Wicked Dirty

by J. Kenner

  I'm literally about to melt on the spot. "You'd really do all that?"

  He cups my face, then gently kisses me. "Of course. And did I mention that I'm an expert at ordering pizza?"

  * * *

  As it turns out, he really is a pizza expert. Usually Greg and I just order from whatever delivery place has left a flyer on the door, but Lyle orders from a place I've never heard of, but should be in the dictionary under Best Pizza Ever.

  Of course, by the time it arrives, we've been working for almost four straight hours, and I'm ravenous. So my standards might be slightly skewed.

  It's not just pizza that Lyle helps with. As promised, he's down for doing pretty much anything we ask, and since we're in the very first stages of fixing up the house, we're asking him to do a lot of demolition.

  "Gotta love Riley and all his training," I say, when Lyle swings a sledge hammer to knock through a wall, and I get a nice glimpse of the muscles rippling in his arms and back.

  "So?" I demand of Greg as Lyle is running a load of debris to the rented trash bin that fills the driveway.

  "You win," Greg says grudgingly. "He's a nice guy. And there's more going on than a fake engagement, isn't there?"

  I frown. "Why do you say that?"

  "Oh, come on. One, I know you. And two, he'd have to be the best actor in the world to look at you the way he does and not really mean it."

  "He is a pretty amazing actor," I quip. "But, yeah, the feeling is real. On both sides."

  Greg nods, taking it all in.

  I bite my lip as I look at him. "I love him," I say. "I really do. And he loves me, too." I draw a nervous breath. "The thing is, I really want you guys to be cool. I mean, you're one of my best friends. Not to mention my business partner. So are we...?"

  He nods slowly, obviously considering his words. "We're cool, yes. And I like him. I really do. But I do think you're moving pretty fast. And I know that's not my business. You are, though, because you're my friend. And I'm still worried that this fake engagement thing is going to blow up on you."

  "It's weird," I admit. "But there were reasons. And if it blows up, we'll deal."

  "You will," he says, "because somehow you always manage to deal with everything that gets tossed at you. But will he?"

  As soon as he asks the question, he holds up his hands in self-defense. "It's not a jibe. It's an honest question. I don't know him well enough. But I just wonder if a guy who makes up a fake engagement is the kind of guy who'll survive if the facade is suddenly ripped away."

  I don't answer. How can I when Greg has just voiced my own deep fear?

  When Lyle returns, I push the conversation and the worry aside, and by the time our workday is done and Lyle and I are off to my house to spend some quality time with Skittles and a rented movie, I'm feeling safe and happy again.

  We're at my house not only because I need to feed and love on Skittles, but because I want to imbue the place with good karma in the hopes that the House Gods will smile upon me and tell my father his stupid lawsuit has no punch at all.

  I know that's ridiculous, though. The odds are good that I'm going to lose this place. So my other reason for wanting to spend time at home is that I want memories in this house with Lyle. It's the place I love most in the world, and I want to be here with him.

  "You're sure you don't want to go out to some restaurant or to a nightclub or something?" I ask Friday night after we return from a sunset walk on the beach. I don't want to, but he seems antsy tonight, and I'm afraid I'm cramping his Hollywood celebrity style.

  "God no," he says with such conviction it erases most of my worries. "I'm exactly where I want to be."

  "You sure? You seem off tonight."

  "I'm not," he says, contradicting himself by standing up and putting his hands in his pockets, a habit I've noticed when he's uncomfortable or unsure.

  "Spill," I demand.

  He hesitates, but then admits that he talked to Charles that afternoon.

  "Charles," I repeat, trying to remember why I know that name. "Oh, the attorney about your movies. Have you decided what you're going to do about those contracts?"

  "Do?" His forehead creases. "It's not a question of do. Charles is just reviewing them to make sure the details are right."

  "Oh." I thought maybe he'd decided to turn them down and go with Arizona Spring. "Then what's wrong?"

  "I asked him about your house. About whether there was anything that could be done to stop the partition."

