Risky Return

by Nicole Helm

  Without waiting for Celia to answer, Vivvy was powering out of her office and out to the hangars.

  “We’ve hired a security guard.” She gestured to a big man in black slacks and a polo shirt who stood talking to a young red-haired woman. “If you want to bring in your own security team as well, you’re more than welcome. Hank won’t mind. As you requested, everyone who’ll be involved in filming had to sign paperwork assuring their silence until we’re ready to shop the pilot.”

  “Wonderful.” Unfortunately it came out more sarcastic than she intended and Vivvy raised an eyebrow at her mid-stride.

  “Did Ryan tell you how he got me to come?” she blurted. After all, she should know what the big players knew and didn’t know. It was the only way to play the right role.

  Vivvy blinked. “Nate said you were an old friend.”

  “I don’t want anyone to know I’m from here.” The words popped out in a panic as she looked around. “Not a soundman or a cameraman or anyone.” And if Vivvy needed her to do this show, she’d have to make sure that happened.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem, Ms. Grant.” Vivvy looked at where the brothers stood in front of the plane that was going to be worked on for the show. “I’ll be honest. I’m not naive enough to think you’re here out of the goodness of your heart, but this show is very important to me. Having you on the pilot episode means it’s guaranteed to get picked up.”

  Her gaze remained on Nate and Ry as she continued. “So I let Ryan handle getting you here because, well, getting the show picked up is exactly what I need to stay here.”

  “Why would you want to stay here?” Celia couldn’t fathom a way Demo and its gray, monotonous nothing could possibly have any appeal to someone who’d seen anything else.

  “Oh.” Vivvy gestured toward the brothers. “I…Well, Nate and I…”

  “You and Nate?” Nate had always been a kind of big-brother type, even though he and Ryan were identical twins. Maybe he’d changed, but she still remembered the guy who’d spent all his time covered in airplane grease. Not wooing women who wore designer heels and suits.

  “Wow. Is it really something to be that incredulous over?”

  “You just…don’t look like you belong here. At all.”

  She smiled, and that was when Celia realized her gaze wasn’t on the two brothers. It was on Nate alone. “Funny,” Vivvy said. “This is the first place I feel like I have.” She shook her head, gaze moving back to Celia. “If you don’t want to be here, if you’re going to back out, I need to know now. I trusted that Ryan asking you here, if not fully your idea, was at least all right with you. If that’s not the case…”

  “It’s fine,” Celia muttered, waving her off. If she admitted it wasn’t, Vivvy would wonder why. And apparently, Vivvy had more to lose than just this show. If getting this pilot done meant staying with Nate, this was professional and personal. And that meant even if she didn’t know anything about Celia’s past, Vivvy was another potential threat.

  She needed to be Celia Grant, to give Vivvy no reason to want to break her agreement at silence. So she plastered on a sunny smile. “I’d rather leave the details of my childhood private, but I’m certainly happy to help an old friend like Ryan.”

  Vivvy studied her, and Celia got the weirdest impression she didn’t believe Celia’s act. She’d gotten to a place where everyone believed her act. But then the moment was gone and Vivvy was leading her to the airplane, talking about the show, about filming.

  And Celia swallowed down the frustration—at being here, at being the pawn in someone else’s life yet again. She fought the leading edge of temper, the need to lash out. She’d save that for later, for when she and Ryan were alone, and she could lose the Celia shell without any consequences.

  Chapter Four

  Ryan felt like he was watching a movie. Or, perhaps more appropriately, a play. The Celia Grant Show. Because all the anger and disdain and determination he’d seen in the twenty-four hours since Celia had landed melted away the minute she was around the filming crew.

  She was all smiles, compliments, niceties, even jokes. She charmed everyone. She and Vivvy’s assistant, Ellen, acted like long lost friends. She got Hank to laugh and promised to sign autographs for the sound and light crew once filming was over at the end of the week. She did sound tests and light tests and flew the plane in for a landing three times, all with a cheerful smile on her face.

