by Scott, Inara
#
“I suppose you’re pleased with yourself,” Ryker grumbled. They sat together in the viewing room, the projection screen covered with an enormous shot of Lena, laughing and kissing Jake. It pissed him off every time he looked at it.
“I’m happy for them,” Alix said. “Aren’t you?”
“I would be happier if they’d been able to focus on their work today. After that debacle this morning, you’d think they were a couple of love-struck teenagers.”
“We got great film. You have everything you need here. Just edit out the parts where they declare their undying love to each other.”
“God save me from actors who can’t remember that they’re supposed to be acting.” He knew he was spiraling out of control, but the fury was growing and his body practically shaking with rage.
“You would think they’d done it just to spite you,” she said. “What on earth do you have to be so pissed about?”
“I expect them to be professionals,” he said, slamming one fist down on an open palm. “I expect them to act, not use my camera time for a declaration of love.”
“Let’s be honest here,” she said carefully. “Are you pissed because they used camera time to declare their love or because they fell in love in the first place?”
“That wasn’t love,” he said flatly. “That was lust. Pure, honest lust. Nothing wrong with that, except the delusion that it means anything more.”
“For God’s sake,” she exploded, jumping off of the couch. “How can you say that? Were you not there today? Did you not see what happened on that bed? There was magic there. Everyone felt it.”
“You wanted to feel it,” he argued. “You want to believe in it.”
“Of course I do!” She threw up her hands and spun around to face him. “Can we cut to the chase? Let’s talk about last night. Let’s talk about what happened between us.”
“We had sex,” he said, stomach falling. He had known this conversation was coming. It had only been a matter of time. “That’s it.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It was more than that. We made love. I saw it. I saw it in your eyes.”
“I like you, Alix,” he said slowly. “I like you a lot. But that’s it. Whatever you saw was your own invention.”
She blinked, and her jaw moved forward an inch. “An invention?”
“It wasn’t real.” He worked to keep his voice firm but gentle. “Whatever you felt, whatever you think you saw was just lust. Sex. Animals reacting to each other in the most primitive way possible.”
“Animals,” she repeated. Her voice was beginning to thicken. The cold feeling in his stomach intensified. “You think we were just like animals last night. I could have been a complete stranger, and you would barely have noticed the difference.”
This was going even worse than he’d imagined. “Well, look, it isn’t as though there wasn’t any feeling. I mean, I appreciated you being there last night. But if I’d had any sense, things would never have gone that far. I had too much to drink. It was a mistake.”
“Not for me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m glad it happened. And I’m not going to let you pretend you didn’t feel it too.”
“It was just sex,” he repeated, feeling his control of the situation falling away. He wanted her to cry, to rage at him. But all he saw in her was the deadly calm she’d shown the night of Gunther’s party. “You’re mixing everything up.”
She shook her head. “No. Not anymore. Now it’s you who’s got it confused. That thing you felt last night—that emotion you felt—it wasn’t just sex, Ryker. It was love. There—I’ve said it. I fell in love with you. That’s why I did what I did. Not because of some mistake, or because you drank too much, or because I was overcome with lust. Because I fell in love with you, and I didn’t want to walk away from the way I felt anymore. So don’t tell me we were just a couple of animals screwing in the woods, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. He thought he was prepared to hear her say it, but it was still a painful, wrenching blow. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d meant to stay away. Why couldn’t he have just stayed away? “I didn’t feel anything. It was just good sex. I’m sorry if your feelings are hurt, but that’s all it was.”
She studied him silently. “You’re such a hypocrite.”
“A hypocrite?”
“Yes, and I can’t believe it took me this long to figure out.”
He raised a hand to his forehead. “Alix, you’re not making any sense. Look, we’re almost done with the movie. Can’t we just forget about this and move on?”
“Of course you want to forget about it. You’re scared,” she accused. “You’re even worse than I was, and I was pretty bad.”
“Scared?” His brows contracted in genuine surprise. “Scared of what?”
“Scared of love.”
He stopped. He would have laughed, but she was so serious he felt the irritation rise back up in his chest. “Alix, you’re being ridiculous. I’m not scared of anything. I just don’t believe in the same things you do. I don’t believe in love.”
“You don’t believe in love.” She tapped her foot and blew out a breath, eyeing him with disgust. “What a crock. I can’t believe you can say these things with a straight face.”
