Mostly, her camera had been locked on me.
She was still shooting me as I stood up and toweled off my sweaty face and chest.
“Liv said cut,” I heard Ash growl at her. She almost jumped out of her skin; probably didn’t realize he’d climbed up onto the stage with her. “That means you cut.”
She lowered her camera. “I’m the stills photographer,” she informed him. “Behind-the-scenes. Which means I don’t ‘cut.’”
“Yeah? Well, you can get behind this scene.” Without another glance her way, Ash stepped in front of her, his back to her, completely blocking her view of me.
Total asshole move, but I chuckled anyway.
As Ash stalked past me, heading for the door at the back of the stage, I looked at the photographer. She wasn’t taking photos anymore. She held her camera in front of herself, unsure, as her eyes met mine.
She was pretty. Impossible not to notice that.
Ash had clearly noticed, but he also seemed to have a problem with her.
I definitely had to find out who this girl was.
The crew was busy adjusting lights and discussing the next shot. So I raised a finger in her direction and crooked it, beckoning her to follow. Then I turned to follow Ash offstage.
As we made our way down the hall, he was already planning out our weekend. “Summer’s having a party on Saturday,” he informed me as we stepped into my dressing room. “We should go. And there’s Zane’s thing—” He stopped abruptly. He’d turned to me and noticed the photographer, stepping in the door right behind me. His mouth dropped open, then snapped shut, his jaw twitching. “The fuck is she doing in here?”
I just shrugged and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge. I dropped into a chair, tussling my sweaty hair and took a swig.
The photographer took her cue from me, ignoring Ash completely. “Do you mind if I keep shooting?” she asked me.
“Nope,” I said. So she started taking photos of me stretched out in my chair, all sweaty and half-naked. Well, mostly-naked.
I was watching her, closely, as she did it. In the brighter lighting of the dressing room, she was more than pretty. But it was a challenge to see her face when she kept covering it with the camera.
“Who are you?” I asked her.
“Amber,” she said.
“How does it look out there, Amber?”
“You look great,” she said neutrally.
“Yeah? How about the rest of it?”
“Can I ask you a favor?” she asked me as she kept taking photos. “Could you not look at the camera?”
I shot a look at Ash, amused. Who is this girl?
Ash stood behind her, glowering. His arms were crossed rigidly over his chest and the vein at his temple was popping out. His irritation was fucking palpable, and I smirked.
Very interesting.
Amber stopped shooting and checked the screen on the back of her camera. She seemed to be scrolling through some of the photos she’d taken. Now that the camera was out of her face, I took a good, long look at her.
Her sweet face, tensed in concentration. Narrowed, pretty eyes and full, pouty lips. Light freckles across her cheeks and small nose. She had a single piercing in the left side of her nose, a tiny, sparkly pink stone, barely larger than a freckle. She wore no other jewelry, and appeared to be wearing no makeup, just a simple blouse and jeans. Her thick, wavy, caramel-colored hair was pulled back in a short ponytail with chunks falling out.
Her cheeks were flushed, maybe with adrenaline—the thrill of photographing me?—but she seemed cool and composed, at ease behind the camera. Impressive, since Ash was tossing off angry sparks about two feet away.
She turned the camera to show me a photo on the screen and said, “Now that’s an underwear ad.”
The photo was fucking gorgeous.
Not to be an egotistical prick, since it was a photo of me, but it was totally fucking hot. I was all laid back in my chair, my muscles gleaming with oil and sweat. My sweat-dampened white underwear, almost transparent now, was clinging to my thighs—to the bulge of my cock and balls. My arm was tossed over my forehead, making me look totally at ease with my own sex appeal.
Which I was.
But when Ash leaned in to see the photo, he fucking scoffed, and Amber bristled.
She turned to glare at him. “You put that in a women’s magazine,” she said, “and what do you think the ladies are gonna buy for their man? The underwear they saw on that.” She indicated my body. “No offense, but no one cares about the drums.”