  Ryan kept watching for some kind of crack. Some kind of clue that under all those smiles and laughs there was a woman who didn’t want to be here.

  He didn’t see anything. It was almost…creepy. Like two different people inhabiting the same body. Sure, he’d had to put a game face on for a divorce mediation before, but he never just…became someone else.

  She treated him like all the rest. No sneers, no snippy comments, or even calling him Ry. Maybe she was auditioning for some new version of The Twilight Zone and he just didn’t know it.

  The crew packed up for the day and Celia was chatting with Ellen in a corner. Ryan stood with Vivvy and Nate, and couldn’t make himself stop watching her.

  “Well, if today’s any indication, things should go fairly smoothly,” Vivvy offered.

  Ryan merely grunted. Nothing about this was going smoothly. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he didn’t know about Celia’s situation, and that was downright unacceptable.

  “And she got settled okay?

  Ryan shifted. “Yeah.” He should probably tell Vivvy that Celia had insisted on staying with him, but he wasn’t ready to face Vivvy’s questions. Or, more importantly, Nate’s.

  They might be identical twins, but Nate had always acted like an older brother. The steady one. And Ryan knew Nate would have a few things to say about Celia staying with him. You really think that’s a great idea? And that was without even knowing Ryan and Celia were still married. As long as everything went according to plan, he’d never have to know.

  Great idea or not, Ryan was going to handle it, without dealing with Nate or Vivvy’s disapproval.

  With pretty much everyone else gone, Celia crossed to them, that sunny Celia Grant movie star smile in place. She sidled up right next to Ryan. “Ready to take me home?” There was no sarcasm. No haha, I screwed you, didn’t I? Just a sweetness that seemed to imply, at least to Vivvy and Nate, that staying with him was something she enjoyed.

  “You’re… She’s…” Vivvy clamped her mouth shut, offered a pained smile before reopening it. “Ryan, you didn’t tell me Celia was staying with you.”

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.” Celia entwined her arm with his, blinked up at him with an adoring smile.

  What was she doing? He tried to unwrap himself from her prying arms, but she held on tight. That bizarre look never leaving her face.

  “I just couldn’t resist the chance to…catch up,” she continued.

  “It’s not—”

  “Well, it’s been a long, exhausting day,” Celia interrupted brightly. “And we’ll be back early tomorrow. Thanks for such a great first day.”

  “Well, of course,” Vivvy managed, her smile tight and pained as Celia dragged Ryan away and toward the parking lot.

  Ryan finally freed his arm halfway to the parking lot. “What the hell was that?”

  “What the hell was what, dear husband?”

  “No one else is around, you can knock off the Stepford Wife routine. I don’t need Vivvy or Nate thinking I’m getting mixed up with you again. I wouldn’t think you’d want that, either.”

  “Don’t presume to know what I want, honey.” And the Celia he’d talked to last night and this morning was back—angry, defiant, anything but cheerful and sweet.

  How the hell did she do that? “Don’t screw with me, Celia.”

  “Oh, did I mess with your image?” She blinked up at him, but even with all her acting skills the fake innocent look didn’t jibe. There was too much anger in the slash of her eyebrows, the tenseness in her shoul
ders.

  “Very funny.”

  “Not very fun, is it? To have to pretend.”

  He marched in front of her, wrenching the driver’s side door of his car open. “Your life is one big pretend.”

  That seemed to shut her up. She slid into the car and was silent the entire drive home. His home. He wouldn’t let that silence, that weirdly wounded look on her face, get to him.

  What she did was her business, not his. His business was to get her to filming every day. And to keep his mouth shut about their past.

  That’s all he wanted to do, so it was no hardship. Her threat against Harrington was empty, and she meant nothing to him. He pulled into his drive, parked the car, and got out, trying not to care that she was just sitting there.

