Tangled Hearts (Evermore 4 Book Box Set)

by ANDREA SMITH

  “Maybe I want to do more than talk, love,” he replied cockily, his arm snaking around her shoulders and pulling her in for a kiss.

  Great shot. I took it.

  She pulled back. “Not here.”

  “Come on then. I know a place,” he growled, taking her hand.

  Another good shot. I took it.

  And then they had disappeared inside the studio theatre. I’d discovered a back door to the studio when I’d gone down the unknown hallway earlier, trying to find a way back outside.

  So, it served my purpose well to retrace my path and sneak back inside to snap a few more pictures from behind the darkened glass windows of the sound studio that was located at the front. They’d never known I was there. But I had been. And I’d been there when Seth had quietly come down that aisle and discovered his live-in girlfriend having sex with Jasper Knight.

  For some reason, I’d felt bad for Seth. But not so much that I was willing to keep the pictures of the couple fucking from Malcolm. I wasn’t sure then what his mission was on this assignment. Therefore, it was up to him to decide what pictures to show his client. It wasn’t my decision to make.

  “We still make a good team, Neely,” Malcolm said, bringing me back to the here and now.

  “That we do,” I agreed. “Hey, I like how you got that bartending gig. Great cover. How’d you manage that?”

  “It’s all about connections and I’ve got them. Bartending, catering, even housekeeping connections at some of the finer hotels in the area,” he said with a sly wink. “Any time you need a cover let me know.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. And anytime I need some pictures taken or developed can I count on you?”

  “Absolutely. Quid pro quo. That’s us.”

  Chapter 14

  Seth

  Two months later.

  October 18, 1999

  My final appearance in this season’s Bangor had finished shooting today. It was a wrap, as they say, for my character, Robbie Spencer.

  It had come as no big surprise to me that my character had been written out of the series after my split with Julia Cantrell. After all, Glenn Cantrell was the executive producer of the series, so he had the power to call those kinds of shots.

  He’d somehow blamed me for those pictures that got leaked to the scandal sheets. As if I’d had the presence of mind to take them or, at the very least, to have commissioned some paparazzi to do it for me.

  What the fuck ever.

  Grace Evangelista

  That name seemed to be popping up on taglines all over the tabloids these days. Nobody knew she was coming until it was too late. Sometimes she’d leave her calling card behind, in which case, they knew it would only be a matter of days before a picture of them in some compromising position would be global news.

  Some people would stoop to the lowest level possible to make a buck. Paparazzi were the lowest of the low in my book. Bottom feeders. Making their living off exploiting other people’s private shit.

  I grabbed my cell when it buzzed. It was Blake. He’d finally found his own crib and had been blowing up my phone to come over and check it out. It was down in Irvine, which, from Marina Del Rey, was about an hour’s drive if traffic was flowing.

  “Dude,” he greeted, “What’s up? You coming down for my house-warming party tomorrow night? And don’t give me any lame excuses about spending twelve hours on the set. I know today was your last day, so a dual celebration is in order, right?”

  I laughed, “Yeah, let’s celebrate me being outta work. Why the fuck not?”

  “Hey, it’s not like you’re gonna be outta work for long with that face, am I right? Enjoy a little down time why don’t you?”

  He was right. My agent was working on a couple of gigs already. She’d assured me I’d have at least one audition before month’s end. And I did need some down time. I hadn’t even finished unpacking since I’d moved here back in August. This was the perfect time to start reassembling my life.

  “Sure, I’ll swing by tomorrow night. It’s nothing major though, right? I’m not up for anything loud and rowdy, Blake. I’m trying to simplify my life and keep everything chill, got it?”

  “No worries, dude. Just a few of the people I work with at the studio. You know, I got my own crew now. Yep, I’m Chief Lighting Tech on Lawson’s Creek. Moving right up. Oh, and maybe Jazzy stopping by to help me get my shit organized. You know, it needs a chick’s touch and all.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and went to the second bedroom, which was being used at the moment as my computer room/office and dumping ground for all the boxes of shit I hadn’t unpacked yet. I was determined to get them unpacked tonight.

