.
“Friends,” Natalie says smoothly.
I take a closer look at my friend and notice she’s unusually pale. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Better than fine, actually.”
The odd statement has me looking at her again. She makes a gesture of a hand over a pregnant belly that makes me gasp and then startle, earning a scowl from my nail technician.
Natalie laughs at my reaction.
I can’t say a word about the scoop of the year with the nail ladies in the room, which of course Natalie knows.
She covers her mouth with her hand to muffle her laughter. I can’t believe she dropped a bomb like that on me when I can’t do or say a thing! And then I’m blinking back tears because my sweet friend is having a baby, and after everything she’s been through, I couldn’t be happier for her and Flynn. They’ve got to be over the moon with excitement.
Makeup people are next, and Natalie leaves to get ready herself before we have a minute alone to celebrate her big news. We’ll have to do that later.
Tenley shows up around four, helps me get dressed and opens a velvet box from Flynn’s brother-in-law Hugh, the jeweler. She drapes me in diamonds—necklace, chandelier earrings, bracelet and ring that she advises me to wear on my right hand unless I want the entire town buzzing about being engaged to Kristian. I never would’ve thought about such a thing, although the thought of being engaged to him does crazy things to my insides.
“How much is all this worth?” I ask, breathless from excitement—and the fear that I might lose one of the priceless pieces.
“About one-point-five.”
“Million?”
“Uh-huh.”
She’s so matter-of-fact about it, but I suppose it’s an everyday thing to her, when to me it’s another first in a once-in-a-lifetime day.
I reach up to touch the necklace, to make sure it hasn’t moved, while Tenley buzzes around me, making last-minute adjustments.
Maddie knocks on the bedroom door. “Can I see, Mommy?”
“Come in.”
She steps into the room as I turn toward the door. Her eyes shine with delight. “You look like a princess!”
“I feel like one, too.”
“You’re so pretty.”
“Thank you, baby. Come here and give Mommy a hug.”
“No sticky fingers,” Tenley says.
“My fingers aren’t sticky,” Maddie replies indignantly. “Don’t worry.” She comes over to carefully hug me.
I wrap my arms around her and kiss the top of her head. “You’ll be a good girl for Cece tonight, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“She said you can make popcorn and watch movies. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“I don’t want Cece to sleep over. I want you.”
Uh-oh. “I’ll be back before you even know I’m gone.”
“What if I need you?”
“You can call me. I’ll have my phone with me the whole time, and I’ll call you before bed to tuck you in. Okay?”
She thinks about that for a minute.
I hold my breath the entire time.
“Okay.” She spins around and leaves the room.
I let out the breath I was holding.
“Whoa, you dodged a bullet,” Tenley says.
“No kidding.” I’m rattled by the near miss with Maddie. I’ve left them so infrequently with others that I worried about how they’d react to the plan for tonight. They’ve seemed fine about it, but with rubber now meeting road, Maddie is having second thoughts. Thankfully, second thoughts didn’t turn into a full-blown meltdown.
Cece is due any minute, and Kristian will be here soon, too. Hopefully, my luck will hold with the kids.
Logan comes bounding into the house, back from his outing with Flynn, and runs straight for my room, stopping short when he sees me decked out.
His mouth falls open as his eyes widen. “Wow. You look so good. Really, really good!”
“Thanks, buddy.” I’m delighted by his reaction and thrilled that they’re seeing me looking healthy and vibrant after my illness. “Did you have fun with Flynn?”
“Uh-huh. We went to a skateboard park, but he had to go home and change into a monkey suit. What is that, anyway?”
“That’s what guys call tuxedos,” I say, smiling.
“They should call them penguin suits rather than monkey suits.”
“You’re absolutely right. They should.” I hear Maddie talking to Cece in the living room. “Sounds like Cece is here.”
Logan spins around to go see her.
“Your kids are so sweet, and you’re stunning,” Tenley declares, taking a last critical survey of my appearance.
“All thanks to you.”
“It was my pleasure. I hope you have a wonderful time.”
“I’m sure I will. By the way, I meant to ask earlier… If you’re here with me, who’s tending to Addie and Natalie and the others?”
“Some of my people. They wanted you to have me.”
“Probably because I needed the most work.”
She shakes her head. “Addie said it was because you most deserve to be treated like a princess, and I couldn’t agree more.” Squeezing my hand, she says, “Have the best time ever.”
“I will,” I say softly, moved nearly to tears by the kindness of my sweet friends. “Thank you again.”
“Any time.”
Tenley leaves the room, and I have two minutes to myself before Maddie comes to tell me that Kristian has arrived. I take a couple of deep breaths to calm my nerves and the butterflies in my belly. I’m nervous and excited and filled with anticipation about the night I get to spend with him. “Here goes,” I whisper to the reflection in the mirror. The woman looking back at me is healthy, strong and confident. She fills me with confidence as I turn to leave the room and see him coming toward me, too sexy for words in a black tuxedo.
