by Lucy Score
He released his hold on Paige and let her turn around.
“I left immediately after. She’s fucking terrifying. Needy and mean and—it never happened again. But the press, the viewers, they ate up the idea of some kind of relationship. We showed up at a couple of events together and kept the ‘relationship’ alive. But the whole thing was a fucking lie. And I never touched her again.”
Paige bit her lip and clasped her hands in front of her.
“Meeghan knew it was fake, but she’s used to getting her way. She’d come at me every time we went somewhere together, expecting me to go home with her. She’d threaten, beg, try to seduce me. But once you know what’s under all that shit on the outside? You don’t ever have the desire to go back. I felt… ashamed of myself.”
She reached toward him and then pulled her hand back, but he saw the gesture, took comfort in it.
“Gannon, why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Honey, I tried. I was stirred up when it all happened. I was so fucking pissed at Meeghan for coming at you like that. For trying to lay this fake claim on me, for trying to humiliate you in front of your friends and co-workers. I was livid. I freaked on her on set, and Andy told me to get her out of there and get it sorted. So I took her back to the hotel away from cameras and attention and told her to get out of my life and yours.”
Those beautiful blue eyes welled with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me this?” she asked again.
“I tried,” Gannon insisted. “But you went all me on me and wouldn’t listen!”
She gave a sad little laugh. “You taught me well. I almost took a swing at Meeghan downstairs when they ambushed me with her on camera.”
Gannon’s fingers closed in a fist. His jaw tightened. “They did what?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. It’s all over. I can’t keep working for people who think humiliating me is worth ratings.”
He felt the panic well in his gut. “What about one more season?”
She crossed her arms in front of her as if she were cold. “I can’t do it. Not here. Not with them. Not with you.”
“Why not with me? Why can’t we start over?”
She was already shaking her head. “I was never looking for a relationship. I just fell, you know? Let’s just chalk it up to working in the industry we work in. There are casualties every day. This time it was us. We were a mistake.”
“Fuck that, Paige. You’re not a mistake to me. You’re my future.” He cupped her face in his hand, and for a second, she closed those beautiful eyes. “Give me a chance, honey.”
Her eyes opened, and in them, he saw only sadness. “I can’t trust you, Gannon.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole story earlier. I just didn’t want to put that experience into words. It was such a low point for me. It made me reevaluate everything. I didn’t date anyone before you—”
She put a hand on his chest. “I understand. I really do. And I’m sorry that you had that experience.”
He covered her hand with his.
She looked heavenward, her eyes still brimming why tears. “Why is this so hard?”
“Because we have something worth fighting for. I can’t lose you.”
She looked down at her sexy gold sandals that wrapped up her calves. “You hurt me. And I just keep getting humiliated over and over again.” Her voice broke, and Gannon couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled her into his arms and pressed her face against his chest.
He’d hurt her deeply, and the truth combined with a simple apology wasn’t going to be enough. He needed time to convince her.
She sniffled against him, and he pressed his cheek to the top of her head, breathing in her scent.
“I’m not looking for this kind of attention. Cameras, interviews, strangers thinking that they know my business. I have things I want to do, need to do, and this might cost me my chance at that.”
He pulled her in tighter, held her there, and wished she’d admit that this felt real and right. “I’m not going to let that happen,” he whispered against her hair. “Meeghan is never going to get her claws into you again. I’ll make sure of it.”
Paige was shaking her head again. “There are other reasons I can’t be with you Gannon. Reasons that aren’t your fault.”
“Make me a list, and I will fix or remove every single obstacle.”
She sighed, pulling back, and ran a finger under each eye. She straightened her shoulders, pulling herself back together again.
“You’re too much. Too overwhelming. Too consuming. How can I focus on my dreams and work if the only place I want to be is your bed?”
“Honey, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You know me. You know how I feel about you. I love you. I want to be there to watch you accomplish your dreams, and I sure as hell want to be there for everything else.”
“Gannon, we just don’t work. Maybe we would if we both were willing to put in the time, the effort. But right now, I need to find a new job. If I can find something now, a special or a short series, Becca and I can start our project early next year, and I feel like I can finally start my life. No more ‘one more season,’ no more humiliation by the network. I can call the shots. I can tell the stories I want to tell.”
“I want all of that for you. I can help you, or I can just stand on the sidelines and cheer you on. Whatever you want.” He was begging, but this mattered. Paige mattered. Her hopes and dreams were his.
“I’m so sorry, Gannon. I know this isn’t all your fault. I know it. But we’re just never going to work.”
Fuck. She wasn’t going to budge. She wasn’t ready.
“Friends then.” He was desperate. He wasn’t going to let her close this door.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking at her feet again. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“You’re friends with Cat. We’re bound to see each other from time to time.” And he wasn’t willing to let her cut him out of her life completely. It wasn’t happening.
“It doesn’t seem fair to you,” she argued. “You have feelings for me.”
She fucking had feelings for him, too. She was just too damn stubborn to admit it.