  No more putting it off. It was time to get organized and back on track. Fuck women.

  I’d unpacked two boxes that contained all of my CDs, DVDs, and paperback books. I put them all in order on my entertainment center in the living room. The third box I started on had files, papers, newspaper and magazine clippings, and photos—stuff I’d packed up when I moved from my parents’ house. I hadn’t even opened it when I’d moved in with Julia.

  I was leafing through it all, separating it into two piles: one to keep, one to toss. And then I came across the letter. I paused. It was going into the toss pile, but I couldn’t stop myself from opening the envelope and torturing myself with her words one more time. Call me a fucking masochist.

  I pulled out the typewritten page and unfolded it. Neely couldn’t even have been bothered with writing it. She’d typed it to show just how impersonal it all was to her.

  Seth,

  You asked for a letter telling you how I feel? Well here it is. I don’t give a damn about you and I never did. I’m so glad to be back home in Tennessee where the boys are gentlemen and not always looking to get down a girl’s pants like they are in California! I told my grandpa not to put your calls through. But since you can’t seem to get the message and keep writing these letters that I only tear up and throw in the trash, let me make it clear.

  Don’t come here! Don’t call! Don’t send any more letters! I don’t love you. I don’t even like you. I have a boyfriend at school that I love. He is way more handsome than you are, and he doesn’t hassle me the way you did. He respects me. I never loved you, Seth. It was just a game with us. This is the real thing so leave me alone. I’m happy finally. I hate California. And you remind me of everything that was ugly and painful in my life. SO LEAVE ME ALONE!!!

  Neilah

  I crumpled the paper and envelope up in my hand and tossed it in the pile to trash. It doesn’t stab at my heart anymore. But at the time, it had ripped me to shreds. I guess guys have first heartbreaks every bit as painful as chicks do. Well, most chicks maybe. Neely surely hadn’t.

  But I had carried that hurt in my heart for the next couple of years. The cruelty of her words had made me want to hurt her back. And when I saw her that night on the beach, I felt the hurt and anger surface once again.

  So it being New Year’s Eve, I partied for a while with my friends. Then, having some liquid courage coursing through my veins, I was still thinking about Neely and our earlier encounter on the beach. So, I decided to go down the road to her house. I knew she’d be alone, and I had every fucking intention of finally calling her out on her shit.

  But when she’d answered the door, her hair all tangled and wild around her face from sleeping; her chocolate brown eyes searching my face in confusion, and the sexy little nightie that barely left anything to the imagination, I’d had no choice but to switch to Plan B. And of course, Plan B involved no talking, just dick action.

  In that brief period when we’d sat together on the sofa and her scent had played havoc on my mind and my cock, I’d decided I needed to deal with Neely in another way. A more physical approach. So what the hell, we ended up fucking.

  Only the thing was, it hadn’t felt like
fucking. It had felt like something entirely different. Yeah, I’d had sex since she dumped me, I mean, I was a guy after all, what would you expect?

  But it hadn’t been just the physical part of it—although, we were a great fit, there was no denying that. No, it was much more than that with her. It had been the emotions that surfaced each time she touched me; the kisses that we shared were familiar and perfect. The way her body molded to mine; her innocence, and yet the way she hadn’t held back when she wanted to feel and explore every part of my body. She’d taken my breath away.

  Once I was inside of her our bodies melded as one. I had been overwhelmed with the need to fully possess her. Our heartbeats were in sync and our breathing was shared and it was as if nobody else in the universe existed but the two of us at that moment.

  So what had changed it for me? What had caused me to take the most beautiful experience I’d ever shared with another human being and demean it the way that I had?