He stops short in the hallway, his eyes flaring with heat and desire.
I’ve never felt more in my life than I do in the ten seconds it takes for him to recover and come the rest of the way to me.
He slides an arm around my waist, bringing me in close to him. “You are beyond beautiful.”
“In this old thing?” I joke so I won’t cry and ruin my makeup.
“Exquisite,” he whispers in my ear, sending a shock wave of need rippling through me.
“You’re rather exquisite yourself.” I never want to forget this perfect moment with him.
“I’ve got nothing on you. Every guy there will be wishing he could be as lucky as I am.”
“Right.”
“It’s true.”
It’s not true, but for one night, I’m going to allow myself to believe it is.
Chapter 19
I’m blown away. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived, but knowing Tenley, I assumed Aileen would look amazing. But she’s magnificent. The dress, the shoes, the makeup, the diamonds… She takes my breath away, and I wish we didn’t have somewhere to be so I could skip straight to the plan for later. I’ve thought a lot about what she said the other night, how she wants to understand my lifestyle and give me what I need. I promised to take her to the club, and tonight, after the premiere, I’m going to keep that promise.
Once she’s had a chance to see the action up close and personal, if she still wants me to teach her, I will. But if she decides it’s not for her, that’s fine, too. I’m finding I don’t need the kink the way I have in the past, which is another change I’m trying to process on top of many
others.
In a way, I feel like I’m being reborn and remade with her, and this new version of me is far better than the old one. I like the way I look to her and how she makes me want to be the best version of myself. No one has ever made me feel the way she does.
I carry her overnight bag as we say good night to Cece and the kids, and I escort her to the chauffeured Bentley that’s waiting for us at the curb. I wave off the driver and hold the door for her myself, waiting until she’s settled to close the door and go around to get in on the other side. The second I’m seated, I reach for her, and she slides across the seat to snuggle up to me. I press a button to close the window between us and the driver.
“Is this one of your cars?”
“Nope. This one is rented because I wanted the privacy screen.”
“Why? What’s going to happen back here?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.” I nuzzle her neck. “But anything is possible.”
“Mmm.” She tips her head to give me better access. “I have to tell you something Maddie said earlier when I was nervous.”
“What did she say?”
“That I didn’t need to be nervous because you’d be there to take care of me.”
“She said that?” I’m ridiculously moved.
“Uh-huh.”
“She’s right. I will take care of you, and there’s absolutely nothing to be nervous about.”
“After having my kids, this is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.”
“I’m glad you’re excited. I am, too.”
“I’m sure it’s exciting—and scary—to know that people will see the film for the first time tonight.”
“It is, but that’s not the main reason I’m excited.”
“It’s not?”
I shake my head. “My date for the evening is way more exciting than the film. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever taken a real date to one of these things.”
“Stop. I am not more exciting than the film you’ve spent years working on, and I can’t believe you’ve never brought a date.”
“You are far more exciting than the film, and I usually don’t want the bother of having to tend to a date when I’m working, so I usually go with an actress or model who also doesn’t want the bother of romantic entanglements at a work thing. But tonight…” I nuzzle her neck. “Tonight, I’ve never been so happy to be thoroughly entangled, and I can’t wait to tend to my date after the work is finished.”
“I can’t wait either,” she says, sounding breathless. “What’re we doing later?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Her hand moves over my inner thigh to cup my erection. “Will it involve some of this?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is. I want it.”
I groan from the blast of lust that burns through me. I love how she says whatever she thinks, that I never have to wonder what’s on her mind or what she wants. “Keep it up, and I’ll be hard all night.”
“I want to keep it up,” she says, rubbing me shamelessly. “Will this do it?”
I grab her hand, not because I want her to stop, but because I don’t want to come in my pants like a schoolboy getting lucky for the first time.
“You’re no fun,” she says with an adorable pout.
Scowling playfully, I say, “I’ll show you fun. Later.”
“That’s a long time from now,” she says with a sigh.
“Believe me, I know.” I’ve been thinking about our private after-party from the time I left her bed this morning. She’s almost all I thought about on a day when I had many other pressing matters I was supposed to be focused on. “By the way, you’re doing a number on my concentration.”
“Am I?”
I love this coy, playful side of her. “You know you are, and I may need to punish you for it when I get you alone.”
Her cheeks flush and her eyes go big with surprise and what might be curiosity. “How will you punish me?”
“There’re so many ways.” Thinking about them doesn’t help to quell the throbbing ache in my groin.
“Give me an example.”
“I could spank your sweet ass until it’s hot pink.”
She swallows hard. “And that would count as a punishment?”
Holy fuck. Is she saying she’d like it too much to consider it punishment? “All depends on how it’s administered.”
“How would you administer it?”
“It hurts a little more with a paddle than with a bare hand.”
When she squirms in the seat next to me, I rest a hand on her inner thigh and drag it upward, encountering a flash of heat at her core.
