Round & Ravishing

by Mary E Thompson

  “Look, if you’re not here to actually buy flowers then you can get the hell out,” I said, annoyed that I was still dealing with him.

  “I’m sorry. I have no idea what they’re called. They’re white with yellow in the middle. I think she said they come in pink too, but there’s yellow in the middle. Maybe they’re tropical? She and my dad got married in Hawaii. Could they be from there?”

  Shit. “Are you talking about plumeria?”

  He shrugged. “I’m fairly certain I don’t know a thing. I’d recognize a picture if you have one.”

  I sighed and pulled out my phone. The first page that loaded was the article about my nude pictures. I quickly opened a new one as Noah moved to look over my shoulder.

  Shit, was he tall. I’d forgotten that.

  And holy Jesus did he smell good. I’d blocked that, too.

  That exclusive interview was getting more and more likely.

  Dammit.

  He brushed the hair off my neck and kissed the spot where my shoulder turned up to my neck. “Why are you acting like you’re unhappy I’m here?”

  “How did you find me?” I blurted, stepping away from him and his tantalizing lips.

  He chuckled. “Kismet, Tara. I honestly had no idea you worked here. I really am sending flowers to my mom. Her birthday is Monday. I always send her something. They moved to Florida a few years ago and my dad said she misses having a garden. He wanted her to have flowers. He’s getting her roses but said she liked these star things. Plumeria? Is that what you called them?”

  I finally pulled up a picture and held the phone up for him to see. “That’s plumeria. Is that it?”

  He grinned. Damn, he needed to stop that. “That’s it. Can we do something with those?”

  I nodded. “Sure. Of course. Let’s go to the desk and we can figure it out.”

  I turned to walk away but Noah grabbed my hand. “I’ve been thinking about you ever since you left my bed the other morning. Is there any chance I can take you out?”

  I shook my head. “I told you I don’t do relationships.”

  He shrugged and pulled me flush against his body. “Then how about we just have lots of sex. Every chance we can.”

  I laughed, finally remembering why I’d liked him in the first place. I was still suspicious of him, but it was like I told Abby with Graham, I couldn’t compare him to every other man I’d known.

  “Are you really a pediatric oncology nurse?”

  Confused by the question, Noah took a step back. “Yeah. Why?”

  I shrugged. “It’s just strange that we’ve run into each other so much lately when I haven’t ever met you before.”

  “Well, I don’t buy a lot of flowers so the last time I was in here was a year ago. I don’t have a very good memory, but I don’t think you were here then. And Malley’s is a place I only go to once in a while. My brother, the photographer, he likes to go there. I guess I go when it’s been a while since he’s been home. He travels for work but lives with me when he’s in town. He hasn’t been back in a while. We talked Friday afternoon and I was thinking about him when I went out. I just ended up at Malley’s.”

  I felt properly ashamed. In my mind I was accusing him of being a devious, lying reporter. He was as far from that as possible. And I kind of felt like shit for not trusting him.

  “Sorry. I’m just a little overly cautious.”

  Noah shook his head. “No, you should be. A beautiful woman like you should be careful when it comes to strange men. I guess I figured since I know what you feel like,” he paused and pulled me back into his arms, “and taste like,” he licked the column of my throat, “and sound like when you come, that maybe you could trust me a little. I guess I need to work on that some more.”

  I laughed. “And how do you propose that will happen?”

  “Propose? Well, not yet. You’re not into relationships so marriage might be a little presumptuous. I’m thinking a date. One date. If you don’t want a second one, I’ll never see you again. If you do, well, we already know we’re good together.”

  He kissed my neck, his tongue brushing over the racing pulse in my neck. I held on to him and enjoyed the sensations. “Hey Noah?”

  “Yeah?” he whispered against my skin.

  “One date.”

  He pulled back just enough to look at me. “You’ll be begging me for a second one. Saturday night.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at him. “Let’s order your mom some flowers, loverboy.”

  “Hey. That’s lover-man to you.”

  I laughed and shook my head. He was definitely all man.

  Chapter 6

  By lunchtime Friday, I turned off my phone. Every single one of my friends had sent me a text. Or six. Patrick had issued a statement of apology. Half my friends wanted me to forgive and forget. The other half saw his statement for what it was.

  A bullshit apology that probably wasn’t even from him.

  All his supposed apology did was piss me off even more.

  I mean, really, the reporters had backed off. It had been almost a week since anyone had come into Coming Up Daisies to bother me. And in one flippin’ morning, Patrick ruined that.

  Asshole.

  When I wasn’t answering text messages, I was fending off reporters. Mom finally let me go into work alone so I wasn’t going to call her and beg my mommy for help. I was going to deal with it. I was an actress, dammit. I could take care of myself.

  It wasn’t fun though. Some of the reporters left without being threatened. Most needed a reminder that harassment wasn’t allowed, especially when they started asking more pointed questions.

  Like if my sex life with Patrick was any good. Or if I had been with anyone since Patrick. Or if Patrick being with Cassie Clarke bothered me.