  For a second, I'm actually excited. Then I realize that this isn't good news. "It's bad," I say, and he nods.

  "You could fight, but all that would happen is you'd incur attorneys' fees. And then you'd have to pay that bill out of the money you'll get from the forced sale."

  I move into his outstretched arms and sigh as he holds me tight. "I'm sorry," Lyle says. "I was hoping he could work some magic. He's one of the most influential lawyers in town. But your father is dug in. Even the plea that he was tossing his daughter out of the only home she's ever known didn't make a dent. And he flat turned down the suggestion that you two meet face to face."

  I nod. I've always thought my dad was a son-of-a-bitch, and if he wasn't then he could track me down and prove that he was a good guy.

  It never occurred to me that he'd track me down and prove that he was the asshole I always believed, but I guess it's nice to know I haven't been wrongfully maligning him my whole life.

  "So that's it," I say. "In a few weeks, I'm really losing this place."

  "Sugar, I'm so sorry." He leads me to the couch, and I curl up against him, letting him stroke my hair as reality settles over me. It's not a hard transition, really. I've known since the first moment I opened the envelope with the court documents that this was a fight I probably couldn't win. But that doesn't make the losing less painful.

  "What can I do?" he asks.

  "This is good," I admit. "You holding me like this." I tilt my head so that I can see his face. "I can let it go--I can. I just need to be sad for a bit."

  "You can let it go," he agrees. "It'll be hard, but you'll get past it."

  "Yeah," I say, then sigh as I sit up, something in his words pushing me upright. "The same is true for you," I whisper. "You can let Jenny go, too."

  His eyes narrow as he looks at me, his face an odd mixture of confusion and, I think, trepidation.

  "We've talked about this," he says. "You were right--I told you so. And I'm putting the past in the past."

  I lick my lips, hesitating. The last few days have been bliss, and I don't want to toss a firecracker into the middle of this sweet serenity. But time is running out, even if I'm the only one who realizes it.

  "You're not," I finally say. "If you walk away from Arizona Spring to do those three movies, you're--"

  "No." The word is harsh. Sharp. And as it lashes out, he pulls me to him, the force of contact at least as harsh as the word. "Dammit, Laine, this is my career. Not Jenny's. You need to trust me that I'm doing what I want. What's right for me."

  I nod, surrendering. Because the truth is, I know he believes it.

  But I'm equally certain that he's holding on to Jenny and his past too damn tight. They're like an elastic band tying him back. And though he can move forward with me, inch by inch, mile by mile, he's still always got that cord behind him.

  And unless he cuts himself free, one day when we least expect it, the elastic will pull too tight, and he'll be snapped back away from me, so hard and so fast, that I won't have the strength to keep him by my side.

  * * *

  The SCF brunch is nothing like what I expected. It's held outdoors on a beautiful flagstone patio and lawn that opens up behind the massive corporate building that houses the foundation's business office. The grounds are huge and there are cabins for kids to live in while they attend SCF-sponsored camps.

  There's a camp this weekend, actually, and the entire area is overrun with kids, running and playing and laughing. Kids who, Lyle tells me, ha
ve very little else in their lives to smile about.

  According to Lyle, this isn't the only facility like this operated by Stark. "Damien founded an education-based organization, too, that's been around much longer. And there's a similar camp area for kids in that program."

  "That's impressive," I say, and he agrees enthusiastically, telling me about both organizations, but mostly about the SCF, which is specifically for abused and neglected children, and other kids who need outside help.

  "How did you get involved?"

  "I asked Damien," he says as we stroll the grounds, stopping occasionally to talk with the kids or throw a ball or watch one of their magic tricks, learned during this week's camping session.

  "I thought about what a shit time Jenny and I had, and I wanted to be part of something that helped kids like that." He flashes an ironic smile. "The celebrity sponsor job came later. All I really wanted to do was work one-on-one with the kids, and support the foundation financially. But the sponsorship helps, too," he says philosophically. "It's just working away from the kids in front of the media instead of with them."

  "Ly! Ly!"

  I turn to see Lara running toward us, her short legs making good time. "Play airplane with me?"

