“Sway your hips, girl!” Neva yelled behind me, and I cringed, hoping none of the crew heard her.
Activity swarmed in the cabin as the crew worked on finalizing the setup for today’s segment. The remodel on the cabin was coming along nicely, and somehow, we were even on time. But that shouldn’t be surprising. Kane always ran a tight ship, and it took damn near a catastrophe for us to fall behind. Even in my absence, the man kept everyone on task.
I bit down the quick lick of irritation that moved up my chest when Bill caught sight of me, walking across the room toward me and stepping over the small stacks of lumber that lay in his path. “Hey, sunshine.”
“Hi, Bill.” I tried to keep my tone light, welcoming, though it took effort. Bill wasn’t my favorite person, hell, I didn’t even like him, but I wasn’t going to be a bitch to him. That wouldn’t serve my purpose, despite the sleaze factor he had. He’d never cross a line with Kane always nearby. I figured if our show became big enough, we could request to have him replaced. It took clout in order to remove one of the most successful members from the team.
Kane was busy with Asher in the kitchen, but he glanced up, giving me a nod. I made eye contact but didn’t so much as smile in his direction. Play hard to get. I let those little words play over and over again in my head as I stood there with Bill in front of me and Kane across the way.
“Have you been okay, Kit?”
“I’m fine. You?”
I was never one to make idle chitchat, especially with Bill. We had business meetings, always with other people, but we didn’t talk much about our personal lives, and I liked it that way too.
“I feel like we haven’t been able to really talk since the paparazzi started to camp out to catch another glimpse of the biggest it couple on television.”
Kane moved a few feet closer, trying to be coy, but I could tell he was listening to my conversation with our producer. Kane was never too far away when Bill was near me, and it was obvious to everyone except Bill.
“We’ve all been swamped. Think nothing of it. I’ve been too busy lately anyway.”
“What are you doing this weekend?”
Perfect opportunity to cast my bait. I took a glance at Kane, inwardly grinning at the frown on his face before I threw a smile at Bill, trying like hell not to vomit when I spotted the pit stains on his polo shirt. “Um, Seattle. I’ve got my eye on an antique armoire.”
“Seattle, eh?”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about this piece of furniture for a while. It’s more than I want to spend and farther than I wanted to travel, but…” I peered to my side, seeing Kane a little closer and quiet as he pretended to read something. “I don’t want to go alone.”
I set the first part of the “Make Kane Jealous” plan into action with the last statement. It wasn’t a lie, and buying something I didn’t need, something that expensive, would fulfill another item on the list. And, of course, it would serve a purpose. Lexi and Neva had convinced me that Bill would jump at the chance to go away with me. He’d probably offer to go away with any of the females on the set. The man really was a bad Hollywood cliché. We knew enough to stay away from him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep on trying.
“I’ll take you,” Bill said, standing right next to me. He smelled of coffee, sweat, and faded fabric softener. Not exactly a good combination. “I don’t have anything planned this weekend.”
I tried to pretend to be surprised by his offer and covered my mouth as if I were shocked, instead of trying to hide my smile. “You’d do that for me?”
“Kit, I’d do anything for you.”
“You’re the best.” The words slid off my tongue surprisingly easy.
“I have a few contacts in Seattle who specialize in antiques. If you give me information on the item, I can place a few calls before we go. We’ll use the trip to buy furniture for the cabin too so we can put it all on the expense account.”
Kane came to stand at my side and cleared his throat. There wasn’t a smile on his face or anything that looked remotely neutral. By the shift of his gaze between me and Bill and how tightly he clenched his jaw, I guessed he’d heard every word Bill and I exchanged before he decided to insert himself into our conversation. Bill was oblivious, but I didn’t miss a beat when it came to Kane.
“Wow, you’re amazing,” I said with a big smile. “We can leave Friday after work.”
“Where are we headed?” Kane asked, arms folded in front of his chest. He worked his jaw tighter, as though he needed to keep himself in check before he went all caveman and started beating on his extra-wide chest.
