“Brrr,” I said with a fake chatter of my teeth. “Is it cold in here or is it just me?”
Jack kept his gaze on the open textbook before him. Spoilsport.
“So cold,” I said, making a show of rubbing my arms. “Yup, this silence of yours is cold, Jack. No wonder Lila was so miserable when she got on your bad side. You sure know how to ice a girl out.”
His head snapped up with a glare. “You don’t get to talk about Lila.”
Finally. I wasn’t a fan of his death glare, but it was better than being ignored. “I guess you two talked, huh? Whatever Lila told you, that girl is just—”
“I talked to Brandon.” His tone was short, and his eyes… well, his eyes said everything. He’d lost all respect for me.
Oh no. The brooding saint of Pinedale didn’t think I was Little Miss Perfect anymore. Boo-freakin’-hoo.
I rolled my eyes in the face of his glare. “Yeah, well, I told you that you were gonna hate me. Looks like I was right.”
He shook his head. “Why did you do it, Amber? I mean, spying? On Brandon? That’s so beneath you.”
“You don’t even know me,” I shot back. “Did either you or Brandon even think to ask me about what my life was like after I left? No.” I leaned forward, my cleavage on full display as I sneered at him. “Those first few summers after we moved away, I actually looked forward to coming back, thinking my old pals would see that something was wrong. That maybe they’d care.” I straightened. “Wrong! You all were so wrapped up in your boring, little lives that you didn’t even notice that I was miserable. And then, I stopped coming home altogether and guess what? No one cared. No one even noticed.”
He was staring at me like I’d grown a second head. I smoothed a hand over the braid that the hair lady had done up for me and tried to calm myself.
Right. He still didn’t care about my side of the story. Of course not.
His voice was low and soft and neither kind nor nasty when he asked, “What happened to you?”
I gave a snort of amusement. What happened? What hadn’t? “I changed, that’s what. And no one noticed. So when Lila’s father had his people come to me with an offer…” I shrugged. “Why not, right?”
He eyed me from head to toe like I was some foreign specimen. “And? Was it worth it?”
I gave a sharp laugh at that. “Hello? I’m a TV star now, so… yeah. It was totally worth it.”
His silence seemed to mock me. Or maybe it wasn’t his silence but my own thoughts.
I supposed it was only natural to feel a little bit of a letdown after you’ve gotten your dream. It just meant I needed to set new goals. I had to aim for higher.
But in the meantime, Jack had no right to judge what I did to get where I was. “You wouldn’t understand,” I muttered.
He leaned back in his seat and kicked his feet up. Everything about this guy spoke of cocky swagger. It was that confidence that had every girl in Pinedale wishing he’d look at them with just a fraction of that heat he’d seemed to reserve just for Lila.
Ugh. Lila. As if she deserved a guy like him.
“Try me,” Jack said now.
I should’ve just ignored him, but I never had been able to ignore a challenge.
I gestured around us. “This, Jack… this is everything I’ve ever wanted. If I had to tell a few lies and do a little snooping to get here, it was worth it.”
He looked around us at the admittedly less-than-glamorous trailer. “This was everything you wanted?”
I rolled my eyes. “Power, Jack. I wanted power. I wanted to finally have some respect. You wouldn’t know what it’s like to be a girl like me.”
“A girl like you?” He arched a brow. Again, not mean but challenging. So very Jack.
I heaved another sigh and looked away. How to explain to a guy what it was like to be treated like a doll? To have a mother who pawned me off and a stepfather who saw me as a plaything and everyone else looking at me and only seeing what I could do for them.
Even my own grandparents only cared about how I could take care of them and their beloved ranch. They’d never cared what I wanted… none of them did.
“Money and fame?” I said, leaning in. “That’s how you get power in this world. And now that I’m a star, I don’t answer to anyone else.”
