by Sarina Bowen
Nina’s heartbeat sped up and her breath came in short puffs. A few years ago she’d been the one walking stiffly toward a restaurant, uncomfortable in the glare of cameras, but certain the reality-show-realtor she was with would propose. Instead he’d broken things off over tiramisu, callously thanking her for introducing him to her father who was sending him to work in the Hong Kong offices of Wright International.
A warm hand covered hers and Nina’s breathing regulated.
“We don’t have to do this.” Chase’s voice was quiet in the car.
“Yes, we do.”
“No, we don’t. I know I hired you. I know the plan, but you nearly passed out five seconds ago. You don’t have to do this.”
There was empathy in his voice, but that only made Nina more certain of her actions. She kept her focus on the photographers and pasted a bright smile on her face. She did have to do this. Not just to help Chase get his ex back, but to save her own business. Her father’s threats were very real. If there was a chance to save Wright Attraction, the key lay in this crazy scheme.
“I told you I’m fine. I’m just better with plans. Notated, outlined and footnoted.”
“Then I’ll get you through it.”
Her smile softened at his words. Chase MacIntyre might not be her typical date but the past forty hours hadn’t been her typical work environment, either.
* * *
What was he doing? Chase wondered. He didn’t need another meltdown in front of the press. And if the plastic smile pasted on Nina’s face was any indication a meltdown was exactly where this was headed. He squeezed her hand in his.
“Once we step out of the car there is no going back.”
“I know. I promise, I’m fine.”
She didn’t look fine. Well, okay, physically she was better than fine but there was a tension in her shoulders that screamed the opposite. Like she might break if he opened the door. They couldn’t sit in the limo all night, though.
Jillian was never worried about the press. She courted them, always wearing something outrageous or saying something guaranteed to be made into a sound bite. He hated that. The bubble he’d lived comfortably in his entire life had seemed to tighten over the last year. Shrink around him. Squeeze the life out of him. Jillian dumping him in the middle of the red carpet last week was the last straw. Nina might think he wanted her back but he didn’t.
He didn’t want Jillian. He didn’t want another Hollywood relationship. He also didn’t want the constant press coverage of his broken heart/suicidal mind or whatever trash they cooked up. Not when Anthem was set to release their most important album yet. So he’d play the game one more time, with a girl he could trust this time, and then he’d focus on living outside the spotlight.
Nina’s hand trembled slightly under his and Chase hit the intercom button.
He couldn’t do this to her. Whatever was going on in her head, he couldn’t force her into the frenzy that was guaranteed once the photographers put a name to her beautiful face.
“Take us back, George,” he said, but Nina interrupted.
“No, just let us off at the door. We have a reservation. As you know, I like plans.” Nina rolled her shoulders and then removed her hand from his. “This is a good one. You need Jillian to believe you’re moving on. Having a date for the gala could do it, but gossip about a dinner date before the gala will add more fuel to the fire.” She was rambling. Talking with her mouth when her mind was somewhere else. Chase didn’t know how but he could tell she wasn’t completely there. Somehow she had separated herself from the limo, the photographers.
From him.
He wasn’t sure he liked that. And not just because he needed her fully onboard, either. The limo pulled forward and they were at the door. He pushed the feelings away. This was a temporary fix that would lead to a permanent solution. Nina insisted she was in and he certainly was, too. “Let’s do this.”
Nina cleared her throat as if she might say something but merely nodded. Chase got out of the limo and then took her hand to help her out of the car.
The sea of flashbulbs blinded him.
He heard the rumblings start from the other side of the velvet rope separating them from the paparazzi but didn’t slow. Didn’t stop to pose for pictures like he would have had Jillian been on his arm. He kept his arm around Nina, his hand on the small of her back. Heat from the barely-there touch seared his skin but he didn’t draw away. Then they were inside and the hostess was seating them.
Chase ordered his favorite cabernet and waited until the waiter left. “How is it you’re not more comfortable with press lines?” The question had been bothering him since she called this afternoon to tell him she’d take the deal.
No, bothered wasn’t the right word. Curious, that was the word. He’d looked her up on Google and called in a couple of favors, but Nina’s entire press history seemed to be a handful of mentions three years before when she’d dated a reality star.
“I’m not an entertainer. I don’t sing or dance or act. I’m just an average person.”
Chase chuckled at her understatement. Nina Wright might not be in the entertainment business, but her family connections and her looks put her far above “average.” But they could go with that for now. “Why matchmaking?”
“My aunt left the business to me when she died a few months ago. I interned with her in high school and again in college. I like helping people fall in love.” For the first time since he’d buzzed her apartment, the tension in Nina’s body seemed to lessen. So did Chase’s. “I got my MBA and everyone expected me to go to work in my father’s marketing department, which I did for a while. I expected it, too. And then Molly died and…I guess I wanted to see if I could do it.”
“Be a matchmaker.”