  They didn’t need to know any of the answers. Mostly because any retaliation was going to be planned out, not brought on by a casual comment a reporter caught.

  When I finally locked the doors, I turned my phone back on. I’d only briefly glanced at the statement issued and wanted to read it again. Just to confirm what I’d thought before. For my own sanity, I needed to know Patrick wasn’t really trying to get back in my good graces. I couldn’t have him playing nice when I was getting ready to destroy him.

  A formal apology has been issued on behalf of Patrick Williams for the pictures of Tara Fisher that were published online. Mr. Williams states the photographs were his personal property and that his online storage account was illegally accessed. He apologizes to Ms. Fisher for the violation of her privacy and vows to determine the source of the access. He asks that any and all sites illegally posting the photos of Ms. Fisher remove them.

  That was it. No sense of urgency. No statement of what he’d do if he found the source. Nothing. If his pictures were the ones leaked, he’d have gone nuts trying to find out who had those pictures. The fact that he wasn’t more concerned proved to me he knew exactly who was behind it.

  And there was no doubt in my mind it was him.

  I shoved my phone back in my Prada bag and left through the back door. I really needed to go shopping for something to wear on my date with Noah. It was one of those days I would have rather stuffed my head in an oven than be out in public, but I wasn’t going to let them get to me. And the only clothes I had to wear on a date were not… right for a date in Winterville.

  In November.

  I dreaded the mall, but it was the only place to shop in town so I headed there. Worst case, I knew I could head into Buffalo, or even Niagara Falls, if I couldn’t find something, but I was going to try out the local stores first.

  The hustle of afternoon shoppers was a welcome distraction for me. No one was paying attention to me, leaving me to browse rack after rack of clothes. Unfortunately, the first three stores were complete busts. I headed into the fourth, the last I’d planned to check out, with very little hope of finding anything.

  All I wanted was a pair of leggings and a long top to wear with t
hem. I wanted to wear my camel booties that worked well with my blue Prada bag. I just needed to find something to go with them. Something not black.

  I pushed aside a see through top and rolled my eyes. Who would wear that in November? I moved to the next rack and spotted an asymmetrical camel turtleneck hanging on the far wall.

  It was perfect.

  They had to have my size.

  I reached up and flipped through the turtlenecks. It was soft. Definitely cotton, but expensive, sexy cotton. The kind that made you think it wasn’t really cotton. My eyes landed on an XL and I snagged it. With a smile, I turned to go to the dressing room.

  And ran smack into someone.

  “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I should have said something.”

  My eyes snapped up to hers and I sighed. Olivia.

  “Excuse me,” I said, trying to move to the side and get away from her.

  “That’s a cute sweater,” she said, stepping in front of me.

  I lifted an eyebrow, but she didn’t budge. So she wanted to talk. Great. “Yes, I thought it was, too. It’s soft and will match a pair of booties I have.”

  “What are you going to wear with it?”

  It was the longest conversation we’d had since high school. And she wanted to talk about clothes. Better than talking about our past, I guess.

  “I haven’t figured that out. I haven’t had much luck finding anything I like.”

  “Do you have a date?”

  I nodded absently before I realized who I was confiding in. I hadn’t even talked to Abby about Noah. Aside from what I’d shared at girls’ night.

  “The guy you were telling us about the other night?”

  “Yes.”

  My tone stopped whatever her next question or comment was. I had no interest in divulging anything about my dating life to her. For all I knew, she’d call the reporters and share everything with them.

  “I love your bag. Is that a real Prada bag?”

  I nodded. “It was my gift to myself after my first movie.”

  “The Barstool? That was your first movie, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said carefully, wondering how she knew the movie. It hadn’t done well and never made it to the theater. Most people who saw it went out of their way to see it. Which didn’t fit with Olivia, but we were talking about my bag, not my movies. “It was obscenely expensive, but I’ve used it every day for years. I’ve gotten my money’s worth.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What was it like being a movie star?”

  I laughed mirthlessly. Everyone had these big fantasies of what being in a movie was like. I did, too. It never came anywhere close. “I hated every second of it. I needed a reward when it was over.”

  “Really?” she asked, leaning closer. Then I remembered who I was talking to.

  “Yeah. I expected something different. It was long hours and very little reward. Of course, the movie was small and I was no one really special.”

  “But you did it. You did something a lot of people want to do but never get that far. You should be proud of what you did, even if it ended up being different than you’d hoped it would be.”

  The fact that no one had ever said anything like that to me before hit a nerve. I could almost pretend Olivia and I were friends again. That she was the person I always thought she was.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “I mean it, Tara. Even if you hated the movie, you earned that bag. I always wished things hadn’t ended the way they did with us. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to call you and apologize.”

  “You never did.”

  “I should have. Then I would know why The Barstool was so bad.”

  I shrugged. I knew I shouldn’t be there talking to her. That I had no reason to trust her. But it had been a long time since I’d had a friend to really talk to. Someone who cared.