A knock on the door interrupted my speech, and a frazzled-looking PA with an earpiece poked her head in, her gaze seeking me out. “Mr. Devereaux wants to see you.”
I jerked upright. Mr. Devereaux. Grayson Devereaux? He wanted to see me?
Though I’d been working for him in some fashion or another for months now, I’d never once dealt with the big man himself. I shot Jack a smug smile. My point had just been made quite nicely. “Excuse me, Jack. Mr. Devereaux wants to see me.”
I ignored his eye roll and followed the PA outside through a maze of trailers and makeshift tents until we reached a trailer set apart from the others.
She waved me toward the door and walked away.
Grayson Deveraux. The man was a legend in this town. A king.
I supposed it was no wonder his daughter acted like such a princess.
But all thoughts of Lila fled when the older man lifted his head and fixed cold blue eyes on me. “Ahh, if it isn’t our new leading lady.”
I smiled. “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Devereaux.”
He grinned, and my own smile faltered just slightly. “Please. Call me Grayson.”
That look.
I knew that look.
He didn’t try to hide the skeeze as he let his gaze rake over me like I was a prized pony…
Or the hooker he’d just bought and paid for.
“I trust our little arrangement has worked out well for you,” he said.
I nodded. “Yes. I’m… quite pleased with how everything worked out.”
“Then I’m glad we could come to an understanding.” His gaze had caught on my chest, and I had to resist the urge to tug the top up. It was a wardrobe outfit. I didn’t normally dress like this. The fact that we were alone was making me antsy.
The fact that he wasn’t even pretending to hide his leer made me want to smack him.
But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t even snap at him because he was the boss.
He was my boss.
He folded his hands in front of him, his smile fading to a smirk that made my stomach turn. “I don’t normally take time out to meet the young girls on my shows, but you, Amber…” His eyes took a leisurely tour of my curves. “You’ll be eighteen soon, I hear. Almost legal.”
He laughed.
I forced a laugh in turn as I gave a teasing wag of my finger. “Not for a few months yet.”
“I can wait.” He was serious. He was one hundred percent serious. As if it was a given that once I turned eighteen, he could snap his fingers and I’d be his… what? His new mistress?
My mouth went dry. The contents of my stomach curdled. He wasn’t even trying to hide his perviness. A wave of revulsion hit me hard, but I wasn’t sure if it was toward him or me.
Did he do this to all the new girls or was it me?
It was the same thought that had been taunting me for a while now. The question I tried not to think about.
Was it me? Did I bring this on myself?
I felt disgusting. My skin crawled with this sensation that seemed to come from my worst nightmares.
It was fear and something else…
Powerlessness.
I listened with half an ear as he rambled on for a while about all the plans he had for the show. For me. He didn’t say anything crass, but we both knew what he meant. If I played nice, he’d make my role permanent. He’d make me a star.
If I didn’t…
Well, he might have used the word renegotiate a time or two in there. Any power I had was his to give and his to take away.
All that smug satisfaction from earlier drained away from me as it hit me smack in the face. The words I’d slung at Jack were coming back to m
ock me.
I didn’t have power.
I’d just traded one user for another. One manipulative bastard for the next.
More powerful maybe, but that power still wasn’t mine.
It was his.
And for the first time in my life, my thoughts weren’t just catty and they weren’t just spiteful.
They were downright murderous.
Nine
Lila
I glared down at my phone as I waited for Jack to text me back.
I was really beginning to hate this stupid show.
Love on the Range was the only reason Jack was still in town, but it was also the reason I hadn’t seen him in a week. We’d been texting, but I could tell you right here and now that Jack was a terrible texter. He used texts like he was paying per word or something. All monosyllables and need-to-know info.
Jack’s texts basically sounded like old timey wires. Stuck on location. Stop. Can’t see you tonight. Stop.
Okay, fine, so he didn’t actually type ‘stop,’ but that’s how I read them to myself. All week we’d been trying to meet up and failing, and with each passing minute, my nerves threatened to get the best of me. Why? Because after that awful dinner at my mom’s, he’d sent me one text.