  It was when she’d announced she loved me. And I recalled exactly what those words meant to her because she’d told me in that letter. They meant nothing to her. This was just another game she wanted to play. Two years wasn’t long enough for me to believe that Neely Evans had suddenly morphed from being a heartless bitch into becoming a soft and sweet woman.

  So, yeah, I set her up at the beach party the next day. Played like I had a steady girlfriend with Chloe, who enjoyed assuming the role of the possessive girlfriend. The truth was, I hadn’t set out to humiliate Neely. It was more about me wanting her to think that she’d been nothing more to me than a random fuck the night before. But Chloe and Julia got into the whole charade of being the designated mean girls that day and Neely had left practically in tears.

  I shouldn’t have felt badly for her, not the way that I’d laid my heart out for her two years before and she’d stomped on it with her hateful words.

  But I hadn’t quite counted on the fact that when Neely fled the scene in abject humiliation, I’d felt just as much pain inside for what I’d done as she had felt at the receiving end of it. And that was the moment I knew I still loved her. I didn’t want to love her. I wanted to love anybody else but her, but the fact remained when she hurt, I hurt.

  I’d thought for sure that would be the last we’d ever see of one another, and maybe it was just as well. Though getting her out of my head was never an option I learned. She was there to stay. But life went on and new distractions helped.

  I busied myself with anything and everyone that would take my mind off of Neely Evans. It hadn’t been easy. After the holidays, when her stepmother approached me about auditioning for a part on her show, I was tempted to turn it down flat without hesitation. My mother lectured me for an hour about opportunities such as that didn’t come around often.

  So, I auditioned and landed the part on Lotus Pointe. It was a perfect gig for me since filming wouldn’t start until mid-July, and I could finish my semester of school in New York.

  But then the night of Neely’s graduation came around just as I returned from New York. I knew she’d be at Jazzy’s party. It was no secret they’d become good friends. Blake had told me about it earlier in the day, and invited me to stop by to celebrate.

  Against my better judgment and inner voice, I’d done just that. By the time I’d gotten there everyone was fairly loaded. Neely was nowhere to be found. Blake said that she’d gone into the hedge maze on a dare and hadn’t come back out yet. Jazzy asked if I’d go find her.

  It had been a setup that was for certain. So being the only sober person there, I’d gone in and found her in the garden area, flat on her back in the grass, trying to pull a rose off a bush. My mind drifted back to the details of that night.

  “Neely,” I say, “come on, let’s get you out of here.”

  “Seth? What the fuck are you doing here?” she asks, sitting up quickly.

  “Jazzy asked me to come find you and bring you out, now come on, stand up, and I’ll help you out.”

  “Make me,” she replies giggling. “Or better yet, do me.”

  “Stop,” I warn as she gropes around in the darkness until her hands land on my crotch. For as drunk as she is, she has no problem lowering the zipper on my jeans.

  “Aww, come on,” she slurs, “Monty wants to come out and play, see?” She manhandles my erection like a pro. What can I say? I’m a dude. We like sex.

  I fully intended to back away from her and get the hell outta there, I really did I swear, right up until the part where she put her lips on my cock. All bets were off at that point. She gave head like she’d been doing it her whole life, which I knew she hadn’t.

  In the darkness, the only light is coming from the stars and the moon, yet it’s enough to watch her as she takes me fully into her mouth and swirls her tongue around the head of my dick causing my legs to feel wobbly and weak.

  “Neely,” I start, but then immediately forget what I intended to say after that. She is definitely taking charge of the situation.

  “Lay down on your back, Seth.”

  I obey.

  Still wearing my jeans, my erection is poking out from the open fly. I watch as Neely, dressed in a short jean skirt, reaches up underneath it and pulls her lace panties to one side and then straddles me.

  My hands brace her hips as she lowers herself down onto me. “God you feel good,” she murmurs thickly, leaning forward so that our lips meet. “I’m going to fuck you this time, Seth. And for the record? Love’s got nothing to do with it.”

  I shook the memory from my head, not missing the fact it had made me hard. What was the point of rehashing any of it? It was time I accepted the fact that my stats with the female gender weren’t impressive.

