“Ow!” I opened my eyes, tears rising in them. “You pinched me.” I rubbed my knee.
“I did. You want more of that?” He narrowed his long-lashed eyes at me.
I shook my head.
“I’m going with you downtown. I’ll drive. Best friends stick together, understand?”
Flattening my lips, I nodded.
“All done, Miss Wood.” The hairdresser started putting away her things.
“It’s official now, the last-name change, huh?” Ernie asked.
“Not legal officially yet, but it’s what people recognize, so we’re going with it. Don’t make fun.” I swiveled and punched him a little harder than a play punch.
“Ow! You dominatrix.” His eyes sparkled.
“You deserved it.”
“So did you.”
“Children. Enough.” Olivia stood and straightened nonexistent wrinkles from her calf-length narrow skirt. “We need to get going.” She turned to the hairdresser and handed her a wad of cash. “Thank you, Belinda. Excellent job, as always.”
Turning to Ernie, she lifted a brow. “You driving us in your car?”
“Yes, for sure.”
“Did you valet?”
He nodded.
“Call for it.”
While he moved to the hotel phone, she turned to me. “Makeup and hair look good. Let’s see our wardrobe choices.” She unzipped the top bag and shook her head. “No. Too sexy.”
“But she’d look amazing in it,” Ernie protested with the receiver at his ear and his valet ticket stub in his hand.
“No red.” She clucked her tongue at him. “Absolutely not. Not assertive enough.”
She tossed the top bag aside and moved to the next. After unzipping it all the way, she discarded it. “Too romantic.”
There was only one left. I gnawed my lip.
“Exactly right,” she said, spreading open the plastic wrapping and withdrawing the outfit as Ernie rejoined us.
“All right.” I took the hanger with the creamy white two-piece garment on it from her and brought it to my chest. “I’ll go to the bedroom and put it on.”
“I’ll help you.” Ernie fell into step behind me.
“Good.” My throat tightened.
The time had come for me to push him away. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that at least I would get to do it in private.
“It looks complicated,” I said, both the fastening on the dress and the unraveling of my friend from my life.
“It has a hidden zipper.”
“Oh shit.” His mention of something hidden reminded me. “Max.” I stopped in my tracks.
Not Max, that was over too, but one loss at a time. It was all I could handle.
“I’ll call him in.” Her tone and expression uncharacteristically gentle with understanding, Olivia pointed with her head. “Get a move on. Get dressed. Pick some shoes. I need to see it all together, then we need to go. We’re short on time. I’ll explain the day’s itinerary to Mr. Cash.”
“Thank you.” I sagged with relief.
Later. I could put off what needed to be done with him until later.
“So . . .” Ernie let that word hang in the air as soon as he slid the door closed. “Let’s talk. I get the impression the need to know specifics doesn’t include your bodyguard.”
I nodded once. It didn’t include Ernie anymore either. Pressure built behind my eyes.
“Spill,” my bestie insisted.
“It would be better if I didn’t. Better for you to walk away from all my drama right now.”
“If I didn’t love you, maybe. But I do. And I’m not afraid of a little drama. It adds flavor to my otherwise dull life.”
“Your life is not dull. You are a handsome sexy man with a loving partner, and you’re a sought-after stylist with many well-placed connections in our industry.” Yet another reason to send him away. “If you tried, you could get your job back with—”
“I don’t want that job. I want to be with you, darling.”
“Being with me isn’t a good deal for you. Not right now.”
And maybe not ever. Couldn’t he tell how dire things were? If there was a bright dawn on the other side of this storm, I couldn’t see it.
Ernie gave me an assessing look. “So Samuel’s saying a bunch of horrible things. The people who truly care for you know it’s not true.”
“They’re probably the only ones. He’s convincing.”
“Hardly. He has a reputation.”
“To those inside the industry.”
“Yes, but doubts have been planted in the public eye. There are a breadth of charges. But enough about him. He doesn’t factor with us if we don’t let him. Let me help you with your dress.”
Ernie reached for me, and when I stepped away, he frowned.
“I need to do this myself.” Hugging the garment to my chest to cover my heart like a shield, I brandished a weapon I didn’t want to against my friend. “I need to do a lot of things by myself.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, angling his head to the side.
“You are my dear friend.” My eyes filled.
“But . . .” He gave me a curious look, prompting me when I faltered.
“But I’m going to go in a new direction. A different direction style wise. Olivia makes the choices, like she did just now. It’s decided.”
His eyes narrowed. “You left me out of that decision-making process once again.”
“Yes. This won’t work, Ernie. I’m sorry. Not past today.”
I saw the flicker of hurt in his eyes. Just a flicker, but loving him like I did, the cut I gave him sliced me deeper than him.
“I’ll see that you’re credited on the show. The Alluring people love your designs. They’ll be calling you, and a myriad of other opportunities will open to you.”
I swallowed to moisten my throat. His expression had grown cold.
“I love you.” I shouldn’t say those words, but I had to tell him, had to soften the blow. Who knew when I would get another chance to tell him? “I will always love you. But we’re too close to work together.”
“That’s your final decision.”
“Yes.”
