by Celia Mulder
“That is your own damn problem. Good night.”
Lucille choked back her worry. She was concerned about Simon getting arrested, about Michel being killed, about Sylvia Stanton trying to have her killed, about Matt showing up, about Brett never forgiving her for dislocating his shoulder. Again. She was worried about all of it. But she was also exhausted, jet-lagged, and desperately in need of a shower and her own bed. All of this mess would still be there when she got up. It wasn’t going anywhere. Except if your uncle gets hauled off to jail, a voice in her head whispered. No, she told it, he’s too smart to let that happen. He could take care of himself, just like he’d left her to do for the last eight years. She’d wanted adventure, but right now she wanted sleep even more.
She checked her phone. Forty-eight unread emails. One hundred and twelve missed calls. Three hundred and sixty-four text messages. Every single one of them from Christy-fucking-Anne.
Chapter Sixteen
“What the literal fuck, L.?”
Lucille leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. She may have slept for fourteen hours straight but it in no way had prepared her to deal with this. “Hey, Christy-Anne.”
“Why the fuck haven’t you called me? Didn’t you get my texts?”
Lucille bit back her snarky reply about being fired numerous times in the Christy-Anne textual onslaught because, really, she just didn’t want to deal with it. After walking away from Michel’s case last night, she’d gone home and crashed, hard. Now, in the proverbial cold light of this air-conditioned rental, she felt unhinged. She was angry—angry at herself for getting into the mess, angry that she still felt an obligation toward Michel when they didn’t even have a contract, angry that Simon hadn’t called to find out why she’d bailed.
“Yes, I got your messages. All 364 of them. I just got home and was already dialing your number into my phone.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She coughed back a snort and actually coughed instead. “Since you have me on the phone now, why don’t you tell me what this is about?”
There was a lot of background noise on Christy-Anne’s end. It sounded like she’d put silverware in a blender and set it on high. Knowing her, that wasn’t an unlikely option.
“Where are you, and for God’s sake, what’s that noise?” Lucille asked, rubbing her temples and holding the phone six inches from her ear.
“Oh that? That loud, grinding racket that won’t stop?” Christy-Anne was shouting, and not entirely for Lucille’s benefit. “Ryan has decided to try some fucking DIY. The asshole is destroying my house, Lucille. He just drilled through a fucking wall.”
Christy-Anne’s voice was so sarcastic and venomous, Lucille couldn’t hold back her laughter. She pressed her hand over her mouth, swallowing furiously so it wouldn’t come bubbling up. Ryan was doing DIY. She could picture it—his spiky, gelled, highlighted hair clashing with the plaid shirt and tight denim he’d no doubt adopted, a power drill in one hand and a beer in the other. With that petite, slim body and the little bit of muscle that he could barely hang on to, it was a wonder he hadn’t sent himself to the hospital.
Once she’d calmed down enough, Lucille tried to think of a solution, turning back and forth in her chair considering the options. Nothing came to her, so she stalled. “Why’s he still there? I thought I read that you two had ended things for good?”
“Yeah, well, no thanks to you. You’re supposed to be dealing with this shit. Instead I had to break up with him. On my own. And now the bastard won’t leave. He says he likes it here! And that we’d make a good couple if we ever put all that pop star shit behind us. We would not make a good couple, L. And what pop star shit? I was so mad at him I locked myself in my room. But then he decided to impress me with some fucking home improvement and started drilling fucking holes in my fucking wall!”
Lucille wanted to know what Ryan could possibly be building. A bedroom bar? No, a fold-out massage table? Or a shrine to Christy-Anne? Now was not the time to ask. However, the conversation was turning out to be exactly what she needed after the intensity of the past few days. She found herself wishing she could tell Brett all about it, to cheer him up after the whole twice-dislocated-shoulder thing. But he probably wasn’t speaking to her either.
