Holding Her Close

by Lexi Ryan

  “Experiment with cosplay? It was a costume party and they’re making us sound like a couple of freaks.” I look up at Cade, his hands propped on his hips, that talented mouth drawn into a thin line.

  Okay, he’s not an ally in this conversation. I go back to reading.

  Janelle Crane, recently embroiled in a bit of a she-said-she-said scandal with her ex-husband’s new wife, may have more on the line than her reputation. In fact, sources close to the actress tell us that Crane has been seeing someone new, and hinted that things are getting serious, but have refused to give a name. Could her new beau be the former LA homicide detective Cade Watts, who recently moved to the sleepy town of New Hope, Indiana?

  Watts’s new city is also the home of singer/songwriter Nate Crane, Janelle Crane’s twin brother. The officer and actress were caught doing some pretty heavy dance-floor groping. Other party attendees reported the couple sneaking away to celebrity neighbor Asher Logan’s house for a little privacy . . . and maybe some role-playing? Only they know what really happened, but one thing is clear: It would be hard to argue now that Miss Crane is still hung up on her ex.

  Beneath that are two more pictures, one of me talking to Krystal on the porch before the party, my mask tilted off my face, and another of me on the dance floor with Cade immediately after I took off his mask.

  I try to keep scrolling, but there’s no more, only links to similarly trashy articles about poor souls as idiotic as me.

  I’m a little scared to make eye contact with Cade again. He’s pissed. Definitely pissed. And who can blame him?

  I hand back his phone and steady my gaze on his chest. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

  “Which part?” he asks. “The part where I figure out who I got off last night or the part where I find out that you used me?”

  I meet his glare with my own then push out of bed. He slides his gaze over me quickly, pausing where the hem of my T-shirt skims my bare thighs before jerking it back to my face. I wave my finger at him. “You were the one who said you didn’t need to know who I was.”

  He throws up his hands and starts pacing. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

  “You were . . .” I shake my head. My thoughts are traveling in too many directions right now—every one like a freight train bearing down on me and demanding my focus. God, this really isn’t the time to notice how long his powerful stride is, or how he only has to take three or four steps to go the length of this room before pacing in the opposite direction. Also not the time to focus on his big hands and remember how they felt wrapped around my hips. But those thoughts? While ill-timed, they’re far preferable to the freight trains and realization that I’ve screwed up. Again. “I need to call Matthew.”

  He stops pacing right in front of me and turns. “Matthew Hailey?”

  How does he know Matthew? “Yeah. He’s . . . a friend. He’s been helping me after all the crap with Tom.”

  He’s frozen, staring at me. “Déjà fucking vu,” he mutters. “Let me guess. Matthew Hailey is the reason you kissed me at the party last night.”

  “Yes. No.” I shake my head. “I thought you were someone else. I thought I was kissing my . . .” I stare at Cade, helpless. I’m not supposed to tell anyone the truth about Operation Fake Fiancé and my plans to fix my reputation. Cade already knows too much. And not enough. “Matt will help us figure this out. We’ll fix it.”

  I reach out to touch his arm, and he yanks it away like I burned him. “I’m not interested in being a part of any more of Matthew’s fixing. You’re on your own, princess.”

  “Cade, please.”

  “Please, what?” He steps closer, and I have to crane my neck to look at him. “Want me to pretend to be your loving boyfriend?”

  I open my mouth to deny that and then snap it shut when I realize that’s exactly what I need from him. Operation Fake Fiancé can’t exactly continue as planned now, can it? “I didn’t mean for you to get caught up in this. You don’t understand how complicated it is.”

  “Don’t I? Let me guess. You think sucking face with some wholesome country boy will make the press forget your sins?”

  Again, he’s too close to the truth. “You don’t know what it’s like. Having every move judged. Scrutinized.”

  “You screwed around with a married man.”

  “He was my husband first!”

  His lips twitch in amusement, but his eyes remain angry. “You’re all the same.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?” I feel sick, my hangover and my anxiety swirling together viciously in my stomach. “Last night was a mistake. That’s all.”

  “You can say that again,” he says, and I flinch. “To think I believed all that shit you fed me, as if it was special to you. As if I was offering you something you hadn’t had before. Congratulations. You’re one hell of an actress.” He says it as if it’s a dirty word, but his disgust at my career doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the way he looks at me does. I’m lower than a piece of chewed gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

  “You don’t know anything about me. You barge in here with your assumptions and insults—”

  “I’m not here to fight with you,” he says.

  “Then why are you here, Cade? I didn’t know there were cameras on us last night. That article isn’t my fault.” I want him to leave so I can cry. So I can hide. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing.” His voice is sharp and rough, gravel abrading my tender heart. “I’m only here to let you know I’m not playing this game. You’re working with Matthew, so you must want to fix your reputation. Go for it. But find another patsy.” He turns on his heel and storms from the room, slamming the door behind him and rattling the walls.

  My phone rings and my hands shake as I reach for it, and when I see the name on the screen, three words come to mind: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  It’s Matt.

