Centre Stage (Lies for a Living Book 2)

by Lissa Bilyk

  She leapt at me, bearing me to the ground. The sirens were louder now, wailing, right outside the complex as I wrestled with Leslie on top of me, desperate the keep the knife away. She slashed.

  “Argh!” A cut on my bicep! Blood pouring! Come on, Tori, you’re stronger than her! I tried to throw her off but my right arm was weaker from the muscle laceration.

  “Three months, Leslie,” I said, looking up at her. “Why?”

  Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “Because he should have loved me.”

  And that was when I knew it was hopeless. I’d tried to explain that Cameron couldn’t love his ‘usual type’ of girl. That he could only fall in love with someone completely different.

  Leslie dug her heels into me and aimed to plunge the knife into my chest. I blocked her descent with my forearms crossed, desperate to keep the knife away from my throat, my face, my chest. Blood trickled down my arm. The cops were right outside, I just had to-

  Chapter Eleven

  With a roar something large tackled Leslie. She went flying. The knife scattered away, out of reach. I looked up.

  Cameron! He’d slammed into Leslie, lifted her straight off me, and rammed her into the wall behind us. Dazed, she slumped against the floor.

  A shadow fell over me. Sergeant Smith offered me his handkerchief for my arm. I took it gratefully and pressed it against my wound, hissing at the burn. Cameron knelt at my side, took my hand, and squeezed.

  “Arrest her,” Sergeant Smith said, pointing to Leslie. A younger constable hauled her to her feet and wrenched her wrists into handcuffs. The sergeant barked orders to several other officers – call the paramedics, get Leslie out of there, take the knife in for evidence.

  “What are you doing here?” I said to Cameron, gazing up at him. He had my head in his lap and stroked my hair back from my face. He touched the graze on my cheek and I winced.

  “I got to thinking in the hospital,” he said. “If Leslie drugged me and you, maybe she’d been behind the magazine in the letterbox, too.”

  “And the paparazzi,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow but didn’t look surprised. “And the missing key card. And then I thought, if I were Leslie, what would I do? And I knew you were coming home by yourself, so I discharged myself and called Sergeant Smith.”

  “We were already on our way when the silent alarm was tripped,” the sergeant said. “That was clever, luring her up here.”

  “But how did you get past the security gates?” I asked.

  “That was me,” Roxy said, huddling against the cold. “There’s a manual override outside. I knew Leslie was out of control and had to be stopped, so when I saw the cops coming I opened the gates for them.”

  “Thank you,” I said to her. “You saved my life.”

  Cameron pressed his lips against my forehead. “I was so scared for you, princess. When I saw her with that knife on top of you, I just lost it.”

  “Look at these,” another constable said, pulling a pile of glossy magazines a foot tall from behind the half-moon desk. Each and every one had Cameron either pictured on the cover, or named. “She was obsessed.”

  “I guess she did have some stalker tendencies,” Cameron admitted. “I thought she was just star-struck.”

  “She just wanted you to love her,” I said. “She felt she knew you from all the magazines and thought she was the perfect girl for you.”

  A short while later a paramedic arrived and gave me stitches and bandaged my arm. She checked me out and pronounced me well enough not to go to hospital but only I went to bed right away. By now I was beyond tired, keyed up from life-or-death adrenalin, and wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week.

  After promising to go down to the police station tomorrow to answer all the questions they wanted, Cameron, the eternal romantic, swept me into his arms and carried me all the way to the apartment. Once over the threshold, he let me to my feet, took my face in his big, warm hands, and kissed me, long and lingering.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” he said, pressing his forehead against mine.

  “No.” I put my good arm around his waist. “It takes more than a rabid fan girl to chase me off these days.”

  “But if something did happen, I never would have forgiven myself.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Tori, I love you, and I never want to lose you.” He kissed me again, a quick salute, before dropping to one knee in front of me. I gasped and took a step back. Surely he couldn’t mean to…?

  Cameron took one hand and pulled a small box out of his pocket. “I meant to do this yesterday, because proposing on Valentine’s Day is cheesy. But, well, I can’t put it off any longer. Victoria Alice Walker… will you marry me?”

