“It’s fine Sarah,” Cameron responded soothingly as he threaded our fingers together. “Worst case scenario is she thinks I’m a cheater,” he shrugged and tugged me forward for a quick kiss.
While that was a very bad case indeed, it wasn’t the worst case and we both knew it. That would be her emailing TMZ to share that she’d just helped Cameron Scott, star of The Ties That Bind, check in for flight to a secluded spot with a woman who wasn’t his co-star and girlfriend. I looked toward the airline’s desk and watched her go about her business. Try as I might, I couldn’t summon any shame over the very public claim I’d made on Cameron in front of both her and the United Airlines stewardess. I simply couldn’t.
She must have felt my scrutiny because she glanced up from her paperwork and our eyes locked. A look of stern recrimination crossed her face before she dropped her head down and went back to work, shaking her head in the process. It pissed me off that she thought I was the other woman, that Cameron was cheating on Jillian with his own goddamn fiancé. What could I do about it though? There was no way I could tell her any of that, explain what was really going on.
Before I could linger over the futile nature of the situation, the boarding announcement for our flight chimed over the loud speaker and we made our way, hand-in-hand, to the tarmac to board the blue and white Piper Navajo Chieftain that would fly us over the Straight of Georgia, across Vancouver Island, and down into Eagle Harbour. While we marched single file along the white line that led to our plane, tiny snowflakes began to fall from the sky. I grabbed Cameron’s large hand and tilted my head to the steel gray sky as snowflakes fluttered onto my face and melted from the warmth of my skin. The moment chased away the woman’s recrimination in an instant.
The snow that had begun falling in Vancouver hadn’t followed us to Eagle Harbour. Sarah’s hopes for a snowy getaway weren’t entirely dashed however as the lady at the rental car agency explained the highway that cut across the island was currently closed due to severe snow squalls and it was a good thing we’d flown since no one was getting here by car any time soon. The snow might make its way here, or it might not. “You can’t plan around the weather on the peninsula,” she’d said as she handed us our keys.
It finally hit me that we’d done it. The hustle and bustle of our jobs and the world as we knew it was far away back in L.A. while we were together at what felt like the edge of the world. As we zipped down the highway past the national park toward our private cabin, I had a hard time taking it all in and I could tell Sarah felt the same. The majority of our drive was made in silence. While I kept my eyes on the road, her eyes jumped from side to side as she absorbed the beauty surrounding us as far as the eye could see. With the empty road stretching out before us, I couldn’t help but feel small and insignificant in the face of Mother Nature’s bounty.
“Can you believe this place?”
Sarah’s answer was a soft, bubbling laugh filled with wonder and awe. “I know, right? It’s like we’ve found a whole other world. The pictures that blogger shared made it look heavenly but they’re nothing compared to the reality. It’s almost like …” her voice trailed off as if she was embarrassed.
“Like what?” I never wanted her to feel uncomfortable sharing her innermost thoughts with me since her subtle insights and canny observations were one of the things I loved most about her.
“It’s like … I mean … you can smell the green, can’t you? Obviously Christmas trees have great scents, but I’ve never really given any thought to the way other trees smell. But here though? The air is perfumed with it. It’s like … spice and earth and … I dunno, something else. Like you could just walk into the woods and disappear into the embrace of the trees.” Her cheeks turned a lovely, dusky pink as she finished.
I laughed. “Yeah, and probably get eaten by a mountain lion or a wolf.”
Her face turned absolute red. “Shut up, you know what I mean.” She stuck out her tongue and I laughed even more.
“No, I know exactly what you mean. We don’t have anything like this in Ohio and I’ve been in L.A. so long that I’ve almost forgotten what real nature actually looks like. This place is on a whole other level. It’s … untouched, unspoiled.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” she said, twisting her body in her seat to face me. “There are only about sixteen hundred people who live here full time. I’m kind of expecting a ton of privacy up here.” She waggled her eyebrows, causing me to chuckle again.
I glanced over at her before bringing my eyes back to the road. “I like private.”