Lucille got her silent giggles under control and tried to fake indignation. “That’s terrible! But at least he’s trying. And really, as your publicist, I shouldn’t get involved in your relationship. It sounds like this is between the two of you.”
“What the fuck do I pay you for? You’re the one who brought him here, and then you weren’t even here when I had to break up with him. You’d better make him leave. God, I’m so beyond furious I can’t fucking talk to you right now.”
“There’s no need to be angry, Christy-Anne. Sure, we’ve had our rough patches this past week, but look at what we accomplished. No one knows about the affair with Marcus, you’ve had cover features in all the national magazines, and you can’t tell me that every single minute with Ryan has been horrible. You dated him for five years, for God’s sake. Some of that must still be there. Maybe those wild passionate nights or sweet, languid mornings?” She was talking out of her ass and knew it.
Christy-Anne was growling. Finally, she sighed. “He did cook me breakfast once.”
“See? There’s something.”
“It was terrible.”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
“Whatever. I still want him out of here and out of my life. I can’t keep writing songs about the same fucked-up relationship!”
Actually, you can and you probably will, Lucille thought but didn’t say. Christy-Anne’s sappy songs about her broken heart were the only ones that even made it onto the charts. Her “clubbin’ hits” and songs about what it was like to be rich in Vegas remained buried on her albums, only discovered by die-hard fans. “All right, I’ll talk to Ryan, invent some reason for him to move out, and then we’ll get your life back to normal.”
Christy-Anne stopped growling. “Finally. I swear, if you do this for me, I’ll never fire you again. You can be my publicist for the rest of both our lives.”
“Yeah,” Lucille said, gritting her teeth at the thought. An hour and an agonizing conversation with Ryan later, she got him to move out that night. She had to promise him a rumored affair with the model Mariah, though. Now she’d have to call Mariah to work that out. Her job never ended.
Though her main sources of steady income had just decided to part ways, all she felt was relief and a heavy dose of dread. They’d both promised to work with her for the rest of their lives.
***
Brett couldn’t believe where he was going. He opened his mouth to tell the cab driver to turn around and take him back to the mansion, but Simon Anton was staying there, “keeping an eye on things,” and Brett got the feeling he was no longer wanted. He’d emerged from his drug haze to find himself in the spare bedroom, still wearing Michel’s oversized suit, a bag from his apartment sitting at the foot of the bed. With the help of one of Michel’s male staff members, who seemed to all be back to work, he was able to shower and get dressed in his jeans and a faded red t-shirt. His arm throbbed from its two-day ordeal, but at least the dressing was new and the bone had been properly set the second time. That information came from Michel, since Brett didn’t remember much after the elevator kissing.
Now the two of them, Simon and Michel, were in the courtyard, supposedly discussing their course of action. What they appeared to be doing was drinking and talking about Michel’s body of work. Simon Anton, no surprise, was a huge fan of Michel and even owned his Italian-language love song album—both of them.
They hadn’t noticed when Brett had left the house, even though he’d made no attempt to be quiet. It wasn’t so much that he wanted them to know he was leaving, but because he didn’t want potential murderers mistaking him for Michel again. He had been making a habit of announcing his name and his status as Sylvia’s cousin every time
he entered a room. He knew Simon’s story was a bunch of bull. Though he didn’t know his cousin Sylvia well, he doubted she’d stoop to doing anything as virtuous as protecting Michel. Nor would she ever risk her own life to save his. Something foul was at play, so he was going to find the one person who could tell him what.
Well, that wasn’t the only reason he was going to find her...
The cab stopped outside a medium-sized, pale-gray house in a suburb on the outside of the city. Brett frowned at the house. The siding was all wood, and the railing up to the porch looked Victorian in design. An old house. In this town. The rest of the suburb was the same, a few new houses mixed in, but for the most part older houses with stone chimneys and wrap-around porches. It was not at all what he’d expected of her.
He paid the driver and walked to the front door. It opened soon after he knocked to reveal a glaring Lucille in another of those short dresses he liked so much—bare feet and no makeup. If his arm weren’t in a sling...