  He opened the box and a glinting ring of bright green emerald blinked up at me, held in place by tiny diamonds and complete with a golden band. I took another step back. Green and gold, the international colours of Australia.

  “This is what Miranda and I were shopping for that day at Harrods a few weeks ago. I kept wanting to propose, but you said you wanted to think about it, and then I never found the right time to ask properly.” He shook his head. “Which is a stupid thing to say because now is the worst time of all, but I have to know, Tori. I love you, and I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you. Marry me?”

  I looked into his beautiful, earnest face. He hadn’t hesitated to throw himself in front of a knife for me. He was tender and gentle and caring and generous and I loved everything about him. We were two lonely souls in London who had found happiness in each other’s arms.

  I dropped to my knees with a sob and kissed him. “Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”

  Now that the engagement was official, we decided to announce it formally. That meant we picked which magazine out of the bunch we liked best and gave them exclusive access – the story of how we met, how we’d tried to keep the relationship a secret, the horror of a crazy stalker trying to kill me, and now the engagement. The public got a good look at me now – airbrushed and photo shopped, of course, but also happy, and loved, and loving, with a ring on my finger to boot. We picked the magazine from Leslie’s stash and chose the one that had treated Cameron with the least sensationalism and the most respect. We did the shoot in our living room – Bronte even made an unexpected appearance. Now that I was fully moved in, I felt settled and at home, something I’d never experienced before.

  Life went on as usual once the excitement died down. I went back to work for John, who was in the middle of pre-production on The Glass Menagerie. Cameron continued meeting with the many women who ran his life, went to workshops and auditioned for plays and TV shows. He got some small roles in local TV productions, but he was looking for something longer-term that meant he could stay in London with me.

  Then one day, he came into the bathroom as I was having a bath, clutching his phone in his hand, looking shell-shocked.

  “What is it?” I asked, rising and grabbing a towel. “What’s wrong?”

  He looked at me with great concern. “I’ve been offered the lead in an action feature film. The actor they had cast ended up being too old for the role.”

  “That’s great!” I said, stepping out of the bath and wrapping my arms around him.

  “It’s in Hawaii, and if I accept I have to fly out tomorrow.”

  I pulled back. “For how long?”

  He stroked my hair. “Six months.”

  Thank you for purchasing this ebook.

  Lissa Bilyk graduated from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in English Literature and Film.

  She currently lives in the Australia with her husband and three wonderful witch cats.

  Her first novel The Edge of Darkness is also available on Kindle, along with Tina Storm: Demon Hunter, the prequel to Demon’s Blood, and a short story collection, The Archive of Lost Dreams.

  Lies for a Living series:

  Book 1: Backstage Heat

  Book 2: Centre Stag
e

  Connect online:

  Blog http://www.lissawrites.wordpress.com

  Twitter http://www.twitter.com/lissawrites

  Facebook http://www.facebook.com/lissawrites

  If you enjoyed this book we would love it if you could leave a review on any of the major book sites, or leave a comment on Lissa’s blog.

  Read on for a sneak peek at

  Leading Lady: Lies for a Living Book #3

  * * * * *

  Coming soon:

  Leading Lady

  The third book in the Lies for a Living series by Lissa Bilyk

  Chapter One

  The weather was pleasant enough nowadays to catch the Tube without fear of freezing to death or sliding on any unseen ice. London had experienced a long winter that had extended into February, but April heated up the crisp air up in a most welcome way. Despite the luxury of the car Cameron bought me, I still liked the freedom of being able to walk past cars in rush hour on nice days, smiling because they were trapped inside and I was out breathing the gloriously fresh London air – or as fresh as London air got.

  Today however, I wished I’d brought my car. My boss John had needed me to work late, and it was dark by the time I left the office to catch the train. I made my way up a side alley with construction work cutting half of the view off from the main road when I saw a stranger walking towards me.