She fiddled with her fork for a moment. “I’ve seen the difference Molly made in people’s lives and she trusted me to continue that legacy. I guess you could say I owe her.” A sad expression crossed her face as she stared at the fork in her hand and then, in an instant, it was gone. Replaced by a too-bright smile. “Besides, running my own place is fun and I make money at the same time. I’m making something of my own.”
Chase could understand that. It was why he went into the music business when everyone expected him to follow in his father’s television producer footsteps.
“You can’t want to know about my business choices.”
He did, Chase realized. It was a strange feeling, being interested in someone else and not having them pour their hearts out at the slightest inclination. Jillian was always eager to talk about herself or what modeling job was next. Other band managers wanted to talk about the next gig. His personal trainer was trying to get more celebrity clients. And here he was on a date with a woman who was completely uninterested in using her celebrity.
“Lambert Wright the third—your father—is to the business world what my father is to Hollywood. You have the cash, the connections and you’re beautiful. You could embrace the headlines to advance yourself.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” She blushed. Fascinating. A woman who blushed and it wasn’t the fake compliment-induced kind.
“Not exactly.”
“My father has a rule about the press.”
Chase watched as the waiter poured wine and then ordered for them both. Even after the waiter left Nina didn’t say anything more. “A rule?” he prompted.
“Okay, it’s more of an absolute hatred than a simple rule. Thou shalt not be gossiped about. He’s kind of a stickler about it. I guess it rubbed off.”
“So the headline this morning…”
She nodded and took a cracker from the bowl on the table. “Yeah, not happy.”
“And the headlines we’ll be making?”
“Even less happy.” She shrugged but the tension he’d seen in the limo was back. “But this is the best chance to get the papers fixated on a different story. I can deal with it.”
He had a feeling she could, despite her near-f
reeze in the limo. More than that, he wanted to help her. And that was dangerous territory. Asking about her past was an error. Focusing this arrangement more on her plans instead of his was a colossal, mind-blowing mistake. This quid pro quo—she helped him, he helped her—should be where it ended.
Only it wasn’t. She interested him. Made him curious.
He held up his glass. “To dealing with it, then.”
Nina tapped her glass against his and sipped. “To changing the headlines.”
* * *
Nina giggled as Chase helped her back into the car. The street outside the restaurant was quiet; they were the last diners in the place. No photographers lingered on the street outside, she noticed, when she turned back toward the building.
And she was just a little bit tipsy.
Chase was around the car in a second, sliding onto the bench seat beside her. He tapped the smoked glass between their part of the car and the driver, telling him to take them back to her place.
“So it was a girl in the dressing room, dressed as a guy who was dressed like a girl?”
Chase held up his right hand. “Swear.”
“But why dress in drag?”
“People are twisted.”
He’d told her stories about their first tour, before Anthem’s first big song hit the Billboard charts, and he’d listened when she told him about interning with Molly and the crazy pre-first-date mixers they’d planned before Molly got sick. They didn’t talk about The Plan or the photographers outside. Didn’t talk about the gala coming up or what his end game was.
Tomorrow she would care about the end game. For now she wanted to enjoy more of his stories. To be fascinated by the little flashes of light that lit up the interior of the limo as they passed under streetlights on the way to her condo in the Hollywood Hills.
He leaned a little closer. “So this was fun,” he said.
The most fun she’d had since…she couldn’t remember. As into the relationship with Realtor Randy as she had been, fun wasn’t part of it. Loneliness. Angst. Worry. Those had all been part of it because deep down, she’d known something was missing. The chemistry was there. The shared interests. But she always suspected there was a part of him she couldn’t reach.
Turned out that part had been his ambition. Only her father had reached that.
But this wasn’t the time to pick at that old scar.
Nina turned her head and realized her mouth was mere inches from Chase’s. That she could feel the heat from his body against her own. She could smell him, woodsy but fresh. His eyes were nearly black in the darkness.
“A lot of fun,” she finally said.
The limo slowed to a stop but Nina didn’t reach for the door handle and neither did Chase. For a long moment she could only stare into his eyes. Wonder what he was thinking. Did he want to kiss her? She wanted to kiss him. To feel his lips against hers. Feel his hands on her shoulders again. Feel the tremble in her tummy. It would be good. Better than good.
The overhead light came on, nearly blinding her. The driver held open her door and Nina straightened. So not the time for thinking like this.
“I, um, will call you tomorrow. We can talk about the next step, okay?” She picked up her bag from the seat as Chase straightened.
“Yeah. I’ll be in the studio in the afternoon.” He slid out of the car behind her. He walked across the street and waited while she pulled out her key. “I meant it, you know. I had fun tonight.”
Nina smiled. “Me, too.” He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb, watching her. Nina couldn’t open the door. Couldn’t seem to move. Her hand was on the key in the lock but Chase’s gaze held her mesmerized under the dim streetlights. His blue eyes were intent on her, like he might see something if he looked at her long enough.
Nina shook herself. It was just the wine. Wine was so not part of the plan.
She pushed open the door. “So I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Chase nodded and straightened, his hands in his pockets. Nina backed into her condo, shut the door and leaned against it.