  Focus on damage control. But I can’t stop thinking about the way Cade looked at me. The way he said actress, as if the word was bitter on his tongue. I know it was only one night, but there was something between us, something more than his talented mouth and chemistry so intense I must be exaggerating it in my memory.

  “Hello?” I answer, pressing my hand to my chest. My stupid heart, always butting in where it’s not wanted.

  “Good of you to return my call,” Matthew says.

  “I was busy.”

  “I saw that.”

  God, I don’t want to deal with his know-it-all shit this morning. I don’t much care for what Matthew Hailey does. I always believed myself above the media-manipulating scandal cover-up games he plays. I guess that’s why they say what they do about pride. And look how far I’ve fallen.

  “I didn’t know there were any photographers there,” I tell him. Last night wasn’t about the media. It was about Matt’s “grassroots” gossip campaign. But, hell, everyone has a camera on their phone now. “And we were both in costume. I didn’t think anyone would know . . .” Yeah, I can’t even finish that pathetic explanation. The truth is, I couldn’t stomach what I set out to do last night. Sure, I started to, but kissing the wrong guy was a reality check—a reminder of just how much I hate playing the game—and Cade was my way out.

  He was more than that. He was my escape from reality. For the first time since my divorce, I really wanted someone other than my husband. I felt alive in Cade’s arms the way I haven’t . . . ever.

  Matt draws in a deep breath. Probably smoking one of those electronic cigarettes. That man vapes like it’s going out of style. “You fucked up,” he says.

  “I know. Everything kind of just spiraled out of control. All because I kissed the wrong guy.”

  “You can say that again.”

  I rub my temples and try to banish the image of Cade’s disappointed eyes from my mind. “Tell me we can still fix this.”

  Matt grunts. “Not likely. Seriously, Elle. Cade fucking Watts? You couldn’t have chosen worse. If I didn’t know better,
I would think you’d set out to deliberately sabotage our plans.”

  “I . . .” I frown. “Wait.” That article said something about Cade being a former LA homicide detective, but that’s a long way from the Hollywood elite Matt surrounds himself with. “You know Cade? He knew you, too. How is it possible you know each other?”

  “You told him you were working with me!” It’s not a question but an angry screech.

  “It just came out.”

  “Fucking Christ, Elle. You want to play the bimbo ditz for the rest of your career? Go for it. But leave me out of it.”

  “This isn’t my fault.” I shake my head, not liking how often I’ve spoken those words lately, and hating that they feel like a lie. “Okay. It is my fault. Completely. But I don’t understand who got our picture and who found out we snuck off together.”

  “I had eyes at the party.” Matt sighs. “The bartender had media connections and was there looking for a story. She had a guy out front.”

  “Fuck, Matt. You said last night was just grassroots—family and friends, no media.”

  “And you said you’d do exactly as I instructed. You were supposed to be with the guy I sent, not whatever local piece of man meat you found handy. What a fucking mess. What were you even thinking?”

  “I wasn’t.” And it was a relief. To spend a few hours not thinking. To make decisions that didn’t have anything to do with Tom or my career. “How do you and Cade know each other?”

  “We don’t,” he growls.

  “Bullshit.”

  There’s a long pause before he finally answers. “He was dating one of my clients. Cara Fray.”

  “Cade dated Cara Fray?” Holy shit. Cara and I both started in this business when we were teenagers, but she’s had a huge career. I have the sitcom Roommates as my claim to fame, but nothing of any substance before or after. My career is stuck in a rut and Cara’s is cruising at warp speed.

  “Yeah. Cara let it draw out way too long. I think she liked playing the commoner with the police officer boyfriend. Or maybe she just liked the way he kissed her feet and completely fucking doted on her.”

  “Or maybe she liked him,” I mutter.

  Matt grunts. “Regardless, she let things go too far, carried it on longer than needed. Then eventually she got bored, and she told him the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “That their relationship was only a way for her to make the press forget about her scandal with the director of House for Two. That she’d gone through the entire relationship on my instruction.” He releases a long-suffering sigh. “Telling him was a total fucking violation of my contract, but that’s Cara for you. You help her and she pisses in your face the second she doesn’t have a use for you anymore. Thankfully, Watts’s not the type to flap his lips to the press.”

  “You had her use him? You’re telling me he didn’t know it wasn’t real? That’s horrible!”

  Another grunt. “I’m sure unlimited access to her hot pussy was a serious hardship for him.”

  “You’re an asshole.” And I’m a bitch. Because Cade may have been a dick to me this morning, but now he’s hurt again, and I can’t stand that.

  “Yeah, well, I’m the asshole you hired to fix your mess, but you fucked it up last night, and you fucked it up again this morning when you told him you were working with me. Jesus. You are one screw-up after another, Crane.”

  I can’t deny that. But this screw-up started with something that seemed so harmless. I kissed the wrong man. A man I couldn’t resist. A man who doesn’t give a shit about repairing my reputation. A man who hates my guts because of who I am and what I do. If I knew Cade a little better, maybe I’d know how to fix this, but I only know him from my visits to town. He hangs out in the same social circle as my brother and his wife, but it’s not like Cade and I have ever had so much as a single meaningful conversation. “How serious were things between him and Cara?”

