The whole thing was off. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen images of beautiful women before. To the contrary, he saw them all the time in his line of work and had pretty much grown immune to them.
But these photos weren’t of a stranger. Or even just a client. They were of Kacey. Except for the one in question, they were also all legitimately posted, including the one from the night before.
It was a seemingly random shot by a journalist who happened to be having dinner at the same place as Bo and Kacey and Bo’s parents. A common occurrence in Beverly Hills.
Still, as he dressed in jeans and a cream-colored button-down denim shirt, ran his fingers through the blond mop that had once won him a “best hair” award and headed toward the computer shop outside the Lemonade Stand, he couldn’t get the vision of Kacey’s short black dress and remarkable cleavage out of his mind.
Neanderthal had been looking at that cleavage.
Kacey’s smile was directed toward the older couple holding their hands out to her.
The caption read, “New family ties in the making?”
Had she seen it?
He couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say about the shot.
Unless she thought it was great...
Wait.
The thought stopped his self-talk cold. If she thought it was great, that was cool. Totally cool.
She was his friend. He wanted her happy.
And if joining Neanderthal’s family made her happy, then he was happy for her.
Period.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KACEY DIDN’T HAVE a lot of time in Santa Raquel on Friday. The studio benefit scheduled for that evening started with hors d’oeuvres at the home of one of the Rich and Loyal producers. They’d move from there to a yacht that would be taking them out to sea for a five-course meal. A new record label was providing entertainment. Tom and his partner were hosting one of the after-parties.
Ever since she’d asked Bo to be her date for the evening, he’d been talking about it.
Her hair appointment was scheduled for eleven and would take at least three hours. Getting highlights to look like they’d grown in wasn’t an easy task.
She had nails and a pedicure scheduled right after that, and then the appointment to pick up the dress she’d ordered. They’d need at least half an hour to make any adjustments, which was why she had her makeup person meeting her there. The jewelry she’d be wearing was already in her bag, as were the shoes and evening bag she’d bought for the occasion.
She loved the entire ritual. Had loved it even more when she and Lacey were doing it together.
Getting ready for the event was usually more fun than the event itself—a secret she and Lacey used to share.
Her class ended at nine, so that gave her a few minutes to stop by Michael’s office at the Stand.
She entered the building from the secure and private resident walkway. His office door faced the back door, and she was glad to see him sitting at his desk. Michael’s casually styled hair, the shoulders that filled out his shirt, eyes that could see all the way inside a person...
Not just her, everyone. The residents. People who worked for him at the computer shop. Customers. Everyone. He understood people.
“Hi.” Out of habit, she shut the door behind her as she stepped quietly into the room. These meetings had started by accident. They’d both been working with the same woman—a resident at the time—who’d been trying to change her lifestyle of drunkenness, as well as recover from beatings by her abusive live-in boyfriend.
In the end, she’d been one of their few failures at the Stand. She’d quit her counseling sessions, gone back to her boyfriend and drinking and, last they’d heard, had left the state with a fresh hospital record.
That failure—the first Kacey had witnessed—had hit her hard. She and Michael had been talking about it one day last fall and she’d recognized that part of the reason she was having such a hard time understanding the woman’s choices was because they hit too close to home. Not the violence part, but the allure of the blur, as she’d called it. When you weren’t happy, even when it seemed like you had everything you ever wanted, you drank or partied to blur out the sadness. To cover up what you couldn’t figure out...
Somehow from that conversation had come his offer to be her secret support system. He didn’t think she needed one at first. She wasn’t an alcoholic. Had no addiction problems. But she feared the allure of the blur would call her back.
Or maybe it had been the allure of the spotlight—of being someone that everyone wanted on their invitation lists...
“I can’t stay,” she told Michael now. “I just wanted to say hi. And see if you have anything new to tell me.”
She didn’t like how that sounded. Like he was working for her. Like she’d stopped by because he was doing a job for her. “Mostly just to say hi.”
She’d wanted to see him.
He was her friend.
“I’ve got nothing new,” he told her. “The only thing that showed up this morning was a photo from last night. And you look completely sober.”
He turned his computer screen around so she could see.
It wasn’t bad. She was smiling at Bo’s parents. His mother seemed delighted. She’d liked the woman. Quite a lot. She’d liked Bo’s brother, too. He was shy but smart. He wanted to go into politics and knew more about the state of the country than she’d ever hope to know. He was older than she’d thought from Bo’s description of him. Still in school meant college—finishing his senior year with a poli-sci major.
But Bo’s dad...
She looked away from the picture and sat down in the wooden chair in front of the scarred table that served as Michael’s desk at the Stand. She knew his company’s address and had driven by the building a few times. She’d bet the desk here wouldn’t be found in the basement of that place.
