by Iris Morland
The dreams had begun to leave him alone, but this particular one was always the same. He was in the Orcas’ stadium, practicing his pitch. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and the smell of dirt and turf anchored him. His muscles ached; his shoulder smarted. But that meant he was doing something right. He’d been pushing his body for years, and it had always paid off.
Carter lifted his right arm and threw. The number on the board: ninety-nine miles per hour. He’d thrown one hundred miles per hour three times today, but he hadn’t been that fast in the last five throws.
What do you think about Takahashi throwing 103? He’s coming for your spot, isn’t he, Carter?
Fuck Takahashi, thought Carter. He wasn’t going to let some newbie eclipse him—even if he was on another team. Even if Carter had been chosen as MVP twice already. He could always be better.
What’s wrong with you? Don’t be a pussy. I didn’t raise my son to give up when things got fucking hard.
Carter always heard his father’s voice in his head. Mike Roberts had loved alcohol almost as much as he’d loved baseball—almost, but not quite. When Carter had shown promise as a kid, Mike had been the one who’d pushed Carter every step of the way.
Mike had yelled at Carter’s coaches when they hadn’t lived up to Mike’s impossible standards. He’d drunk entire six-packs of beers as he’d sat in the stands, yelling at Carter to get his ass in gear. Carter couldn’t remember how many times his father had been asked to leave Carter’s Little League games for being disruptive, sometimes to the point of making other kids cry.
Carter, though, he never cried. He hadn’t cried since he’d been five years old.
Carter had made a name for himself, even as a kid. He’d gone to college on a baseball scholarship, playing college ball, then the minor leagues, until he’d been drafted by the major leagues and played for New York before being traded to the Seattle Orcas two years ago.
But now Carter’s position was threatened. He wasn’t throwing like he used to due to tendonitis in his shoulder. He’d gone to rehab; he’d worked with a trainer for months. The injury wasn’t severe, but it was enough to literally throw him off his game.
Carter threw again: ninety-seven. He scowled, anger building inside him. He hated this feeling, that he was losing control of his own fucking life.
Man up, Carter. Get it the fuck together. Carter kept hearing his father’s words in his head, over and over again, like a messed-up mantra.
You aren’t anything without baseball. You’re not smart. This is your one chance to make something of yourself.
And Carter could feel his career slipping away.
Pissed off and tired, Carter threw one last time that day. He threw harder than he ever had, and his already injured shoulder couldn’t take the strain. Carter heard the snap before the pain slammed into him.
Carter awoke with a gasp, covered in a cold sweat. His shoulder ached, as if he’d really been pitching in his dream. Sitting up, he put his head in his hands, nausea roiling through him.
Light leaked through the curtains. How long had he slept? Based on the headache pounding in his temples, it had been long enough for the buzz of alcohol to wear off.
Carter stumbled to the bathroom and showered until the water began to turn cold. After taking some painkillers and drinking an entire bottle of water, he felt a little better. But the dream still clung to him like a vine, wrapping around him until it was like his heart was in a vise.
He leaned over the bathroom counter and took in deep breaths. “Just a dream, just a dream,” he muttered over and over.
He hadn’t had that particular dream in a few weeks. He didn’t know what would’ve brought it back like this. Then again, he should’ve known drinking like that last night would have consequences.
Consequences—shit, Lucy. He groaned. Had he really…what? Propositioned her? Except it would be for a fake relationship, so he wouldn’t be getting anything out of it if Lucy had her way.
He was an idiot, but he couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled in his throat. In vino veritas, indeed. He’d been pissed, watching Lucy throw herself at Hayden Masterson, and Carter had decided the next best thing was to help her make Hayden jealous.
Yes, that made perfect sense. It had when he’d been hazy with alcohol, at least.
Should he tell her the deal was off? But he pushed that thought aside. Besides, he was confident that after Lucy had spent time with him, she’d forget all about Hayden. Carter wasn’t a famous playboy for nothing, and he would love to watch Hayden Masterson squirm with jealousy.
It was time for revenge, and Carter was more than ready to win this game.
Chapter Six
“Why did you come here?” said Lucy. “You said you wouldn’t.”
“I never made any promise like that.” Hayden looked away, his expression rueful. “Did you think I could stay away from you, Miranda?”
It was their first rehearsal together in Hayden’s trailer, and they’d been working on this particular scene all morning. Hayden preferred to play Gabriel as stoic, almost emotionless, but Lucy could feel the brimming emotion underneath. It was a testament to Hayden’s skill that he could imbue every word of the script with such feeling.
Lucy/Miranda stepped toward a table. She traced a figure eight on the tabletop before picking up the discarded ring. “I don’t need this anymore,” she whispered.
“Wait,” said Hayden, ending the scene. “Shouldn’t Miranda be angrier in this scene? Gabriel did cheat on her, right?”
“I think it’s more complicated than that. She is angry with him, but there’s still love there, too. She’s torn between two different emotions. She wants to hate the man she still loves.”
Hayden peered at her, assessing her. Lucy wondered if she’d overstepped: Hayden was the bigger actor, after all. He was the one with the Oscar nomination; she was a nobody in the grand scheme of things.
