by Cathryn Fox
“What’s that?”
“Notes on my next story. I’m horror writer Parker Perry. I had a stalker a few years back. Since then I’ve had to go under the radar.” He looked at the bathroom door again. “I wanted to tell you all this. It just wasn’t the right time.”
She blinked, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Her mind raced, piecing things together. “I guess that’s how you knew so much about writing, and why you’re staying in the room that’s haunted. You were here doing research.” She shook her head. “Was I just a fun distraction for you and Nolan?” She fought back the tears pricking her eyes.
“Andi listen—”
He reached for her but she pulled away. “All those times you said you couldn’t write a romance novel, were you just mocking me? Were you just playing with me, insulting the genre, because you’re one of those writers who thinks what I do is a joke?”
“No. I respect what you do. I couldn’t write a romance book to save my soul.”
“Soul? If you had a soul, you wouldn’t have pretended to be your brother so you could get me in your bed.”
“It wasn’t to get you in my bed. I tried to tell you the truth, but I didn’t think you really wanted to know. Every time I brought it up, you shot me down. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t want you to run.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to get to know you.” He took a step closer. The blue in his eyes deepened and a muscle in his jaw ticked as he touched her face. “Andi, I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry. I wanted to tell you, but as time went by, I didn’t know how. I never meant to hurt you. You have to believe me.”
She paused, wanting desperately to believe him—for him to love her, the real her, not the girl she was pretending to be. “Why do I have to believe you?”
“Because I—”
Just then the bathroom door opened and out walked the woman she’d seen him meeting with earlier that afternoon. Her heart sank, all hope fading. Ryan stiffened and his hand fell from her face. A sound caught in her throat as she backed up.
“It’s not what you think,” he said quickly.
Her stomach clenched like she’d just been sucker punched. Actually, a sucker punch might have been less painful. A laugh in the face might have been, too. He made her think that he cared, that she was loveable, yet here he was with another woman. One who was beautiful, thin, and exuded confidence—the kind of girl the Wheeler brothers gravitated toward. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have let herself believe he could fall for someone like her?
She choked back the tears. Ryan had been pretending to be someone he wasn’t and so was she, and now it appears he didn’t know her any more than she knew him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not what you think, either. I was only using you to get a story,” she said, reconstructing the wall around her heart as she backed out of his room and his life.
…
Ryan stood there, cringing as she slammed the door in his face. His hands shook as he drove them into his pockets, trying to calm himself, to figure out how to make this right. He couldn’t let her walk away, couldn’t let her leave things like this. She knew as well as he did that things might have started out one way, but now their feelings went deeper than sex.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her, hadn’t meant to keep his identity a secret for so long, but as the days went by, the harder and harder it became to tell her.
“Ryan?” Cassandra asked. “What’s going on?”
He turned to his agent and swallowed the bile punching into his throat. Now she thought he was here with another woman. Why wouldn’t she? He told her he believed everyone cheated. Then again, he told her if he was in love, he’d never cheat. But why would she believe he cared anything about her after the lies?
“I just fucked up, that’s what.”
Cassandra picked up the contract he’d collected from her and read through earlier that day. “It seems the self-proclaimed bachelor is in over his head,” she said.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, working to wrap his brain around what had just happened. “Yeah, it seems that way.”
Cassandra tucked the manila envelope into her bag. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
Fight for her.
The answer came quickly, no hesitation. Andi was sweet, kind, and loyal. He’d seen her with her friends, fans…him. She definitely wasn’t the kind of girl to cheat or hurt anyone, and it was damn well time he grew a set and went after what he wanted.
He pulled open his door and crossed the hall. His fist pounded, but she refused to answer. Hell, he didn’t even know if she was in there.
“Andi,” he said. “Come on. We need to talk.” He continued to pound on her door, until guests started peeking at him through their doors, and eventually security showed up. Not wanting to cause anymore of a scene, he went back to his room, Cassandra long gone.
He paced. How the hell could he prove to her what she meant to him? That he never meant to hurt her. That he’d fallen in love with her. In a week. Crazy as it might sound, it was true. He needed to get her back, needed to prove he wanted a future with her. He looked at the papers strewn on his desk, and an idea formed. It might be a stupid idea, one filled with far too many plot holes, but if he wanted to prove to her that everything had changed for him, and he believed in happily ever after, then he had no choice but to try.
Chapter Fourteen
Ryan paid the driver and jumped from the cab. He pulled the slip of paper from his pocket and double-checked the address Jan had provided. After Andi had taken off, he hunted her friend down at the convention. At first she was reluctant to give him Andi’s address, but then she caved. Probably because he was seconds from getting down on his knees and begging her for it. He shook his head, hardly able to believe the changes in him. In the span of a week, Andi had him doing all kinds of things he’d never done before, and if he couldn’t make this right between them… He stopped himself, not wanting to go there. He had to make it right because the alternative was too painful to think about.
