High Tide

by Michelle Mankin

  “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.

  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. But 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.

  “Anyway.” I refocused on Sasha. “Being that scared, knowing how powerful my stepfather is . . .” I stressed that relational identifier because it added a gut-level horror to what he’d done. “I ran. I hid.”

  Don’t bring up the fact that you and Fanny had also believed at the time that he’d played a part in your mother’s death. It wasn’t the case. We knew it now, thanks to Hart’s investigation. We needed to keep the focus on charges we could make stick.

  “Fanny and I tried to get across the border, but we were robbed. We had barely any money, so we scavenged food, and slept in a sub-pump structure. We had no running water. No heat. No electricity. A local gang beat up my sister while I was sick with the flu.”

  “That’s terrible.” Sasha shook her head.

  “It was awful. I’ll never take the things I have from working hard for granted again. I don’t know what would have happened if Ashland Keys hadn’t taken us in, and his friends hadn’t helped us.” I turned my head, looking into the camera coming in for a close-up. “I’ll never forget what they did. I owe them a debt I can never repay.”

  I hoped everyone in Ocean Beach saw the interview and the sincerity in my eyes as I spoke those words. Because after I distanced myself from them, I wasn’t sure they would think on me favorably.

  Ernie’s reaction came to mind, and tears pricked my eyes.

  “You don’t have to say more.” Sasha let go of me, brought her hands together, and her expression turned as earnest as her pose while the camera with the red blinking light moved in on her. “Assaults against women are on the rise. It’s a sad fact, and an even sadder one that a girl not even eighteen was allegedly attacked by a man she thought was her father in her own home. Holliewood will have her day in court. We on this show will be covering the details closely, including the stories of the other women stepping forward with allegations against Samuel Lesowski.”

  Sasha lifted her chin as she stared at the camera. “There are several phone numbers and websites for sexual assault victims that will post at the end of our show. If you’ve been a victim—don’t run, don’t be silent. Speak up. Help yourself, help others come forward. Fight back. Take back your power. Take back your life.”

  • • •

  “Hollie, are you sure you’re up to this?” Beside me in the town car, Olivia put her hand on my knee.

  “I’m fine,” I lied.

  “The interview seemed to take a lot out of you.” Her eyes narrowed on mine.

  “I need to do this.” I was deflecting because I had to. I needed to sign the papers on the Valentine film to solidify my commitment to the project.

  “True, but we can reschedule the meeting when we get back from New York. The day after tomorrow. I’m afraid my itinerary today was overly ambitious.”

  “Today. Now.” I drew in a breath and firmed my shoulders. “It won’t get easier. This is my life, and I can do this.”

  I could feel Max’s gaze on me and glanced over to find him looking not stoic, but visibly troubled. He’d looked that way since we departed from the studio. Had what I revealed in the interview bothered him? It certainly seemed to.

  A text ding sounded from Olivia’s phone.

  “That’s them. They’re inside waiting. Ready?” She glanced at me.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “Mr. Cash,” she said, peering past him through the window on his side. “There appears to be as many photographers here as there were at the hotel.”

  Through the tinted glass, I could see she was right. That many, maybe more, were gathered together on either side of two barricades, leaving only a narrow opening to access the popular West Hollywood establishment.

  “Stay close this time.” Max gave me a firm glance. “Don’t let go.”

  His order rumbling in my ears, he took my hand and pushed open the door on his side.

  Lights immediately began flashing. Not that the paparazzi necessarily knew who was about to emerge from the vehicle, but because Viago was a classy restaurant with white tablecloths and subway tiles and flattering ambient lighting where everyone who was someone in Hollywood went to close deals.

  And the Valentine film, unlike the independent romantic comedy that I had signed on to without more than a couple of social media posts on my part and theirs, was a huge deal. It could make or break my career, depending on how things went.

  “Hollie!”

  “Miss Wood!”

  “Look here!”

  “Smile.”

  I’d had one pasted on since I exited the car.

  “This way.”

  I didn’t purposely pause for photos like I had at the hotel, but a couple of photographers jumped the barricade. They blocked our path and momentarily blinded me as they snapped photos.

  “Out of the way.” Max’s grip on my hand tightened. He brushed past them, pulling me with him.

  I put my hand on his shoulder and shuffled closer as someone jostled me from behind.

  “Keep moving,” Olivia said.

  My bodyguard grunted an unintelligible reply, continuing to push forward as more reporters spilled over the metal barricades. Jostled on all sides except for his steady presence in front of me, I pressed closer, feeling the rock-hard tension in the bunched muscles beneath his clothing.

  Somehow, we made it inside. As the door closed behind us, a maître d’ came forward.

  “Miss Wood?” He raised a brow.

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve been told to expect you. Follow me, please. Mr. Valentine and Mr. Flynn are waiting.”

  “Of course.” The director and the male lead on the film.

  My heart rate increased, but I outwardly projected calm, and my hand remained within Max’s firm grip as he started to move forward.

  “Staff remains in the lobby.” The maître d’ narrowed his eyes disapprovingly and gestured to a bench where two other imposingly large men waited.

  “I go where Miss Wood wants me to go.” Max glanced at me. “She’s the only one who gives me orders.”

  It hit me in that moment, something so significant, time seemed to pause. The noise and the other people receded. The heavy burden on my shoulders lightened, and my racing heart slowed.

  Max. This man, this incredibly strong man, wasn’t like the other bodyguards warming the bench. Not because they were in expensive suits, and he was in his leftover Security You Can Trust blazer and khakis that I probably needed to find a way to upgrade for him without him taking offense. The difference wasn’t in his clothes, though, or the fact that those other men probably made a whole lot more money than I paid him.

  It was the words he�
�d just spoken, and other similar statements he’d made along with accompanying actions that proved they weren’t just empty words. He meant the things he said. He was a man of integrity, a rarity among men in Hollywood, or anywhere else in my experience.

  If he remained in the lobby, he wouldn’t have his head down like the others, his attention on his phone while I went in the dining room and sealed my motion-picture business deal. He would have his head up and his attention riveted on the spot where he’d last seen me. And he would maintain that position, hardly even noticeably breathing while I was gone. He would faithfully remain on guard until I returned.

  He would do it because I asked. He would do exactly as I asked, not because I paid his paycheck, but because he cared about me.

  Maximillian Cash was more than just what I wanted. He was exactly who I needed in my life right now.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going on Sasha’s show?”

  “Hello to you too, Fanny. Nice to hear from you.”

  With my nightstand lamps providing a welcoming glow, I dropped my shopping bags on the floor and flopped backward onto the bed. My shoes were untied and already kicked off. My aching feet dangled off the mattress. I was exhausted.

  After the two-hour collaborative meeting with my new director and my love interest in the film, and another pass through the gauntlet with photographers, I hadn’t felt like shopping, but shopping I did. Olivia had insisted.

  Photos from it were already up on many of the celebrity sites. My manager had shown some to me. The comments associated with them had been largely favorable. I could still see them in my mind . . .

  After what her stepfather did, she deserves a little retail therapy.

  Holliewood works hard. It’s her money she’s spending, not her stepfather’s.

  What kind of imbecile believes a young girl who looks like her would come on to an old geezer like him? Go #holliewood #fight #win Lesowski is a #loser

  “Hello, Hols.” Fanny’s voice refocused me on the present. “I love you, and I miss you. Now tell me what’s going on.”