Risky Return

by Nicole Helm

  “No. Brad said she seems to be testing how much we’ll bend. There’s a pattern to the escalation. One year. Six months. Then four. Now two.”

  So, it was a coincidence that Mom was asking for money while Celia was in Demo. Mom didn’t know she was here. Please God let it be a coincidence. “How much this time?”

  “I have to step in here, Celia. We can’t keep bending. She knows she can get to you. She knows you’ll do whatever she asks.” Her tone was soft, which was never a good sign. Aubrey was a tough-as-nails straight shooter. Any time she softened, it meant bad, bad news. “You’re going to be the well she taps dry if we don’t do something.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?” Celia retorted, more snip to her tone than Aubrey deserved. She didn’t have the emotional reserves to deal with this right now. Not here in Ryan’s house. Not after talking to him, remembering him. Not after seeing the man he’d become and, damn it, being affected by that man.

  “I think you should cut the vacation short. Come back to LA. We need to confront her. We can’t just keep caving.”

  “Why do I need to come back to LA for that?”

  “We need to set up a meeting. Between you and her, and we need to do it on our turf where we can control things.”

  The cold spread from her hands to every inch of her body. “No.”

  “It’s the only option at this point. You keep throwing money at her, you’re going to run out, and then people will wonder why the chick who makes millions can’t afford her electric bill, let alone mortgage.”

  “I’m not talking to my mother. Find some other way.” Celia knew she sounded panicked, but that’s exactly what she was. She could not talk face-to-face—she’d break into something less than the woman she’d made herself into. She couldn’t go back to that.

  “We’ve done this all the other ways,” Aubrey said, again with the gentle tone that made Celia’s heart ache. Ache that Aubrey was trying to be nice. Ache that she couldn’t give Aubrey what she wanted.

  “Celia, it’s time to face her.”

  “No.” Celia tried to speak normally, but with her heart thundering in her ears she didn’t think she was managing it. There had to be another way. Anything else.

  “We’ve done this your way for years now. It’s not working. We have to change tactics.” Aubrey’s voice went a little sharper, a sure sign Celia was overstepping some client/friendship bounds, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t do what Aubrey was asking.

  Celia dragged in a shaky breath. “Find a different tactic.” Your way. The bitterness filled in all the cold. Another time in her life when her way had to bend to someone else’s.

  “Celia. Be reasonable. If you’re dead set on keeping everything that happened with your father under wraps, then we have to find a way she’ll stop, and I think that means you have to talk to her face-to-face. Brad and I will be there, but we can’t just keep paying her off. We have to reach a conclusion, and that means you have to talk to her.”

  And face that ugliest part of her past? The woman who’d blamed her for every blow Curtis had knocked her flat with? The woman who called her a murderer? No. She couldn’t. Her whole body shuddered at the idea.

  “You have to do this,” Aubrey urged. “I’ll be there. Right by your side.”

  “Or I could fire you and Brad.”

  The line was silent. Celia knew she’d gone too far the moment the words were halfway out of her mouth, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t do this.

  “You really want to play that game?” Aubrey asked, her tone deadly calm.

  “I’m not sitting down with her.”

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  Celia didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t ready for this. She was supposed to have a few more months. Tie this up with Ryan. Pick her next film. Not see her mother ever again. Not have to fight the words, the accusations, that this was all her fault.

  She knew it wasn’t. It was her father’s, but her mother had always managed to get under that surety, that belief. Her mother was the queen of making her doubt, and Celia Grant couldn’t doubt.

  “I know we’ve worked really hard to build this image, to make Celia Grant who she is. I’ve worked side by side with you to do that.”

  “Yes, too hard to throw it away because of my mother.” It took every last ounce of effort to make each word come out sounding calm and reasonable. Her hands might be shaking, but she didn’t let her voice waver.

  “We can beat her, you know. More and more I’m thinking… We may need to change directions.”

  Her heart no longer thundered in her ears. Everything seemed to tunnel into silence. Still, oppressive silence. “No.” She forced the word out, but it was barely audible against her tight throat.

  “Use the truth to our advantage.”

  “No!” The thundering was back, the shaking, the panic. The word “no” looped through her head. Can’t do this. Can’t do this.

  “You have an Oscar now. Everyone knows who you are. You have a fan base who loves you, and a business reputation people are dying to work with. We have the leverage we need to make this happen our way. But we have to be in control of it. If we’re the ones who put the truth out there, we can make it what we want it to be.”

  “I’m not rehashing all my hell for a bunch of tabloids. I’m not taking roles that make me relive it. I’m not going to be the poster child for survival or organ donation or what-the-hell-ever. I am bigger and better than survival, and I’m not going back.” Being in Demo, at Harrington, it all proved it would be too hard, too painful.

  The best part of her life as Celia Grant was she could go days without remembering what it felt to think every wrong step was going to earn a beating. Days without remembering how her mother had lied to the cops, lied to her about the causes of her father’s abuse. Or worse, remembering how those few people who’d tried to help had failed.

  And the excruciating crushing feeling when she’d realized hope in itself was a failure.

