by Shayla Black
Several reactions hit him at once. Surprise . . . but not shock. He’d known the blackmail had to be about something more than an innocent change from one outfit to another. Next came relief that he finally had the truth. Now he understood why she was willing to bow to these crappy demands. Then gut-wrenching jealousy followed. Stupid or not, Cutter didn’t even want to think about Shealyn sharing passion with someone else. Finally, resolve drove him. Somewhere in the world was physical proof that another man had touched the woman he ached for. He wanted to destroy the video—and the man who’d had his hands on her.
Shoving it all down, Cutter nodded. “I’m glad you and I are getting some honesty between us. Who is he?”
She shook her head, her blond hair free from the ponytail to brush her shoulders. “No one you’d know. No one in my life anymore. A . . . friend. Or he was.”
She still didn’t want to tell him everything? He clenched his jaw to hold in his frustration. “Until he blackmailed you?”
“It can’t be him. He was in a motorcycle accident about a month ago. In Montana. He’s in a coma.”
If that was a verifiable truth, Cutter was torn between a selfish relief and terrible worry. If this guy was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, that eliminated his most likely suspect. But some stupidly possessive urge inside Cutter wished the guy was guilty as hell. Then he’d have a valid reason to nail the prick who sought to hurt her, as well as the man who’d once been lucky enough to be her lover.
“Do you know that for a fact? Have you seen him since the accident?”
Shealyn frowned. “Not in person, but his sister went through his phone and contacted everyone he’d been in touch with a lot in the last few months to let us all know. She set up a private Facebook page so we could get updates on his progress. Just two days ago, Faith posted that there was no change in his status or prognosis. There’s brain activity, but doctors still don’t know if he’ll ever recover.”
Cutter tried to turn off his inner caveman and turn on his logic. “Do you know his sister? How reliable is she?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never met her. I’ve never talked to her, except through e-mail and Facebook. I know she lives in Montana, where my former . . . my friend is from. I think he said something once about her wanting to be a schoolteacher. That’s all I know. He didn’t talk about his family much.”
“How many people are in this Facebook group?”
“Maybe fifteen.” She shrugged. “He usually preferred to be alone.”
Cutter could understand the lone-wolf tendency. If it weren’t for Cage and some of the guys he worked with now, he’d probably spend most of his time by himself, too. Still, he had to look at this situation from every angle.
“Can anyone you trust verify this story firsthand? Someone in the online group?”
“Well, most everyone who worked on the first season of the show knew him. Tower, Jessica, and Tom all joined the group with me when I did. The rest seem to be people from his hometown. I don’t know any of them.”
It wasn’t impossible, but Cutter had to admit it seemed unlikely that this many people would be in on the deception. Besides, why wait months to threaten blackmail? If this guy had been planning something nefarious from the beginning, why put off collecting on his payday? And why stage something so elaborate?
But Cutter wasn’t ready to rule any possibility out without proof.
“When did you stop being ‘friends’ with him?” It wasn’t the first question he should be asking. He’d probably be better off not knowing anything else about her former lover.
She tossed her phone on the kitchen counter, grabbed her glass of wine, and meandered into the living room to stare out over the blanket of glittering lights. “Right after the video was made. Things got awkward. I-I never planned on being intimate with him. It only happened that once.” She bit her lip. “I was coming off a sixteen-hour day and I was tired of being alone. I felt really vulnerable and lonely. My younger sister had just told me she was getting married, and I was happy for her. But I kept thinking that there must be something wrong with me if everyone wanted me for the way I looked but no one wanted me for me. He found me crying . . . and one thing led to another. After that, I realized feeling wanted for a few minutes wasn’t worth the awkwardness, headache, or guilt. We stopped spending time together after that.”
Shealyn turned to him. Cutter’s jealousy took a backseat. Anger started riding shotgun. She’d had an understandable reaction to life-changing news. It sounded to him as if her “friend” had taken advantage of her moment of weakness simply to have a piece of her ass. If the guy hadn’t seduced her because he actually wanted her, had he had sex with her because he sought her beauty? Wanted to bask in her fame? Or plotted to extort some of her wealth?
“I never thought of your life as being isolating.”
“Very. I’m a people person. Like my sister, I was once Ms. Kendall County. I was also Ms. Congeniality. Until I came here, I was always surrounded by friendly faces and started my days with a wave and a ‘Hi, y’all.’ Now it seems as if I can only talk to and be myself with a few people on set. Reporters aren’t trustworthy. The public doesn’t see me as a human being with feelings or needs. I come home alone and sleep alone. Honestly, I’m not sure I fit in all that well in L.A. Tower and Jessica are my only friends here. But Tower’s first priority is his image. He spends his free time working out, screwing Nicole, and mooning over Norah. Jessica is actively looking for other work now, so we don’t have much time to spend together, except an occasional lunch now and then.” She paused. “None of that is an excuse for what happened in the video. My granna would be horrified if she knew I’d hooked up with someone I didn’t . . . Well, she always preached to my sister and I not to be the village bicycle.”
