Wicked Dirty

by J. Kenner

  "Hey, yourself."

  We're in Malibu at what has to be the most amazing house--and view--I've ever seen. I tell Nikki the same when she comes over to the large stone table and offers me a mimosa.

  "It really is spectacular," she agrees. "And I can say that with absolutely no ego. It was mostly finished when Damien and I got together, although I did have a hand in decorating the interior."

  We've been here for a few hours now, and I'm surprised at how comfortable I am. Before Lyle, I'd never really brushed up against money, but the Starks and their friends and family are all down-to-earth, and everyone has put me completely at ease.

  "My turn!" A dark-haired little girl rushes up to Lyle the moment he stands.

  "Ronnie Steele, you're getting too big for that."

  "Mom-my," she complains.

  "You and Lara go play on the swings and let the grownups talk."

  She pouts, but obeys, and I turn around to see Sylvia behind me, holding her little boy on her hip. Cass is her best friend, so I've met her a few times before at Totally Tattoo, but I hadn't met her husband Jackson until tonight. He'd been at Wyatt's opening, so I'd seen him from afar, but I hadn't asked Lyle to introduce us.

  Just as well. He's a world famous architect, and when I met him today, I'd pretty much embarrassed myself by fawning all over him. Thankfully, he was incredibly gracious about my groupie behavior.

  Syl tells me that Cass and Siobhan were invited but already had plans with Siobhan's parents. "And I won't be one of those annoying women who asks about your plans for a family," she says, glancing at my ring as she takes a seat, putting Jeffery on her lap. "But I will say that if you do want kids, it's worth it. Work," she adds with an exaggerated eye roll, "but worth it."

  "Thanks for the tip," I say. "I think that starting out we're going to have our hands full with my cat."

  "You two look cozy," Lyle says, joining us. "Should I be worried?"

  "Very," Syl says. "We're talking girl stuff."

  "Speaking of girls," Lyle says, "do you know where Jane went? She disappeared before I could introduce her to Laine."

  "She went with Dallas and Noah into the garage," Nikki says, as she and Damien come up. "They wanted to see Damien's cars." She aims a quick grin at her husband. "I figure we'll see them again in a week or two."

  "My wife is a comedian."

  "My husband likes cars."

  "But the garage is like the bat cave," Sylvia says. "So that makes the car collecting cooler."

  "True," Nikki says. To me she adds, "It really is a pretty impressive collection. But I just stick with Coop."

  I raise a brow in question.

  "Her Mini-Cooper," Damien explains. "My wife is a one man and a one car woman."

  She narrows her eyes at him. "Did you miss the part about how many cars you own? Should I be worried?"

  He pulls her into his arms. "Never," he says firmly, then kisses her.

  I swoon a little--and then a little more when Lyle takes my hand and squeezes it.

  "I would like to meet Jane," I say. "We can walk to the garage if you want."

  "You should probably wait," Damien says. "They might be talking cars. But other topics could come up."

  Riley's been sitting quietly. Now he lifts his head. "Like what?"

  "Dallas and Noah have their hands in a lot of pots," Damien says vaguely. "And they've been friends for a long time."

  I don't have a clue what Damien could be talking about, and I don't think Riley does either. Not specifically, anyway. But it all sounds very mysterious.

  I do know who Dallas Sykes is. Before he and his wife, Jane West Sykes, got married, they were at the heart of a torrid scandal. And before that his name was all over the tabloids. They called him the King of Fuck, and he had a playboy reputation that has faded since his marriage.

  Honestly, these people are a bit like a puzzle, their lives crossing and overlapping and all of it woven together in a tapestry of friendship and family.

  "I like your friends," I tell Lyle later, as we're walking along a stone path toward the tennis court.

  "I'm glad. I know Jane best since we worked together on The Price of Ransom, but I've gotten to know Nikki and Damien through the Stark Children's Foundation, too. They're all good people.

  "Tarpin!"

  I look around for the voice, then see a man step off the courts and onto the path. He's tall, with rugged good looks and a charming smile. But it's his red hair that ensures he's unforgettable.