“I know what you’re doing,” he said, and although I shook my head, he kept going. “You’re afraid you’re going to lose. You’re protecting me.”
I neither confirmed nor denied it.
“I’m disappointed in you, Hollie. After all the years we’ve been friends, this is twice now you’ve drawn a line and put me on the other side of it.”
I had. He was right, whatever my reasons, however noble I thought they were.
Drawing his shoulders back, Ernie said, “Well, I can draw a line too.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” My voice was strained.
“Sometimes you have to protect yourselves from the ones who can hurt you the most. We both know that.”
“We do.”
Our fathers were similar. Stepfathers. Ernie’s had never accepted his career choice or his sexual orientation.
“And you have nothing more to say to me,” he said. “No explanation other than this. When you and I both know there’s more.”
I nodded somberly, tightening my hold on the outfit, holding back both my affection for him and the words that would keep him in my life.
“Then the line’s drawn. On my side now too.” His frown deepened, and his eyes, shining with hurt of his own, became hard as stone. “Get yourself downtown. Get yourself where you need to after that.”
Tears rose, gathering in my eyes. “Okay,” I whispered.
Ernie watched me a beat longer. “I would’ve gone with you to the end of the world. Done anything for you.” He gestured around the room. “This stuff, it’s garbage without the right people beside you. I thought you knew that.”
I did. But I kept silent because I loved him to the end of the world and back. And I wanted better for him than to get dragged down into the murky depths with Samuel and me.
/>
Chapter Eighteen
* * *
My gaze landed on Max when I emerged from the bedroom. He was getting dressed in the living room since I’d closed the door to the bedroom. His khakis were partially unzipped, one of his hands shoved down the front to tuck his shirttail in.
My spine tingled as our gazes connected, and I recalled the warmth of his skin, the hardness of his body, and the peace I’d found in his arms a short while ago.
“Are you okay?” He took a step toward me as I stumbled.
The high heels felt awkward on my feet. After weeks of flip-flops and casual wear, I’d forgotten how to navigate over plush carpeting in spiky heels.
But it was more. My hands had been trembling since Ernie left. I felt so adrift, couldn’t seem to focus, and had lingered for far too long on deciding which pair of stilettos to wear.
“Hollie.” Max cleared his throat. “I mean, Miss Wood.” He seemed as unsure how to proceed as I felt, though his gaze was as tranquilly blue as a sheltered lagoon.
“Yes, I’m fine.” I waved him away, and he stopped. “Just not used to the high heels, or any of this stuff, really.”
I gestured to my outfit, and he followed my hand down as he’d just noticed my clothing. Well, what there was of it.
The top came to my chin, the sleeves to my wrists, but it was all lace. The fit and the hint of my skin beneath the delicate fabric made it provocative. The satin shorts that went with it hugged my hips and lengthened my legs, the stilettos emphasizing the shapeliness of my calves with the crisscrossed straps up to the knees.
“You look in—” He stopped short, seeming to remember we weren’t alone, plus the fact that his pants were unzipped. He ducked his head to complete his task, and I glanced away to avoid staring at his noticeable reaction to my outfit.
Olivia slipped between Max and me.
“The hotel has a hired driver waiting for us. I approve of the shoes.” She lifted a hand in the air and twirled it. “Let me see the back.”
I pivoted slowly and didn’t look at my bodyguard, but I heard his sharp intake of breath.
“A little too much cheek, but you’ll be sitting for the interview. Just be sure not to turn your back to the photographers.”
“All right.”
“Are you ready to escort us, Mr. Cash?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He slipped his blazer on and moved to the door. I couldn’t see his expression, but his spine was stiff and his shoulders tense.
“Keep behind me, Miss Wood.” He was in protector mode, not companion mode. “Put your hand on my shoulder before we exit the lobby.”
“Yes, Mr. Cash.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder with ice in his eyes, purpose in the tightness of his jaw. “The transfer into the car is going to be difficult. Once they realize you’ve stopped posing for pictures, they aren’t going to want to let you go.”
Something in his gaze let me know he meant more. He sensed something, of course he did. He had seen Ernie storm away.
How much did Max guess? What had he heard? What part would I have to play to end it with him later?
“You’ll need to hold on to me. I’ll have to insist.” His brow dipped beneath his fringe of hair. “I’ll keep my eye on them. You focus on getting inside the vehicle safely.”
He threw open the door before I could determine how well he read me and the situation. We moved at a quick pace. Cash first. Olivia and me side by side.
The manager of the hotel stopped us in the lobby.
“Miss Wood,” he said, acknowledging me with a nervous nod before he turned to Olivia. “Ms. Avalon. There are at least fifty photographers outside. The hotel can’t guarantee your safety. Are you sure you wouldn’t want to leave out the back way?”
“We shall be fine.”
“Very well.”
He didn’t look very well. He looked like he wanted to throw up.
So did I when we moved closer to the exit and the flashes began to go off like fireworks. I’d wanted to escape my cage since I checked into it nearly a week ago. Now I wanted to turn around and go right back inside and lock the door.
“Remember my instructions.” Max moved in front of me, blocking the flashes but not the din of noise.