“Does it turn you on to talk about this?”
“Incredibly. I’ve been reading up on it, and I want to try everything.”
Jesus. I’m not going to survive this woman. The thought of her reading up on BDSM kills me.
“I’m not saying I’ll like it all, but I want to at least try.”
“We need to change the subject. Immediately.”
“Why?” she asks, her brows knitting adorably.
“Because I don’t feel like walking around all night with wet pants.”
“Oh,” she says on a long exhale followed by a giggle.
“It’s not funny.”
“It really is.”
“Mocking your Dom will earn you another punishment.”
She curls her hands around my arm and lays her head on my shoulder. “Okay.”
I’m dying a slow painful death from desire, and her sweet capitulation only makes the ache that much worse.
The premiere is filled with celebrities, paparazzi and flashes exploding in our faces as we walk the red carpet in the broiling late-afternoon heat. I’m actually walking a red carpet in Hollywood, on the arm of the man I love. This is like a dream I’m going to wake up from any minute now. I try to take it all in, so I can tell the kids about it tomorrow.
We’re at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, made famous by the celebrity handprints pressed into the sidewalk. Kristian points to a grouping of handprints to the left of the carpet. “Those are ours.”
It’s overwhelming and exciting at the same time. I’m about to say something to him about the Quantum handprints when the world seems to tilt, and I’m hit with a head rush. For a brief, sickening moment, I fear I’m going to pass out.
Because he’s holding me so closely, Kristian immediately realizes something is wrong. He tightens the arm he has around me and gets me out of the warm sunshine and into the cool relief of the theater. He eases me onto a bench and sits next to me. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I was fine, and then I wasn’t. This is better. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize. Do you want to leave?”
“No!” That’s the last thing I want to do. “I just need a minute.” It’s been months since I had one of the episodes that had frequently come over me during my treatment, leaving me dizzy and nauseated and sometimes disoriented. I’ve been pushing the limits lately and not getting enough sleep while I prepared for the move and then settled into my new home—and then spending my nights making love with a sexy man rather than sleeping.
Sleep is the furthest thing from my mind when I’m with him. I suppose it was only a matter of time before it caught up to me. The pervasive fatigue that followed me through treatment has lifted somewhat recently, but this episode is a reminder that I’m still recovering. I need to be careful or risk a setback. That’s the last thing I need with everything in my life going so well.
“What can I do?” he asks, his concern palpable.
“Nothing. I’m okay. I just needed to sit for a minute.”
“Are you sure? We don’t have to stay.”
“Yes, we do. This is your big night. I don’t want to miss it.”
Kristian waves down a theater employee. “Would it be possible to get a bottle of water, please?”
“Of course, sir.”<
br />
“I’m okay,” I tell him again, touched by his concern.
The employee returns with the water, and Kristian thanks him. He opens it and hands it to me. “Drink up.”
“Yes, Sir.”
His eyes blaze with heat, but before he can comment, Flynn, Natalie, Hayden, Addie and Marlowe join us. Natalie immediately senses something is up.
“Aileen was feeling woozy,” Kristian says before she can ask. “Might’ve been the heat.”
“Are you better now?” Natalie asks.
“Much.”
“They’re opening the doors,” Flynn says.
“We’ll be right in,” Kristian replies.
While the others head inside, Kristian stops me from getting up with his hand on my arm. “Take one more minute. Finish the water.”
I hate that I’ve given him reason for concern about my health on such an important night for him—and for us. He’ll want to coddle me later rather than dominate me, and that makes me sad.
We’re the last two to enter the theater, and we’re shown to seats on the center aisle, next to his Quantum partners and their dates.
“You look gorgeous,” Marlowe says when I sit next to her.
Oh my God! Marlowe Sloane thinks I look gorgeous! “Thank you, so do you.” Wearing a black gown with her signature red hair corralled into an elaborate updo and jewels dangling from her earlobes, tonight she’s every bit the glamorous movie star the world has come to know. I feel honored to know the other side of her, the casual, funny, fiercely loyal woman who more than holds her own with her male business partners.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asks.
“I’m fine, thanks.” It occurs to me that I’ll always be the “sick” girl in this group, the one who has cancer, because I was in the thick of treatment when I met them. It’s nice that they care so much, but I hope that in time the word cancer isn’t so closely associated with me.
My thoughts are interrupted by Hayden, who stands before the gathering to introduce the film. He talks about the story in Insidious within the context of the opioid epidemic sweeping the country. “This story appealed to my Quantum partners and me because it’s the story of our generation. While preparing for the film, we spent time with families that have been touched by this epidemic, and many of them are here with us tonight. We thank them for sharing their stories with us, and we dedicate this film to the loved ones they’ve lost to addiction. In honor of Insidious, my partners and I will make a one-million-dollar donation to several Los Angeles-area treatment facilities on the frontlines of this new war on drugs.”
