Westside Series Box Set

by Monica Alexander

  Holy crap, would she let me kiss her? Could I get that lucky?

  It was too much. It was more than I’d thought possible, and at the same time I was terrified that I was getting ahead of myself. It was hard not to, though. This was everything I’d wanted, what had been consuming me for months, what had ravaged my thoughts and made for too many sleepless nights. I wanted this. I wanted her. I wanted so much.

  All the questions I wanted to ask stayed in my head as I held Elisa in my arms, inhaled her all too familiar scent and hoped this wasn’t the end. I needed it to be the beginning. I needed a chance to make things right. I needed her, just like this.

  As the song came to a close and faded out, I prayed for another one just like it, but the music stopped completely. Then the deejay was talking about the bouquet toss and the garter toss, and I knew there was no way I was going to stand up with a bunch of other single dudes to try to catch anything. That would mean letting go of Elisa’s hand, and I wasn’t about to do that.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” Elisa asked me then, catching me off-guard.

  “Are you serious?”

  She smiled. “I’ve had just about enough wedding merriment for one night. How about you?”

  “I, uh, I was actually leaving when I ran into you, so yeah.”

  “Okay, good. Then let’s go.”

  “Oh, um.” I cleared my throat, since I sounded a little hoarse. “Uh, together?”

  It was then that Elisa leaned up and pressed her lips to my cheek. “Yes. If you want.”

  Ho-ly shit. I want. I want. I want.

  “Sure, that sounds fun,” I said, ignoring my innermost thoughts for something that sounded equally moronic.

  “Fun. Yeah, that’s the word,” she said around a laugh as she left me standing alone on the dance floor that was rapidly filling up with single girls.

  I quickly stepped to the side and out of the way as the deejay executed a manufactured drumroll sound. Then I waited for what felt like an eternity for Elisa to reappear at my side.

  “Ready?”

  “For anything,” I said, mustering up some of the cockiness that I used to possess so easily.

  Elisa smacked me playfully on the chest. “This isn’t that kind of invitation,” she chastised me.

  “I wasn’t assuming anything,” I told her honestly.

  “Oh please. I know you, Van. I know exactly what you were thinking.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then could you enlighten me?”

  She shook her head, but she was smiling. “Just get Marshall so we can go.”

  “Okay, but where are we going?”

  “Your house?” she said casually. “You still live in the same place, right?”

  I nodded, my breath catching in my throat. “I haven’t moved.”

  “Good. Then let’s go there.”

  “Done,” I said automatically.

  She wanted to go to my house. Could this night get any better?

  “Did you drive tonight?” I asked her.

  “I did, so I guess I’ll just follow you guys?”

  “Are you okay to drive?” I asked, because I’d been paying attention to what she’d been drinking all night. She wasn’t drunk, but I also knew she wasn’t sober either.

  “I’m okay . . . enough,” she admitted.

  I shook my head. “Marshall can drive your car. You can ride with me.”

  “Are you okay to drive?” she asked me.

  I grinned. “I’m great. Never better.”

  Everything that had just transpired had me flat-out sober. I was fine.

  “Good,” she said as she laced her fingers with mine. “Lead the way.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elisa

  I felt nervous just riding in Van’s car. I wasn’t sure I’d ever ridden in something so nice. It was some sort of high end BMW sports car, and it had every bell and whistle imaginable. I was afraid to touch anything. Of course, it also could have been the guy in the driver’s seat and the destination that had me on edge.

  I’d made an impulsive decision when I’d asked him to leave the wedding with me and had suggested going back to his house, but I’d been caught up in the moment. Dancing with him, feeling his warm breath cascade over my cheek, and his strong arms holding me close, it was too easy to get lost in the moment and fall headfirst. But I also knew that if I fell in that moment, he’d fall with me. I hadn’t been afraid then.

  Now, as the Hollywood sign came into view, and I let where we were going sink in, I started to question if I’d made the right decision. I’d pushed Van away and vilified him for so long that it felt unnatural to want what I did. But I did want it – whatever this was that was transpiring between us. I wanted it, but it didn’t mean I felt as sure about my decision as I had when we’d been dancing.

  Then I’d wanted to escape. I’d wanted to leave the place where Troy had put his hands on me, where my sister had blatantly ignored me when I told her that her boyfriend was a cheating asshole, and where she’d called me desperate and pathetic. I wasn’t sure what had stung worse, the fact that she didn’t trust me or the fact that she trusted Troy too much. The whole of it had been unsettling and painful. It made me worry about Amy and question what she was even thinking. We didn’t fight like that. We never had.

  Van had shown up exactly when I’d needed him, and I’d let him wash away the emotions that had forced me to tears. One tender look from him, and I was a million miles away – away from Troy’s leering stares and from Amy’s accusing glare, away from the girl who’d said she’d never forgive Van, and away from the doubts I’d let control my decisions for too long.

  I was an adult. I could make adult decisions, and I could take a chance if I wanted. And after weeks of fighting what I felt when I was near Van, of trying to pretend I didn’t want to be close to him and telling myself I was over him, I was tired of it all. No other guy made me feel what he did, and even though I knew there were too many risks associated with what was likely to transpire between us now that I’d invited myself back to his house, I didn’t want to think about them, not now.

