Role of a Lifetime: Out of Hollywood Romance

by Cora Davies

  "Where's your family?" Eric asked, and she warmed at the concern in his voice.

  "My mom is gone for the weekend, and Risa will be home by dinner. Oh my god, my mom." Hailey looked at Jason, and for the first time, she thought about how broken-hearted her mother would be.

  "Yeah, this guy's an asshole..." Eric bent down to look closer at Jason. Hailey opened the front door when the sound of sirens became audible. "Always knew there was something wrong with him."

  "How's that?" She asked leaning against the doorframe and stared down the long gravel driveway. She had known Jason almost three years, and she had never suspected a thing.

  "He didn't like me. That's not normal," Eric said. Hailey shook her head and stepped onto the porch.

  The sirens grew louder, but it would probably be at least another minute or two until they arrived. She looked down at a suitcase by the front door. Eric's. She laughed quietly. So presumptuous. She peered over the suitcase and saw an old beat-up boombox.

  "Is this your boombox?"

  "Yeah, stopped by a Goodwill last night on the way to the airport and got it."

  "Why?"

  "Grand romantic gesture." He shrugged.

  She raised a single eyebrow. He had all the money in the world, not that she expected him to use it on her, but his grand romantic gesture was a boombox?

  "Plan kinda went to shit when I got here and heard Jason smashing your living room to pieces."

  Hailey nodded as two police cars and an ambulance pulled up next to the house, and the sound of gravel slamming into the undercarriages made her flinch. The ranch hands had arrived for work for the day and were standing by the barn looking up at the house. One of them walked towards Hailey, but she raised a hand and shook her head. She would have to talk to them after she spoke to the police and tell them their boss was not who he had pretended to be.

  Eric was at her side with his hands on her hips in a protective stance. Inside she knew she should push him away, but it felt good to be held by him again. The officers ran up to the porch and Hailey pointed into the house. "He's in there. He's got a bump on the head."

  Eric bent down, placing his mouth against her ear. Hailey stiffened as she waited for his next move, but instead of kissing her, he whispered in her ear. "You need to call a lawyer; I'll go talk to your employees. Don't say anything to the police until your lawyer gets here. Promise me."

  She nodded and he pressed his lips against her cheek hard. He seemed to linger there and just as she thought he might never let her go, he broke away and walked down to the barn. Hailey called her lawyer as she watched Eric walk away from her.

  ***

  "He sized me up you know, first day out there. I knew I could take him," Eric said puffing his chest. Hailey was in awe of his big head. Was he born that way or did Hollywood mold them into that later?

  "You hit him in the back of the head with a metal shovel. You probably would have knocked Rambo out with that thing," Hailey said. Her lawyer and the police had finally left after several hours. She decided to not tell the lawyer everything about Paul's indiscretions and about the diamond. She had to keep some things from Risa. She did tell the lawyer and the police Jason's true identity, and told them he had become obsessed with her family. It would be up to him to tell them more when he woke up, and she would deal with it then.

  "Are you going to admit you're happy to see me?" Eric asked, winking at her. She tried to keep her focus on his eyes instead of trailing down to his broad shoulders, which is where her mind was leading her. But his eyes were just as toe-curling for her as his muscles. "You know, I did just save your life."

  Hailey bit back a dark smile. "How did you get here?"

  "Storm let up." Eric walked into the kitchen, then came back out seconds later with the broom. She watched as he pushed the debris into a pile. Hailey pulled her hair up into a ponytail and enjoyed watching his chest and back muscles as he moved. So much better in real life than in HD.

  "You're still the sexiest woman I've ever seen," Eric said, not looking at her. "And I've seen at least a couple thousand new women since the last time I saw you."

  Hailey blushed. This was why she did not want to see Eric in person. Over the phone she could ignore those kind of comments. "You're such a flirt."

  Eric stopped sweeping and was quiet for a moment. He turned his head slightly to look at her, and a lock of his hair fell down in front of his eye. "So, are you seeing anyone?"