  "Noah," Lyle calls, hurrying to pull the redhead into one of those manly guy hugs. "I've been looking for you."

  "Yeah? Well, I haven't been looking for you." His smile is teasing. "But I have heard rumors about your engagement."

  He turns to me and flashes a smile that seems so sweet and genuine I automatically return it. "This is who I've been wanting to meet."

  "Sugar Laine, meet my friend Noah Carter."

  "Very happy to finally catch up with you," I say.

  "Sorry I disappeared from my own going away party. But since I'm about to be landlocked, I wanted to take a walk on the beach. I guess I lost track of time."

  "Easy to do," I say, and though I don't know him well enough to be sure, I think I see sadness in his dark green eyes.

  "And you looked at the cars," Lyle says, "thus losing more time."

  "The problem wasn't time," Noah says. "Have you seen how far into the hills Damien's garage goes? I was just plain lost. If Dallas and Jane aren't on the patio when we get back, we should probably send a search party."

  "Actually, we should all probably get back." Lyle says. "I think I heard something about heating up a grill."

  "Congrats on the engagement," Noah says as we're heading up the path.

  "Thanks," Lyle and I both say at the same time. "Are you seeing anyone?" I ask, then wince as Lyle squeezes my hand. Hard.

  "No," Noah says, the word polite but clipped. He turns to me, and when he speaks, his voice is softer, as if he realizes how harsh he sounded. "I'm not currently looking to date. I'm much more focused on my career."

  I think of Lyle, and the way he tossed that same platitude at me. Words that were hiding a deeper pain.

  "What exactly do you do?" I ask, figuring that now's a good time to change the topic.

  "Tech," he says. "I'm moving to Austin to be head up one of Stark International's tech subsidiaries. R and D mostly."

  "That sounds great." I don't know a thing about Texas, but I think he'd look cute in a cowboy hat. "You used to work for Dallas?"

  "Security at his department store chain," Noah says. "Then Damien recruited me and I made the jump from the east coast to the west. Now I'm going to the middle."

  Since I'm starting to feel like I'm interrogating him, I back off, and he and Lyle start talking about a regular poker game that Noah's no longer going to be part of, and another friend named Ryan, who's in security, but isn't at the party because he and his wife are on a cruise.

  As we make our way back to the patio, we bump into Jane, who calls out to Lyle, then wraps me in such a friendly hug that it's as if we've know each other for years. "You're so lucky to have him," she whispers to me. "I swear he brought emotion to my script I didn't even think possible."

  We continue on toward the patio together, where we're greeted by laughter and the smell of sizzling burgers. Damien Stark is behind the grill, which makes me laugh considering he could probably buy every burger joint in the country. Dallas Sykes is standing by him, though I don't realize who it is until Jane introduces us. I've seen his picture before, of course, but he's way more attractive in person. Which, frankly, is saying a lot because he's pretty hot in those photos.

  We all settle in with burgers and beer and wine and chips, and it's all so normal and not the least bit ritzy. And when Lyle puts his arm around me, I lean against him and sigh, feeling right at home.

  When I'm completely stuffed and lightheaded from wine, Lyle leads me to the hot tub, and we sit on the edge--his arm aro
und me as I lean against him--our feet dangling in the water. "This is nice," I say, and as I turn to smile at him, he takes my chin and and kisses me sweetly, and I think that it's just gotten nicer.

  We stay another hour, chatting and generally having a good time, and I feel like I'm one of the group. And for someone who's been self-reliant for so long, that feeling is both surprising and wonderful.

  When it's time to leave, I'm standing in the entrance hall waiting for Lyle to finish discussing something about the SCF brunch with Damien, when Riley comes up.

  "Hey," he says.

  "Hi. Lyle's up there if you're looking for him." I point toward the open-style staircase that leads to the third floor.

  "Nope. I was looking for you."

  "Oh." I twist my engagement ring, wondering what he knows. Turns out, he knows a lot. Like everything about our fake engagement. And how we met. And the fact that there was money paid.