“Yes.” I focused on his face. His capable expression in that moment wasn’t off-putting at all. It settled me. “Pictures, then I hold on to you.”
He gave me a nod and stepped through the automatic glass doors. The crowd blended into one mass of darkness with an explosion of out-of-sync strobe lights. Camera shutters fluttered like pages flipped rapidly in a book, and it seemed as though hundreds of voices shouted my name.
I posed. I smiled. I put my hand on my hip and my weight forward on the ball of one foot as I’d been trained to do, pretending I thrived on the attention, when the reality was the opposite.
Being in front of the camera, portraying someone else, being an actress, honing my craft, providing entertainment—I loved it. Having my picture taken from a million different angles, and those million different angles being analyzed for flaws later, I hated it. Did my best to avoid the commentary. And Olivia did her best to shield me from the worst of it.
“That’s enough. Get in the car.” Olivia tugged my arm and drew me toward the silver town car with the darkly tinted windows.
The crowd rushed toward us, a massive wave breaking through the line of hotel security.
Panicking, I gasped as my heart leaped to my throat, but suddenly Max appeared at my side. He grabbed my arm and pushed me in front of him to where Olivia was already waiting inside the car.
“Come on.” She stretched out her arms to me.
As I reached to take her hands, the wave must have slammed into my bodyguard, because his chest slammed into my back. Losing my balance on my needle-point heels, I pitched forward. I would have hit my head on the roof of the car, but Max somehow wedged his large hand between my skull and the metal.
“Inside!” he growled near my ear. “Now!”
He pushed down my head and followed me into the vehicle, pulling the door closed behind him.
“Are you injured?” He turned me to face him, searching my eyes, my face, my body.
“No. I’m all right.” I resisted the compulsion to throw myself at him. Just barely.
Having just narrowly escaped a potential disaster, I felt like I was alone in a tumultuous sea. More danger certainly lay ahead, starting with the interview. With my agent on one side of me and my bodyguard on the other, I should have been comforted, but I wasn’t.
What I wanted was to rewind to this morning, to return to my bed with Max—the man, not the bodyguard—to have my face buried in his chest and his strong arms wrapped around me.
I wanted that more than anything.
Chapter Nineteen
* * *
Why were all talk show sets the same? The host behind the desk. The guest, me, in the uncomfortable chair.
I felt like I was back in high school and had been called into the principal’s office for a reprimand. I was just as nervous as I’d been when I was nearly suspended, along with the entire drama team, for toilet-papering the classical-lit teacher’s house after he gave our modern-day interpretation of Hamlet a bad review in the school paper.
“So nice to see you, Miss Wood.” The pretty blonde smiled as the cameraman on the left moved closer to video us.
“Hollie,” I said, correcting her, and pasted on a smile as artificial as hers seemed to be.
“Hollie. You look well.” She leaned forward, unintentionally giving me a peek at her dark roots, a slash of black.
Why nearly every woman in the business thought they had to be a blonde to be successful, I would never understand. Sasha Davina would be a knockout with her jade-green eyes if she went with her natural black hair instead of the manufactured platinum.
“But you have been through a lot lately. Would you like to tell our viewers about it?”
I would not. Bu
t this was just the type of open-ended question Olivia had prepped me for on the drive over.
Stick to the truth,” she’d cautioned me. As close to it as you can without giving away too much.
“I have been. This is true. I was assaulted in my own home by someone I trusted.”
Sasha’s eyes widened. Obviously, she hadn’t expected me to be quite so candid. Apparently, no one had. The air seemed charged beneath the blazing lights.
“As you can imagine, if something terrifying like that happened to you in a place where you expected to be safe, loved, nurtured, and cared for rather than nearly forced to . . .” I left the rest unsaid as Sasha blurred in front of me, and not due to performance tears. My eyes genuinely filled, and my bottom lip trembled.
Truly, I’d been terrified that night, terrorized by a man I’d mistakenly believed would never hurt me. But he had, and he did, and what’s worse—he would continue to.
“That’s terrible.”
Sasha reached across the desk, and I lifted my hand to take hers. I’d been on edge since she introduced herself in the green room, not knowing what to make of her. She was very young, not much older than me, and in my experience, women who rose to the top that quickly in our business usually had to do it by compromising their morals.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Hollie.” Her green eyes seemed shadowed, or maybe it was just a trick of the light. “At your press conference, you were vague with the details.”
She paused, letting me fill in. So I did.
“I don’t like to talk about it. I have nightmares where I feel suffocated, like I can’t breathe. I have flashbacks when the lights go out, to his hands tearing my clothes and the weight of him on top of me.”
Off to the side, I sensed movement. A quick glance revealed Max had moved closer. He remained off camera, but I could clearly see him.
His eyes were dark, his face a vengeful mask. His arms were rods of steely retribution at his sides.
I would have been frightened if I didn’t know for certain that Max’s fury was directed at my stepfather. He’d been that way after Samuel had called, and his expression was similar an hour ago when the throng of photographers had nearly trampled me. My safety mattered to him. I wasn’t just a job to him.
(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5) Page 97