“You mean the kind of girl everyone has ridden.” He tried to smile. “That’s a favorite saying of Mama’s, too.”
“I’m not that girl.” Shealyn shook her head. “Not that I expect you to believe me, especially after tonight. I’m sure from the outside, it’s easy to think that everyone in Hollywood sleeps with everyone else. But I’m not wired for meaningless sex.” She sounded so earnest, almost pleading him to believe her.
“When that video was made, it sounds as if you needed someone to hold you.” Which made Cutter hate the asshole who had taken advantage of her even more. “That doesn’t make you the village bicycle, just human. You might not be proud, but I told you, no judgment from me. I meant it. I just appreciate the truth.”
“Thank you.” She clamped her lips together.
What was with her suddenly clipped tone? Cutter examined the situation from her perspective. Was it possible she put him in the same douchey category as her former “pal”? Or that she thought he’d lied about never fooling around on the job? Or . . . was it even remotely possible that she was a little bit jealous of who he might have done in the past?
“For what it’s worth, I’ve never kissed anyone while on assignment until you,” he swore. “Maintaining professional distance is usually my hard-and-fast rule. I want you to know that. Obviously, I can’t break my own creed about keeping my personal life wired tight, then chastise you for doing the same.”
She turned to him, not looking like a glamorous TV star, but like a woman so near tears it was all Cutter could do to stop himself from crossing the room and taking her in his arms.
“So why did you?” she whispered.
With her? Tonight? “I could bullshit you, but I won’t. It was, um . . . more than the heat of the moment for me. You’re damn hard to resist.” Colossal understatement, but he forced out a wry grin to keep things light. “I’m good at my job, but I guess I’m still a guy who can get stupid for a woman like you. I’d tell you to sue me for that, but you can afford the lawyers. So instead I’ll ask you to forgive me.”
Shealyn shook her head. “Nothing to forgive. As my
granna always says, it takes two to tango. I reached for you. I asked you for more. I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Cutter wished he knew how to make that heartbreaking vulnerability on her face disappear. He wished he had the right to hold and reassure her. But he didn’t. He was here to keep her safe, not lift her spirits or rouse her libido.
“Not at all. And if we keep apologizing to each other, we’ll never get to the bottom of this mess. If you don’t think this man in your past is involved, do you have any other possible suspects?”
“You’re asking who in my life might want to blackmail me?”
“Exactly. Other exes, enemies, greedy hangers-on?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know of any enemies, but I’ve done my best to avoid all the others.”
Filtering through her answer, Cutter nodded. “What about strangers at the boutique? Anyone who set off your radar or behaved weirdly?”
She shook her head. “The place was almost empty when . . . um, my friend and I walked in on a whim after grabbing some coffee. It was late, just before closing. I think even the people who worked there wished we hadn’t walked in. They hardly looked up when we entered. They just kept counting out the register and tidying up the racks.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I can’t figure this out. It’s all I’ve thought about for the last week. I seriously can’t imagine who would do this to me.”
She sounded so genuinely torn. And if that was the case, solving her problem might be more difficult than Cutter had imagined.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this. I swear it.”
Finally, she turned to him, wearing a slight smile. “I really am sorry I wasn’t honest with you before. This video . . . it’s damaging. Tabloids would pay a fortune for it. Tower would melt down if he knew the footage existed and someone was using it to blackmail me. Until tonight, I wasn’t sure I could trust you.”
Until he’d nearly died for her.
Cutter didn’t like it, but he understood.
When she braced her forehead against the windowpane, looking so lost against the backdrop of the sprawling city, he frowned. “I think you should get some sleep.”
Shealyn turned to peer pensively across the shadowy space, toward the hall that led to her bedroom. Her fingers tightened on her wineglass. “Probably. If I can. I keep hearing the revving of that car coming closer. I swore I could feel the heat of the engine when he tried to—” She grimaced. “I’m sure you know what I mean since he tried to flatten you, too.”
“Yes.” But he had experience with people who wanted to kill him. This was her first frolic down Violence Lane. “Try a little background music, something calming. Read or take a hot bath—an activity that will relax you. And I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to think about it. He can’t hurt you tonight.”
She fidgeted, looked back out over the cityscape. She was nervous. “What if he can? What if . . . Well, if there are two people after me, as you suspect, what if I’m not safe here?”
She made a valid point, and he’d feel better if he could spend the night closer to her, just in case her assailant broke in with the intent to finish her off.
“It’s my job to keep you safe, and I’ll do it to the best of my ability. Do you want me to sleep in the living room?”
Shealyn looked across the open space and back down the hall, as if gauging how far away her bedroom was. She bit her lip again and shook her head. “The sofa isn’t very comfortable.”
“If you want me closer than the living room, say so.” He wasn’t going to barge his way into her bedroom, especially after she’d halted what would have been some damn amazing sex. And probably something she’d consider a terrible mistake.
“All right. I don’t think I’ll be able to go to sleep unless you’re closer, but . . .” She was like a skittish deer.
He crept toward her on soft, coaxing footfalls. “But?”