I could imagine what she was picturing because lord knew I’d done some imagining of my own since she’d pulled that stunt with the ab rubbing and button touching back on the plane from L.A. I’d been shocked by how openly (and recklessly) she’d caressed me, but I couldn’t say I’d minded much. The words “be careful” had been on the tip of my tongue until she’d licked her lips and then all bets were off as I’d envisioned specifically where I wanted her to trail that wicked tongue.
Her behavior back at the second terminal had been even bolder, albeit less sexually overt, and I got the impression she’d been testing me to see how far I’d let her go. When I’d told her the worst that could happen was people thinking I was a cheater and then pulled her in for a kiss, her jaw had gone slack for a moment and her face had lit with joy. Not for all the roles in the world would I have taken away that look. It was the first truly delighted one I’d seen in months.
When I glanced back across the SUV, Sarah was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. I knew she didn’t mean for it to be seductive – it wasn’t an affectation designed to turn me on; she’d always bitten her lip like that when deep in thought – but even so the sight made my cock twitch in my jeans. With her lush curves and tits for days, from the very first second I’d laid eyes on her, she’d set my blood pumping. Her package perfectly captured all my biggest turn-ons, but what I really loved was she was completely unaware of her sex appeal.
I’d been so lost in thought cataloguing every square inch of her body in my head that I’d missed when her mood shifted and she’d gone from quietly contemplative to excitedly eager. So when she blurted out the idea she’d been wrestling with, it caught me off guard. “I want us to be public.”
Her hand shot to her mouth and covered the “O” her lips had formed and I wonder if that’s what she’d meant to say. But then I felt her watching for my reaction. I wondered if it was necessary to keep up the charade any longer. We’d gotten press ahead of the movie which had been really good for my reputation. But now that I knew Jillian had ulterior motives that had nothing to do with the advancement of our careers, did I really owe it to her – or anyone, for that matter – to stay the course? I’d signed my contract before they’d hatched this scheme and nowhere in that document was my fauxmance with Jillian a required stipulation of my employment. Everything we’d agreed to had been verbal. Fuck, I hadn’t even shaken on it. I’d have to ask my lawyer to read through the fine print but I was pretty sure the only thing they could fire me for was failing to show up on time, ready to roll.
My hesitancy triggered her panic and she added in a small, wounded voice, “Only while we’re here, I mean.”
“I kind of got that when you started rubbing my back in front of that poor woman,” I answered with a small chuckle.
“It’s just that with so few people at this time of year and with Eagle Harbour being so remote, I don’t think we need to worry about being found out. Sarah McLachlan used to live here and the locals never ratted her out to the press.”
“We’re not from here, Sarah. We’re not one of their own the locals will want to protect,” I reminded her, feeling bad for squashing her hope, but we needed to be realistic.
“No, I know. I just meant this doesn’t seem like the type of place where you have to worry about getting papped when you’re at the store or going out to dinner.” She rested her head against the window and closed her eyes. “I just
want to be with you, like we’re supposed to be. I want to know what it’s like to hold your hand when we’re walking down the street, or to stare into your eyes across the dinner table.”
I wanted all of that too but I didn’t want to put our future at risk. As soon as I got word from my lawyer I’d hire a skywriter to tell the world that Sarah and I were together, but I still wasn’t convinced we could get away with going public on our own without any severe repercussions. I was gearing up to tell her all of this when I spied the smaller residential street we were supposed to take from the main highway. Turning the SUV down a lane lined with driveways that led into deep, lush greenery that hid the houses from the road, I started to share my thoughts with her when she bounced in her seat and pointed excitedly.
“Oh look, there it is,” she exclaimed, drawing my attention to the yellow starfish that had been nailed into a tree, the signal we’d reached the driveway for our house. It hung well above a person’s regular line of sight and was obscured by moss so it was lucky she’d seen it at all. If she hadn’t, I don’t know how we ever would have found this place. The only indication there were houses on the road were thin cutouts in the fern-lined street, and some of them were barely wide enough for a car as large as ours to fit through.