“You got a second?” she asked him.
“Of course.”
“I... Last night...Bo’s father gave me the creeps.” She told him about the man’s glances, the way she’d caught him looking at her breasts. Every time he spoke to her his words had been completely innocuous, but there was an undercurrent that made her uneasy.
“Did you talk to Bo about it?” Michael’s frown eased the tension she’d been feeling. He was taking her seriously.
As she’d known he would.
“I started to in the car on the way home,” she said. “But he interrupted and told me not to take offense at his father. Said he’s always been a big flirt but that it meant nothing. He said his dad flirts with old ladies and little girls equally. It’s just his way.”
“Where are they from?”
“Indiana.”
“And they’re leaving today?”
She loved that he remembered that she’d told him they were only in town the one night.
“Yes.”
“Then I guess you don’t have much to worry about,” he said.
He was right. Bo wasn’t his father. And it wasn’t like Indiana was just around the corner.
Nodding, she stood. When she noticed a tiredness about him, in his eyes, she sat back down. If she didn’t get her hair done, the evening would go on.
People would be bound to notice—those in her circle always did, since looks were an important part of television work—but...the party would still happen.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’d tell you if I found something.”
“I’m not talking about me. Something’s bothering you.” She might barrel through life in such a way that she didn’t always notice the little things, but Michael was...Michael. She was different around him.
In a good way.
The way she was with Lacey.
Yeah. The
thought slid into place. Michael was like Lacey. He saw the real her. Treated her like the person she was inside.
And he could calm the whirlwind that was her life.
His shrug hurt her feelings.
“Michael.” She set her bag down on the floor and crossed her arms.
Her stance didn’t seem to affect him, so she waited, watching him.
Nothing.
Fine. She pulled her phone out of her purse. Pushed the speed dial for the salon and canceled her appointment.
She’d missed the cancellation window and would have to pay for the appointment but didn’t give a whit.
“You said you have time.”
His chin bent slowly and came back up. An acknowledgment if not really a nod of agreement.
“A friendship works both ways or it’s not a friendship,” she said. Now that she understood why he meant so much to her, she knew her role. It was the same with Lacey. Sometimes you had to push those used to caring for others to accept caring for themselves. You had to be diligent.
To show them that they came first, too.
She’d learned the lesson the hard way—had almost lost her other half because of it—and was never going to forget it.
“I agree,” he said.
She remembered something else.
“You told me the other day that when we had time you’d tell me how I’m good for you.”
Let him think it was still about her. That he was needed.
She’d get him to see that if she confided in him, he needed to confide, too, or they weren’t really friends. That if he didn’t lean on her, she couldn’t lean on him anymore, either.
She had this one.
She also really wanted to hear what he thought he was getting out of their relationship. As far as she could see, it was pretty much nothing so far.
Just like her sister had given and given and given and received so little in return all those years they’d been figuratively joined at the hip.
Then Kacey had helped Lacey get the only thing she’d ever wanted. A life partner with whom she’d come first. And last, too.
If not for Kacey’s pushiness, the pretty much outrageous way she’d maneuvered Lacey into getting Jem to add the room she wanted on to her home, Lacey would probably still be living in that house all alone.
Albeit with a lot more visits from Kacey...
Michael was staring at her.
“You just said you’ve got a second,” she reminded again. “So what is it I do for you in this relationship?”
“The truth is going to make me sound like someone I’m not,” he said, as though he’d revised his earlier assertion that he’d tell her.
And while she wanted to know, getting him to confess was more a means to an end—the end being making him tell her what was bothering him.
But then she thought about what he’d just said. What if the truth was that he only spent time with her because of her looks? What if he was attracted to her?
She felt the blood draining from her face and then returning in such a rush she was hot all over. This felt like the scene with Simon, Doria’s on-screen best friend telling her he was falling for her. Was that what Michael was going to say? So like her...barreling right on ahead without taking the time to think everything through.
Her first instinct was to tell him she had to leave. And yet if she and Michael really were friends, if she was going to be the type of friend—the type of woman—she wanted to be, she had to be willing to sit with him no matter what he had to tell her.
To listen.
And to work through whatever issue he had. Or they had. Anything else was not enough.
“The point of friendship, Michael, is to trust. I trust you with my failings. I trust you not to judge me as a spoiled and selfish bitch who’s so desperate for attention she falls for gorgeous men who fawn all over her.”
He cocked his head and his eyes sharpened. “You are not—”
She held up her hand. “This isn’t about me, Michael. Now, please, tell me...and trust me to know what kind of person you are.”
“I don’t want pity.”