“Oh, of course they sent you,” she said by way of a greeting.
“Who sent me?” He was genuinely confused.
“My uncle.” She looked at him like he was being stupid. “Bastard must have had me followed.”
Brett shook his head. “Uh, no. He didn’t. I mean, I got your address from him, yes, but he didn’t send me.”
Lucille sighed and pulled him inside, closing the door behind him. The interior made even less sense. There were beautiful hardwood floors and paintings on the wall. The living room had soft, comfortable couches and a Persian rug. There was a huge bookcase on one side of the room and a crystal chandelier dangling from the high ceiling.
“Um,” he began, “your house...”
She looked at him, the glare turning into something lighter. “It’s awful, isn’t it? It’s not mine. I have to move a lot, what with the whole secret job and all. The more a place looks like somewhere I’d never live, the better a cover it is.”
“Oh thank God. This place looks like the perfect spot to raise a family,” Brett said with a shudder.
She grimaced and put her finger to his lips. “Shut up. Don’t ever say that to me again.”
He grinned.
Lucille dropped her finger and turned toward the ridiculous antique liquor cabinet in the corner. “Do you want a drink?”
Brett, heady from having her stand so close to him, shook his head. She didn’t see it, pondering the decanters in front of her. “No,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. How embarrassing.
She turned around, her eyebrows raised. “You don’t want a drink? I thought you were supposed to be a tormented, alcoholic screenwriter?”
“Yeah, supposed to be,” Brett said absently, his mind not on writing.
Lucille didn’t say anything, but walked over to sit in one of the high-backed Victorian chairs. She watched him.
Brett realized she was waiting for a better answer than, “Yeah, supposed to be.” He shifted, still standing near the door, too uncomfortable to sit down. Then he began with a huge, dramatic sigh. “The tortured artist thing is really my family’s idea. I never wanted to be an alcoholic writer, but it’s kind of the family business. My dad’s one, my brother, my sisters, my grandfather’s one, his father was one. It goes back centuries.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
“Your family wanted you to be an alcoholic?”
Brett nodded. “Yep. Though that’s the main reason I’m not speaking to any of them right now. They’re all in and out of rehab.”
“What about your mom?”
“She...um...runs the Michel Polce Stalker Society.” Brett winced as he said this. From what little he knew of Lucille’s family, it wasn’t like they were perfect, but his was really fucked up. Never more so than when he talked about them out loud.
“I’m just going to leave that one alone.”
Brett nodded. “For the best.”
She put on a wicked smirk, stood up, and sauntered over to him. She trailed her hand lightly up his arm, leaving goosebumps. “You know what we haven’t gotten to do...”
Brett went to touch her, to grab her. Then he stopped and dropped his hand. He felt uncertain and nervous, like he was his seventeen-year-old self, about to lose it to Amber Whitfield in her bedroom while their parents were at a PTA meeting. “Are you sure about this?”
“It’s just sex,” she whispered in his ear. She took his earlobe between her teeth and tugged. Brett groaned.
She kissed down his neck, walking them backward to the living room wall. There she pushed him against it and claimed his mouth, pressing every inch of her body against his as she did so.
Brett pulled back as much as he could, disentangling his mouth from hers. “Wait.”
“What? What could you possibly have to tell me right now?”
“Um, with this arm, I won’t really, uh, be able to do much passionate throwing-you-down-on-the-bed or whatever.”
Lucille laughed, and the sound vibrating through him was arousing. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
“Why not?” He was once again genuinely confused.
She looked him in the eye with a bemused smile. “Because you’re going to be the one getting thrown down on the bed. And I’m always in control,” she whispered again, the soft pressure of her lips making him close his eyes and groan.
Brett swallowed. Something about her taking control—really, everything about her taking control—was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. He’d never been one of those men who had to assert his dominance through being on top or bondage or whatever. Some women had wanted him to, so he had. But it had never felt quite like this.