Bill narrowed his eyes, his frown telling me he didn’t like Kane butting into our conversation or how he’d inserted himself into our plans. “Kit and I are going to Seattle.”
“Where Kit goes, I go. I’ll be ready to roll on Friday.”
Kane didn’t budge when I turned to face him. We hadn’t argued. We hadn’t had any problems as far as he knew, except that every time I mentioned what had happened in his truck, the man went silent as a grave. He might not know why I was irritated, but Kane would definitely pick up on my attitude. In fact, I counted on it.
“Maybe I don’t want you to come.” I crossed my arms, copying him, and stared Kane down.
The plan was going off perfectly. I couldn’t have done a better job. Lexi and Neva said it would work, but I had my doubts. Sure, I felt like a juvenile brat playing this game with Kane, but my God, the man needed a nudge. He’d never make a move otherwise.
The years of observation between Neva and Lexi seemed to pay off. Kane’s features hardened, and he grunted, cutting off the noise with a fake cough.
“Kit.”
“Kane,” I replied, not disguising my attitude.
“Kit,” he said again, his jaw tightening further. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Kane peered over at Bill, giving him the iciest look I’d ever seen cross his face. “Mind, Bill?”
“I’ll let you two love birds talk. You’re totally welcome to tag along, Kane.”
“Thanks,” he said in a clipped tone, but the word wasn’t polite. In fact, it sounded a lot like a curse.
I stared up at Kane, watching him as he glared at Bill, waiting for him to be out of earshot. I wasn’t stepping down right away. I planned to work his anger before finally “letting” him take me on the trip alone.
Kane peered down at me, his jaw still ticking in anger. We stayed like that, staring each other down for a solid ten seconds before he finally said something. “You aren’t going away with him.”
“Who says? You my daddy now too?” Behind Kane, I could see Neva and Lexi in the window, their faces practically pressed against the glass, watching the entire thing go down. By their expressions, they were pleased with my progress.
Kane moved his features into something resembling a clench—eyes hard and squinted, mouth tightened into a severe frown as he flared his nostrils. “Don’t get smart with me.”
I don’t know why the exchange between us seemed hot, but it did. The bossy side of Kane, especially when he’d had his fingers buried deep inside me, did some wicked crazy shit to my libido, but I’d never admit that to him. The man was already unbearable at times, and that type of knowledge would give him an even bigger head than he already had.
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “You didn’t seriously just say that to me, did you?”
His stare then reminded me of the one Kiel had given me in the bar when I hugged him. But where Kane’s kid brother had been seductive, smooth, Kane was pure alpha, gaze slipping over my face, eyebrow moving up like he thought things he wouldn’t dare say aloud. That look felt like fire and lust and a hundred different filthy things I dreamed Kane wanted to do to me. That look made me realize Kiel was an amateur. Kane was the fucking master.
Just as quickly as he’d made it appear, Kane righted his expression, stepping back like he’d only just realized where we were and what he wanted. When he looked at me, the fire i
n eyes had been extinguished, and something worrying and tired replaced it. He reached back and rubbed his neck, finally breaking eye contact with me. “Kit, listen. You can’t go away with Bill. I won’t allow it.”
“Give me one good reason.”
The ball was officially in his court. He hadn’t said anything to me about what happened between us. He’d spent the rest of the day pretending to be busy when he was ignoring my silent questions and stares. He’d acted like a worried big brother, but I wasn’t his damn sister.
Right then, I felt like a motherfucker, and it was time for him to man up.
“You know he’s a slimeball. He’ll try to touch you and…”
I’d baited him. Now it was time for him to bite the hook. “And?” I raised an eyebrow, challenging the big, bad Kane to finally say the one thing I knew was on the tip of his tongue.
“I forbid it.”
Laughter? Anger? I wasn’t sure which emotion I felt first, but those three words left me a little speechless, and I was only able to gawk at him. The man just couldn’t say the words, no matter what. He had to be the most aggravating and emotionally stunted human being on the planet.