  Living in London for so long, I’d learned to be suspicious of strangers, but to ultimately believe that most people weren’t dicks. Automatically I clutched my bag closer to me as I moved to pass the tall, lanky man, nodding a polite greeting.

  In response, the man pulled a knife and advanced on me.

  I thought about running, but my sensible work shoes weren’t designed for that. Instead, I jammed myself back against the brick wall and let rip a piercing scream, as loud as I could. I knew that muggers generally wanted their victims to be silent, and I wasn’t going to give him that. I’d fight tooth and nail to defend myself – I’d fought off a crazy woman with a knife before – but he was taller than me, and if he had taken to mugging he was desperate.

  He panicked. He grabbed for my bag, but even though I yelled at myself to let it go, my fingers wouldn’t loosen. He yanked at it, knocking me off-balance, then swung and slammed me against the other wall in the narrow alley. He raised his knife and aimed it at my head.

  “Just give it up, girly.”

  Breathless and winded, I prepared to scream again, and kick or maybe try to stab him in the eyes with my fingers when a darker shape hurtled out of nowhere and knocked the lanky man to the ground.

  I gasped air into my winded lungs and sank to the ground, clutching my belly. The lanky man scrambled to his feet, his knife lost, and staggered down the alley and out on to the main road.

  I looked up at my saviour and my breath hitched in my throat. The man before me extended his arm, and I clambered to my feet, taking in his dark eyes, his long dark hair worn loose and waving about his shoulders, his pale English skin, the way his sculpted black beard set off his jawline.

  “Are you all right, miss?” His voice was gentle, with a true London accent. He was no taller than the lanky man, but he was better built, bigger in the shoulders and thicker all over from health and vitality.

  I motioned with my hand, trying to indicate I was winded. He didn’t let go of my hand, but helped me hobble to an overturned crate to sit down again.

  “Just breathe, miss. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come back.”

  He retrieved the knife and dropped it into the construction site’s skip.

  I breathed easier now, the punched-gut feeling lessening.

  “Can I walk you somewhere?” the London man asked.

  “I was on my way to the Tube,” I managed to splutter.

  “Come on,” the stranger said, extending his hand again. “I’ll walk you.”

  I didn’t have to think about it – I was shaken and frightened and my back might be bruised, and this gallant gentleman offered his arm. I took it gratefully, and he helped me the rest of the way to the station.

  “Are you right now, miss?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I said. “I’m going to go home and have a bath.”

  “You didn’t hit your head, did you?” He peered over my head and looked like he wanted to search my hair.

  “No,” I told him. “I’m fine now, thank you.”

  “You going home to a boyfriend, miss?”

  I hesitated. It seemed like an odd question. I said nothing. This seemed a dodgy thing to ask.

  “Is there anyone you can call?” he added. “Or did you want me to walk you home?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll call someone.”

  He stood next to me, awkwardly, waiting for the train. I didn’t want to ask him to leave, because that would rude. He’d just saved me from a mugger. But I did start to wonder what I might do if he got on the train, and got off at my stop, and followed me home anyway.

  But that was my overactive imagination at work again. He’s just a concerned citizen, my inner voice said. He’s not interested in going home with you. Get your mind out of the gutter.

  It was easier said than done. I missed Cameron fiercely, and there was something about this quiet stranger, though he shared nothing of Cameron’s physique, that reminded me of my absent fiancé.

  The whooshing sound of the train heralded its approach. I turned to say goodbye to my saviour and found him standing too close to me –protectively, as one’s lover might. On impulse, I reached out to shake his hand.

  To my surprise, he grasped the back of my head and planted a firm kiss on my mouth – not a deep one, no tongue, but a kiss nonetheless. I was so surprised I let him press his lips to mine until he pulled away, not me. Then the train was there and he was gone and my head spun in wonderment. Had I given him mixed signals? Did he want to go home with me? Had I just cheated on Cameron, even if I didn’t kiss him back?

  Miserable, I slumped into the chair on the train. I’d have to tell Cameron about tonight, but I couldn’t omit a stranger’s kiss from the story. That would mean that I withheld something, like I wanted to keep it a secret from him, and I didn’t.