Kara stalks to the other side of the hallway, the club music bumping through the entire venue, making the dark building vibrate.
“What do you want, Kara? Do you want to go home? Do you want to fight me? You want to call this all off? I’m tired of your hot and cold attitude, and if you don’t want to do this anymore, be my guest and leave! Fuck, at this point it’s too much of a hassle to deal with you, even if you are doing wonders for my reputation.”
She’s like a snake about to strike, seeming to grow taller in that black slinky dress that distracts me by showcasing her tits, her nipples about to spill over the seams of the top.
“Too much of a hassle? Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to sit still and look pretty while helping you get off a rape charge. I also didn’t realize I was supposed to remain silent when you took me to the exact location you cheated on me in seven years ago.”
A light bulb goes off in my head, and memories of a night filled with smoke and booze slither into my mind like vapor.
“You have no idea what went on that night.” My teeth grind together as I try to maintain composure.
“Oh, spare me, Dean, I didn’t need to have details. There were pictures Goddamn it, and any innocent man would have fought much harder than you did.” She dismisses me with a flick of her wrist.
I charge her, her back flattening against the wall in a hallway where we were, thankfully, all alone. “No, you were just all too happy to believe everyone else but me. You threw what we had out the window in the time it takes to blink. Didn’t listen to anything I had to say, or ask what really happened.”
Her eyes flare and she bares her teeth, a lion with its back against the wall. “Don’t mock me, Dean. You betrayed me, stuck your dick in the first California bitch that came along.”
I slam my open palm against the wall, right next to her head. “Fuck you, Kara. I never cheated, is that what you want to hear?”
She shakes her head, trying to escape the pin I’ve got her held in. “Liar.”
“I’m not fucking lying! I never did. You chose to believe the Goddamn tabloids over your own boyfriend, the man you had all of your firsts with. You want to know what really happened that night? Fine! I was lonely as hell, missing you and feeling like there was absolutely no one out here I could trust. I was a twenty-year-old kid who had his first taste of money and could now slip past the velvet ropes, but the one person I wanted was thousands of miles away. I came here, had too many drinks trying to drown myself at the bottom of a bottle because I yearned for you so damn bad that I wanted to dull the pain in any way I could. I was half blind by the time I made it back to the hotel room I’d been calling home for three months because I couldn’t bear to buy an apartment without you living in it with me. That girl, she was a set up. Media out here tries it with all the new young stars, to catch them in some sort of fucked-up situation. I could barely comprehend what was happening as she wrapped her arms around my neck and walked me into my room. The minute she went for my belt though, I kicked her the fuck out. I passed out, and the next morning I wake up to seven screaming messages from you, telling me we were over and to never contact you again.”
The dizzy pain of that morning after, the harsh light that filtered into my room as I replayed every message, the numerous times I called Kara’s cell enough to fill her voicemail. I’d considered hopping on a plane after that, but the pictures in the tabloid that had set me up, they looked so bad. And then anger got the best of me. If she thought I’d actually do that to her, then fuck her. Good riddance. I didn’t need to fight for someone who didn’t want to fight for me.
It was only a month later that I realized how fucking wrong I’d been. And that I couldn’t make up for it, not now when I’d let so much time pass. So, I’d started to write, and every song somehow became about her. The album hit number one, but it meant nothing to me, my hopes so high that she would call after hearing all of the lyrics I dedicated to her.
She never did call.
Kara’s breathing is shallow, her eyes big with unshed tears, those violet orbs staring at my mouth.
I don’t think. That was my problem seven years ago; thinking instead of just acting and getting my girl back. My lips crash down onto hers, not giving either of us a second to pull back or breathe.
Everything I’ve held back, every word left unspoken or unexplained, I pour into the kiss. My hands bracket her face, my thumbs running across the smooth skin of her jaw in a frenzied, cathartic motion. Kara struggles for a split second, but then gives in, succumbing to my tongue as it invades her mouth. Her anatomy meets mine, stroking against the seams of my lips, answering every question I pose with my body and vice versa.
We’re nothing but animals, stripped down to our most base of urges. I can’t grab enough of her, taste enough of her, fast enough. It feels like time has stopped, but as if the world is turning too quickly in its absence. Everything is off kilter, but also so grounded that I’ve never felt more like my own self. Clarity chimes like a bell in my ears, and I know that in this moment, not even a speeding bullet could stop me from making love to this woman using just my mouth.
Noise from just outside the hallway filters into our bubble and bursts it. Kara tilts her head back, disconnecting us as she leans against the wall.
I don’t want to see her eyes; don’t want to ruminate over what I just did or how it changes everything. I just want one moment to breathe in the space where she and I exist again.
So, I turn on my heel and walk away from her, not even chancing a glance backward.
Chapter Twenty
Dean
The scent of expensive, steaming hot coffee swirls under my noise, and I gladly take the mug from Patrick with a sigh.
“I don’t know if this is still a good idea.”
My agent, and friend, sits down in the lounge chair next to me, the view of the Hollywood valley from his backyard sprinkled with sunlight.
Patrick sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, the lines next to his eyes becoming more prominent with age. “I thought we discussed this.”