  “They were living together. He bought her a ring. That’s when she told him the truth. After that, he left LA.”

  That more than explains the way he looked at me this morning. He wasn’t seeing me. He was seeing the woman who’d betrayed him.

  “How much does he like you?” Matt asks. “Any chance you can salvage this? Maybe spread your legs again and see if he’ll play along?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Irrelevant. Will he play?”

  “No. He was just here. He’s . . .” I swallow the self-pity that surges up in my throat. “He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “That’s what I figured. Come back to LA. We’ll need to get creative if we’re going to fix this without Officer Watts’s assistance.”

  Closing my eyes, I let myself remember Cade on the dance floor, how our kiss wrapped me in hope without warning. The way I felt at the first contact of our lips. A kiss from a stranger shouldn’t feel like that. It shouldn’t take your heart in its fist and light your nerves on fire. A kiss from a stranger shouldn’t make you imagine the end of your loneliness is a breath away.

  But Cade’s kiss did.

  Now he knows I’m working with Matthew, and he thinks I used him just like Cara did. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t. Even if I told him the truth, he’d still hate me for what I’m willing to do—the lies I’m willing to tell—to save my career. But without a family of my own, without a lover whose touch makes me believe in fairytales, my career is all I have. All I am.

  Hope has always been a heartless tease.

  “I’ll be on the next plane,” I say. I’m already packing my suitcase.

  Chapter 4

  Cade

  When I leave Janelle’s room, Hanna is standing in the hallway with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. “You know, when I let you in my house this morning, I thought you were going to curl up in bed with her or whisper in her ear.”

  My jaw is too tight to smile. I try anyway, knowing it probably looks as sick and twisted as my gut feels. “I’m not in a cuddling mood.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you in the door if I’d known you were going to yell at her.”

  “I didn’t yell.”

  She arches a brow. “You didn’t whisper.”

  “You could hear us?”

  “Your tone was clear if your words weren’t.” She sighs heavily. “You know, she’s been through a lot. When I saw you two dancing last night, I was happy you were the one she’s been dating.”

  “Is that what she told you? That we’re dating?”

  Confusion flashes across Hanna’s face, and I look away. If Janelle wants to lie to her family, that’s on her. But she needs to be the one to tell them the truth and deal with the fallout. Not me.

  “You have no idea what it’s like to have someone you love betray you,” Hanna says. She turns on her heel and walks away from me.

  I step forward to stop her, then force myself back. What would I even say? That I know exactly what that’s like? That I spend every day trying to forget?

  * * *

  Janelle

  Bella is waiting for me. Bella of the fake tits and fake hair and fake sob story. Bella, who would have the world think I’m obsessed with her husband. Bella who slept with him when he was still my husband.

  Calling today shitty is an insult to shitty days. If this is the price for the best orgasm of my life, I think I should consider a life of celibacy.

  Bella’s standing inside the front doors of my building in LA, looking at me like I’m some creature that crawled out from the sewer. Actually, I don’t know how she’s looking at me—she’s wearing sunglasses as big as mine—but regarding me like a sewer creature is her MO, so I’m just assuming that’s what’s happening under those reflective lenses.

  She, of course, looks stunning. A would-be Marilyn Monroe, if a less authentic one. She’s injected and augmented in all the right places, and pulls off a little black dress in the middle of the day like a pro. I, on the other hand, look like shit. I have on a T-shirt and a pair
of baggy jeans that are rolled at the ankles, and my hair is in a messy knot at the top of my head. I’m grateful for my oversized sunglasses, because I look even shittier with them off. I spent my flight having quite the pity party, and the party favors were mascara smears, bloodshot eyes, and a pounding headache. I feel like the Marilyn Manson to her Monroe.

  “What are you doing here?” I look over my shoulder to make sure the doorman has closed the entrance. They only let in residents and invited guests—though that doesn’t explain Bella—but that doesn’t stop people from taking pictures from the street if given the opportunity.

  Bella grimaces. “We need to talk.”

  I snort. Totally unladylike and completely ugly. The sound matches how I feel. “I’m pretty sure you already said everything you had to say. And you did it on national television, so kudos.” I keep walking, trying to pretend her presence doesn’t make me want to kick and scream like one of my nieces during a tantrum. How dare she come here?

  “Welcome home, Miss Crane,” the man at the front desk says. He hands me a stack of mail. “We’ve missed you.”

  My face feels stiff, but I force myself to return his smile. I’ve only been gone six days, and it’s nice someone in this town wants me here. Even if he’s just my doorman. “Thank you, Fred. Could you have my bags brought up from the car, please?”

  “Of course. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

  I shake my head. “No. Thank you.”

  When I head to the elevator, Bella is on my heels. “Could you please talk to me like a mature adult?”

  “Sure.” Stopping, I turn to her and say, “Bella, you may go home now.” I mentally add bitch instead of saying it out loud. See? I’m mature as fuck.

  “This isn’t about Tom,” she says.

  “I don’t care what it’s about.”