  “I spent six months working out with a trainer to lose enough weight to fit into the costumes they wanted me to wear. Then two months with everyone on set telling me I was still too fat. I think the worst part was the sex scene they’d written. I’d agreed because it was supposed to be implied with a scene fade. They decided to add it after we’d started filming because the male lead and I got along well. He actually tried to talk me into having sex for real during filming so it would be ‘more authentic.’ I wouldn’t do it and he made the rest of filming miserable for me.”

  Olivia gaped at me, but her eyes were filled with what appeared to be genuine concern. “That’s horrible. You should have bought yourself the shoes to go with the purse for that one.”

  I laughed. It felt good to laugh with Olivia. It had been too long. Maybe there was a way for us to be friends again. Maybe I could forgive and forget. High school was a lifetime ago, right?

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t get paid that well for the movie. And by the time I did a few more, I needed the money to eat more than I needed a new pair of shoes.”

  “Why did you leave California?”

  I shrugged. “My mom kept saying how my dad wasn’t doing well. Things weren’t going well anyway. I was pretty burned out. I wasn’t getting callbacks and I was frustrated. Add seeing Patrick’s name everywhere and the constant spreads with him and Cassie and I just couldn’t stand being there anymore.”

  “Are you going to stay here?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not forever at least. I’m starting to think about where I want to go when I leave. My dad’s doing better and I just don’t feel like this is home anymore.”

  “I never imagined you as anything other than an actress. It always felt like you were meant to be in front of a camera or on a stage somewhere.”

  “When your ex basically blackballs you, it doesn’t matter how good you are. Not that I was killing it before. I’ve considered Broadway, but I don’t think I could get on a stage ever again. I’d rather do movies and tv.”

  “Have you thought about teaching? Something outside Hollywood but still a part of that world? Maybe something Patrick couldn’t touch?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have a teaching certificate and most instruction is basic acting, not geared toward film. I never thought Patrick’s influence would still be messing with me. I’ve been out of everything for so long that I don’t get why he even cares about me anymore.”

  “I saw his apology this morning.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure about it. I think his people issued a statement because that’s what’s expected. A lot of the girls have said I should let it go,” I confessed.

  “I’d have a hard time walking away when someone did something like that. It’s not just that he ruined your career, or at least made it harder, but he embarrassed you. He did something that I don’t think should easily be forgiven. I’d be getting even if I were you.”

  My palms started to sweat. My head swirled. I could see it as if I was back there again. On that stage. Looking out at the crowd holding up signs showing my words. Words I’d shared with Olivia. Words I’d been afraid of seeing printed about me in the school paper.

  Instead they were printed on poster board and held up for me to see when I stepped onto the stage opening night of our senior production of Grease!

  There was a part of me that knew Olivia never intended for anything to go as far as it did. But that didn’t change that my most humiliating high school moment was because of her.

  “Revenge? Because he embarrassed me? Because he took something personal from me and shared it with someone else? Because he destroyed a part of me, made it harder for me to trust. For me to look at another person and be willing to get close to them. I’ve been through that before. I’ve had my trust betrayed by someone I thought would never do something like that. The shitty thing for me is that it’s happened to me twice now. By the two people I considered myself closest to at one point in time. And now,” I laughed. “Now, the first pers
on to betray me is telling me I should get even with the second person who betrayed me. That this level of betrayal is not something I should just let go. Would you have given me the same advice about yourself? Would you have told me to get even with you in high school?”

  “I, um… I didn’t mean it like that, Tara,” Olivia backpedaled. She knew I was right. That she couldn’t have it both ways. That there couldn’t be two sets of rules for the same crime. If he deserved to be destroyed, so did she.

  “You always saw yourself as someone that was better than the rest of us. Definitely better than me. You’re the one who should have gone to Hollywood though. You were the better actress. I never thought you’d shared my secrets with those horrible girls. It never even occurred to me that my best friend would go behind my back and tell the popular crowd what I was so worried about. And yet that was exactly what you did. You knew how scared I was to get up on that stage. How nervous I was to have my first lead. And to see my words, my fears, looking back at me… You have no idea how much that hurt.”

  She had the decency to look ashamed. Her hair slid to cover her face for a moment when she ducked her head. I wanted her to look at me. To explain. To defend herself. To do something other than just stand there and look like she was going to be sick all over her shoes.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stopped you. Have fun on your date.”

  She rushed off, looking like she was afraid I would chase her down. The worst part was, I wanted to, but not for the reasons she feared.

  Chapter 7

  Noah refused to tell me where we were going for our date the next night. He wanted to pick me up, but I never liked to be at the mercy of someone else so I met him out at a little restaurant called Wine & Dine. I was disappointed he didn’t have more planned for our date than dinner, but I promised to give him a shot. Anything could happen.

  I got out of the car and went inside the restaurant. It was small with only about twenty tables visible from the door. There was a fireplace on one wall and all the tables had a candle illuminating the space where the customers sat. I glanced around but didn’t see Noah anywhere.