  "Straight to the point? That's not like you."

  "I can't get you out of my head. Before I let myself fall down this rabbit hole again, I need to make sure you're available."

  "Like you couldn't just call your private dick and find out if I'm single." Hailey looked at Eric square on and placed her hands on her hips. She was not going to let him forget that she was still mad about that.

  "I wondered how long that would take." Eric sighed. "You're straight to the elephant in the room, like always."

  "It seems pointless to waste time."

  "You didn't answer my question." Eric leaned the broomstick against the wall and stepped towards Hailey. She could smell his aftershave and imagined herself falling into the scent and floating into his arms just like on a cartoon.

  "No, I'm not seeing anyone. No one serious," Hailey said and Eric frowned. He looked like it was taking a minute to process her answer, and Hailey felt a quick rush of excitement from the fact that she might be making him jealous.

  Eric grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into him. He locked his eyes on hers, and she felt weak in the knees when his dark gaze penetrated her. She was close enough to see the golden flecks hidden within the darkness. "Don't play games, Hailey. You don't know the rules, and I'll win each time."

  Eric's body was hard against hers, and not just his muscles. Unable to read the expression in his intense gaze, she looked away from him. His eyes held darkness mixed with light and it scared her, but not in the way Jason had scared her. In the way that it made her body fight her mind. His mouth was close enough that she could feel each breath on the top of her head. She pressed her hands on his chest, and for a moment his posture softened. Just long enough to remind her that this was real life, and real life was not full of fight scenes and handsome heroes.

  She pushed against his chest, and he tightened his grasp, but only for a second before letting go. No one was this perfect. It was just a show. It was all a show.

  Not even Paul had been perfect.

  "Do you need something else from me? Need the rights to another book? The rest are available; just go through my agency." Hailey's bottom lip quivered. His imperfections were not even hidden from her like Paul had hidden his. She knew what she was up against. She knew he was a cocky, arrogant asshole. He had violated her privacy-twice.

  Eric grabbed her hands and held them between his own. After all this time it still mesmerized her when her hands simply disappeared into his. He squeezed. "Listen to me. Please. You've never let me explain myself. I know what I did, hiring him to get that packet of information on you, was a little-"

  Hailey yanked her hands away. "I don't know what you're about to say... what word in the entire English dictionary could be preceded by little after what you did. What you did was no kind of little anything. It was a big thing."

  "You're right." Eric shook his head. "I'm an idiot. A big idiot. But that is how my world works-if I want something, I get it. If I can't get it by asking, and usually it's that simple, then I get it by other means. My plan was to figure out what made you tick, get under your skin, and stay there until I got the movie rights. I was out of my element when I got here and found a woman who hated me. I don't mean to sound full of myself," Hailey snorted, "but on the list of ways women usually react towards me-that is the one I encounter the least."

  Eric stopped talking, and Hailey squinted at him as she ran her hands down her sides. "There was a military investigation on Paul. It was in that envelope. If it had been made public knowledge..."

&
nbsp; "I didn't expect to find anything like that. I thought I would open the envelope, find out what your favorite movies, foods, and designers were. Or at the most, I thought I would find you were hiding from the law and could use that..."

  Hailey stood up and walked across the room to pick up the broken curtain rod. She leaned it against the wall. She placed her hand on the window, feeling the cool air through the old glass. She wanted to feel something not connected to this room and Eric.

  She did not move from the window. Hailey's voice rose, higher than she meant it to. "If you couldn't get what you wanted from me by fucking me, you were going to blackmail me?"

  "No, I wasn't going to have sex with you, that just happened," Eric said, shrinking under Hailey's glare as she turned to face him. She smirked for a moment, impressed with herself that she could make a grown man squirm when she could rarely frighten her own daughter with that look anymore. "I've never actually blackmailed anyone before, I just thought, you know... If I had to, it would be there as an option. If I had any idea the stuff that was going to come up, Paul's life, his death..."

  "Of all people Eric, you should understand how an invasion of privacy feels."