Inching toward the cabin, when it came into view I sucked in a quick breath. It was much larger and nicer than I’d thought from Sarah’s description last night. “Are you sure this is the right place?” I leaned forward in my seat to get a better look at the building through the windshield. I craned my neck further to take in the large façade and still couldn’t see the whole thing from my vantage point. “It’s massive.”
Sarah was out of her seat and walking toward the house almost before I could draw the SUV to a full and complete stop. Standing in a wide, open clearing that could easily fit twenty parked cars, she threw her hands out and twirled around in tight little circles. When she laughed out loud I had to join her with a chuckle of my own. Coming to rest, a little wobbly from her spinning, she sighed. “It’s perfect.” Her smile was as wide as I’d ever seen it.
At her side, I could see the house was even bigger than I’d initially thought. From the front it looked utterly massive, but it extended far back into the lot toward the ocean. It was way too big for two people. “Do I even want to know how much did this place cost?”
“Honestly?” she asked, peering up at me. “I’m not sure exactly. On VRBO it’s listed for four thousand a week but we got special winter rates since it’s low season.”
“It still had to cost a fortune. Are you sure we can afford it?”
She dropped her face to stare at the ground, brushing her foot back and forth through fallen pine needles. “Um … so, about that.”
I raised her chin with my knuckle and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “Spit it out.”
She exhaled and scrunched her face up. “Broderick paid for it,” she muttered sheepishly.
“Sarah …” I didn’t want to be in any more debt to that man than I already felt.
“It’s not what you think.” Squaring her shoulders, she took my hand and I trailed after her. Finding the steps that led to the side door, she sat down and motioned for me to join her.
“I didn’t tell you about it because I knew how bad it looked and you were already so angry at me. I should have said something, but by the time I worked up the courage to tell you, you’d already …”
She didn’t have to say what I’d “already” done. I’d abandoned her. Again.
She peered up at me, her face nervous and her eyes pinched.
“I promise, whatever you say, I will listen to you and won’t jump to any conclusions.”
“Okay,” she sighed, and dropped her eyes down to her knees. Taking in a lungful of crisp ocean air into her lungs, she said, “When I got promoted, I got a raise.”
I squeezed her knee. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more supportive.”
She gave me a regret-tinged smile. “Anyhow, when I went to Broderick’s office to talk over my new job, something seemed off about the whole thing. During the meeting with Aerin he said he’d been planning to promote me and I don’t think he was lying, but I also don’t think he was doing so because I was as invaluable as he’d made out.”
“Of course you are. You do the work of three people.”
“Thanks, but I know my worth and there’s no way I earned an Associate Producer title with what I’ve done for him. I’ve asked around, checked with other studios and that’s way above my experience.” She shrugged. “But what’s done is done … Anyhow, as I sat there I realized my promotion wasn’t about my work but rather Broderick was trying to bribe me. I’d already said I’d go along with the plan, but I think after the surprise announcement of just how much the plan had changed, he knew he needed to sweeten the deal.”
“Go on …” I could see where her story was going and I had to fight my suspicions. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her version of events, but I’d spent the last few months second guessing everything she did and wondering at her ulterior motives that now I had to consciously stifle that reaction when I knew it was completely undeserved.
She snickered, and pulled her hair back from her face. “I think I shocked Broderick when I realized that he was trying to buy me off for so little and started negotiating so aggressively with him.” She pulled her knees up close and rested her cheek against them, her face turned toward me. “In the end, I got him to agree to a $14,000 raise, five weeks of paid vacation – one of them at his place in Maui or Provence – and a half percent on the opening weekend tally for movie.” She stared at me expectantly while I did the math in my head.
Holy shit. She was going to make more from The Ties That Bind than I was! My beautiful, smart, wonderful girl. I started laughing so hard my abs hurt from the force of it. When I finally regained control, I pulled her tight against me. “That’s my girl.” I dropped a kiss onto her forehead and leaned back to look in her eyes, understanding why she’d been so hesitant to tell me. “You were about my reaction because you thought I would misconstrue how that looked, weren’t you?