“She’s just so cold, Patty, I feel like I’m trying to coax a deadly snake into listening to me.” The warm breeze brushes past my face.
He snorts, but I can tell his patience is wearing thin. When you’ve repped artists for twenty years like Patrick has, you don’t have a long rope when it comes to their belly aching.
“I didn’t ask you to charm her, that’s not why we wrote up the contract and put this plan in place. The mission is to get you off of a rape charge that you didn’t commit, if you’ve forgotten.”
I take a sip of my coffee and take in his words, remembering last night. I was stupid, taking that kiss from her.
But I hadn’t taken it, had I? She’d been more than willing, once her body had gotten over the split second of shock. She’d grabbed my hair, yanked at me, bit me and gave it back as good as she got. I was foolish to not talk to her about it, to wake up the next morning and pretend nothing happened as we sat around the island both chatting with Skylar. And that had been that, we hadn’t discussed it then, so the rest of the week went on in this weird, awkwardly friendly walking-on-eggshells thing.
“I just don’t know that when it comes time, which is right around the corner, that she’ll put that ring on. That she’ll stand up next to me and say the right things. Hell, it’s hard enough to get her to smile and kiss me for the paparazzi photos … imagine when she has to give interview answers about our engagement? I just feel like everything with her is one step forward, eight steps back.”
Patrick nods, sipping his coffee like this is no crisis at all. “In the end, she’ll step up when the time comes. If there is one thing I know, it’s that that girl loved you once upon a time. No one who had the kind of love you kids had would let the other person burn, no matter how long it’s been since you jumped into the sack. You forget that I picked you up off many a bar floor at the early stages of your career, when she’d broken
your heart.”
I didn’t forget that, but rather tried to lock it in a different part of my mind never to be opened. While those early months with Patrick, and the label he brokered my deal with, had been damn exciting, I’d also been a miserable fuck. Broken-hearted, reeling from Kara essentially leaving me … I was a mess. He’d been the father I’d never had at a time when I didn’t even know I needed one.
“We have a trial date, by the way.” Patrick broaches the subject without looking at me, and I nod, signaling that I’m listening even if I don’t want to be.
He continues, “Hannah Lockwood is one vengeful woman, and a damn good actress because she’s been running around town to every advocate magazine and group who will listen. You’re going to end up in front of a jury, Dean, so you need to get used to the idea now. I’ll do everything I can to protect and help you, bring in the best lawyers. We’re going to fight this and win. But it’s going to be nasty. In the end, though, you’ll walk away without a scratch on you, I’ll do my best to ensure it. Fuck her. Fuck any person who would falsely accuse another. Everyone who knows you, knows that you could never do this.”
I’ve never heard Patrick so impassioned, and he’d closed every record deal for me in the past eight years. It makes me weary, and my stomach drops to my feet thinking about having to stand up in front of a jury to be declared innocent or guilty.
“Enough about me … distract me. What else do you have going on right now?” I lean back in my chair, letting the steam from the expensive dark roast waft into my senses as I drink it.
Patrick sighs. “Fucking pop princesses, up to my elbows in them.”
It was a deal he had with Prism, my recording label. He could pick a certain number of acts to bring to them and they agreed to listen. These acts were always aligned with Patrick’s taste, rock or folk. But he was so good at his job that the tradeoff was that he had to also represent the pop and bubblegum groups or solo artists they brought to him. Sure, he made most of these girls stars, but some of them could barely even sing, much less count to ten.
“Who is it this time?” I chuckle.
He waves his hand over his head, signaling he’s already forgotten. “Brittney, Brandy, Jessie, something equally as nauseating. On her rider, she demanded that there be a bowl of unwrapped, red only Starbursts, six different kinds of the same blue Essie nail polish, and every season of The OC set up in a DVD player. I want to blow my brains out.”
Listening to Patrick’s complaints about riders are some of my favorite moments. The request lists made by other celebrities for their dressing rooms can be outrageous. One singer I knew demanded a gigantic liter bottle of Maker’s Mark in every stadium he played in, while another wanted two snow white Huskies in her dressing room at all times. The most I’d ever asked for was a six-pack of Heineken and maybe a book or two. I was a cakewalk by comparison.
“Just look on the bright side, at least you’ll be on tour with Neil and I soon.”
He nodded. “Speaking of that, we need to have a meeting to go over tour dates, travel and expectations. And I need to know if your Miss Kara will be going on any of the legs?”
I was so jacked up for the sequence of shows we were about to perform that I could barely contain myself. More intimate venues, time on the road … it was just what I needed to clear my head. Thinking about Kara accompanying me brought mixed feelings; while I knew she said she wanted nothing to do with me beyond our contract, that kiss had changed a lot. But on the other hand, maybe it was for the best if I didn’t push it, if I just let things drop like I had been for the past couple of days.
“Set the meeting up, me and the guys will be there. I’m not sure about Kara yet, although I don’t see her coming to Europe at the beginning what with work and all.”
Thinking about being on the road with my band again was enough to make me jiggle my leg up and down. Musicians always bitched at the end of a tour, but it was my life blood. The uncertainty of how each show would go, the absolute high from being up on stage, singing your heart out. The antics that went on behind the scenes. I was ready.