  Eric grabbed the broom again and swept the rest of the debris into a pile. Hailey watched him as he worked, and neither spoke. The silence was heavy, but they were both stubborn. Hailey wanted to believe him and forgive him, but she did not know where to start.

  She walked to the porch and grabbed his suitcase and his boombox and brought them inside. He raised his eyebrows as she set them down. She was not even sure herself what she meant by bringing his stuff inside, but she knew she did not want to be alone. She could not bring herself to say the words. She could not admit she might forgive him, but she could show him it was a possibility if he could just find the right words.

  She brought the garbage can into the living room, and held it against the floor as Eric swept everything into the trash. Crushed memories.

  When the room was finally clean, they faced each other. Eric was the first to cut through the silence. "You're right, I should have known how that would feel. But this is my life; a life I was born into. I don't know any different."

  "So I'm supposed to forgive you because you're ignorant?"

  "No." Eric crossed the room to Hailey. She backed away from him, but found herself trapped by the wall. He was next to her body within seconds; holding her and pulling her against him. His fingers were in her hair as he pressed her cheek into his chest. "I need you to forgive me because I'm an idiot, and I'm sorry. I had no idea what I was going to find in that envelope."

  Hailey's hands were on Eric's chest, and she struggled to push him away. It was obvious he craved her touch as much as she craved his. "You don't really understand, and how could you? You just think you can tell me to forgive you, and I'll just drop my panties and let you back into my life?"

  "It would be nice," Eric said as he pressed his mouth against her ear, his hot breath making her heart beat faster. He took turns nibbling on her earlobe and kissing the sensitive skin on her neck behind her ear as he spoke. That's cheating! "I just... our lives are so different. I can't ever completely understand what I did to you, no matter how hard I try. But please, people fuck up all the time, and other people give them second chances."

  "Even if I did forgive you, and I'm not saying I do!" Hailey said as she finally dropped her hands from his chest. Eric stopped nuzzling against her neck and looked into her eyes. "What do you need a second chance for? What is your end game? You got what you came for, months ago. What do you still want from me?"

  Eric stroked his fingers along her cheekbone. Her skin tingled where he touched. Subconsciously, she tucked one side of her bottom lip in between her front teeth. "I want you. I want all of you."

  "What? I'm just some amazing booty call?" Hailey said laughing quietly.

  "Stop it," Eric said shaking his head and slowly lowered his forehead to rest on Hailey's. "Stop deflecting."

  "Then what?" her voice was barely audible, even to herself.

  "I love you, Hailey," Eric said as if she should know that already. Then the room started to spin, and she shook her head. No, he doesn't.

  "Wait, what?" Hailey asked around the giant lump that had just formed in her throat.

  "I love you." Eric leaned in to kiss her and Hailey ducked, moving to the side.

  "No, you don't." Hailey shook her head. What was going on? He could not have really just said that, could he? She took a step away from him.

  "I love you, and I think you love me, too." Eric grabbed her wrist. "I never thought I'd fall in love, but here I am-"

  "You're confused." She turned around and glared at him. She heard the ice in her voice, and her heart almost broke at the hurt look in his eye. But, he could not spring something like that on her. Not after she just had her friend, her trusted confidant, her Alfred arrested. "Even if you were, I can't be. I was already in love. It hurts too much; I can't do it again."

  "You can't just shield yourself because you're afraid of the bad that might happen, what about the good?" Eric's voice was solid steel. He's protecting himself right now by keeping the emotion out of his voice. Who is he to talk to me about shielding?

  "You can't just go around throwing those words out when you want something. They mean something to people. This isn't a damn movie where you can just say the words..." Despite all the damned drama.

  "Do you really think I'm that empty, Hailey? You think I'm some fucking robot, not capable of anything?" Hailey cringed at Eric's words. Of course, she did not think that, but she could not find the common ground with him.

