by K. M. Scott
Stepping out onto the sidewalk, she made it two steps toward the front door before Paul rushed out toward her and took her by the arm like she was some kind of invalid. To the swarm of paparazzi nearby seeing his behavior, they might think he was someone who cared about how she felt.
“Miss Marchand! Alexis! Look this way!” one of the photographers ordered as she hid her face in Paul’s jacket.
“How are you enjoying New York, Alexis? Where were you today?” another one asked, yelling his questions as the group hovered far too closely for her comfort.
Paul stopped walking and said to the group, “Gentlemen, give our girl some space. We all know how much she loves her fans, but with the recent problem with someone stalking her, you can’t expect her to love what you all are doing right now. We ask that you respect her privacy, okay?”
His request fell on deaf ears, though, and they began hurling questions at her.
“Do you know the identity of the stalker? Have they contacted you again? What protections are being put in place for your safety, Alexis? How will this affect your filming schedule? Does this mean you’ll have to take time off from your career?”
She pressed her face hard into the soft fabric of Paul’s brown jacket as every question made her feel sicker and sicker to her stomach and tears welled in her eyes. Time off would be a death sentence for her career. God, when would this nightmare end?
Paul escorted her into the building, and as soon as the glass doors closed behind them, he pushed her away and started in on her. “What the hell were you thinking, Lexi? I’ve been pacing back and forth for hours sick about you out there on your own. Lauren’s upstairs and she’s a mess after all of this.”
Stunned at how much anger dripped off each word he spoke, she stood staring up at him for a moment and then turned to head toward the elevator, desperate to escape from him and everyone else. The doorman gave her a tepid smile like he felt bad for her as she passed by him. Paul walked behind her and continued to rave on about how he’d practically worn a path in the hardwood floor by pacing and how big the knot in his stomach had grown because of what she’d done.
As the elevator doors closed, he grabbed hold of her hand and squeezed it. “Look at me, Lexi. You took ten years off my life today. You can’t do this.”
She hated when he talked to her like this. Nobody needed to tell her she’d made a mistake. She knew. And she didn’t think he should treat her like she was some petulant child who deserved to be chastised for her behavior.
Turning to look at him like he demanded, Alexis apologized, just as she knew she needed to. Giving him big brown eyes full of sadness, she whimpered, “I didn’t mean to upset everyone, Paul. I’m sorry.”
But this time he didn’t seem to be buying her sad girl act.
“Don’t give me that look, Lexi. I know you well enough to know just how much it’s all an act. You think that’s enough, don’t you? You think giving me the sad face and that voice will make up for everything you did today. I work my tail off day and night to make sure your career doesn’t derail, and then you pull this kind of stunt! Don’t you give a damn about anyone but yourself?”
But her sadness wasn’t an act. He just had a different opinion about why she should be sad.
The elevator reached the penthouse and the doors opened to Lauren standing there waiting for her with tears in her eyes. She ran to Alexis and wrapped her arms around her as she began to sob.
“I’m so sorry. Hunter told me I couldn’t come with you. I didn’t just leave, Alexis. I would never do that. Never.”
Holding her best friend, she consoled her while she consoled herself. “I know, Lauren. It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, she’s fine. You’re fine. Everyone’s fine but me. I’m a wreck, but thanks for asking,” Paul complained as he began to pace back and forth in front of the elevator doors as they closed, waving his hands around frantically.
“I really am sorry,” Alexis said as she backed away from Lauren to face him. “I didn’t mean to ruin everyone’s day.”
“What were you thinking, Lexi? Just tell me that so I can understand this whole damn thing. You could have gotten yourself hurt, or even worse, killed! You’ve got a stalker out there. What if they found you? Was Lauren going to protect you? Does she suddenly have the strength and abilities of a bodyguard? Lauren, how about you show me how you planned to protect Lexi? Do you have a gun or anything to use to do that job? No, you don’t!”
As he talked, his voice got louder and louder until by the end, he was screaming at them. His face grew redder and redder with every passing moment, frightening her. Paul had never been like this before, and Alexis didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, all she felt like doing was curling up in a ball again and crying like Lauren was now.
Holding on to her friend’s hand, Alexis tried to protect her. “It isn’t her fault, Paul. Lauren would never put me in harm’s way. I did this on my own. She just came along because I made her. I just wanted—”
He cut her off and began barking at her again. “You just wanted to have some fun. I know. Lauren already told me. But Lexi, you’re not like other people. You can’t just decide to take off for the beach any damn time you like. Even if you didn’t have a stalker, you can’t just go off on your own. And what would have happened if that stalker found you and did something to Lauren before kidnapping you? Would you be able to forgive yourself for her getting hurt or killed just because you did one stupid thing?”
The mere thought of Lauren being harmed because of anything she did made Alexis choke up with emotion. Of all the people in the world she’d never want to see hurt, Lauren was top on that list. She’d never get over it if she suffered for a mistake she made.
The elevator doors opened and Hunter stepped out into the horrible drama that had blown up in the past few minutes. Embarrassed and feeling like her emotions might unravel at any moment, she stepped back away from Paul and hung her head as she felt the tears begin to burn her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to upset everyone. I would never do anything to hurt any of you.”