  Because when Van looked over and smiled at me as he downshifted and changed lanes, I knew the only place I wanted to be was right where I was. I knew it was a risk, and the consequences I could face were huge. Aside from the very strong possibility that I could flat-out get fired for what I was doing, there was the bigger risk of putting my heart in his hands. I’d done it before, unintentionally, and I’d gotten hurt. But, as I’d tried to remind myself, that was a long time ago. I truly wanted to believe that Van had changed, that he wasn’t the same guy, and that he wouldn’t hurt me again. I wanted to believe it, and I was hoping like hell I wasn’t wrong.

  “You look really pretty tonight,” he said softly, proving again that the most insignificant things could make my insides feel like jelly when he was the one saying them. “I don’t think I told you that.”

  “Thank you,” I said hoarsely, my nerves shining through in my words.

  Van smiled as he reached over and threaded his fingers through mine.

  I had no idea what he was thinking. And after all we’d been through, the ups and the downs and the games, I was afraid to assume anything. But with the way he was looking at me, I wanted to believe that this was real. I wanted it more than I’d let myself admit until that moment, and that scared me.

  Katherine’s words of warning filtered through my mind, and I wondered if anyone had seen us leave the hotel. I hadn’t seen any photographers around, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, lurking in the shadows and using a telephoto lens to get shots of Van, and me by default. Not that we’d done anything scandalous, but photos of us leaving a wedding together at ten o’clock at night would be incriminating in their own right, and they weren’t anything I wanted to defend – at least not now. Maybe down the road when I knew there was something worth risking everything for, I’d do it, but it was too soon, and everything was happening too fast.

  I
did know that things weren’t going to stay platonic between Van and me, not after tonight, and if Katherine caught wind that I’d spent the night at his house, she’d assume the worse. I would then have two choices – I could either tell her the truth and risk her firing me on the spot, or I could lie and risk her finding out the truth later and then firing me. It was kind of a lose-lose situation – if anyone saw us together. My hope was that this night would stay off the radar, and I could feel secure that no matter what happened between Van and me, I still had my job to go back to.

  “Are you okay?” Van asked me.

  I nodded and swallowed hard, his voice alone doing funny things to my brain.

  “Are you sure? Because I can just drop you off at home if you’ve changed your mind,” he offered, which made me look over at him in confusion.

  “Is that your subtle way of telling me that you’d rather end the night right now?” I asked him, trying to keep the hurt out of my voice.

  Van chucked and squeezed my hand once before pulling his back so he could shift gears again. “Definitely not. I was just trying to be a nice guy.”

  I shifted in my seat so I was angled toward him – as much as I could be while still constrained by my seatbelt. “So does that mean you’re not going to be a nice guy if I go back to your house with you?”

  Van’s mouth quirked up at the corners as he looked over at me pointedly. “I’ll be as nice as I have to be.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked as he shifted into first and the car came to a stop at a light.

  He reached over and took my hand in his, lacing our fingers together in the air so we were palm to palm over the gearshift. “It means that as much as I want all the things I’ve wanted since the second I laid eyes on you again, I can also exercise restraint – if that’s what you want me to do.”

  “And what if I want you to throw your restraint out the window?” I challenged, feeling a surge of bravery.

  Van laughed. “Then I’ll consider myself lucky that this night went exactly the opposite of how I thought it would go.”

  “Because you figured you’d end up with Veronica in your bed, didn’t you?” I ventured, aiming for playful, but the startled look on Van’s face told me he hadn’t taken it that way.

  He paused, his hand still pressed against mine as he stared at me. I immediately saw hurt in his eyes. Before I could say anything, someone behind us honked, and it was like Van suddenly remembered where we were and dropped my hand as he hit the gas, shifting quickly into second and then into third, leaving the car behind us in the dust.

  He didn’t say anything for several moments, not until we were winding up the road that led to his house. When he finally spoke up, his words were firm and unyielding in their sincerity.

  “Veronica’s just a friend. I wasn’t lying when I told you that.”

  “Yeah, but had she offered to go home with you, wouldn’t you have taken her up on it?” I asked, a part of me wondering what he’d say.

  I knew that was one of my issues. Van had always been a player, and knowing how many women he’d been linked to – while we’d been dating and since we’d broken up – made me fearful that he wouldn’t be able to change.

  “No,” he said firmly. “I didn’t sleep with her the first time we went out, and I wouldn’t have done it now. She’s not my type.”

  “Honestly?” I pressed, not sure why I was doing it, when it was obviously only aggravating him.

  But I needed to know. I had an image of him that was linked to the number of women he’d supposedly been with since he’d joined Westside. I’d convinced myself long time ago that he was a flat-out player, but since I’d been around him again, I’d started to question if that assumption was accurate. As far as I knew, he hadn’t been with anyone of note since he’d taken Blair Thomas to Mexico. Of course that didn’t mean he wasn’t hooking up with random girls on a nightly basis. If he was doing that, it would have been kept under wraps enough that no one would have known, including me. That was what made this hard.