  He stood at his front door, trying to force himself to push the key into the lock. Go inside. Do… What? Sit around wondering what the hell her problem was? He didn’t care what her problem was. She’d left him and it had been ten years since he wasted any energy worrying about her.

  He stalked back to his car in the driveway and pulled the passenger side door open. “What is it?” he demanded, with no finesse at all. Which was fine. He didn’t want to finesse this, or her. Especially her.

  “You’re right,” she said with a sniffle. He wanted her tears to be fake, didn’t want to face the reality behind the facade.

  “Right about what?” He wanted the words to be flippant, but they weren’t. Neither was the urge to touch her or tell her it was okay, or the urge to wipe that bright-red lipstick off her mouth, preferably with his. Nothing about that was flippant at all. Or smart. Or allowed.

  “My life is one big pretend, but why shouldn’t it be?”

  “So you can be yourself.” This Celia Grant version might be polished and seemingly untouchable, but it was missing something. The core of who she used to be. Fun. Sweet. Damn resilient.

  “Myself?” She laughed, finally sliding out of the car and pushing past him and toward the house. “Myself sucked. So I made a better self.”

  He followed her, against every instinct that told him to shut his mouth and let it go. “But it’s not you.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says the guy who’s known you since elementary school.”

  She whirled on him then. “Oh, you know me so well? Who am I, then?”

  “Who are you? The girl who survived that hell you grew up in, and still had something left to be nice to other people. Who made my grandparents Christmas gifts even though you didn’t have a dime. Who got out of here and got what she wanted. Christ. Look at yourself. Why shouldn’t you be you?” It all came out without him really thinking about it. Something about the way she’d transformed into someone else in front of all those people bothered him. It was amazing she could do it, but that pretend wasn’t her, and he stupidly wanted her to be exactly that. Her.

  …

  Celia felt as though he’d ripped off an appendage or something painful and irrevocable. It was so pointless to be crying, yet beyond her control. She was a levee being breached, too many days, months, years of trying to hold it together. Trying to be…well, anyone besides herself. She could barely breathe, and she couldn’t blink back one single tear.

  He stepped forward, arms out, as though…as though he was going to hug her. Offer comfort. She stumbled backward, because oh God no, that was a levee she couldn’t allow to be washed over.

  One touch from him had the potential to dissolve everything, even as he looked down at his hands, mouth twisted in surprise at his own gesture.

  Hopefully that meant it wouldn’t happen again. Unfortunately, she still could not erase the memories crowding for space.

  Ever since he’d first contacted her about doing the show, she’d focused on all the ways he’d bulldozed over her, never asked for her opinion, never even seemed to consider she’d have an opinion.

  But in that moment, that arms-out, almost-hug moment, she remembered why she’d loved him. Painfully, as though it hadn’t been ten years since he’d loved her, she remembered that he’d been the first person to care. Really care. About her, about her safety, her well-being.

  He’d gone to the police once for her, but Mom had managed to talk Dad’s way out of it. Ryan had fumed about the injustice for weeks. He’d started researching law schools that had professors with specialties in family law.

  He might have overlooked her, but never viciously. He never meant to belittle her. He’d simply been so dead set on the two of them escaping both their parents. He’d been hell-bent on achieving success that would make his grandparents proud. And in that focus he hadn’t considered she might have dreams of her own, dreams that went beyond escaping an abusive childhood.

  But he’d seen her. Who she was beyond everything that had happened to her. The fact that he could think she’d want to be herself, it was an excruciating reminder he still knew her. No one else. Just him.

  The adult Ryan she hadn’t thought she’d recognized was reminding her that it hadn’t been all bad. There’d been good things between them, and even just good things in general. School, Harrington, Ryan’s grandparents, a place to belong.

  The way he’d touched her, with all the care in the world. As if she were something important and precious, not a belonging that deserved to be insulted, beaten. He had kissed her as though she’d meant everything.