“It would be more unfair to me if you just disappeared from my life,” he countered.
She paused, and he could see the debate rage in her eyes.
“Fine. We’ll try friends. But not ‘go out to dinner and have sex’ friends,” she warned him.
“We’ll try platonic and see how that goes,” he promised.
She gave him a sad smile. “Thank you for wanting to be my friend, Gannon.”
He pulled her in for another hug. “Anything you want, princess, it’s yours. That’s what friends do.”
“I’m sorry you can’t have what you want.”
“There is one thing…”
“I’m not giving you a blow job in a linen closet.”
“You’re hilarious. You should be in comedy,” Gannon shot back. “No. The last time we kissed, you were crying. I don’t want to remember us that way. Give me something to remember, Paige.”
She cocked her head and gave him the look. She knew exactly what he was up to. But she wasn’t saying no.
“One kiss?”
“One kiss,” he promised.
“Nothing else?”
“No hands, no blow jobs, no orgasms,” he teased.
Paige put her hands on his shoulders and rose up on her tiptoes. She brought those rosy lips to his, laying them over his mouth and kissing him softly, sweetly.
The spark that lit in him reignited embers in a slow burn. He brought his hands to her slim waist and forced himself to keep them there. Gently, he opened her mouth and tasted her. Slowly savoring, he teased and tasted as the heat between them built. She was losing herself to the kiss, letting go and just feeling. And he had to end it now before he broke a promise.
Carefully, as if she were fine crystal, he brought his hands to her face, gentling
the kiss and then finally pulling back.
She looked dazed and dazzled. Satisfied he’d gotten his message across, Gannon ran his thumb across her lower lip. “Now that’s a memory worth having.”
“Friends,” she reminded him, taking a shaky breath.
“Friends,” he repeated.
She looked down pointedly. “Do you have this reaction to your other friends?”
He looked down at his very evident erection and adjusted himself. “Oh, yeah. When Flynn kisses me, it happens every other time.”
She gave him a light shove and, even better, a husky laugh. “Thanks for telling me the truth, Gannon.”
“I was lying about Flynn.”
AUTUMN
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The air was finally starting to cool, fading from the roiling simmer of summer that had hugged the pavement to the crispness of fall. New Yorkers embraced the coming of autumn with thigh-high boots and pumpkin spice everything. For Paige, fall had never lost that anticipation, that excitement, of the promise of new beginnings. It stemmed from childhood with the beginning of a new school year, a chance to be someone new, learn something new.
However, her new beginning was refusing to present itself.
It had been a month since her on-camera run-in with Meeghan. She was done being a pawn and had said as much to Eddie. She’d find another network, another show, and produce her ass off for eight months. She didn’t care what it was. Unfortunately, it was becoming painfully evident to Paige that job pickings were not merely slim but anorexic.
While she scoured New York for jobs, she entertained herself by sticking a toe into the very early stages of planning and research for the documentary. She’d gotten an official and enthusiastic commitment from the actress Sarah Holden for the documentary and had begun reaching out to others: actresses, production crew, directors, producers, and then expanding her web into women’s rights advocates, politicians, professors, authors. She’d tapped her mother for her suggestions on who to interview and had been shocked when Leslie emailed her a detailed list of five women in specialized fields with a brief synopsis and contact information for each one.
Of course the resources had come with the caveat that Paige not embarrass the family name.
It gave her a buzz every time Paige found she’d spent an entire afternoon buried in work and loving every second of it. And that buzz evaporated every time she checked her bank balance or got a “sorry, not hiring” email.
She’d just received another one, her eighth, and put her head down on the absolutely stunning coffee table that Gannon had made. The heavy reclaimed pine top served as her desk and—more currently—her pillow of misery. She rested her forehead, inhaling the faint scents of stain and wood. It was thick, beefy, with two supporting pedestals for legs, and Paige loved it. It was exactly her. And, unfortunately, exactly Gannon.
The man had embraced their “friendly” relationship and run with it. She’d turned down all his invitations for coffee, for lunch. The episodes of Kings Construction that aired did plenty to further the rumors of a relationship between them. She had zero interest in being seen in public with him and adding fuel to the fire.
She missed him, which surprised her. So Paige did find herself responding to his texts and occasionally his calls. She was just used to him, she told herself. And now that they’d cleared the air between them, she figured she was allowed to miss pieces of what they’d shared.
The truth behind his “relationship” with Meeghan? It made her hurt for Gannon. She could see it, had seen it. Getting swept up in the glitz and shine of TV was easy. Getting hurt by the darker side of it was even easier. Gannon’s pride had been damaged, his faith in himself tested.
In many ways, Gannon’s situation mirrored that of women in the industry. Women whose stories she would be telling. The overzealous appreciation of looks, being tempted into a bad choice, and then being forced into conforming to a role that had no appeal. She could empathize with that. But it still didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t be in a relationship with him without fear of losing something of herself.
Her phone buzzed at her elbow, and she glanced at the screen. Gannon.