  She could go weeks between wondering if the kidney she’d been a match for would have even saved her father’s life. Or wondering if it made her a terrible person for not wanting to save it.

  You killed him, CeeCee. I hope you can live with that.

  “You’re going to have to make a choice. What is more important to you? Not going broke, or pretending your past didn’t happen? You know I’m trying to help you. You know I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I didn’t think—”

  “I’ll do more movies. I’ll do TV. Endorsements. I’ll go on every damn talk show that’ll pay me. I’ll do whatever it takes to make more money.” Her mother wouldn’t take that money away from the organizations she gave to. No, Celia would just work until she keeled over if that’s what it meant. “I will not let anyone make me into my past.”

  “That’s not a good idea—”

  “I’m in charge here. I’m your boss. You will do what I say.”

  The line went so quiet Celia pulled the phone away from her ear to see if Aubrey had hung up. She hadn’t, and when Celia put the phone back to her ear, all Aubrey said was, “Okay.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll have Brad handle it. He can contact you with the details.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good-bye, Celia.”

  The call ended before Celia could return the good-bye, before she could apologize, before she could tell Aubrey there was still this one little secret she’d been so sure she could handle herself.

  She should apologize. Aubrey had been by her side long before her star had risen to what it was now. She wasn’t just her publicist.

  But Celia felt too hollow to call her back. Too hollow to apologize for being awful. While she felt guilty for being a jerk, she wasn’t about to feel guilty for wanting to protect herself. And she wouldn’t feel guilty for keeping her marriage a secret from her friend, for taking care of something without anyone telling her how to do it.

  Chapter Three

  Ryan sl
ept like shit. For lots of reasons, really. It wasn’t just wondering what Celia was up to staying with him. It wasn’t even being slightly weirded out that a famous celebrity, even if it was one he’d seen naked, was staying with him.

  It was the uncomfortable realization they saw the past very differently, and where his version made her the bad guy—leaving him with no good-bye. In her version, he’d controlled everything, as if he hadn’t made decisions for them, not just him. As if he were only a few drunken blows away from being her father.

  Even though he was sure his version was the right one, her comments stuck, trying to make him remember. There wasn’t any way in hell he was going to let himself remember anything, not while she was under the same roof.

  He stepped out of his room, bracing himself for…something. He wasn’t quite sure what. After all, what could Celia do?

  Aside from go after Harrington. Aside from look gorgeous and enticing and entirely touchable.

  He clenched his fists. Nope. No touching. Not when he’d stayed up too late replaying her little threat over and over in his head.

  Bullshit, is what it was. And not the same thing he was doing to her. He was using an old relationship to grow his family’s business, to share his grandfather’s passion. She was being vindictive, threatening to go after something that was a part of him, a part of his family, with something he had no control over. He could guarantee a quiet annulment, and that he’d never tell anyone she’d left without a good-bye, but he couldn’t control what other people found out.

  So this was most definitely different.

  The door to the guest room was open and when he peered inside, Celia was nowhere to be seen. The kitchen and living room were empty, too.

  Maybe she’d left. Called a taxi to take her to the Addington Hotel. Or the municipal airport. Maybe she’d hightailed it back to LA and he was screwed.

  No. Not screwed. Because if she’d run away this time, he was damn well going after her.

  With the anger bubbling through his veins, he marched through the house until he realized the back door was open.

  He pushed open the storm door to find her standing at the far corner of the porch, a bowl cupped in one hand, a spoon clutched in the other. Her blond hair was already pulled back in some fancy-looking pile of waves, her face already made up with red lips and a touch of gold around her eyes. The same look from last night, though she’d changed into a long skirt, striped top, and flowy green scarf that didn’t look like it could actually keep the cold out.

  Did she sleep like that, always ready to be the movie star at any interval? Not that he cared. It was just…glamorous women didn’t typically stand on the porch he and Nate had built together. Women with gold around their eyes and clothes that couldn’t be bought within a two-hundred-mile radius of Demo.

  He didn’t want her to belong here. She didn’t belong here, but something about that being so obvious, so visual, it pierced him. Like everything else she represented, then and now, she poked at everything he’d thought or remembered.

  And he didn’t like that one bit.

  “You need to make some coffee,” she said, turning to face him and resting against the railing of the porch.

  “You need to get over the impression I’m going to treat you like your lackeys do.”

  She batted her eyelashes, a fake, irritating smile curving her bright-red lips. “Honey, I am a star, and for the time being, you are my lackey.”

  “The high and mighty act doesn’t hold much weight when I know you’re just trying to piss me off, wife.”

  Her smile died at that. “I don’t care if that minister really was ordained. I was never your wife.”

  “Pretty sure I bought a ring and signed some papers that said otherwise.”

  She rolled her eyes, as if he were an idiot.

  “I was there,” he said through clenched teeth. “Don’t act like I don’t have a clue. I was there.”

  “Yes, you were. In your own little Ryan Harrington world. My way or the highway and this is how it’s going to be. No room for discussion.”