It was just chemistry.
Amazingly stupid, couldn’t-lead-anywhere chemistry.
Chapter Three
Chase was certifiable. There was no other explanation for ordering flowers for a woman he barely knew. A woman he was already planning to cut out of his life.
The same woman whose earlobes kept him up most of the night. Really, what twenty-eight-year-old noticed a woman’s earlobes? He shook himself.
“I’m positive, the wildflower bouquet. And the card should read To New Stories. Yes, I’m positive. No name, no other message,” he said, talking over the order taker before she could really get going. “Delivery early this afternoon.” He disconnected the call, vowing to order online from here on out. Flower delivery people were altogether too curious.
Chase tossed the phone into its cradle, grabbed his Ray-Bans and slipped the spare key into the keeper tied to his shoelaces. He lived on what was probably the quietest street in Calabasas but that didn’t mean a nosy reporter wouldn’t try to slip past the guard gate. After locking the front door he set off on his daily jog, still thinking about Nina.
He’d been thinking of her since the second he set foot inside the unassuming office in Brentwood and had gone over every second of their time together at least two hundred times. Her too-big, brown eyes haunted his sleep. At one point he’d woken from a dream in which her thick, black hair was wrapped around his hands. He’d had a death grip on the extra pillow in his bed, with his sheets tangled around his legs. Who knew what would have happened in the dream if he’d only been able to keep the dream alive?
Scratch that, he didn’t want to know. He was already way too wrapped up in a woman he hadn’t even kissed yet. Chase quickened his pace.
Hell. Maybe Nina was right and he did want to make Jillian jealous enough to come crawling back to him. And didn’t that make him the poster boy for Assholes Anonymous? Because it wasn’t Jillian who was distracting him this morning, it was Nina. In the two years they’d been dating he had never once sent Jillian flowers and less than two days after meeting Nina he’d not only dreamed about her but he’d ordered flowers. He should call Nina. Live with the tabloids for a few more weeks and let her off the hook before he did something really stupid.
Like kissing those sweet little earlobes.
Or sleeping with her.
Chase rounded a corner, lungs screaming, and slowed his pace. No, calling this off wouldn’t solve a thing because, like fricking Leonardo DiCaprio said to Kate Winslet, he was involved now. He’d seen the fear in her eyes when the emails kept pinging and then again when they faced the lineup of photographers outside the restaurant last night. Felt it himself when he dropped out of college to manage his best friend’s band and his father cut off his trust fund.
Nina was in trouble and he was damned if he’d make her stand in the middle of the media storm without the hope of an umbrella.
He turned the last corner. An unfamiliar car sat in his driveway. Score one for the overzealous reporter who’d made it past the guard gate. The Corvette’s door opened and Chase stopped in his tracks. Not an overzealous reporter.
It was the woman who hadn’t let him sleep in twenty-four hours and was even now putting his body en pointe.
Well, at least now this attraction wasn’t just a trick of the moonlight.
As if he’d actually believed that little lie in the first place.
Nina waited until he was at the curb and offered a tiny smile that made her look more sixteen than the twenty-six he knew her to be.
Back it down, Chase, the woman is a business associate, nothing more.
“Nice neighborhood,” she said, waving a perfectly manicured hand at the Spanish-style homes around them. “I didn’t realize they made homes in Calabasas that were less than ten-thousand square feet.”
“And I didn’t realize they allowed Corvettes in Beverly Hills. When I was growing up, the preferred transportati
on was more Germanic in nature. Not that she isn’t a midnight-blue beauty.”
“His name is Jagger.” She shrugged. “I guess you could say I’m a rebel. And I don’t live in Beverly Hills anymore, I live in the Hollywood Hills.”
Chase burst out laughing. From her carefully sculpted French twist to the French manicure on her fingertips, Nina was the epitome of conservative Beverly Hills no matter what her actual address read. Right down to the edgy-but-not-gaudy Alexander McQueens on her narrow feet.
One more reason for him to stick to business around her. He’d never fit in her world, hadn’t even fit in before he dumped college in favor of life in an RV with party-hard musicians.
“Fine, I’m not so much a rebel.” She twisted her mouth to the side and crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought we might present a more, ah, realistic picture if we knew each other a little better.”
Chase cocked his head toward the house. “Come on in.”
He unlocked the door and ushered her inside, watching her butt move seductively from side to side in a flowery sundress. Chase shook himself and hurried past, leading the way into the kitchen. “I think dinner last night was a good start. We didn’t stop to answer questions which will increase their curiosity.” Now was the time to call it off. Tell her he changed his mind and would deal with a solo night at the gala later in the week. “I was thinking another quiet dinner tonight would be a good second stop. We could skip the press altogether, if you want.” Apparently his brain was now being controlled by another part of his anatomy. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, cursing himself, and downed the contents. The cool drink did nothing to stop the burning at her nearness. Or the stupidity of asking her out again when he should be cutting them both loose.
“But the entire point of this is to get good press, not no press.”