She nodded. “You’d already accused me of betraying you even though I’d had absolutely no motive to do so. I thought if you learned I’d taken “hush money” from Broderick assume that had been part of the initial agreement. It wasn’t, I swear,” she proclaimed.
“Hush,” I said, easing her onto my lap and holding her close. “I know that.”
We sat together in companionable silence until the cold from the stairs seeped into my clothes and I felt Sarah shivering in my arms. I eased her off my lap and pulled her back with me toward the car.
“That’s not all though,” she chimed, laughter in her voice.
“Do I even want to know?”
“Yesterday after you left I had to get Broderick to sign off on some permitting paperwork and when I entered his office, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Dare I say, he looked guilty? I’d never seen him anything remotely resembling chagrined, but he was. So, um … I kind of preyed on that until he sweetened this deal. Well, me and Shanna.”
I laughed and wrapped my arms around her from behind. I knew she’d been nervous but I kind of loved that she was sticking it to him the only way she could – in his wallet. “How’d you manage that?” I asked into her neck, walking us over to the back of the SUV to gather our luggage.
“Like I said, I had help from Shanna. She called almost immediately after you left to ask about a caterer I’d found when she threw her sister’s baby shower a couple of years ago. We got to talking and one thing led to another and by the time we were done she told me she thought what Broderick was asking us to do for the sake of his movie was unconscionable. She said she’d do anything she could to make it easier on us and I told her about Broderick giving me ten days off before I needed to report for work again in Vancouver. When I mentioned I thought he felt guilty, she laughed and told me he should. Then she told him it was time he paid the piper. I admitted to h
er about the promotion package and she’d told me I hadn’t gotten enough out of him and then she took the phone number for the rental agent while muttering something about her stupid, meddling husband.” She used her fingers to make air quotes around the meddling husband bit so I’d know those were Shanna’s words, not hers.
I barked out a loud laugh that came straight from my gut and soon she joined in. It felt good to stand there and just let loose. I was thrilled to know Sarah had someone in her corner looking out for her, especially since I’d done a shit job of it myself.
“It’s good that you’ve got Shanna on your side, working her nefarious little back channels,” I said, carrying our luggage from the car to the side of the house. Sarah followed while she brought me up to speed on a few other choice words Shanna had shared about her husband, the studio, and their overwhelming stupidity.
“She told me she was going to talk to him and try to make him call off the PR goons. I don’t have high hopes though. If it were just Broderick I’m sure she’d be able to fix things, but with Aerin involved, there’s no way we’re going to be allowed to officially deviate from the plan.”
She was probably right but in the meantime, I’d do some back channel investigating of my own. “What’s the code?”
She pulled out her phone and brought the confirmation email from the agency up on her screen. “Four, two, one, six.”
When I finished punching the numbers into the built-in combination lock, I nudged the door with my boot and stepped over the threshold. “Holy shit.”
Sarah stepped in after me and let out her own awe-tinged expletive. “Fuck me.”
The ceiling was easily twenty feet tall and was lined in gleaming wood planks that were echoed on the floor beneath our feet. To our right was a true chef’s kitchen featuring state-of-the appliances in brushed stainless steel, while straight ahead was a wooden staircase made from a lighter wood soared up the side of the wall, leading upstairs. To our left, some very stylish, very contemporary furniture was centered around a floor-to-ceiling stacked stone fireplace topped by a thick rough-hewn wood mantle that was easily a foot thick, which had a fifty-inch plasma television resting above it. The house was one the nicest I’d ever been inside – a perfect mix of classic, modern, and rustic – but it was nothing compared to the view outside. Ten-foot windows spanning the entire width of the house framed a gleaming redwood deck that led down to a spruce forest just beyond, while a narrow boardwalk path winded its way through a tangle of ferns down to the beach.
Lucky Star: A Hollywood Love Story Page 23