  Van didn’t say anything, but I could see the muscles in his jaw clench as he pressed the remote that was affixed to his visor to open the gate at the start of his driveway. Then we drove in silence up the small hill that led to his house, the same one I’d been to countless times years earlier. I was surprised to see how much it hadn’t changed when it felt like everything else had.

  Van wordlessly shifted the car into neutral, but he didn’t turn it off. He also didn’t look at me when he spoke.

  “Veronica is honestly not my type,” he said in a tough, measured tone. “I’m pretty sure I only have one type these days, and it’s feisty blonds who work in PR, who’ll apparently never trust me no matter what I do.”

  “Van, that’s not it, “I said quickly, even though it was a lie. I hated the hurt I heard in his voice and knew I’d pushed him to that place.

  “It’s not?” he questioned, looking over at me. “Because it sounds like you don’t trust me, Elisa. And I get it. I was an asshole two years ago – a supreme asshole. I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants even when I wanted to. I fucked up, and I ruined everything. I can’t change the past, and I can’t take back what I did, but I can assure you that I haven’t been that guy for a long time.”

  He kept telling me that, and I so badly wanted to believe him.

  “How many women have you slept with in the past year?” I asked him, wondering if he’d tell me the truth.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  I hesitated, suddenly chickening out. Would it change things if I knew he’d been with a different girl each night, that my assumptions about him were valid? Did it even matter? I’d carried those assumptions around for years and yet, here I was, sitting in his driveway, completely prepared to be one of those girls.

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” he said, before I could answer him. “But I’ll also tell you the truth that matters.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Yeah, there is,” he said, anger flashing in his eyes. “The truth is, I don’t know how many women I’ve been with in the past year, but I know the number isn’t low. I’m a musician, and women throw themselves at me nightly. I’m not going to apologize for that, because for a long time, it was what I wanted.”

  “I’m not asking you to apologize for it,” I said softly, hoping I could calm him down.

  Van took a deep breath and held up his hand to stop me from saying anything else. “I’m not done. The truth that matters is that I decided last December that I needed to get my shit together and stop fucking around. Life is short, and partying and being with faceless women each night suddenly felt like a waste of time.”

  “What happened in December?” I asked, suddenly feeling so disconnected from him.

  Not only was he angled away from me, his body language telling me he was shutting himself off, but I realized that as much as I thought I knew him again from being around him every day for the past two months and immersing myself in everything Westside, I really didn’t know Van anymore. There was a two year gap in which I’d missed everything about his life. I knew I’d assumed that for him those two years were all partying and women and snowboarding and other frivolous celebrity things, but I knew deep down they weren’t. Van had a side that not many people saw, and even if he was doing all those things I’d listed while in the public eye, he also had a private side that went so much deeper.

  “One of my best friends almost died of a drug overdose,” he said solemnly.

  “Who?” I asked as his harsh words washed over me. I knew a lot of his friends.

  “No one you know,” he said, his gaze fixed out the front windshield. “But it was enough of a wake-up call that I stopped the excessive partying and drinking and fucking around. It was enough to make me rethink what I really wanted in life.” He looked over at me. “I don’t know how else to describe it, and quite honestly, I’m not sure it even matters.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, afraid t
hings had shifted too far in the other direction.

  I was afraid I’d said too much, that my fears had gotten the best of me, and I’d pushed him away without considering how my accusations might make him feel. For too long I’d seen Van as tough and unaffected, unable to be hurt by harsh words that spoke to the truth, but I had a feeling I’d been wrong. He might have projected that persona, but it was never him, and I should have known that better than anyone.

  I suddenly felt cold all over, and a part of me wanted to take Van’s hand in mine, to feel his warmth but also to know that all wasn’t lost. But his body language and the way he was looking at me with an icy stare told me I needed to keep my hands to myself.

  “And since we’re being honest,” he said, his blue eyes fixed on mine in a cold stare, “I’ve been with exactly three people since December, and I haven’t been with anyone since the tour started. Actually, that’s a lie. I slept with a girl in New Orleans the night of the fragrance launch because I was pissed that you were with Jamie. Pretty much from the second I saw you again, you were the only girl I wanted, and I was angry that you’d picked him over me. That’s the truth that matters, Elisa. But if you can’t trust me, if you think this is just a fucking game for me, I’m not sure what else I can do to change your mind.”

  He shifted the car into reverse before I could respond, and then we were backing down the driveway. He was going to take me home. He was making the call and ending the night because he thought we didn’t want the same things.

  “That’s not what I think,” I said softly, but my voice sounded like it had no conviction at all as I tried to dispel his assumption.

  “It’s fine if it is,” he said, sounding unaffected as he reached up to press the remote to open the gate.

  “It’s not,” I insisted.

  “Look, don’t feel bad about it,” he said as he waited for the gate to open. “Phillip told me you’d never forgive me, and I should have listened to him. I sort of wish I would have done it before tonight, but whatever. I got the message, loud and clear.”