by Livia Grant
That was the truth. Not all of it… but the truth just the same.
Satisfied with her answer, Khloe turned and resumed the trek through her upscale beach house, headed towards the heart of the home—the mammoth kitchen with a wall of windows that opened out onto the pool deck with a view of the Pacific Ocean just beyond.
Her host spoke over her shoulder. “If you say it’s stress, I believe it. I've heard that building a house is murder on a marriage. I can only imagine building two clubs and a home is triple the stress.”
Emma forgot to answer. She was hung up on the word marriage. A word she was beginning to understand would never be part of her life. A few months ago, she would have said it wasn’t important. That Jaxson, Chase, and she had an unshakable bond… a commitment… stronger than any damn piece of paper could ever be, anyway.
Lately, she wasn’t so sure.
“Emma. It’s great to see you.” Trevor welcomed her as they rounded the corner to the two-story luxury kitchen. He was standing at the eat-in island, looking like a dichotomy of master chef and biker gang member as he chopped veggies.
She hustled around the counter to rush in for a bear hug from Khloe’s tall, tattooed bodyguard and friend.
“Hi, Trevor. It’s wonderful to see you too! You weren’t here the last time I was over.”
They peeled apart and he went back to his culinary tasks while they talked.
“Yeah, I had a few weeks off when Ryder was around. Now that he’s been getting busier with his new business and having to travel more, I’m planning on being around more as well. Not to mention, things are heating up again with Khloe starting to shoot again.”
Khloe was pouting as Emma joined her to sit on one of the bar stools opposite Trevor. “You guys do realize I’m an adult. I don’t need babysitting as if I were a child,” her friend complained.
Trevor frowned, scolding her. “You could have fooled me. Wasn’t it just a week ago I caught you throwing your entire dinner down the garbage disposal while I left the room for two minutes to take a call?”
Khloe growled with frustration. “It wasn’t the whole thing. I’d eaten more than enough. And anyway, you know I hate when you make such heavy foods.”
“Khloe, it was a piece of lean steak and spinach.”
“Yeah, but you smothered the spinach in a cream sauce.”
“Enough! Until we can trust you to eat right, Ryder doesn’t want you alone.”
Khloe turned to her to ask, “Can you believe this shit? I bet Jax and Chase don’t treat you like a baby.”
The question returned Emma to her inner angst. “No, not so much anymore,” she managed to respond.
“You’re so lucky. I get that I need help when I’m on the road on location, or going into the set every day, but when I’m just hanging out at home between projects I would like a speck of privacy.”
“Why? What is it that you want to do you can’t do with me here?” Trevor probed.
Khloe leaned in to whisper, “For starters, I’d like to sunbathe naked next to the pool.”
Trevor had good hearing and chuckled. “Hey, sunbathe away. Doesn’t bother me.” He grinned devilishly as he dished up the veggie omelets he’d made for the girls.
“Yeah, well it bothers Ryder,” Khloe pouted.
“I can’t help it if the bastard is too insecure to trust you.”
Emma’s stomach growled embarrassingly loud. She self-consciously grabbed at her tummy and apologized. “Sorry about that. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”
“See, and the world hasn’t come to an end.” Khloe glared at Trevor before leaning close to Emma to add. “They’d have me weighing three-hundred pounds if it was up to them.”
Emma smiled indulgently at Khloe’s dramatic exaggeration. She knew her friend wouldn’t be happy with her, but she said what was on her mind.
“I know it frustrates you, but for what it’s worth, you’ve never looked better. You were too thin last year. You look so healthy now.”
Khloe took a tiny bite of the omelet before answering. “Fine. I’ll admit I took my starvation thing too far, but I put on ten pounds. I’m at goal weight. This is Hollywood. I can’t afford to be fat.”