The bump in her pulse, the flutter in her belly, those were good reasons to ignore the call. Just because he had reasons for not being entirely truthful didn’t wipe away his transgressions. And nothing seemed to dull her physical reaction to him. That alone spelled danger.
She should ignore the call, ignore the man. Move on with her life. Decision made.
“Hello.”
“Hey, princess.” That gravelly rasp hit her at the apex of her thighs. Her body clearly wasn’t interested in holding anything against the man… unless it was her body.
“What’s up?” she asked lightly.
“Are you busy tonight?”
No! Yes!
“Gannon, I—”
He cut off her early denial. “Hang on. Listen to my proposal first before you shoot me down.”
She was already regretting picking up the phone. She was having a weak moment, a weak week, and he would know and pick apart her defenses. “Go on.”
“I have a lead on a job for you, one that starts now and should carry through to the end of December.”
“What is it? Where is it?” Who cares? She’d take anything at this point.
“Have dinner with me tonight, and I’ll tell you.”
“You can’t blackmail a friend into having dinner with you,” she reminded him.
“This is worthy of a face-to-face conversation. I have details, numbers, even a timeline. I’m not doing that over the phone. Besides, we’ll be chaperoned.”
She laughed. “By who—and don’t say Cat.”
“Nonni. She’s cooking, and she’s wanted to meet you since I started telling her about this stubborn woman who wouldn’t let me have my way last season.”
The infamous Nonni. Paige had been dying to meet the woman even before Gannon confessed her role in his decision to be on television.
“I can hear you biting your lip,” Gannon said, his voice getting huskier.
She stopped gnawing on her lower lip. “I come to dinner with you and your grandmother, and you tell me about a job?” She wanted clarification. Gannon King was nothing if not sneaky.
“Dinner at my grandmother’s. You can listen to Nonni berate me in the kitchen. I’ll tell you about the job, we’ll eat something amazing and carb-laden, and then you can send me home to my sad, empty bed.”
“Gannon.” It was a warning to them both. Paige didn’t fully trust herself around the man. He made her feel too impulsive, and one too many glasses of wine or a particularly low day and she didn’t trust herself not to crawl into his lap.
“Just one friend confiding in another. I miss you. I want to see you, and I hate that I had to go out and find a job just so I can see you.”
She missed him, too. And she desperately needed gainful employment. And, damn it, she was an adult. She didn’t need to touch the stove a second time to know she’d get burned. She was a St. James. St. James women learned fast and preferred independence.
“What time?” she asked.
“Seven. Six,” he corrected. “Then you can watch Nonni in action in the kitchen. I’ll send a car for you.”
––—
The car Gannon sent for her was actually a truck. And he was behind the wheel.
Paige drummed her fingers where they rested on her hips. She’d gone with a short sleeve sweater the color of ripe plums, jeans, and, in homage to the fall, a pair of soft suede boots that ended above the knee. “You didn’t say you’d be picking me up,” she accused.
Gannon flashed her that badass grin from behind the wheel. “You didn’t ask. Had to make sure you were actually coming.”
She glared at him, an effect that was ruined by her sunglasses, and climbed in. It was a work truck, she noted, with the Kings insignia on the doors and one of those shiny metal toolboxes mounted in the bed of the
truck. It was tall, manly, and completely impractical for city living. But it was far more comfortable than any production van or compact car rental she’d experienced.
Gannon smoothly pulled away from the curb, heading toward Brooklyn. He looked at home behind the wheel, relaxed in worn jeans and a faded t-shirt dressed up by the army green cotton blazer he wore. He steered with his left hand, a Band-Aid riding low on the knuckle of his index finger. His right arm rested on the seat back behind her.
He looked good, really good. Paige felt that familiar flutter in her belly and immediately quelled it. They’d had their chance. It hadn’t worked out.
“So tell me about this job.”
He shook his head, grinned. “Nope. Not ‘til we get to Nonni’s.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of job is this? Is it something that you think would make me jump from a moving vehicle?”
“You have such a trusting nature, Paige.”
“I work in reality TV. What do you expect?”
“I expect you to be nice and make small talk with me until you meet my grandmother and then we get down to business.”
It was a small request, easily granted, and worse still, it was the polite thing to do. She grimaced. “Sorry. My desperation is showing. What have you been doing since we’re not shooting?”
“That’s my girl,” he said cheerily. “I’ve been clearing my head with a few pieces, a dining set, and I’m getting back up to speed at Kings. Got our hands on this four-story in Cobble Hill, two retail shops on the bottom and six units above.”
“A lot of work?”
“Gut job. Some asshole slumlord owned it, and the bank foreclosed. Good bones, but everything else has to go.”
She nodded, bit her lip. “Can I see the furniture?” Paige asked. No matter what transpired between them, nothing would ruin her appreciation for Gannon King’s artistic abilities.
“Not satisfied with your coffee table?” he teased.
“About that,” she said, shooting him an accusatory look. “It’s not exactly a standard size. Seems weird to me that you were able to build something that fit so perfectly in our space. It’s almost like you took measurements.”