  "Okay, but why don't we go see if any other kids want to play, too?"

  As I fall in step with Nikki, who's carrying her infant daughter Anne, Lyle heads toward the toddler playscape, where he proceeds to fly a dozen or so kids like an airplane.

  "This is a really amazing organization," I tell Nikki.

  "It is. Damien didn't have the greatest childhood. He wanted to make it better for as many kids as he could."

  I think about Damien--the famous tennis player and billionaire--and I remember all the dark secrets that came out in the press a few years ago. I look at Lyle, thinking that's something he and Damien have in common. Dark secrets and broken childhoods.

  "Lyle's a great asset," Nikki says, following my gaze.

  "He really believes in what the SCF is doing," I say as a voice over a loudspeaker asks Mr. Tarpin and the media representatives to report to the main lobby. "Although I think he'd much rather keep doing that," I add, pointing to Lyle and the kids, "than front the press conference."

  "Who wouldn't?" she asks as Lyle and Lara head back toward us and we all go into the lobby together.

  Nikki and I stand off to the side in front of the podium as Damien and Lyle take the stage. Since this is a media event, the audience is entirely made of reporters, and I recognize a few from the night they descended on my house, including the one who'd dropped the engagement bomb--the one with the goatee who Lyle later told me was named Gordy.

  Damien starts the conference, giving the press an overview of the foundation and a bit about the work they do. Then he introduces Lyle, who also gives a brief presentation as he runs through a slide show of images of various kids the SCF has helped.

  Both men keep it short, presumably because the real point is to open it up for press questions. And as soon as Lyle does that, Gordy's voice booms out, filling the lobby.

  "Mr. Tarpin," he says, "it's come to my attention that your engagement to Sugar Laine is a sham, orchestrated to hide the fact that Ms. Laine was only one in a long string of women with whom you paid to have sex. Can you comment on how, with a background like that, you're even remotely qualified to act as a sponsor for a children's organization?"

  26

  My hand aches, and I realize that I've reached out and am clutching Nikki's hand so hard I've probably cut off her circulation.

  I turn to her, about to tell her I'm sorry, but all she does is shake her head. I see the pain in her eyes, and I realize that it's not because of what Lyle and I have done, but because of the way it was revealed.

  "You'll survive this," she says, as I struggle to breathe. "Just tell yourself that you'll survive, and I promise you will."

  I nod, feeling raw and violated. As if the fabric of the world has been ripped out from under me. My private choices--my personal secrets--tossed out to the media like so much birdseed, and now my whole body goes cold as the feeding frenzy begins.

  People turn my direction to gawk. To pull out camera phones. To yell comments and questions.

  They care nothing of my pain. Of my reasons. Of the why behind my choices.

  And they damn sure don't care where those choices led--to a love so deep that the pain I now see on Lyle's face cuts me even more deeply that the thrust of that reporter's verbal knife.

  I need to get to him. To touch him.

  I need to feel our connection.

  But I can't reach him through the writhing sea of bodies, and he can't break free of the security team that has taken him by the arms and is leading him off the platform, even while his eyes search the crowd looking, I'm sure, for me.

  Nikki takes charge, pushing me around the podium toward another man in one of the black T-shirts that indicates he's part of the Stark security team. He flanks us, his companion closing the gap behind us and clearing the way until we reach a hallway and then, finally, a private office in the back.

  I burst through the door, and Lyle pulls me against him. "I'm sorry," he says, looking as shattered as I feel. "I'm so damn sorry."

  "It's worse," Damien says, from where he's leaning against the desk, looking at his phone. "He timed the question with photos going live on his site."

  "Shit," Lyle says, as Damien passes him the phone. There are pictures of four women, including me, going into different hotel rooms. Innocuous enough until you read the copy, which makes clear that an anonymous tip told Gordy that the clean-cut Lyle Tarpin hired call girls, and Gordy decided to make it his mission to expose that dastardly deed.

  "I don't understand," I say, as Lyle stiffens beside me. "How could he know about us? For that matter, how could he know about the others?"