Emma shuddered in the chilly air-conditioning, although she knew the real reason was she was hyperaware that being fat in Hollywood was a bad thing. Their move to Southern California may have brought better weather than D.C., but it also brought back her body-image problems, in spades. Every day, she was surrounded by women thinner than she was. More famous. More beautiful. More cutthroat and bitchy. Like Brandi. Like Lola. Women moving in on her men right in front of her eyes.
She took a bite of egg, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat with her lunch.
Khloe chatted on without noticing. “I can’t wait for the grand opening in a couple of weeks. Ryder hates spending time in D.C. for some reason, so we barely get to go to Black Light anymore. I am so fucking excited that there will be a club out on this coast now.”
That makes one of us.
Trevor had already wolfed his lunch down and was wiping down the counter as he muttered, “Yeah, like you need to go to a club with a playroom in the basement.”
“Hey! You aren’t supposed to know about that room!” Khloe complained, blushing.
“Yeah, right. Who the hell do you think helped Helms carry all of that heavy shit down there? Once again, he treated me like his lackey.”
Emma noticed, in spite of Trevor’s complaint, he was grinning. It was the nature of the men’s relationship. It reminded her of brothers who fought but were always there to back each other up. In some ways, Khloe was as lucky as Emma having not one, but two men who loved her in her life. If only Trevor could find his own someone special since Ryder didn’t like to share the same way Jaxson and Chase did.
“You ladies finish up. I’m gonna change and go for a run before it gets too hot. Emma, you’re in charge of making sure this one eats her lunch.” He thumbed in his boss’ direction.
“Oh no, you don’t! I’m not getting into the middle of this.”
Khloe patted her arm. “It’s okay. I promise to be a good girl for you.”
Emma and Trevor chuckled together before he headed out. “I’ll be back in an hour. Try to not get into too much trouble while I’m gone.”
He was already halfway down the open staircase leading to the basement where he kept a room when Khloe shouted out, “Text me when you’re almost back! I’ll need to put my top back on.” Only after she heard a distant door closing did Khloe turn on the bar stool and pin Emma with an intense glare. “Now that he’s gone, please tell me you got to bitch-slap that slutty local newswoman this morning after she kept pawing Chase on camera. I wanted to reach through the screen and slap her myself.”
Emma outwardly smiled at the serious look on Khloe’s face while internally she focused on shoving down her insecurities.
“I didn’t need to. Chase did a fantastic job of putting her in her place all on his own.”
“OH MY GOD! I was cheering when he outed her as his old babysitter. And he did it with such charm.”
“Yeah, I was so relieved. I wish he’d told me that before the interview started. It would have kept my blood pressure down a bit during the interview. The stress is getting to me.”
Khloe took another tiny bite before asking, “The stress of the club opening?”
She took her own bite, using it as a reason to not look her friend in the face as she answered, “Yeah, it’s insane.”
“You should try my trick. When I have a particularly intense schedule for a few weeks, I pick a date in the future I know will be after things die down. Then on days when the stress gets to me, I focus on that date and how I’ll be rewarding myself by getting through until then. I always schedule a full spa day to pamper myself.” Khloe’s eyes lit up as she added. “Let’s pick a date now for after the clubs open, and I’ll call and reserve us both an all-day pamper session at my favorite salon!”
Emma sm
iled, agreeing, “That sounds nice. Thanks.”
But, she knew there would be no magic date that her stress would end. In fact, she’d decided it would be after the grand opening of the clubs her real stress would begin. There was no way she could add to the guys’ plates right now, but there was an expiration date on how long she could hold it all together without letting things explode.
In that moment, as nice as it was to be here, she regretted spending the day at Khloe’s.
As stressful as it was watching Lola try to move in on Jaxson for the hundredth time, in that moment Emma’s heart constricted, fear gripping her that she was on the verge of losing everything that was most important to her and she wasn’t there to stop it. And, like clockwork, the now familiar guilt crushed in, threatening to suffocate her.