Next to him, I looked like a character straight out of a Hallmark Channel movie, and I wasn’t even very girlie or open with my heart.
I didn’t respond right away. I stared him down, but when he didn’t say another word, I stepped around him and headed straight for Bill, leaving Kane behind me.
“Book the rooms. We’re on for this weekend, Bill.”
Choke on that, Kane. If this blew up in my face, I’d have a bigger problem than being in love with Kane.
16
Kane
I wasn’t a caveman. Well, at least, I didn’t think I was. You can’t be raised by a badass woman who handles two wild, ridiculous sons, a huge congregation of nieces and nephews, and still manages to cook, clean, make the money, and pay the bills all on her own, and somehow end up thinking you have any say in what a woman does. Especially when that woman isn’t yours. Especially when you haven’t told her you want her to be.
“Fuck.”
The club was lousy with drunks, most of them, thank God, too damn twisted to recognize Kit or me. That still didn’t make me relax, but then, relaxing had been the last damn thing I’d managed since we left Ashford.
The car ride with Kit and Bill had been the most awkward bullshit in my life. He flirted, moving his hand a little too close to her knee as he tapped the cupholder. She hadn’t seemed to mind, something that irked me the whole way to the city. But then, I didn’t care about that. Even managed a grin when Bill’s fingers came too close to Kit’s leg, and I stretched out my leg, weaving one foot between the two front seats. Cockblock executed.
I had no clue what I’d done to make Kit ask Bill for a ride to Seattle. One minute I had my fingers inside her, loving the feel of her sweet, soft skin all around me, the next she was ignoring me and flirting with the asshole we always made jokes about when we snuck off to the diner for lunch.
But Kit had spent most of the day after we’d gone to the president’s speech with her girls in the makeup trailer, then the entire afternoon and night at a spa. So she said. Next day on set, I got the cold shoulder, and she was batting her damn eyes at that stupid fucker.
What the hell?
“I thought you hooked up with her,” Dale had said, two minutes after Kit had stormed off and told Bill to book the rooms for the weekend trip.
“What?”
Dale couldn’t have known. The guy didn’t listen to gossip, especially not about me, and we both knew it. But the former SEAL had stood there on set, glancing between me, showcasing what was probably a stupid glare, complete with smoke funneling from my ears, and Kit, as she moved her hair behind her ear and gave Bill a smile I knew she reserved for people she was trying to charm.
“You and Kit? I hear tell there was a second kiss.”
“The fuck, dude?” The admission had been the only thing that brought my attention away from Kit and Bill. Dale had grinned, shrugging like my question was pointless.
“Seriously, man…how can you work on TV and never pay attention to the shit the fans say about you? Don’t you have an Instagram?”
That question had my mouth dropping open and my eyebrows going up. Dale seemed too gruff, too smart for stupidity like social media. “You do?”
He’d laughed, and I hated the tone behind it. Dale slapped my shoulder before he’d pulled out his phone, moving his thumb across the screen before he came to an app and a picture of him and four guys all decked out in desert fatigues.
“My brothers from our SEAL team are obsessed with Instagram. They think it’s the only place to keep track of the women they have in different cities.”
“But you’re not active.”
“No,” he’d said, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “But those assholes still tag me in all the bullshit pictures they take.” Dale had looked back at Kit, and the smile left his mouth. “Seriously, man, stop fucking around. That’s two kisses that landed on the internet, and neither one was remotely innocent.”
“How did you know about…”
Dale laughed again, punching my shoulder with a tap of his fist. “Fans, brother. They post everything. And you can’t fake that shit you gave Kit after the president’s speech. I might be a grumpy asshole, but I still got eyes in my head.” He’d nodded to Kit before he picked up the tool belt next to his feet on the floor. “Woman like Kit ain’t hard to read, and that…” He’d jerked his chin toward where Kit stood with Bill, too damn close for my liking. “That’s a woman trying to get the man she wants to stake a claim.” He’d moved away, fastening his belt before he called over his shoulder, “Don’t fuck that shit up, Kane.”