  "Rip."

  He says the name like a curse, underscored by a blood red rage.

  "How?" I ask.

  "We used to be close," he says, running his fingers through his hair. "And when he started having problems with drugs, I tried to talk to him. To help him through it. I told him things I shouldn't have--I never thought he'd turn on me."

  "Jealousy can mess a man up," Damien says, and Lyle looks at him, then nods slowly, his face awash with rage.

  "Can you find him? Your security people? Can they track down his address?"

  "Lyle," I say. "No."

  "He had no right--the bastard just shredded both of our lives in front of the whole goddamned world. You damn well better believe I'm confronting him."

  "For what?" I press. "For being an asshole? He told the truth, Lyle. I knew from the first day when I agreed to go to your hotel that this could happen. I wish it hadn't, but it did. And you can't beat him up or arrest him or sue him for spilling the truth. It's not worth it."

  He turns away, pushing out of our embrace so he can pace the office. "Guess he's the golden boy now, huh? He sure as hell messed me up, didn't he? I'm going to need to resign, aren't I?" he asks Damien.

  "If it were up to me, no," Damien says. "I'd want you to tell the world the full truth about why you make such an excellent advocate for these kids, but with that caveat, I'd want you to stay.

  "But it's not up to me," he continues. "The foundation's board of directors makes that decision. I have a say, but not control. So if you want to keep the position, at the very least you need to get in front of this."

  "I can't deny it," Lyle says, looking toward me.

  "You shouldn't," Damien says. "You should tell the world the rest of it. The whole truth, Lyle. All the reasons you wanted to be part of this organization in the first place. Trust me," he adds. "It's painful, but you'll come through the other side. I've been there. I know."

  I listen with awed understanding. Damien knows. When Lyle went to Damien about being part of the SCF, he must have filled Damien in on everything, knowing that Stark would understand, having suffered so much himself.

  I hope that Da
mien's heartfelt words will be enough to convince Lyle, but when he shoves his hands into his pockets instead of answering, I know that may be a long road.

  But the fact that he's told both me and Damien gives me hope.

  "I need to go make a statement and get on top of this," Damien says.

  "Christ," Lyle says. "The SCF doesn't need this. I'm so sorry."

  "Don't worry," Damien says firmly. "I've got a long track record of surviving scandal. The foundation's going to come through." He looks between me and Lyle. "We'll leave you two alone to talk."

  I nod, my stomach feeling hollow. Lyle had reached for me when I first came into the room, but after that, he pushed away. And he hasn't reached for me since.

  Nikki and Damien leave, flanked by the security team, and as soon as the door clicks shut, I move to Lyle's side. I reach for him, but he shrugs away, the brush-off filling that hollow place in me with heavy lead weights.

  "I'm so sorry," he says, looking at me with torment in his eyes. "I did this to you. Christ, Sugar, you must fucking hate me."

  "The only way I'd hate you is if I found out you hired those women after we got together."

  "God no. Never again. Since you, there's only been you." The response is fast and vehement. I had no doubts, of course, but if I had, the force of his denial would have erased them.

  "Then what do you have to be sorry for?"

  "Are you kidding? Those assholes turned their cameras on you, too. You're not any happier that this is out than I am."

  "Happy? No, of course I'm not. But that doesn't make you guilty. I mean, come on. I knew what I was walking into. Bottom line, I accepted a job to exchange sex for money. To fake an engagement so that my house would get paid off. I did that, Lyle. Nobody forced me to."

  I draw in a breath, feeling remarkably better as I get this off my chest. "And, yeah, it was a secret, but so what? It's out in the world because of a decision I made. And even if the leak was because of your asshole co-star, that doesn't change the bottom line--it's out there because it's true. Because somewhere along the way, I did all those things that the reporters are saying."

  "This foundation is important to me," he snaps. "And Rip and that fucking reporter just yanked it out from under me. You know I'm going to have to resign, right? There's no way the board will keep me on. They can't afford to have every event be about my behavior instead of their kids. Fuck."