  Hailey took a deep breath and dug the tip of her shoe into the edge of the carpet. "I never said that, it's just... guys like you don't fall in love with girls like me. You've got assembly lines of women waiting for you in LA."

  "Holy shit, is that what all this is about? You think I'd really be here if I wanted a fucking assembly line woman?"

  "Someone like me-with the life I've had... the mistakes I've made... the mistakes I'm still making..." Suddenly the topic became too much for her. She tried to make a joke. "All the people trying to kill me..."

  "Stop hiding behind the sarcasm. We're all making mistakes, life doesn't come with an instruction manual," Eric said. "No matter how rich you are."

  "Is that a line from one of your movies?" Hailey raised her eyebrow and stifled a laugh as Eric looked like he was thinking about it. "You have to think that hard?"

  "I don't know. It seems like a line just cheesy enough to be in one of my movies." Eric smiled a lopsided grin for only a second before he seemed to be tired of waiting. He still had a hand wrapped around her wrist, and he used it to yank her against him. Instead of waiting for her invitation, he laced his fingers through her hair, and pulled her head back to present her mouth to him. His lips were against hers, rough, possessive and hungry. Her mouth refused to move; she still did not know how she could forgive him. She did not know if she could believe he could love her. But her body's strike lasted only until she felt his tongue dart between her frozen lips.

  In that moment, she fell into the kiss and her barriers began to crumble.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Eric had missed the feeling of Hailey's soft curves under his hands. He still had a hand wrapped in her soft curls, but dropped the other to her ass and thrust her against him. She moaned into his mouth, and he nearly lost his mind as her tongue awoke and demanded his to fight back. As their tongues tangled and begged for the kiss to never end, he felt her hands come to life on him. She clasped his shoulders and pulled herself up to him. But just as suddenly as she had kissed him back, she stopped.

  "But, how can I know-" she began and he pressed a hand against her mouth. He could not answer the same question over and over. If he had been able to do his romantic gesture as he planned, she would not question him. But Jason had taken that moment from him, and now he had to fight for her belief. He wanted to plow down the walls that hel
d her self-doubt. He needed her to know.

  "I told you before, when I met you, I felt like I already had fallen in love with you. It's the way you write. Your soul was there reaching out and calming mine. I've told you before you make me a better man. You are like... my Novocaine For the Soul." He felt Hailey smile under his hand. "You're the only woman who I've thought about from the moment I met you."

  Eric dropped his hand and looked into her eyes. He waited for the protest, some kind of argument, but there was nothing in her eyes but eagerness. "You learned that song title, just for me?"

  "I learned a lot of things just for you lately." He wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her in again, waiting for her to resist. Her lips parted and she wrapped her arms around his neck. At her touch, his blood hummed to life. This time, when their lips touched, it was gentle. Their hands did not grasp at each other as if the world was coming to an end, but with an ease that showed they both knew the world was just beginning. Eric lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him. He groaned as her hips shifted against his center, he knew he had all the time in the world, but he needed her now.

  As he took a step, her mouth dropped from his and found the skin below his ear. He gasped as she dragged her teeth against his flesh. She found a sensitive spot just above his collarbone and teased him with her teeth and tongue, nibbling and kissing his skin as he climbed the stairs to her room. He pushed the door open, finding her room had not changed at all since he last saw her. He rested her on the bed, and stepped away from her.

  Hailey smiled and Eric studied the laugh lines around her eyes. He wanted to trace each one. He wanted to be the one who made her so happy that he created new laugh lines. She reached for him, and he fell into her. When they kissed this time, it was with a hunger that devoured him.

  His cock lengthened at the thoughts that had been on his mind from the moment he saw her through the window this morning. Before he saw Jason had lost his mind. A vision of Jason punching Hailey in the stomach flashed by Eric, and he broke away from Hailey. He fell face forward into the bed, clenching the comforter in his fists. He had pushed the anger away earlier, because he knew he needed to be level headed for Hailey to keep her from breaking down, but he needed to breathe for one moment. He felt Hailey's hand on his shoulder, rubbing soft circles.