“Hey, are you really okay? Something seems off today.” Khloe was perceptive, but then again, it was near impossible to hide how in over her head Emma was. Her parents had started to pick up on it during their FaceTime sessions. Samantha had started sending her texts daily to check on her. She was lucky to have so many people who loved her in her life. She would need that safety net more than ever in the future, and yet as most were friends with Jaxson and Chase before she met them, the fear of losing her friends in the coming months weighed on her like a heavy blanket.
Emma finally managed a lame answer. “I’m fine. Like I explained, we just have a lot going on.”
She was relieved when her friend let it drop. “You okay with us laying out on the deck while we catch up? My next project I’m playing an undercover DEA agent. We’re filming in Miami and a small Honduran island. I’d like to not have to spray on my tan if possible.”
Fifteen minutes later, the women had moved to the cushioned chaise lounge chairs on the patio overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The cool breeze coming off the water tempered the warm early April sun. The view was beautiful, but it couldn’t erase how conspicuous Emma felt in her one-piece swimsuit. Seeing Khloe Monroe’s perfectly proportioned, sex-symbol body in all of its naked glory as her friend took off her swim wrap was almost too much for Emma. Her recently filled tummy lurched, ready to expel its contents. She forced a deep breath and fought down the nausea.
“What?” Khloe asked innocently as she noticed Emma staring at her.
“Nothing,” Emma answered as casually as she could muster, reluctantly removing her own swim wrap, throwing it on an empty chair with her duffle bag. She was grateful for her large sunglasses to hide the fucking tears that seemed to be lurking at all times these days.
“Actually, I’m glad the guys didn’t come with you this time. I’d be mortified if they saw this.”
Her friend turned, displaying her perfect ass, made even better by the crisscross pattern of raised welts across the actress’ perfect globes.
“Ryder got a little carried away last night. I know he’s a sadist, but I swear he does it just so I always have marks to prove he’s the master of my body. As if I need tangible proof when he’s not there.”
The skin on Emma’s own ass tingled, not from recent attention, but from the lack of it. She’d deny it to her deathbed, but the truth was she missed having her ass paddled. It had been weeks, hell, months, since the guys had taken the time to discipline her, or even give her a funishment. She should be happy, so acknowledging how much she missed the intimacy of their domination over her body was testament to how much their relationship had changed in the recent months.
Khloe was busy slathering on lotion as she chit-chatted. “It isn’t fair that getting sun makes us look better in the short run, but it can do more harm in the long run. Fucking wrinkles.”
Emma nodded, grabbing her own tanning lotion and absentmindedly applied the coconut-smelling concoction that made her stomach lurch, attempting again to evacuate the recently eaten omelet. Abandoning the lotion, she grabbed an ice-cold bottle of sparkling water Khloe had brought for each of them and took several swigs in an attempt to settle her tummy.
“I’m so jealous of your curves. I’d give anything for your boobs,” Khloe observed as she stretched out.
“Oh no, you wouldn’t. You’d gain ten pounds.”
“It would be worth it if it was only in my breasts. It’s the rest of my body I can’t afford an extra ounce in.”
“You’re being dramatic again. You look perfect, and anyway, you have more talent in your pinky than half the people in the industry. I hate to agree with Ryder on this, but you really do need to worry less about your appearance. Didn’t being nominated for an Academy Award this year prove that to you?”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t win, did I?” Her friend shielded her eyes from the sun to peer up at Emma.
“Not this time, but you’re young. You have a long career ahead of you.”
“You sound like Ryder.”
“He’s a wise man. You should listen to him,” Emma replied, lying out next to her naked friend, refusing to remove her own suit.
“Yes, he is, but please don’t feed his ego. By the way, he told me not to let you leave until he gets here to say hi.”
“Oh, he’s in town then?” Emma tried to keep her voice steady. “I didn’t think I’d see him today since Trevor was here.”
“Yep. He and Axel are up to something. He doesn’t talk about it much, and I’ve learned to stop asking questions.”
Emma took another swig of water, trying to swallow down the anxiety, but resisted the urge to grab the mammoth beach towel she’d brought and cover herself completely to avoid looking at the rounded tummy and protruding boobs overflowing her too-small suit.