Hayden tapped the script. “Maybe not angry to the point that she’s throwing things at his head, but you made the line sound hesitant. She should be more forceful.”
Irritation nipped at Lucy: Miranda was her role, not his. But she pushed the irritation aside. Hayden Masterson knew how to act, and Lucy would be stupid to ignore his critiques.
They played the scene again, this time Lucy putting more anger into her lines. It wasn’t hard to do. She thought about Carter Roberts and his stupid, smirking face, and the anger was right in front of her.
Although at the moment, she was angrier at herself than at Carter. Why had she agreed to be Carter’s fake girlfriend last night? She hadn’t drunk that much alcohol. It must have been a moment of pure insanity.
“Let’s take a break. I need to make a phone call anyway,” said Hayden an hour before they were to start filming. “You good?” He touched Lucy’s shoulder, smiling down at her.
Her heart flip-flopped in her chest. Then she remembered that Hayden had left with another woman last night.
Her smile froze on her face. “I’m good,” she stammered.
“When I heard who my leading lady would be, I was kind of skeptical.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow. “And now?”
“You’ve convinced me that you’re more than up to the challenge.”
She blushed, feeling giddy. This is the guy you’ve had a crush on for a year, she reminded herself. Don’t let anyone else distract you from what you want.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she said.
“A secret? Now I’m intrigued.”
Lucy had wanted to tell Hayden that they’d already met once before at Julia Hendricks’s home last year. Julia was another actress who’d starred in a film with Hayden two years ago. Lucy had only gotten an invitation after she’d begged her agent to pull some strings.
“Do you remember the party at Julia Hendricks’s place? The one last July?”
Hayden tilted his head to the side. “Julia has tons of parties. I’m pretty sure I went to at least four in July alone.”
“Um, it was a really big party.” Lucy searched her memories for some specific detail. “Justin Bieber was supposed to come, but he apparently bailed last minute. Julia wasn’t happy about it since she’d promised her niece Justin would be there.”
“Oh, that party. I do remember—vaguely.” Hayden shrugged, smiling. “I go to a lot of parties, you know.”
“We met at that party.” When Hayden gave her a blank look, she added hurriedly, “It was for, like, a minute. I wouldn’t expect you to remember me.”
Hayden peered at her like he had earlier, as if he didn’t recognize her in that moment. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you, but like you said, if it was just for a minute, I was probably distracted. And possibly drunk.” He chuckled, but it sounded hollow—almost forced.
Lucy’s shoulders slumped. It was stupid to be disappointed, but she’d foolishly dreamed of the day she’d meet Hayden again. He’d tell her that she’d captivated him that night, that he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. That their meeting now must be fate.
“I remembered you,” she said shyly. She looked up at him through her lashes. “I couldn’t believe I’d gotten the chance to meet you.”
“And now here we are, working together. What a coincidence. I had a nice time last night, until we were interrupted, though. I wanted to hear more about your thoughts on Stanislavski.”
“You didn’t seem too annoyed by the interruption,” she pointed out.
“Who, Meredith?” Hayden shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, nothing happened. She wanted to pick my brain about another upcoming project I’m doing and if there was any way she could get a role.” His teeth flashed as he smiled. “Were you jealous?”
“No, of course not.”
And strangely enough, Lucy hadn’t thought once about Hayden and Meredith after her conversation with Carter. The way he’d touched her and the way his voice had stroked places inside her she didn’t want to name had kept her up last night. She’d forgotten that she was supposed to be jealous over Hayden taking another woman back to his room.
Carter is a jerk who just wants to mess with you. Hayden is the one you want. Don’t get confused, she told herself sternly.
Hayden’s phone rang in his pocket. “As much as I’d like to continue this conversation, this can’t wait.”
Hayden excused himself, and Lucy left his trailer to go for a walk until filming started. She needed to clear her head. She must still be hungover to keep thinking about Carter like this.
“Even when he’s not here, he’s driving me crazy,” she muttered to herself. She kicked at pieces of gravel as she walked, imagining that they were Carter’s head.
Lucy’s stomach rumbled, but she didn’t want to eat anything. Whenever she got anxious, her appetite disappeared. Once she’d lost ten pounds in two weeks, which, given the fact that she was already tiny, had made her look emaciated. Her agent had been so concerned that she’d taken Lucy straight to the nearest fast-food restaurant and told her to eat her weight in French fries.
When Lucy saw Carter sitting on the steps to his trailer, she couldn’t be surprised. The man seemed to follow her everywhere.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” she said, approaching him. With him sitting on the bottom step and her standing, she could look him in the eye.
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you my boss now?”
“Do you have a boss?”
“Sure I do.” Carter thought for a long moment. “Well, not really. I am the boss. And in case you were wondering, I already did what I needed to do this morning.” He bit into a bright red apple, chewing it with relish before swallowing. “Did you need something?”
Based on his reaction, maybe he didn’t remember what had happened last night. She prayed he’d been too drunk to remember, because otherwise, this was going to be the most awkward conversation ever.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” he said lightly. “Sit down before you faint.”