But I was. No matter how many times I reached between Kit and Bill when the guy made a move—my elbow knocking his drink over on the table, or my pointless questions to Kit about the kind of armoire she was looking for when we’d stopped in the antique shops Bill had picked out—I still wasn’t getting any explanations from Kit. Or much respect from Bill.
“Kane, why don’t you grab us a beer?” he’d said not five minutes ago when I’d asked Kit for the fourth time about the last armoire she’d checked out more than five hours before. Bill was a little buzzed. I could tell by the way he slouched against the table as he slipped me a twenty, and Kit was irritated either at me—nah, no way—or at Bill. Yep, that was likely.
“You volunteer me?” I asked the man, eyes squinting as I watched him. I wasn’t an idiot. He had a plan. But then Kit sighed, slouching in her chair as another drunk tourist grabbed the karaoke mic and sang Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”
Even if Dale was right and Kit was playing some stupid game, she was still annoyed. At me? At Bill? Who the fuck knew? I’d spent the day getting between them, not letting there be even a second of a chance for Bill to make a move. But then, I didn’t take advantage of my upper hand either. It seemed that irritated Kit too.
Be cool, I told myself. Calm the fuck down.
I could do that. Pretend to cut my losses if only to get the frown off Kit’s face.
“Fine,” I told Bill when he didn’t answer me, and I pushed back from the table, leaving the twenty where he put it. I leaned my elbows against the bar as I waited for the guy slinging shots to finish up with the three drunk tourists in front of him.
There was no mirror above the bar that would make spying on Kit and Bill easy, and there was no way to pretend not to be watching them without watching them at all. Instead, I lowered my head, pretending to study the tip of my boot with my face lowered, but my gaze shifted to the side. I stood up with a jerk when I spotted the table and Kit and Bill missing from it. I moved my head around the column that hid the bar from the section of tables, relaxing a little when I spotted Kit next to Bill on the stairs that led to the stage, talking to the tall guy with the braids who manned the karaoke shit.
It was on the list, I reminded myse
lf. Sing in front of a crowd of more than twenty people. A quick glance around the club and I spotted more than fifty. Requirement met.
I could build her anything at all. I could demo a house in under four hours. I could jump from a plane or ride a bull if I were asked. Tires, carburetors, even the fucking tango, all that shit was easy for me. But singing? Hell no. I couldn’t carry a tune in a steel bucket and damn sure not in front of a crowd. A man’s gotta have some pride.
I was actually relieved she was tackling this item on her own. I’d heard Kit sing when she was piss-drunk and a good Patsy Cline song hit the radio. She was amazing. Of course she was. Maybe a little shy about how she sounded, but she was damn good.
The crowd would love her, and she’d love them right back without my making an ass of myself at all.
So why the hell was I frowning? Why did it feel like something thick and burning took root in my gut and was growing painful, sharp prickles?
Bill stood next to Kit, taking the mic, waving his hands around for the crowd to stand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you’re in for a treat! For one night only, here to sing with yours truly the classic Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty hit, ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,’ is The Rehab Network’s very own Kit Carlyle!”
The roar of applause was deafening, and soon a small group of people rushed to the front of the stage. No one crowded her. No one tried to touch her, but as the music started and she began to sing, that prickling sensation in my gut got sharper. They all watched her like she was a rock star. They loved her, and she thrived on the attention. Kit flung her hair, motioning her arms, twisting the mic stand back and forth as she sang just like Stevie, and the crowd sang along, a loud chant of lyric and laughter the longer the song went on.
Bill wasn’t half bad, I could at least give him that, but he was no Tom Petty, and he didn’t have a tenth of Kit’s charm. He could have been anyone. He was invisible, and if he touched her around the waist one more fucking time like he did just then, I’d make damn sure Bill disappeared.
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