“Well, just make sure you set ground rules of what she should be seen doing then. And same goes for you. If she is out shopping with friends, you need to be photographed doing the same in London. No being seen with members of the opposite sex. You should be tweeting each other while you’re away so that the public knows how much you miss each other. Sappy Instagram posts, that kind of stuff. And you should be ‘caught’ buying an expensive present or two for her.”
It was sad that I’d made it to the point in my life that I had to stage intimacy. That I had to play at being in a relationship with a woman I would have never let go in a million years. And yet I did, I let her walk out. And now we were here.
My head was still so foggy with anger at her for believing I’d cheated, and the ache of my heart knowing that it still only beat for her.
My body was at war with itself, as it always was. The battle between good and evil dragged on, and I didn’t know which would pull me under first.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kara
Taking style advice from a man who once thought plain white T-shirts and beat up black Converse was a fashion trend hadn’t been particularly easy.
But as I sat in the blacked-out SUV and ran my hands over the light pastel purple column dress, I had to hand it to Dean … he knew what he was talking about.
Ever since I’d put on the dress that sported a high neckline and hugged my body like a glove all the way past my knees, he hadn’t been able to stop staring at me. And I hadn’t been able to stop blushing.
Since our shopping trip, things seemed to have thawed between us. Even at the club, Dean had been on his best behavior, not once looking at another woman.
Perhaps I’d jumped to conclusions too fast … the fury in his eyes at being accused of what he did all those years ago, that wasn’t the anger of a guilty man. That was the pent-up frustration of someone who had never stood up for their innocence, and wasn’t going to let me bad mouth him anymore.
And that kiss … all of the emotions he’d been holding back for seven years were spelled out between our lips. All of the nights I’d cried, every second we’d spent apart, each accusation and break of our hearts … it had all been laid bare when our mouths had collided. The world had broken open and bled with that kiss, my ears could hear at the speed of sound when Dean had put his lips on mine.
We hadn’t talked about it since, although Dean had been cordial. I don’t know if he wanted to forget he’d done it, if he was embarrassed, if he thought I wasn’t into it, or what? I still wasn’t sure how it made me feel … okay, that wasn’t true. I was confused, aroused, lustful, but most of all scared. I was so damn scared of my own heart being captured by this man again.
Despite all of my feelings about it though, I was foolishly disappointed that Dean hadn’t addressed it at all. Maybe it just didn’t mean the same to him, and that thought process right there was what put the stubborn organ in my chest in jeopardy.
The blacked-out SUV, the same one we always seemed to be driven in, speeds down the highway toward the middle of Los Angeles. The premiere we’re attending tonight is at the Staples Center, and Dean has already prepped me on how many media outlets and other celebrities will be there.
“So since we are going to be photographed to hell and back tonight, I thought it was time for this.” Dean pulls a red velvet box out of his impeccable black suit jacket pocket.
My heart ricochets in my chest, and my hands begin to sweat. “What is that?”
“You knew it was coming for a while now, Kara, so don’t freak out. You’ve been out here for over a month, and the contract clearly stated it. It’s time for us to be engaged, to show the world a united front, especially with the trial looming closer.”
He got his hair cut before tonight, so that the rusty blond ends are just grazing the tops of his ears. It’s still longer than I am used to, but he’s slicked it bac
k in a sort of Charlie Hunnam style. There is more than a three-day stubble dusting his jaw, and he looks practically edible in the midnight black fabric perfectly tailored to his body.
When he pops open the box, the car swiftly changing lanes and jostling me, I get a glimpse of the gigantic, round diamond laid on a thin band of diamonds.
The speed of the car, the rush of attending my first red carpet, the ring, him … it’s all too much. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Dean’s brow furrows. “Don’t be dramatic, all you have to do is put this on your left hand. We both know it doesn’t mean anything other than what is stated in a legal agreement.”
He thinks I’m being a bitch, disgusted by the thought of wearing his ring, but in reality, my insides are frantic. This means way more than just the sections laid out in the contract I signed, and we both know it. For years, I’d dreamed of him actually popping open a ring box, getting down on one knee, making me his wife. Even in high school, we’d done the childish dreaming, picking out our venue, our children’s names, where we would retire to.
It made my stomach ache with missed moments and my eyes burned with unshed tears. This was never the way I expected any man to propose to me, to ask me to spend his life with him. Under some forced contract, because he was scared of the legal system. No, I wanted to be engaged, to be on the way to becoming someone’s partner, because they were in love with me and I with them. The tragic note of this situation didn’t slip by me, that the one thing that should be authentic was now just another act of playing pretend.
“Right.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, and tried to steady my hand from shaking as I stuck it out. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Those blue eyes swam with darkness, a ripple of midnight indigo running through them as Dean stared at me. Finally, he removed the ring from the box and placed it on my finger, pushing it down over my knuckle. I couldn’t bare to look at it, couldn’t bear that there was no happiness in this moment, no urge to call all of our family and friends and tell them the good news.
As Long As You Hate Me Page 8