  "We've been friends for a long time," he says, and I nod.

  "He told me," I say. "About you and Iowa and Jenny." I flash a tentative smile. "I think he's really lucky to have you for a friend."

  Riley studies me, nodding. "Yeah, well that goes both ways." He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "Listen, I was going to say that I hope you understand that what he told you--well, he's not one for over sharing."

  "I'm not going to give away his secrets, if that's what you're worried about."

  "I was. After meeting you, I'm not. But be careful with him, okay? I don't want to see him getting hurt."

  "I'm not going to hurt him."

  "Not intentionally," Riley says. "But he loves you. He hasn't officially told me that, but I can tell. And that means hurt might be inevitable."

  "Oh." I don't know what to say to that, but my heart seems to swell in my chest, and I'm having a hell of a time fighting my smile.

  Riley looks me up and down critically, but when he meets my eyes, he's the one who smiles. "Yeah," he finally says. "I think you just might do."

  23

  "I don't really know him, but I thought Noah seemed sad about leaving," I say to Lyle as we ride the elevator up to his condo. I haven't been here before, and when he mentioned his view from the thirtieth floor, I begged him to detour.

  It's a shiny, modern building, and Lyle told me he bought his unit when his sitcom was topping the charts every week.

  Now, he leans against the interior wall of the elevator car, the corners of his mouth curved down. "You're not wrong," he says about Noah. "Bet he'd be disappointed to realize he's so transparent."

  "Is he okay? Is the move about something other than work?"

  "A little of both, although he hasn't actually told me as much." The elevator slows to a stop and the doors slide open. There are four elevators in the building, one for each corner. On most floors, Lyle told me, the elevator opens onto a hallway with two or three units. His unit, however, takes up a quarter of the top floor, and the elevator opens onto a private foyer with his entry door on one side, a flower arrangement immediately opposite the elevator doors, and what he tells me is extra storage to the right.

  "Noah really is taking over the Austin operation," he continues. "Apparently Stark International acquired a business, and current management just isn't cutting it. But he also asked Damien for the gig once it came up. I think he wants to get away from LA. There are some bad memories for him in Southern California."

  "What happened?" I ask, then say, "Oh, wow," when I follow Lyle into his sparsely decorated condo.

  He was right about the view. The main area of the condo is basically a box, with a kitchen, two seating areas, and a hall that presumably leads to bedrooms.

  Two sides of that box are entirely made of glass.

  And now, at night, the city lights sparkle beyond one virtually invisible wall, while the hills twinkle beyond the other. It's like floating above a fairy world, and I turn to him, grinning. "It really is stunning."

  He gestures for the kitchen, and I sit on one of the bar stools while he opens a bottle of wine.

  "What happened with Noah?" I prompt, since I'd been distracted earlier by the view. "I struck a nerve asking him about dating. My hand's still aching from that faux pas," I add wryly.

  He pours two glasses, then takes them with him to the couch, gesturing for me to follow. "He was married before. He had a wife, a baby girl." Lyle draws a breath. "They were kidnapped. Taken in broad daylight."

  "Oh, God." My stomach feels queasy, and I put my wine down. "What happened?"

  I watch Lyle's face. The way his skin pales. The motion of his throat as he swallows. "They found the baby," he says, his voice hollow. "She'd been suffocated. They never found his wife."

  "That's horrible." The word is so inadequate that I feel foolish even having said it. "How long has it been?"

  "When The Price of Ransom premiered, that was right at seven years. She was declared legally dead that week."

  "I can't even imagine," I say, my own problems seeming so small now by comparison.

  I stand, needing to move and get those terrible images out of my head. There's a bookcase on the far side of the room, and I head there, then start perusing the titles. "I'm pretty sure you have every book ever written about Hollywood."

  "I didn't come here with the bug, but I got infected soon enough." He joins me at the shelves, pointing out a stack of scripts that he says he read to study roles when he was first starting. I notice that they're all classics and well-known recent dramas.

  As for the books, they cover all aspects of Hollywood. "Hey," I say, pulling one off the shelf. "A biography of Anika Segel. Isn't she--"

  "Wyatt's grandmother. You remembered."