Ash raised his pierced eyebrow at her, sharply, and I kinda sighed.
Here we go.
I sat back and watched as he got his hackles all up at the perceived slight against me. Ash didn’t handle anyone criticizing me—in any way—all that well.
“And how do you figure that?” he said, his tone flat. His eyelids lowered dismissively as he glared at her, like she wasn’t worth the effort of his full attention.
“Because they’re selling sex out there, right?” Amber replied. “Male virility? Not drums. But they’re having him play to the camera. It’s all just so… sterile. It looks like an ad for drums in a music magazine.” She was getting worked up, and the more Ash stared her down like he didn’t give a fuck, the more it seemed to irk her.
I noticed, though, that he’d somehow ended up standing a lot closer to her than was necessary as they argued over my body—the one on her camera screen, and the one laid out in front of them.
“He’s a rock god, right?” she went on. “A wild animal? So take him, and his drums if you have to, outside. Shoot him, I don’t know… on a mountaintop, on the edge of a cliff, like a conquering hero. Better yet, shoot him walking into a bedroom with three of the hottest girls you’ve ever seen on his arms. And not plastic-boobs-hot. I mean beautiful, natural, wholesome-as-apple-pie girls. The kind you want to believe a man like that would really want.” Amber pointed at my body again for emphasis, and when her eyes met mine, her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink.
She averted her eyes and dropped her hand.
Meanwhile, I just eyed them both, looking from him to her and back. Ash was still playing it cold; too cold.
But I knew him.
Usually when Ashley Player pulled this much attitude with a woman, he wanted in her pants.
I opened my mouth to speak, when a throat cleared behind me. I turned to look; Liv was standing in the doorway with one of the execs from Underlayer. The obnoxious one with the fugly golf shirts who was always asking me to “go for beers.”
Clearly, they’d both heard what Amber said.
Damn.
I shot Ash a look; he was the only one of the three of us who was facing the door. He had to know they were standing there. When I caught his eye, he just shoved his hands in his pockets with a semi-shrug and tried to look innocent.
Unlikely.
In the pregnant, awkward-as-fuck pause, Amber finally turned around. She put two-and-two together fast, speared Ash with a quick, murderous look, then gushed, “Um, what I meant to say was—”
“You’ll have to excuse my wayward sister,” Liv said, cutting Amber off before she could say anything else they’d both regret. “She’s been living in the jungle a little too long.”
I glanced from Liv to Amber, searching for the family resemblance. Liv was cute, in her way, but Amber took pretty to a whole other level.
The Underlayer exec just smiled his smarmy smile. “I have to take a call,” he said. Then he nodded at me, shot Liv a look that didn’t match the smile—a look that said Clean this up, fucking now—and vanished.
“Liv…” I started, as soon as he was gone, but Amber cut me off.
“Sorry,” she said, taking a step toward Liv. “I know this is your shoot—”
“Actually, it’s not,” Liv informed her, crossing her arms. “But there you go, as usual, opening your mouth and spouting off about things you know nothing about, in front of people you don’t know—”
“Not nothing,” Amber protested. “And I was just—”
“That man you just drove out of here?” Liv said. “He signs your paycheck for today. This shoot is his, and you just pissed all over it.”
“But Dylan—um, Mr. Cope?—he asked my opinion—”
“I did,” I said, amused at being called Mr. Cope by this girl.
Liv leveled me with a glare. “Don’t encourage her.” Then she added, “And you know I agree with pretty much everything she just said about the shoot.”
“See?” Amber said. “So then—”
“BUT,” Liv told her, fixing her with a look that said Amber was not long for this job, “sometimes it doesn’t pay to be right, little sister.”
“Shit.” I attempted to intervene again. “Liv—”
“But I was just—”
“No. It’s a lesson you’re just gonna have to learn,” Liv said, her mind clearly made up. “Right now.”
Then she fired her sister from the shoot.