“You think I don’t know that? And here’s a news flash. The only thing pitiful about you is your fixation with being pitied.”
He pulled back, but in the next instant grinned. “And that is what you do for me, my friend. From the first day we met, I saw a different side of myself in your eyes and I like that guy. That’s what you do for me.”
Shaking her head, Kacey frowned. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “I just...”
“You treat me like a man who has no reason to be pitied.”
“You are a man who has no reason to be pitied.”
“I know that,” he told her. “I truly do know that. But even the people I know, and those who meet me for the first time...they take one look at this—” he flipped a thumb toward his lower left jaw and the obvious evidence of plastic surgery, “and suddenly they’re talking to me like I’m a rescue dog.”
This was news to her. She’d only seen him at the Stand—where he was clearly hero material. And with the owner of the little diner they attended. Or alone.
She had no idea what to say.
“From day one, you’ve stood up to me, put me in my place. And treated me with respect all at the same time.”
Wow. She hadn’t planned it that way or done it on purpose. He was giving her more credit than was her due. “I was just being myself.”
“And it’s that self that I chose to take as a friend,” he returned.
“You have a successful business,” she said, needing the truth to be different and trying to convince him that it was. “You have governmental and police clearances, and obviously your clients respect you...”
“Of course they do. They respect what I can do. And it’s not as bad as it was just a few years ago,” he told her. “But there are still times when I go for a first face-to-face meet that I see the quick look away and hear that tone of instant compassion rather than the more restrained and distant tone of strangers.”
“People care that you suffered. That’s a good thing.”
Fingers crossed on top of his desk, he stared at her for a long moment.
She stood her ground, metaphorically speaking.
And he smiled. “You’re right. And this is what I’m talking about. Everyone else in my life—including my family—is afraid to talk to me about my deformity. You just barrel right in.”
“I don’t see a deformity.”
“You see skin that won’t ever grow a beard.”
“Personally, I can’t stand beards, or mustaches, either.” She really did fall for men with clean-shaven faces but was afraid he’d think she was just saying so. “I mean...it gets me, you know...thinking about him blowing his nose and... Ew.” She broke off, embarrassed by her rambling.
“And anyway, do men ever think about how soft a woman’s skin is? And how scratchy those things can be? You want whiskers poking your nose when you kiss? Or poking other parts of you when...”
Oh. My. God. What was she doing? She could not be talking to Michael about how much she hated the feel of a beard during sex. Lacey, yeah, she could talk to her about such things.
But here was one area where Michael wasn’t like Lacey.
She couldn’t talk to him like she could her sister when it came to...sex. Or periods or hormones, either, she added just in case her psyche hadn’t yet fully grasped the magnitude of the revelation.
And then it dawned on her. She was busy thinking about herself, her own gaffe, and Michael had just opened the door she’d been knocking on all these months.
As kind as he was, he sat silently. So him, not making her outburst worse by responding to it.
So her to f
ocus so intently on herself.
But he was giving her a chance to get over herself.
“Will you tell me about it, please?” she asked. Not with pity. Not with curiosity, either, but because she cared. “You seem to think it somehow defines you, Michael. And maybe it does. But I can’t know that if I don’t know what happened in your past to make you what you are today.”
Realizing that she was talking about so much more than looks, Kacey held her breath.
And prayed that if Michael granted her request, she wouldn’t fail him.
CHAPTER NINE
MICHAEL HAD NEVER promised anyone he wouldn’t talk about what had happened. He just didn’t do it. Most in his circle already knew. And those outside didn’t need to know.
And there was Kacey. Outside his circle and yet...in.
She wanted in.
He wanted her there.
Privately. Just like he was in hers.
If others got wind of them, it wouldn’t work. There’d be talk, suppositions, pressure, conclusions.
His family would build it into more than was there. Let their relief push assumptions. And those assumptions would push Kacey away.
Same with her family.
And the rest of her life? Her Beverly Hills clan... He could just imagine what a circus they’d make of the beautiful actress hanging out with the man with the shiny face.
“Michael?”
He’d segued. Maybe on purpose.
Because she was getting too close?
Because he wanted her closer?
Piercing her with a gaze that was probably harsher than he’d have liked, he said, “I was shot.”
Her gasp cut into him. As did the look of horror on her perfect face. “Shot? But...when? How? Oh, my God, Michael, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry. Did it hurt?”
She shook her head. “Of course it hurt. I’m just so sorry.” Her eyes pooled with tears and he almost smiled.
Kacey was...so Kacey. Refreshing and kindhearted and about as genuine as they came. And an incredibly successful actress.
He knew she could cry at will. She’d told him so. But he didn’t doubt, for one second, that her tears that morning were real.
Her Secret Life Page 6