He ran up the four steps leading to her high-rise complex and scanned the names on the panel before buzzing her apartment.
“Yeah,” a male voice said and he stiffened. His hands fisted. Jesus Christ, had she moved on already? If so, he’d kill the guy. Then he remembered her roommate had recently become engaged and was in the process of moving out and he relaxed slightly.
“I’m looking for Andi.”
A pause and then, “She’s not here.”
He looked up and down the busy street, eyeing the numerous coffee shops. Could she be in one of them writing? “Do you know where she is?”
“Hang on.”
A female voice came on and said. “She hasn’t come back from the convention yet.”
What the fuck? Where the hell was she?
“Look, I really need to find her, okay?”
A long static-filled pause and then, “Is this Ryan? Or rather, Jack?”
He stilled. If her roommate knew who he was, Andi had to be here, somewhere. She must have come home after the convention, and told her friend to lie about her whereabouts. Christ knows she wouldn’t return to Cedar Point and risk running into him or Nolan.
“Yeah. That’s me.”
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
“I need to see her. I have to tell her something important.” He scrubbed his face, and pounded his fist against the locked door. “I’m not leaving here until you tell me where she is.”
“If you don’t leave, I’ll call the cops,” she said.
“Fine, call them. Andi if you’re there, I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”
He plunked himself down on the steps beside a plant, braced his elbows on his knees, and rested his chin in his palms, prepared to camp out there until Andi either came down, or back from wherever she was. She needed to hear him out, goddammit, and if it meant sitting there for the next week, month even, then he’d damn well wait.
&nb
sp; An hour passed, then two more, and he ignored the rumble in his stomach. The door slowly opened behind him, and he jumped up, hoping it was Andi. A girl with dark hair and dark eyes tentatively approached him.
She folded her arms across her chest in a defensive move. “I can’t believe you’re still here.”
“I told you I’m not leaving until I talk to her.”
“Do you love her?”
His heart pounded hard as he nodded. “I really do.” Jesus, he really did love her. He loved her so fucking much, his entire world was falling apart without her in it.
“You’re not going to hurt her?”
He drove his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “I never meant to hurt her in the first place.”
“She’s a really nice girl.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Do you really know who she is?”
“She’s the sweetest girl I ever met. She makes me happy and crazy and scared and willing to give love a shot and fight for what we have between us. I’ve never wanted to fight for anything the way I want to fight for her.”
He swallowed hard, as her dark eyes moved over him, studying him carefully. “Okay, I’ll tell you where she is, then.”
He almost sobbed with relief. “Thank you.”
“She went home.”
He gave a shake of his head and glanced upward at the tall complex. “So she’s here then? In the apartment?”
“No, she went back to Cedar Point.”
The second the words left her mouth, he flew down the stairs, hailed a cab and headed straight for the airport.
Chapter Fifteen
It had been three days since Andi had left Vegas and returned to Cedar Point. She’d gone to the airport intending to head back to New York, but when Rhonda called and she explained the situation, her friend had insisted she come home and lay low until she could figure out her next steps.
At first she didn’t want to return, the last thing she wanted was to run into Nolan or Ryan. But after calling her roommate, who was packing her belongings, she didn’t want to go back to an empty apartment. She’d explained the situation to Cammy, and then told her where she’d be. Now she was sitting on Rhonda’s ground level patio, the warm sunshine on her face as she tried to figure out where she went from here.
The back gate creaked and she blinked her eyes open. Rhonda wasn’t due home for hours. She turned toward the sound and her heart jumped into her throat.
“You’re a hard woman to find,” Ryan said quietly, stepping into the backyard, closing the gate behind him.
Feeling a bit lightheaded as she came face-to-face with the man who hurt her, she gripped the edges of her chair, squeezing hard enough to turn her knuckles white. “How did you find me?”
“Cammy told me. Don’t be mad at her. I sat on the steps and refused to leave until she told me.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. She threatened to call the cops, but I didn’t care. I needed to see you and planned to camp out there until you came back.”
She jumped to her feet. Honest to God, she wished she wasn’t so happy to see him, wished she didn’t love him so much.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because we need to talk.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve said all I needed to say to you.” He powered up his tablet, and she furrowed her brow.
“Okay then. You listen. I’ll talk. But the first thing you need to know is that the woman in my room that night was my agent. She was only there to collect my contract.” Her heart missed a beat, wanting to believe him, but too afraid to trust. “I once told you if I was in love with a woman, I’d never cheat and I meant it. I’d never cheat on you, Andi.”
Wait! What? Was he saying he was in love with her? How could he be? He didn’t even know the real her. The real her was unlovable.
“Maybe not, but you pretended to be someone you weren’t.”
Then again, he wasn’t the only one pretending…
He looked down and began reading. “You… I, Andi… Once,” he began, stumbling over his words.
Her heart pinched when he stopped for a second, like he was working to collect himself. He drew a breath and tried again, struggling with his dyslexia as he read—a condition, he’d once explained, that persisted when he was nervous.