Paul started to say something, but Hunter spoke up. “We’ve all had an exciting day. I think Alexis would like to be left alone for a while.”
She looked up at him in amazement. Did he just say she should be left alone? She knew Paul was saying exactly what Hunter thought about all she’d done. Why was he defending her?
“Left alone?” Paul said, astonished at what he’d just heard from the man he’d hired. “I think we need to have a conversation about how she scared the living hell out of all of us, don’t you think? Maybe some discussion about how she can never do this again?”
Hunter put his hand on the small of her back and began to gently guide her down the hallway toward her room. “We’ve already had that conversation, so let’s give Alexis some time alone. If anyone needs anything from her, see me or Lauren and we’ll take care of it.”
Alexis looked back to see Paul standing there with his mouth hanging open in shock as Hunter led her away from him and the discussion he wanted to have. He opened the door for her and held it as she walked in and sat down on the bed, stunned by everything that had happened in the past minute.
“Let me know if you need anything,” he said as he began to close the door.
“Hunter! Wait!” she yelled, not wanting him to go before she said something to him.
He stopped and looked back at her. “Something wrong?”
“I just wanted to say thanks. I know I deserve the lecture Paul wanted to give me back there, but thanks for getting me away from it.”
He smiled a warm and sexy grin that made him even more handsome than usual. As he spoke, her stomach did a little flip. “I figured you’re a grown woman. You don’t need to be told something you already know.”
A grown woman? Paul never treated her like she was anything more than some head case he needed to constantly keep watch over. In fact, nobody treated her like a grown woman. Even Lauren.
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Not that she made it easy to. She knew that. Her antics and ranting about things hardly created an environment where anyone would see her as an adult who deserved to be treated with respect.
But she liked how it felt when someone did.
Embarrassed by what she’d done that morning, she lowered her head. “Thank you. I guess I didn’t act like a grown woman today, so thanks for treating me like one anyway.”
“You’re very welcome. Do you want me to have Lauren come in?”
“Yeah. Tell her to come in.”
He turned to leave, and she added, “Please.”
Looking back at her, he smiled in that sexy way again. It made her stomach flutter even more this second time.
“Okay. I’ll be out here working, but if you plan to go out, just let me know, okay?”
“Thanks, Hunter.”
As the door closed and he disappeared, she thought about how much she knew he agreed with Paul. That he didn’t just stand there and let her get lectured on how stupid she’d been that day showed he really wasn’t just another one of her bodyguards since none of them would ever dare to stand up for her to Paul before.
He defended her.
No one had ever defended her. People told her what to do and what not to do. They told her how to act. Fans told her how much they loved her. Critics told her what they thought of her work. Haters told her to give up acting and stick to being a dumb blonde who should do nothing but model.
But no one, not even her ex-husband, had ever stood up for her like that.
A tiny knock on the door she recognized as Lauren’s roused her from her thoughts, so she called her in. She hurriedly locked the door behind her and rushed over to sit next to Alexis on the bed.
Wide-eyed, she said, “Oh my God! Paul was so furious when we got back. He was so mad. I thought he was going to stroke out right there when I got off the elevator. I wanted to cry he was yelling so loud.”
Alexis didn’t want to think about Paul now. Turning to face Lauren, she excitedly asked, “Did you see how Hunter stopped him from giving me chapter and verse about how I should have been more careful? I couldn’t believe it! I thought the two of them were going to read me the riot act for at least an hour when I got here.”
All the worry and stress faded from Lauren’s expression, replaced by a huge grin that lit up her face. “I did. What happened in the car on the way back to make that happen? I figured they’d both pile on once you got home since Paul was the one who brought him here.”
“I don’t know. Nothing. I know he was as furious as Paul is when he found us, but he didn’t yell at me or even scold me about it. All he said was if I wanted to go somewhere to just let him know.”
“That was it? Nothing else? I thought you’d tell me he bitched you out all the way home.”
Alexis shook her head, still stunned he didn’t. “Me too, but there was no bitching.”
“I guess, now that you mention it, he doesn’t really seem like the bitching type. He’s more of a quiet kind of person, but sometimes those are the ones who yell the loudest.”
Thinking back, she went over the ride home in her mind and smiled. “Well, there was no yelling of any kind. I kept expecting it too, but it never came. For the first twenty miles or so, I just sat in the backseat curled up and waiting for him to start in on me about how stupid I’d been and how I could have gotten myself killed, but he never did that. He definitely wasn’t happy with me, but he didn’t yell like Paul.”
Leaning in toward her, Lauren asked, “Well, what did you guys talk about all that way if he wasn’t explaining how stupid what we did was, which it was, you know.”
“I know, but I’m not sorry we did it.”
Alexis stopped and thought about what she just said. That wasn’t exactly the whole truth.
“Well, I guess maybe I’m a little sorry. I never wanted you to be in trouble with Paul, so I’m sorry about that. And I could have been hurt by that stalker, so that wasn’t so smart. And I would never be able to forgive myself if you got hurt because of what I made you do. But it was nice seeing the beach again.”