  “If you recall, I asked you to marry me.” And she’d been so happy. He couldn’t believe that her yes, her hugs, kisses, tears had meant nothing. That he’d somehow forced her into marrying him. She’d wanted to. She had.

  “Did you? Because that’s not how I remember it. I’m pretty sure I was told we were getting married.”

  He didn’t want to remember. Even to prove her wrong, he didn’t want to go back to that moment. Prom. Christ, what had he been thinking, proposing in high school? Maybe he hadn’t exactly asked her, but he didn’t want to remember the words. Regardless of how he’d done it, she’d said yes. That was not his imagination.

  He turned away from her, unwilling to let the rest of the memory invade his brain space. That was a long, long time ago, and there was no sane reason to go back there. He’d moved on. He always moved on when something didn’t work for him. Good-bye, CeeCee, after she’d broken his heart. Good-bye, Harrington, when it couldn’t give him what he wanted. Good-bye, law practice, after it had made him miserable. And then he’d come back here and this was his life now. Harrington, and making sure he and Nate made an even bigger name out of what Gramps had built.

  “So, when do we head out? I’m looking forward to getting a better look at Harrington. You know, just in case you can’t keep your end of the bargain and I end up owning it.”

  He inhaled sharply. She was doing this on purpose, and he wasn’t going to take the bait. He would be cool, calm, collected like the mask he’d built as a lawyer. It was a mask that continued to serve him well. “You can’t come after Harrington.” There was just enough disbelief in his tone to prove that he meant it.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to protect myself.”

  Why did she keep saying things like that? As if he was doing this to punish her? How could she not see this wasn’t really about her? “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

  “Just because you’re not trying, doesn’t mean you aren’t. You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

  He squeezed the handle of the storm door to keep from lashing out. He forced a smile. “And you changed everything, didn’t you?”

  “Damn right I did.” She walked toward him, face grim and determined. “I learned a little thing about getting what I want. So you better watch out.” That grim determination stirred something in his gut, something he refused to name, because then he’d have to admit she had an effect on him.

  “Just do the show. How hard is that?” A mild inconvenience. A one-week break from her cushy life. It wasn’t something to be so damn angry about.

  She looked back over the yard, toward the highway just beyond the line of trees. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was looking in the direction of her childhood home.

  It’s not as though he was asking her to go over there.

  “I won’t let anyone know where I came from. Not ever. When I’m not here, I’ll be at Harrington. No one will see me aside from you and Nate and the production crew. No one will suspect a thing because if you tell anyone how we know each other, well, you know what will happen.”

  “You really think you can keep this secret? Here?”

  “I can make anything happen.”

  He felt something, a softening maybe? Because while he didn’t want to remember, sometimes the vision of the scared, bruised girl sneaked under his best defenses. “No one’s going to hold your dad’s abuse against you. You know that. I know that—”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “You keep saying that. I get the picture.”

  “Good.” She shoved her empty bowl of cereal at him, sauntering past, expecting him to clean up her mess. She probably didn’t even know how to wash dishes anymore. “Now, if you’ll go get dressed, we can go get the first day of shooting over with.”

  Ryan looked down at his jeans and sweatshirt. “I am dressed.”

  “Oh, God.” She shook her head in disgust, then
let the storm door slam behind her.

  Ryan scowled at the bowl, at her retreating back. But his irritation was tempered by the feeling that he was missing something. Something about her defensiveness and anger made him think she was hiding something. But being done for good meant he didn’t care, wouldn’t care. So he’d ignore that niggling feeling and make sure Celia did what he wanted.

  …

  Harrington was exactly as she remembered, inside and out. She’d thought that last night but convinced herself the inside of the offices would be different. She wouldn’t feel that stabbing pain of memory.

  But even with different pictures on the walls and mats on the floors, Harrington felt like home. It had been the first place she’d ever felt safe. Millard had taught her to fly—a world above the hell she lived in.

  Too bad she couldn’t find that old, comforting feeling of safety.

  Ryan walked through the lobby of the office as though it was nothing special. Sure, just walk on through your childhood oasis without taking a moment or two.

  Maybe that was for the best. The last thing she wanted was this ache to hurt so deep she couldn’t act over it. Ryan led her to the back room. What had once been a meeting room she and Ryan had made out in once or twice, now had a sign that read Vivvy Marsh Productions.

  Ryan knocked, then pushed the door open. He pointed to a brunette sitting at a desk. “Vivvy. Celia. Celia. Vivvy.”

  Vivvy pushed to her feet. “Ms. Grant. A pleasure to meet you.” She was a well-coiffed woman in towering heels and a pleasant smile. She held out her hand and Celia had to force herself to take it.

  It was an effort to put her Celia Grant public smile in place. “You too, Ms. Marsh. I’m excited to be a part of this show. It sounds so intriguing.” Oh, the lies she managed to tell.

  Ryan had already disappeared, which was for the best as well. Her irritation at him for bringing her here wouldn’t spill over and ruin this performance.

  “We’re certainly excited about it. And to have a star of your caliber.” Vivvy pulled a folder from her desk and handed it to Celia. “Here’s your itinerary, contact numbers, anything I thought you might need. Walk with me?”