“Once…upon a time there was this…this guy. He was…was basically a good guy. A…good brother and…and friend, and from what the ladies say he had moves like Jagger. But…at…at…times he could be a bit of an ass.”
Something inside her softened, as he stood before her, shaky and nervous and messing up his words as he laid it all on the line—for her. Her heart went out to him, everything she was feeling rushing to the surface.
He’s making it really hard to stay mad.
He swallowed and ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t seem to get the words out right.” He waited a moment, like he wanted her to say something but she pinched her lips tight, waiting for him to go on. He shook his head, a noise sounding in his throat. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“No,” she said soberly, even though her heart was crashing so hard it was ready to break free from her chest.
“That’s okay. Because I’ll do whatever it takes, fight every fight, and work hard for what I want.”
As she absorbed his words, her vision went a little fuzzy around the edges and she leaned against the rail for support. He turned his attention back to his tablet. “He didn’t…believe in happily ever after…until he met her.” He paused and looked up at ther.
“Go on.”
“Okay.” He started again and as he read for another minute her heart pinched.
“Ryan,” she said stopping him.
“Yeah.”
She appreciated the effort, she really did, but he’d struggled enough and it hurt her to see him like that. “Why don’t you wing it?”
A look of appreciation moved over his face and he lowered the tablet. “My story began when I met this girl on the elevator. She was beautiful, quick with a comeback, and had on the sexiest bloomers I’d ever seen. I was intrigued because she wasn’t like any other woman I knew. In fact, she was very sweet, in a girl next door kind of way. She came to my room that night and seduced me, and when I found out she thought I was someone else I didn’t correct her. It was a mistake, one that cost me more than I was willing to wager. She left me, didn’t trust me because of it, and because she saw me with another woman—a woman who was my agent. After the lie, I don’t blame her for jumping to the wrong conclusion. But I searched the land far and wide for her, determined to make things right. When the hunt at her New York apartment turned up empty, and I found out where she was, I returned home immediately. I went to her, found her and told her how much she meant to me. She forgave me and we lived happily ever after.”
“You were right. You can’t write a romance novel. And that story doesn’t have a happily ever after.”
“That’s because you haven’t finished hearing me out yet.”
“Ryan—”
“I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for things to go the way they did. From the second I set eyes on you I wanted you.”
“Right and that’s why you lied about who you were. Did you forget I’m all caught up?”
“You came to me, Andi. You seduced me, for revenge. You hadn’t planned to go through with it, I get that, but you did. Why? Because you want me. Me. Not Nolan. And I wanted you. When I realized you thought I was Nolan I went with it. Not to hurt you, but because you wanted a fantasy and I wanted to give it to you.
I wanted you close because on some other level, deep in my subconscious, I must have known you were the one, the one girl who’d have me re-evaluating my priorities and thinking about something more permanent. I would never lie to get a girl into bed. Ever. I just wanted to keep you close so you could get to know the real me and I wanted to get to know the real you.”
She shook her head.
“But you don’t know me. Not the real me.”
“You don’t think? You don’t think that I didn’t know you were pretending to be wild and bold around me? I knew all along you were trying to be something you weren’t. Why do you think I took you to the dig, for a picnic, to the magic show? When you forgot you weren’t playing a role, you gave me glimpses into the real you, the real sweet and loveable Andrea Palmer. I like that girl, Andi. I like her very much. I like the sexy side of you too, but you never needed to pretend. You had me at bloomers. I think I fell in love with you the second I saw you in them.”
She swallowed as her heart galloped. “Really?”
“I’m sick to my stomach. I can’t eat. Can’t sleep. I think about you twenty-four seven…” He ran a hand through his hair. “If that’s not love then I don’t know what is.”
He took a step closer. She stood there staring at him, and he sucked in a deep breath, let it out slowly and said, “Do you think we can start again, take things slow? No lies, no pretending, just me and you, upfront and honest?”
She hesitated.
“It’s the least you could do after forcing me into a damn male model contest, don’t you think?” His lips twitched and she couldn’t help but grin.
“Okay,” she whispered, her knees so wobbly she wasn’t even sure how she was still standing.
He held his hands out. “I’m Jack Ryan Grayson Wheeler. My family calls me Jack, my girlfriend calls me Ryan, that is when she’s not calling me an asshole.” She smiled, and he continued. “I’m also known as Parker Perry, horror writer. And I’m in love with the most amazing woman in the world. She’s a romance writer and someday she’s going to have a wedding in a big church, with a white gown, family, pictures in the park, and all the decorations. If she wants that on a Caribbean island she can have that, too.”
She took his hand, and the second she felt his strength, saw the need in his eyes, she knew they’d both found their happily ever afters. “I’m Andrea Palmer, romance writer Andi Palmer. I wear bloomers for the most part, but at times I like to slip into something black and silky for my boyfriend. It’s his favorite, and I do it because I love him.”