“After what happened a few minutes ago . . .” She swallowed. “It doesn’t seem fair to ask you to come back to my bedroom when nothing will happen.”
Shealyn didn’t feel as if she had the right to ask him to keep her safe? She did. He expected her to demand it. Yeah, Cutter wasn’t looking forward to being close enough to touch her while he wasn’t allowed to. In fact, being near her all night would be absolute torture, but that wasn’t the point. “Is having me on the living room sofa too far away for your peace of mind, yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll stay with you. Don’t confuse our two issues. As a man, did I want something more to happen between us and was I disappointed when it didn’t? Sure. As a bodyguard—which is the reason I’m here—what the man in me wants is irrelevant. Your safety is the priority. Your peace of mind, too. I can give you those. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s not your responsibility to worry about my feelings.”
“I can’t seem to help it. And there’s nowhere for you to sleep in my room except the bed. Next to me. I don’t even have a chair since I didn’t want anything blocking the view. I rarely have more company than bedrooms, so I don’t even have an inflatable mattress or—”
“It’s not your responsibility to worry about my comfort, either. I can sleep on the floor, if you’d rather. Trust me when I tell you that Afghanistan wasn’t the Ritz.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t. But I feel guilty because . . . even the floor feels too far away.”
When Cutter reached out to steady her again, he realized she was shaking with a terrible mix of exhaustion and terror. The adrenaline had bled from her veins, leaving her weak and reeling.
He didn’t think twice; he pulled her closer. “It’s all right. I can handle it. I’ll take care of you.”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “Remind me to call Jolie tomorrow and thank her. I’m sorry if my secrets put us in danger at the drop point. And I’m sorry about what happened afterward.”
Yes, she probably was. Cutter wished he could say the same, but he couldn’t regret a moment of time he’d had his hands or his mouth on her.
He wanted to brush the hair from her face and brush a kiss over her rosy lips. But she’d set boundaries between them again, and he had to respect them. “Everything is fine. Get into bed when you’re ready. I’m going to scope the interior and exterior of the house once more, then I’ll be back. Will you be okay for a few minutes while I do that?”
“Nervous, but for a few minutes, yeah.”
And he had no doubt that, unless the blackmailer returned to distract him from fixating on Shealyn, this would be one of the longest nights of his life.
CHAPTER 7
After a quick check of the outer perimeter of Shealyn’s ranch-style place, Cutter let himself back in the house with a curse, securely locking the door and checking every window again. Across the house, he heard the water of the shower running and the faint notes of soothing music drifting from her room.
He hoped she was finding peace because he sure as hell wasn’t—not after discovering fresh footprints in the dirt underneath her bedroom window that didn’t belong to him.
Chances were, the creeper had been busy during the day while they’d been at the studio. The footprints hadn’t been there last night. The only bright spot was that he didn’t have any indication that the dirtbag had made it inside. No busted locks, hinge-hanging doors, or other telltale signs of forced entry. He’d have a chat with Lance and Barney, the guards manning the neighborhood’s security, about keeping the gate closed at all times. But if this neighborhood was like most, they tended to ease up during the day, as if bad things couldn’t happen when the sun was shining.
Shealyn didn’t need to know tonight that someone had been prowling outside her bedroom window. She was already worried about relaxing enough to fall asleep, and that news wouldn’t help her. Cutter figured he’d be wired enough for them both.
Once he’d checked everything i
nside the house, he paced the living room, waiting for her all-clear so he could join her in the bedroom.
He spotted her phone on the kitchen counter.
The shower was still running. Her music was still playing. And her secrets still held mystery.
He shouldn’t break into her phone. She’d been very clear that she didn’t want her privacy violated. But knowing that someone willing to kill her had probably also spied inside her bedroom was too unsettling for him to sit back passively.
The best defense was always a good offense.
For that, Cutter needed to see the video she’d been trying so hard to keep hidden. He had to know more about this stranger she’d given herself to in a vulnerable moment—his identity, his past, his family and friends. If he was truly in a coma, maybe someone in that guy’s life was Shealyn’s blackmailer. But without more information, Cutter couldn’t connect the dots.
On the other hand, he wasn’t going to lie to himself. Some part of him needed to understand Shealyn’s relationship with the man. She must have trusted him enough to allow him to fuck her in a dressing room. Had he pleasured her? Loved her? Had she been desperate merely for sex . . . or for the man who’d given it to her? How much had she cared about this guy?
Did she still have feelings for him?
Snooping through her phone and watching the video started him down a slippery slope. He didn’t feel good about it. He also didn’t think he could afford to put it off. The blackmailer had added stalking and attempted murder to his résumé in the last twenty-four hours. Would he ramp up his efforts to hurt Shealyn if Cutter didn’t start hunting him down now?
Cutter swiped her phone from the marble surface. The device had a passcode. He paused. Her birthday didn’t work. From the quick background he’d done on her, he knew her sister’s birthday. That didn’t unlock the device, either. He paused, sighed, tapped into the notes he’d made about her on his own cell. Next, he tried her grandmother’s birthday. Bingo. He was in.