Chapter Four
Amber
So that was a low moment. Getting fired from a job I didn’t even want. By my own sister.
As the ferry skimmed across the water, away from the mainland, it kinda felt like I was being banished. Clearly, it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to me that I didn’t belong at that commercial shoot. I wasn’t fooling anyone.
Least of all Ashley Player.
Yes, I knew photography, but I wasn’t exactly an expert in advertising, much less men’s underwear. Liv had told me not to talk to anyone, and that probably covered following Dylan Cope to his dressing room—even though he’d beckoned me to follow him—then letting Ashley the Asshole put me on the defensive and mouthing off about the shoot.
So yeah, I’d definitely overstepped. I could see that now.
But the way Ashley had scoffed at that gorgeous photo of Dylan on my camera? It abraded me. I just couldn’t let it lie.
Maybe I really didn’t know shit-all about selling underwear, but I knew a gorgeous man when I saw one, and I sure as shit knew how to make a heart-stopping beautiful photograph of him. I was never gonna apologize for that. The best photos I’d taken of Dylan Cope had been in that dressing room, and if no one else there could see that, or acknowledge it, just because their fancy set with all the expensive lighting wasn’t involved… so be it.
It’s not like I was looking for any kind of future in that ridiculous world anyway. Liv and her crew and her rock star clientele could go ahead and bite me. Including Connor the friendly biker, who’d escorted me off the property and put me in a cab with a white-toothed smile.
Damn, though. I did kind of feel like an asshole about the whole thing now. Why couldn’t I just smile and keep my mouth shut?
Because you’re not wired that way.
Neither was my sister, but Liv had just always been better with people.
We’d both been born with a love of cameras, been kind of artsy and nerdy growing up, but that was where the similarities had ended. Liv just had a knack for directing people, for issuing orders or kissing butt, for knowing who to tell off—and get away with it—and when to keep her mouth shut. She knew how to keep the whole machinery oiled and chugging along, without losing her soul in the process. She’d always been that way, maybe because she’d learned how to handle ridiculous people—our parents—at such a young age.
Somehow, I’d missed that lesson.
While Liv knew how to manage other people’s crazy—including mine—without letting it get under her skin, I totally fucking floundered and drowned under social pressure.
Which was maybe why I’d never had a lasting relationship. Why every guy I’d ever been with had dumped me. Or totally screwed me over, then dumped me.
When Liv had her assistant literally ship me off to one of the little islands off the coast, it wasn’t exactly a new feeling—being run out of town. I hadn’t been fired as many times as I’d been dumped, but it had happened often enough.
I wanted to be offended, but I was secretly pretty grateful for the relocation, even if I wouldn’t admit it to my sister. I really was kinda pissed about being fired, but mostly because it was embarrassing in front of Ashley Player and Dylan Cope—for different reasons.
Ashley because he was such an asshole, and he was probably gloating about it right now. He knew Liv and that exec were standing behind me when I said all that shit, and he didn’t stop me. He just let me drown.
Dylan because he really did seem nice. He looked as surprised to find Liv and the exec standing there as I was, and he even looked a little sorry for me when Liv fired me. Plus, he was so totally beautiful. Like I-could-stare-at-him-all-day-and-night beautiful. Every time he’d looked at me, my uterus flipped out and I wondered stupid things like Is my bra strap showing? and Do I have grape skins in my teeth?
I knew Liv didn’t exactly relish having to fire me, and she definitely didn’t want to see me destitute. With the ferry gesture, she was just trying to make up for it a little. She knew I couldn’t afford much in the way of rent, she knew I wouldn’t be staying long, but she also knew I hated taking handouts. I was an independent woman. I worked for my money, I always paid my own way, and it hurt my pride to have to crash at her place. So, she’d offered up a friend’s cabin, “very quiet,” where I could chill, get over my jet-lag, and get caught up on my photo editing, until I figured something else out.
Don’t worry, she’d told me. He never uses it.