  My last encounter with Neely had been at the Manzone party a couple of months ago. I’d practically mowed her down trying to get the fuck out of that house. I wondered if she’d found out what had gone down there with Julia and Knight?

  Of course she had. It had been plastered all over the tabloids, but then I remembered Neely hated the gossip rags. She had ever since they’d outed her father during his affair with Tiffany Blume. She hated paparazzi because of that as well.

  For me that shit was just a part of being a celebrity. A necessary evil. The price of fame. That didn’t mean that paparazzi couldn’t be useful when one used them to their own advantage.

  My publicist, Diana Godfrey, had taught me that. It was, as she said, more troubling when one’s name or face disappeared from the gossip columns. It meant they were old news or on a downward spiral. That was why she encouraged me to be seen on occasion with female co-stars in social situations.

  She’d had plenty to say when the shit hit the fan with Julia and Knight back in August. “Seth,” she’d warned me, “do not make any statements to anyone on this topic. Let them guess. You don’t want anyone to think this actually bothered you. If you say anything on the topic, it’ll be misquoted at best. Mum’s the word, got it?”

  “Yes, Diana,” I replied, “I’ve got no desire to think about it let alone talk about it. No fucking problem.”

  And the interesting part was that aside from the fact I’d caught Julia fucking someone else and it had pricked my pride that was all it had done. I’d actually felt a bit of relief once the shock had worn off knowing it hadn’t been Neely underneath Jasper Knight. My reaction puzzled even me.

  I finished unpacking the rest of the boxes and then headed for the shower. Maybe tomorrow I could approach Jazzy in a discreet way to find out how Neely was doing.

  I needed to know that she was doing okay.

  Chapter 15

  One day later.

  October 19, 1999

  “Are you sure you won’t come hang out with us at Blake’s new place?” Jazzy asked coming into my room where I was busy hanging another picture frame.

  “I’m sure. I’ve got a gig this afternoon with Jerry. Need you to do my make-up before you leave,” I reminded her.

 
“I know that,” she huffed, coming up to stand behind me. “I’m not leaving here until six or seven. We’ve got time. I thought maybe you’d like to swing by later on. You’re not working through the night, are you?”

  “No, but I can’t come by with my make-up and wardrobe still on, my cover, remember? Hand me the hammer,” I continued, centering the nail.

  “What you hanging up now, girlfriend?”

  “My latest masterpiece.”

  I now had about ten major front page top banner pictures I’d snapped, framed, and matted with my name gracing the tagline at the bottom. The latest one was a candid shot I got while posing as a potential buyer of a beach house located next door to a superstar Hollywood couple. Since the showing was by appointment only, I had Malcolm show up about ten minutes into it as a persistent real estate agent from Encino who had the perfect couple interested in buying the place in order to draw the listing agent’s attention from me.

  I had thirty uninterrupted minutes to explore the property with my special long-range zoom lens camera in tow, which finally caught some great shots of one half of the Hollywood power couple.

  “Is Jen pregnant?” Jazzy shrieked viewing the picture, her mouth now agape.

  “I guess we’ll know in time,” I replied, gazing at the photo I’d taken that had been headlined and then bylined: Jen’s Baby Bump: Will there be an addition to the hit series Chums?

  “Well, from that position and with her wearing that bikini it does look like she might be expecting. Or it could mean she’s been neglecting her crunches,” Jazzy commented wryly. “I swear, when will the public leave that woman alone about procreating?”

  I giggled, having totally wondered the same damn thing myself. “Probably when she’s past menopause. Or maybe not,” I concluded. “But hey, this pic landed me some major bucks. This is my Emmy in the world of tabloid photos!”

  “Congrats,” she commented. “But hey, what’s your cover today?”

  “I’m part of a catering staff for some engagement party gig in Beverly Hills. I have it on good advice my wicked stepmother is gonna be among the invited guests.”