The silence stretched between them as the women laid prone, soaking up the sunshine. Emma was exhausted. She tried to relax enough to nap, knowing her body needed the rest, but her brain was her enemy. She looked out over the powerful ocean, feeling small. As Khloe napped next to her, Emma took the quiet time to think through her limited options.
Not for the first time, she doubted the choices she’d made over the last few months. She’d made one amazingly stupid mistake that had now snowballed into a big, fat, hairy web of lies that she had absolutely no way of extricating herself from without destroying herself and everything she loved.
Jaxson and Chase would never forgive her. She didn’t know if they would be more upset about the lie itself or the fact she’d been hiding something so important from them for so long. Her reasons had seemed to make sense to her at the critical moment of truth when the first lie had popped out of her mouth. Now, over a month later, she knew she’d made a critical error.
Then things had been compounded by Jaxson’s almost reckless pursuit to open the new clubs in an insanely tight timeline, all in an attempt to get grandfathered in on some city building codes that would be changing on May first. A deadline that, if missed, could cost them months and millions of dollars.
No, they couldn’t deal with the added stress right now. She loved both men too much to add to their already full plates. She needed to carry this burden on her own until after the clubs were open. It was her contribution to staying on schedule, even if she hated the idea of spending any more time in California than absolutely necessary. In a few weeks, she’d have no choice but to come clean and pray the guys could forgive her.
Emma dozed fitfully, images of beautiful models and actresses pawing and kissing Jaxson and Chase interrupting any attempt at real rest.
She must have finally fallen into a deep sleep, because the feeling of her lunch coming up jarred her awake. Emma shot to her feet, throwing her hand over her mouth as she took off running towards the bathroom just off the kitchen.
She barely made it to the toilet in time to deposit the eggs Trevor had made into the porcelain bowl. Her stomach roiled even after she had nothing left to expel. She knelt on the cold tile, trying to remain calm as she self-consciously wrapped her arms around her waist, cradling her upset tummy. She reached to grab a handful of toilet tissue to wipe her mouth, spitting several times to try to clear the bad taste from her m
outh.
Finally feeling like she might be done, she pushed to her feet, flushing the toilet as she grabbed more tissue to try to wipe away the streaks of mascara from her tear-stained face. Pushing her sunglasses on top of her head, she caught herself in the mirror. She looked like a hot mess.
Who was she kidding? She was a hot mess.
She turned on the cold water, cupping her hands and swishing her mouth clean. Spitting into the marble sink, Emma splashed more cold water across her face in an attempt to chase away the green hue she often had these days as she fought the frequent queasiness.
When she finally felt like she’d succeeded at putting herself back together, she opened the door to find Khloe standing guard outside. Her friend had thankfully put her swim wrap back on.
The women stood still, neither speaking until Khloe finally broke the silence. “I didn’t know you had an eating disorder, too. Do you want to talk about it?”
Emma wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or angry at her friend’s assumption. She forced a laugh, refusing to meet Khloe in the eye as she moved around her to walk back towards the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just didn’t feel well. That doesn’t mean I’ve got some disorder.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Emma. I’m the queen of eating games. We don’t just throw up for no reason. I should know.”
Emma had reached the refrigerator. She opened the mammoth, industrial-sized, stainless steel door, helping herself to a fresh bottle of sparkling water. “Maybe I’m coming down with a bug.”
“Don’t. Not with me. Please.”
Emma refused to turn around, too afraid to let her friend see her eyes as she lied through her teeth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Really, the flu has been bad this season. I think I should go, just in case, so I don’t accidentally expose you to it if I’m coming down with something.”
Emma started walking back towards the wall of windows that formed the exterior wall of the beach house. She’d get dressed and find her phone to order an Uber. She felt like a coward running away from the truth yet again, but there was no way she could talk about this with Khloe before Jaxson and Chase. They deserved at least that much.