Lauren hugged her. “It was. Maybe next time we go we don’t cause a ruckus and freak everyone out.”
“Okay. I can deal with that.”
“So what did you guys talk about the whole ride home?”
“We talked a little about a lot of stuff. We stopped for hamburgers at a rest stop. He didn’t treat me like I’d committed a crime just because I wanted to get out of the house for a few hours. He definitely wasn’t thrilled at what we did, but he didn’t act like I deserved to be punished for it like Paul did. I liked that.”
She slid the brown wig off her head and tossed it on the bed behind her. Lauren immediately reached out to arrange her long blond hair over her shoulders and smiled.
“I probably look like a mess, don’t I?” Alexis asked, self-conscious as always about how she looked.
Shaking her head, Lauren said, “No, you look like you always do. Beautiful.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
Her friend shrugged while her smile grew even bigger. “It’s just that I don’t remember the last time I saw you look so genuinely happy like you do now. That little trip to Atlantic City seems to have done you a world of good, even if it did give Paul the worst scare of his life.”
Alexis nodded, but she secretly thought it wasn’t their trip to Atlantic City that made her feel so good. It was Hunter and how he treated her.
First, he protected her, and then he defended her.
And he liked what she did for him with his new bedroom.
But she didn’t want to share what she thought just yet with Lauren, so she chuckled to herself and leaned over to get her bag from the floor to pull out the white box of peanut butter fudge.
Shaking it in front of her, she giggled. “This calls for some celebratory fudge, I say!”
“Definitely! To hell with the calories. We’ll just have to spend more time at the gym,” Lauren said as she stuffed a big piece of fudge into her mouth.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she moaned, “Oh, God. This is so good. We have to get back to the Boardwalk again just for this fudge.”
“Agreed,” Alexis said, taking a bite of the candy. “But we do have to find a gym too. I haven’t done anything in all the time I’ve been here in New York. If I keep slacking off, I’m going to blow up to the size of those balloons they have in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.”
Grabbing another piece of fudge, Lauren said, “Well, we can always ask Paul for where to find a gym. That would probably smooth things over with him a little. You know how he loves to be in control.”
Alexis didn’t want to deal with Paul at the moment. Now that she’d been treated like an adult, she wasn’t in any hurry to go back to being treated like some kind of responsibility he had to worry about all the time.
Ignoring her friend’s suggestion, she took another bite of fudge. “First, I have to find a gym that doesn’t require a three hour trek to get there. Just another reason I miss the house in LA.”
“Yeah. There’s no way you can fit a home gym in this apartment. Well, unless you redo that bedroom you gave Hunter into one,” Lauren said.
Shaking her head, Alexis vetoed that idea immediately. “Nope. That room is his, so he can keep it. We’ll just have to find a gym somewhere around here.”
“Okay. I can do that today. I’ll find a few close by and we can go look at them to see which ones have what you want,” Lauren said before swallowing her piece of candy.
Moving the box of fudge away from her, Alexis joked, “Maybe you should look for gyms a couple miles away too. That way, we can get a run in before our workout because we’re going to need it if we keep stuffing our faces with this fudge.”
A guilty look washed over her assistant’s face. “Okay. You’re right. No more. My stomach already is beginning to feel distended.”
“As soon as you get the names and dire
ctions to those gyms, we’ll go check them out. We’ll take Hunter too,” Alexis said, looking forward to getting out again and with him.
Her mention of Hunter surprised Lauren. “But what about Kyle? He’s always the one to go to the gym with us when we’re not in LA. He knows what to look for in the equipment since he used to work at a gym himself.”
Alexis shrugged, not caring much about who came other than Hunter. “I guess he can come too, but it’s not like we can’t figure out if there’s a treadmill or stepper machine in a gym. It’s not rocket science. I’ll probably give him a break from going with us every day, though. If Hunter’s going to be there anyway, I don’t see any point in dragging another person along every time.”
“Okay. Give me an hour and I’ll get you the names of those gyms,” Lauren said as she stood from the bed.
When she got to the door, she turned around and looked at Alexis with concern in her eyes. “You were kidding about running to the gym and then working out, weren’t you?”
“Sort of, but just find any in a ten block radius. That way we can be warmed up by the time we get there every morning.”
“You do remember we’re in New York, Alexis. In just a couple months, it’s going to be too cold to walk ten blocks first thing in the morning. Think Minnesota, not LA.”
She had forgotten the dreaded winter that lay before them in just a short time from now. Running or even walking ten blocks in frigid temperatures, or God forbid snow, made her cringe.
“Well, don’t exclude ones closer by. If it turns out I like one further away, we’re going to have to get rides to and from there when it gets too cold to walk. Sound good?”
Lauren still didn’t look completely convinced, but she nodded and faked a smile before leaving to go start her research on the local gyms. She’d never been as fond of running as Alexis, but ten blocks wasn’t much.
Plus, it would be good for both of them to get to know the neighborhood while at the same time getting some exercise. At least until the temperature dipped below fifty.