  I frown. "Why weren't Wyatt and Kelsey at the party? Aren't they in your circle?"

  "I talked to him this morning. He said they had Noah over for dinner last week, and they sent their regrets to Nikki and Damien. But they needed some alone time. Apparently putting that show together was exhausting."

  That makes sense, and I smile at Lyle, then brush my fingertips over the back of his hand. "Alone time can be a very good thing."

  "I'm very glad you think so. I was hoping you could stay the night."

  "I think I can swing that. I'll have to placate Skittles in the morning with tuna, but he'll only love you the more for being the reason he's getting a treat."

  I'm still looking at the shelves, and I run my finger over the stage plays. Chekov. Stoppard. Shakespeare. Coward. And so many more.

  "Were these Jenny's?"

  He shakes his head. "No, Jenny was all about the blockbuster. Go big or go home," he says, with a melancholy smile.

  "Then they're yours?"

  He nods. "I was one of those guys who was discovered for his looks. A true Hollywood story. But what they don't mention is that looks don't mean shit if you can't act. So I started taking lessons, and realized I loved it.

  "Jenny had the drive and the ambition--talent, too, of course," he continues. "But mostly she was the epitome of a star. Bright and vibrant and living large."

  "You wanted to live smaller?"

  "I wanted to act. To do something transformative. To get lost in a role. To really analyze it and find that deep character. I did a lot of theater when I was younger."

  "I'd love to see you on stage."

  "I don't do much of that anymore."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I'm one of the lucky ones. I made it."

  I frown, trailing my finger over the stacks of plays. "Shouldn't that give you more freedom?"

  "The concept of making it is relative, I guess. I'm in the top tier, that's true. But there's still a mountain to climb."

  I try to process everything he's saying but something feels off. There's a dog-eared, coffee-stained screenplay on the coffee table, and I pick it up, just to have something to idly hold. Arizona Spring.

  I clutch it, then I walk to the windows, trying to figure out what's bugging me. But it's not until I sit in the chair by
the window and start flipping through the screenplay that my thoughts start to coalesce.

  "Is this a movie they're trying to get you to do?"

  He nods, coming closer, but staying a few feet away from me, just on the other side of the coffee table.

  "Are you going to do it?"

  "No," he says, as I continue to turn pages, noticing his markings throughout.

  "Because the script needs so much work?"

  "Actually, the script is excellent. There's so much room to develop the character, and I've been making notes and--"

  He cuts himself off sharply. "It doesn't matter. It's going into production soon, and I have three more Blue Zenith movies in the pipe."

  "And you said those are good scripts, too."

  "They are," he says, and I know him well enough now to know that he means it. But I also can tell from his voice that the scripts aren't as good as Arizona Spring.

  This whole conversation isn't ringing right for me, but it's not worth worrying about now. Not when the city lights are glowing with romance beyond the window and the man I've fallen in love with has asked me to stay the night.

  "Hey," I say, holding out my hand for him. "I like this chair. It's got a spectacular view and room enough for two. I'm thinking you should join me."

  "Why don't you come over here with me on the couch." He takes a step backward. "More room to stretch out," he adds, with an enticing edge to his voice.

  I have to admit it's tempting. But still...

  "I don't know..." I go to the window, pressing my hands and forehead to the glass as I look out at the city lights, twinkling like stars in the darkness below, as if we're looking down from the heavens.

  "You're the one who enticed me here with this view," I tease. "I'm thinking maybe you should come over here right now." I shift my focus so that I can see his reflection. "You can't make me believe you've never made love in front of a high-rise window."

  "Believe it," he says, and there's such an edge to his voice that I turn around, confused and a little worried.

  "Lyle?"

  "I'm really not crazy about heights. I told you at Disney."

  "Oh." I process that. "I thought it was the drop that got to you. Not the altitude. But then ... well ... why did you do go on the ride? For that matter," I add, "why have a chair near these windows? Why have this condo at all? Why get your pilot's license?"