You never did answer my question, Princess. We need to talk.
Even now, a week later, my stomach flipped as I thought about the conversation to come. The question he wanted answered. He didn’t need to spell out what question.
I already knew.
It was the question that had been nagging at me. The one I wished I’d answered.
The one I was terrified to answer.
Was any of it real?
I set my phone down on the lounge chair beside me and picked up the romance novel I’d been trying to get into for about an hour now without success. It wasn’t the author. It was me. It was my thoughts. It was my phone.
I scowled down at the page I couldn’t focus on.
It was the stupid TV show that was ruining my life.
I was hiding out in the poolside cabana again. Not because Daddy Dearest was on the rampage—he’d been in a shockingly decent mood this week. I was the one having a hard time keeping my cool around him. It was my guilty conscience getting in my way. Every time I saw my father, I thought about how I’d done something sneaky to help Tess in her quest to get dirt on him.
All I knew was that I’d installed some spyware on my mom’s computer because Tess thought accessing my mom’s banking information would help and not even Tess the tech genius had been able to hack in remotely.
I wasn’t even sure what she was looking for or how it would help her cause, but just knowing I’d done that much made it difficult to face Daddy. Guilt and fear flared every time I heard his voice in the house or saw him working at his desk on my way to the kitchen.
So yeah, for now, the cabana was my safe place.
I had no idea how Tess managed it. How she kept that “yes, Daddy” sweetness and that innocent façade all the time.
It was beginning to occur to me that in this family, maybe I wasn’t the actress. Maybe Tess had been playing us all this whole time.
Me included.
But she was starting to let me in, and if this damned show hadn’t kept her working late at Daddy’s offices all week, I might have even been let in on the whole freakin’ plan.
But no. Instead, I’d spent the week by myself since Brandon was filming on location, and Jack was too. I’d gone to school as usual. I’d hung out with Evie and Siobhan and done all the stuff we used to do all the time. Parties. Spa days. Manicures. Shopping.
The usual.
But I’d still felt alone. And I’d hated every second of it.
I blamed Jack.
“A Mr. Jack is here to see you.” Maria’s voice had my head snapping up as she did that funny faux tapping thing she did whenever she interrupted someone and there wasn’t a proper door to knock on.
My eyes widened in surprise, and my stomach did a leap like it might run for the hills without me.
I wasn’t ready!
And yet, I was dying to see him. I literally felt like I’d die if I didn’t see him again. I was like a freakin’ junkie when it came to this guy, and having him near, his being in my town and back in my life… it was such a tease. A tiny taste of that way he made me feel, when what I wanted was to drown in it.
I sat up straight and opened my mouth to tell her she could let him come back here, but his familiar voice drowned me out. “It’s just Jack, Maria. No ‘mister,’” he said.
And then, he was there, in the entrance to the cabana, a white T-shirt molded to his muscles and a smirk on those sexy-as-sin lips.
Maria shot me a questioning look, and I gave her a little smile. “It’s all right, Maria. Jack is welcome here anytime.”
“Yes, miss,” she said before slipping away, back to the house.
We were alone. Jack. Me.
Alone.
That was all I could think as he stepped inside my little shaded getaway, looking like he’d just stepped out of my favorite fantasy.
“You’re done shooting?” I asked. Oh crap, why did it sound like I’d just run a mile?
He never stopped moving toward me, and I stood up to face him.
“I’ve got a few days off.”
“Good,” I breathed. “That’s good.”
“Lila?” He moved so close. So close I could feel the heat of his body. So close I could smell that delicious scent that was so singularly him. So close it felt like I might cry or laugh or scream if he didn’t touch me.
“Yes?”
His lips curved up ever so slightly, his eyes glinting with laughter and… something else.