  She’d made herself forget those little bright spots of truth, and now he was making her remember. Standing in his yard, on a cold, early-spring evening, looking at each other as if they both wished they could rewind time. Fifteen minutes. Two months.

  And, most frighteningly of all, ten years. To a moment when he would hug and comfort her, and make everything feel that it was all right, even if only for a little while.

  “You brought me here,” she managed in little more than a choking whisper. “You could have taken some money for Harrington, but you had to bring me here.” One day in and her past was already crowding around her, even without her mother knowing she was here. The memories. The feelings. That…person she’d fought so hard to forget.

  Herself.

  How could she survive six more days of this?

  “I already told you I don’t want your money.”

  She swallowed, forced herself to look at Ryan and put some heat and anger into the look, but she couldn’t muster it, because for possibly the first time in her life, she’d rendered the great Ryan Harrington, in all his surety and determination, speechless. Floundering. He stood there with his mouth hanging open and not one easy, confident word coming out.

  If she could get past all this emotional crap, she could feel some satisfaction in it.

  “Let’s go inside,” Ryan said, his voice little more than a rumble along the quiet almost-dark around them.

  She wanted to argue with him, scream at him, hit him, but she’d lost any energy her anger gave her with his simple reminder that he’d cared at one point. That she hadn’t been all misery and pain back then. That he saw her—then and now. Her. Not who she pretended to be.

  So she followed him. Slowly, she walked inside, into his cozy house that didn’t seem like it ought to feel like home. She didn’t want this life, but there was something appealing about it. Why couldn’t it make her feel bigger and better than what she’d left behind?

  She headed for her room, ready to sleep off all this…past. Ready to sleep off her breakdown and wake in the morning revived as Celia Grant.

  None of this old CeeCee shit, but Ryan’s quiet words followed her down the hall.

  “I’m not sorry. I can’t be.”

  Of course not.

  “But I am sorry if something I did back then hurt you. We may not be anything to each other now, but I never wanted to be one of the people who hurt you.”

  She had to clench her hand into a fist to keep from bracing against the wall, bracing against the onslaught of emotion and pain those words caused. “You didn’t hurt me. You just…I just… It didn’t work. I needed more
.” Vague, but as honest as she could manage.

  “More than someone who loved you?”

  “Yes.” So much more than that.

  “Well, then, it was for the best.”

  “It really is.” She took another step, but steady, demanding, always-right Ryan made another appearance.

  “So why don’t you stop picking fights and we can get through this in peace. Just six more days.”

  Anger washed over her. Because six days felt like an eternity if it meant that much time in this much pain. She’d given him something by admitting he hadn’t hurt her; for him to keep pushing wiped away that moment of…understanding or acceptance or something.

  She turned, purposefully, carefully. “You brought me here.” Her feet moved against her better judgment, crossing to him, drilling her finger into his chest. “You risked everything I’ve made. There is no peace.”

  He grasped her hand so she couldn’t poke any harder. “I may have brought you here, but you’re the one making it so damn difficult.”

  “Don’t touch me.” She wrenched her hand away because if she let him touch her, she’d want to let him touch her, and she couldn’t afford that.

  His head snapped back, a brief snapshot of hurt, and then it was gone, replaced by all the anger they brought out in each other. “Don’t do that. Don’t equate it. I would never hurt you like that.”

  He was right. She was wrong, but sometimes wrong felt like the only defense. At least against him, but insinuating that touching her that way was anything like what her father had done… “I’m sorry.” And she was. So sorry she didn’t know how to handle this or him or anything really.

  Apparently she’d gotten out of LA, away from Aubrey and her agent and her rules, and turned into everything she worked so hard not to be. A pathetic mess.

  “Is there something I’m…missing?” He touched her arm, just a brief brush of his fingertips against her skin. And it caused a spark of electricity she hadn’t felt in so long. A humming heat she couldn’t afford, so she wouldn’t acknowledge it.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me.”