Her hands were under his t-shirt before he stopped thinking. She pushed it up, over his stomach, until it caught on his sling. She reached up and removed the sling, not gently like in the hotel, but hurried, desperate, impatient.
He winced but helped her get it off. That obstacle out of the way, she pulled his shirt over his head and then set to work on his jeans. He put his hand on her arm; this was going too fast. Sure, he was ready, he’d been ready since they’d started making out against the wall, but he wanted to enjoy this, his first time with this gorgeous, powerful woman.
“Wait, slow down,” he said.
She looked up at him, her eyes full of desire. “Dear God, why?”
“I just...want to enjoy it.”
She leaned in, running her hands up his chest as she did so, and kissed him. Her tongue licked the outside of his lips and then slid inside, playing with his. He moaned and kissed her back, hard. It wasn’t until his pants fell to his ankles that he pulled back, breathing heavily.
“Hey, you don’t play fair,” he gasped.
“I never said I did.” She whispered the words against his lips, and his brain shut up again.
With his free hand, he reached behind her neck and tried to undo the halter top of her dress. He couldn’t do it one-handed.
Lucille stepped back and smiled seductively at him. She quickly untied her dress and shimmied out of it. Underneath she wore a strapless bra and black, lacy underwear. He swallowed, standing there in his boxers, his jeans around his ankles.
They stared at each other for a long second, and then Lucille jumped him again, slamming him hard against the wall. He groaned, this time from the pain, but it was lost in her kisses. His blood pounded through his body, his erection pressing eagerly against her. She was shorter than him, though, so it pressed against her belly and not that sweet spot between her thighs.
He pulled back again, this time with reluctance, his good arm pushing gently on her shoulder, his bad one useless. “Luce.”
Lucille glared at him this time, her chest heaving, each breath making her strapless bra slide down a few millimeters, revealing more of her breasts.
He almost pulled her back in right then and there—picked her up, wrapped her legs around his waist, and let her ride him against the wall. He would have, too, if the logistics wouldn�
��t have gotten in the way.
“Do not tell me to slow down again,” Lucille hissed.
“Uh, no. I got the impression that was off the table.”
“Then what?”
“Which way to the bedroom? Because as much as I’d love to pick you up and, uh...” It was the most awkward conversation he’d ever had. Who stopped in the middle of sex to talk about logistics? And what word should he use? “Fucking” sounded too crude. They weren’t making love. Screwing? Banging? Making the beast with two backs? All great for telling your best guy friends about your romantic indiscretions later, but in the heat of the moment they sounded crass. “Uh, have sex against this wall, but it’s a little impossible right now.” He gestured at his arm.
Lucille’s glare disappeared. She smiled at him—not the cocky grin from earlier, but something a little softer. She grabbed his hand. “Well, come on then.”
He didn’t move, not yet. She looked back at him, impatient.
“I just don’t want to trip over my pants,” he said lamely.
She laughed. “You’re adorable.” Then she helped him out of his jeans and led him up to her bedroom.
Adorable? He’d never been called adorable in his life and didn’t know what to make of it. He told his brain to shut up and get busy with the mostly naked woman in front of him instead.
In the upstairs hall, Lucille turned around and kissed him again. She maneuvered them so she was pushing him backwards, their legs tangling together, their mouths attached. They almost didn’t make it to the bed and probably wouldn’t have if Brett’s arm hadn’t been an issue. She slammed him against her bedroom door, opening it with the force of the impact. He groaned against her mouth again, this time in pain and pleasure. No doubt he’d have a bruise tomorrow, but he’d stopped caring.
His knees hit the back of the bed and folded, bringing him down on his back. He used his good arm to pull Lucille down on top of him.
She disentangled herself and sat up, straddling his hips. Reaching around, she undid the clasp of her bra, letting it fall off to reveal two of the most perfect breasts he’d ever seen. Well, almost perfect. The left one had a condom stuck to it.