As long as it doesn’t belong to Dylan Cope, I’d said. I didn’t particularly want to run into him again after making such an ass of myself—no matter how beautiful he was. Because I’d probably just want to stare at him and take more photos of him, and it would get weird, for us both.
Nope, Liv had assured me as she sent me on my way.
Once I’d gotten over the sting of the embarrassment, I’d decided that I preferred some quiet little island to the city anyway. There wouldn’t exactly be high-paying photography jobs dropping in my lap, but after a little R&R, I’d work that out. Meanwhile, Liv had assured me I’d still be paid for today, even though she’d given me the boot before lunch.
I’d spent the afternoon bumming around the city, browsing some shops on Commercial Drive and walking the seawall before heading to the ferry terminal. Now, as I arrived at the small marina on the eastern side of Isabella Island, it was close to six o’clock. The sun was starting to sink below the horizon. The ferry was quick to unload, since there weren’t many cars onboard.
The island was even smaller than I’d expected; it took me all of fifteen minutes to walk from the marina at the southeast end to the house at the northeast tip.
You can’t miss it, Liv had said. Just follow the road north until you get to the skull gate.
Skull gate? I’d echoed, picturing some gnarly cemetery-like lot overgrown with weeds and an eerie mist rolling in.
Just what I said, Liv said. You can’t miss it.
And she was right, though it was nothing like I’d pictured it in my head.
A narrow driveway veered off the road to the right, just before the road took a hard left. The drive was lined with trees, dense green, others rendered brilliant shades of autumn in the dusk—scarlet and crimson, copper and gold and burnt sienna—reminding me of Dylan Cope’s hair. A couple of planter boxes hammered together out of driftwood were artfully arranged at the sides of the gate, and some hardy flowering plant was still blooming despite the lateness of the season.
The metal gate in the tidy wooden fence was about chest-height, ornamental black scrollwork, and in the middle of it was a Grim Reaper-like figure, a smiling skull peeking out from the cowl of its hood, with one skeletal hand raised. It was flipping me off with a bony middle finger.
Ashley Player.
That’s who instantly came to mind.
Or Connor? Though this skeleton looked nothing like the picture on his biker vest.
I stood in front of the gate and stared at it, as birds twitter
ed in the trees and insects chirped around me, and that oddly haunting feeling of being the only human in the vicinity crept in.
No. No fucking way. My sister would never do that to me. There was no way in hell she would send me to stay at a house owned by that rock star asshole, even if he wasn’t here.
Wasn’t possible.
I looked past the gate, up the short drive through the trees, where I could glimpse the house. Homey-looking, very west coast, all medium-dark stained wood with some green painted trim and pretty plants in the window boxes.
Definitely not some biker clubhouse.
I put the idea out of my mind and pushed through the gate. It was latched but not locked. I closed it behind me, breathing in the incredible, cool green air. There were more planter boxes bursting with foliage and flowers, all along the drive. There were no cars or motorcycles. Just some surf boards stacked up in the car port at the side of the house, and a mountain bike hung up on pegs on the wall.
And the house was… Wow.
As I stood in the driveway looking up at it, I was kind of weirded out. Considering that I was staying here for free and that Liv had used the word “cabin,” I’d expected something a lot more rustic. More like the places I’d been staying these last thirteen months in South America.
This place, compared to those, was a palace.
Really, it was just a house. But a beautiful house that probably cost more than I’d made in—well, my entire career to date. By Liv’s rich friends’ standards, it was probably kinda basic. A cozy little home-away-from-home, with all the luxury fixings of moneyed west coast island life.
I pulled out my phone and wrote a text to my sister.
Me: Who owns this place…?
I sent the text, hoping for a quick response, but none came. So I found the spare key where Liv said it would be, and after knocking on the door, I let myself in.
“Hello?” I slipped out of my sandals and padded through the silent house. The floors were hardwood, polished and shiny. Everything was polished and shiny and sparse. And there was definitely no one here.
Dirty Like Dylan: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 4) Page 4