Something freakin’ hot as hell.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he said. “I’m going to kiss you. And if that’s not all right with you, I suggest you let me know right now.”
His voice held me in a trance. My lips parted and my heart pounded. Yes!
He took his sweet time leaning down, his strong arms wrapping around my waist and tugging me close until I was pressed against his body.
Home.
This was home. Forget what I’d said earlier. It might have been trite, but this was what home was supposed to feel like. Safe. Warm.
Perfect.
And then he kissed me. Finally. The heat of his lips seared me as he slanted his mouth over mine. The kiss was crushing. Bruising.
And I kissed him back just as hard.
A bomb seemed to go off inside me. A ticking time bomb I hadn’t even realized was counting down until just this moment.
Embarrassingly enough, my eyes teared up at the rush of emotions that flooded me as his arms held me tight and his lips moved over mine like he couldn’t get enough.
Like he could kiss me forever and still not have tasted enough.
I knew the feeling because that was how I felt. When his tongue met mine, I sighed at the sweet relief. The desperate agony. This hungry, needy, overwhelming sensation that went so far beyond lust and into passion. Desire.
Love.
The word slammed through me, and his hands on my back clenched, fisting my T-shirt as he held me so tight I could feel the pounding of his heart against my chest.
“I missed you.” He whispered the words against my lips, and I got the sense they’d been torn out of him. Like he hadn’t even meant to say it.
My heart felt like it was being wrung out in the wash. “I missed you too.”
He rested his forehead against mine as we both fought for breath. His grip on me was so strong. I felt so safe. For the first time in a month, I felt like I belonged somewhere. Like I was safe and wanted.
Loved.
There it was again. I closed my eyes tight against a rush of emotion so intense I couldn’t tell if it was painful or sweet. It was both, I supposed. This rush of happiness was painfully sweet. Agonizingly good and right and… perfect.
My arms were wrapped around his ne
ck, and I buried my fingers in his hair, holding him to me like he was crushing me against him. Like we couldn’t get close enough.
“Lila.” My name was a groan on his lips. A prayer. A plea.
And I knew what he wanted. The answer he needed to hear.
“I need to know,” he said. “Was any of it real?”
My heart swelled until it felt like it was choking me. “All of it,” I said. “Every second.”
He kissed me again, and this time his lips were sweet. Tender. His kiss made me feel cherished, like I was some fragile, breakable treasure in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” I said, when his lips moved from my mouth to my jaw. I gasped when he reached my neck, my ear. “I’m sorry I left like that.”
“I know,” he whispered. He paused with his lips tantalizingly close to that sensitive spot behind my ear. “Brandon told me everything.”
I nodded. Thank you, Brandon. My hands clutched at his shoulders, my breathing coming too fast, too erratic.
How embarrassing would it be if I fainted at his feet? But he had to know… I had to tell him. I gripped his shoulders and pushed. He got the message and moved back slightly so his gaze met mine and held.
Intense. So freakin’ intense. It had always been there, every time he’d looked at me. I hadn’t recognized it for what it was at first, but now I knew. From that very first moment when he’d looked up at me from the street, when I’d stood at the window in that dingy old apartment…
This connection. This recognition. Like his eyes were telling me, I see you. I see all of you.
“Jack, I—” I licked my lips as words failed me.
His brows came down, and he dropped the lightest, sweetest kiss on the top of my nose. “Talk to me, Lila. I need you to talk to me.”
It was the plea in his voice that nearly broke me.
He wanted honesty. He wanted me.
He wanted all of me. Just like I wanted all of him. The thought of giving him that was terrifying, but I knew now what it was like to be away from him. To lose this connection, and losing it again was even scarier than being real.
“I wanted to stay,” I said. A wave of horror hit me as tears filled my eyes. I pulled a hand back to wipe them away, but he beat me to it, making a soothing sound like I’d heard him use with his horses.
Princess of Hollywood (The Glitterati Files Book 2) Page 8