“I never faint,” she grumbled, but she did sit down. She also made certain to keep at least a foot of space between them.
“You seem like you want something.” He took another bite of his apple. “But despite what you might think, I can’t read a woman’s mind.”
God, he was irritating. Lucy stretched out her legs and said, “Do you remember what you said to me last night?”
His eyes flashed with amusement. “Of course, little spitfire. Are you here to renege? Because I didn’t take you for a quitter.”
Lucy scowled. “I never should have agreed to it. It’s crazy and stupid, being your fake girlfriend. Besides, Hayden—” She stopped when she saw the dark look cross over Carter’s face.
He took another large bite of his apple before tossing the core into a nearby trash can, the sound making Lucy flinch.
“He went home with another woman,” said Carter in scathing tones. “He didn’t even think about you after he saw her. Is that what you want?”
“He said nothing happened between them.”
Carter laughed. “And you believed him? I thought you were smart, babe. You have to be, in this business.”
An angry flush crawled up Lucy’s cheeks. Getting up, she stood over him, mostly because sitting next to him made them seem too cozy together.
“You don’t know him. He’s been nothing but a gentleman,” she said.
“That means he thinks of you like a sister.”
“He told me he thought I was pretty.”
“That’s it?” Carter snorted. “I knew he was an idiot, but he must be as dumb as a sack of rocks. A real man would’ve told you that you’re beautiful. That you intoxicate him with every movement. That your voice is like a drug every time you say so much as ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
Lucy couldn’t swallow past the lump in her throat. “Is that what you think of me?” she whispered.
Carter tapped her nose. “No, spitfire. Of course not. This is just an act, remember?”
Humiliation washed through Lucy. “What does it matter to you anyway, if Hayden wants me or not? You and I, we’re not dating. You don’t even like me.”
To her dismay, he stood up, lording his height over her. She wished he weren’t so handsome, so masculine. It’d be easier if she didn’t feel her heart turn over in her chest every time he came near her.
“I don’t care,” he said. “But we had a bet. If you renege, that means I win. And we both know you don’t want that.”
“You wouldn’t win anything beyond thinking that you won. That makes no sense.”
“But that would be enough. You’d hate it, knowing that I’d scared you away, that you were so attracted to me that you knew within a day of spending time with me, you’d forget all about that guy.”
Lucy couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs. The world had shrunk until it was only she and Carter. She had the sudden insane desire to kiss him, if only to prove that she wasn’t attracted to him. Not in the slightest.
She wanted Hayden. She knew that—but why did her body tell her otherwise? When Hayden had touched her, there hadn’t been this crackling chemistry between them.
“You sound like you do care,” she accused, trying to figure out what was up and what was down.
Carter smirked. “You keep telling yourself that, little spitfire. Now, are we on or not? Because your Prince Charming is coming around the corner, so it’s now or never.”
Lucy refused to let Carter win. She would prove to him that he couldn’t get into her pants so easily. She didn’t care that he was handsome or that he had stupid dimples when he smiled or that he smelled like cedar and spice.
She grabbed his hand and entwined their fingers. Then she tipped her head back and laughed, like he’d said something hilarious.
“There you go,” he whispered. He put his arm around her, pulling her close, and he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “He’s watching us. Put on a good show for him.”
As an actress, Lucy knew how to perform. She
knew how to embody a character, let emotions flow through her, let some made-up story influence her body and her voice. This was just another role.
She told herself that, but when she tipped her head back and gazed into Carter’s eyes, she wasn’t sure of anything. She wasn’t even sure of her own name right then.
“Lucy?” said Hayden over her shoulder. “It’s about time for filming to start.”
She almost pushed Carter away, but he gripped her hand tighter. “She’ll be right there,” answered Carter. “Won’t you, sweetheart?”
Lucy wished she could see Hayden’s face. Was he jealous? “Yes, I’ll be right there,” she repeated.
“We don’t have much time. You don’t want to be late.” Hayden sounded insistent now.
Lucy turned so she could face Hayden. He didn’t look jealous so much as confused.
“I didn’t know you two were dating,” said Hayden, eyeing them both. “I thought you preferred tall girls, Carter.”
Lucy stiffened, but Carter laughed. “I like anything pretty and female. Just like you.”
Something dangerous swirled in the air between these two, and Lucy had a feeling she was going to get caught in the middle of the storm if she wasn’t very careful.
Carter caressed her back. “You should get to set. You know how Jim hates when people are late, like Hayden said.”
Before Lucy could react, Carter dipped his head and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, but it shot heat down to Lucy’s bones. His stubble brushed her cheek; his lips were firm yet unbearably soft. When Carter pulled away, she wanted to bring his head back down and make him really kiss her.
“I have to go,” she whispered.
“Yes, you do.” Carter almost sounded sad.
Lucy didn’t know how she managed to walk to set without her knees giving way. She didn’t know what to say to Hayden, and she honestly didn’t much care about talking to him. She could only feel that kiss from Carter.
What the hell had she gotten herself into now? was her only thought for the rest of the afternoon.
Chapter Seven