That was when he started to get angry. He’d tried to be patient, tried not to hurt her. But he could stay patient for only so long. “You’ve got no reason to be like this. I was honest with you at every step of the way. You knew how I felt.”
“Oh, I know what you told me. You lied to yourself, Ryker, not me. You’ve been lying to yourself this whole time. Maybe all your life. Because the truth is that you are so damn scared of love, you have to run around pretending it doesn’t exist. But it does, and you know it. You know it better than anyone. You saw what happened to your mother, and it terrifies you. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t fight so hard.”
Ryker swallowed hard. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? Then explain to me why you go to Rosalia’s family dinner every month, even though you claim to hate it. Tell me why you care so much about what Rosalia thinks of you, and why it hurts so badly that Emilio disapproves of your lifestyle. Tell me why you can hardly live with yourself when you think your mother died without you telling her you loved her.”
“Enough.” His voice lashed out like a whip. “Clearly, I made a mistake when I let you get involved in my personal affairs.”
“Am I wrong?” she taunted. “Can you really say I’m wrong? You drove your mother away. You drove them all away with your tough-guy attitude. I watched you at dinner, Ryker, and yes, Rosalia is overbearing, and Emilio complained about your lifestyle. But that’s not what I saw there. I saw a group of people who wanted desperately to be a part of your life. Hector and Eduardo worship you—you know that, right? And Emilio, well, he looks at you with so much pride it’s incredible. You saved Maria’s life, to hear her tell it. And Rosalia sits there, practically aching for you to show some sign of approval for all the things she does. And what do you do? You ignore them. You shut them out. And someday you’re going to push them too far, and they won’t come back.”
He stood and walked toward the door. “This conversation is over.”
“I fell in love with you,” she said to his retreating back. “Your worst nightmare came true. So what are you going to do now? Push me away too? Tell me I’m crazy, that what I felt last night was all in my head? You were there. We were joined, Ryker. We were one.”
He spun around. “Of course we were joined,” he said, deliberately making his voice cold and hard. “That’s what happens when you have sex.”
She threw up her hands, her voice beginning to tremble. “Fine. Run away. Lie to yourself. You won’t have to deal with me anymore. I’m leaving.”
“What?”
“You’ve got all the film you need. Jake and Lena just gave your audience a collective wet dream. You don’t need me anymore.”
He took a deep breath. “Alix, don’t go. Please. This isn’t how I wanted to leave things.”
She pushed past him and headed to the door. “That’s too damn bad. Put the check in the mail. If you need me, I’ll be in Oregon.”
#
Alix slammed the door of the car and raced out of the parking lot, half expecting the security guard to stop her at the gate. But the white-and-red arm swung open with a flash of her pass, and she got a friendly wave from the guard as she pulled out onto the street.
She kept looking in her rearview mirror for the first few minutes, half expecting to see someone running after the car. But that was beyond ridiculous. He wasn’t going to run after her like some love-crazed fool in a movie. He wasn’t going to meet her at the airport either, or catch her as she was boarding the plane.
He was going to watch her leave with a sigh of relief.
The tears started in earnest then, great, hulking sobs that made it impossible to see or drive, so she pulled into a parking lot, dropped her head on the steering wheel, and let her grief take over.
He didn’t love her. Whatever she had seen in his eyes last night wasn’t love or even caring. He had been as cold and hard today as the first day she’d met him. How silly, how incredibly, stupendously silly, to think she might change him, touch his heart, or melt some of the ice that had lodged there so many years before.
What had Gunther said on that day Ryker had come to the beach? “Ryker Valentine is a cold bastard,” he’d said.
Why hadn’t she listened?
She pawed through the glove box of the car, searching for Kleenex or napkins, anything to wipe the disaster her face had become. Finding none, she used her sleeve, rubbing raw the tender skin beneath her eyes.
She stared blindly out the windshield. Was he right? Had she simply been fooling herself last night? Could the look she saw in his eyes have been an illusion?
The thought left her dizzy. She pressed her fingers into her closed eyelids until swirling colors and stars appeared. She had seen something in his eyes when he made love to her, hadn’t she? Was it possible that what she felt was entirely one-sided? A figment of her imagination?
She now understood why Lena had taken ten years to heal from Jake’s infidelity. The pain of rejected love—even when she knew it was coming—was so raw, so utterly consuming, she couldn’t imagine how she could ever look Ryker in the face again, let alone kiss him in front of a camera for an audience of millions.
Alix threw the car into gear and headed for the airport. She had an emergency credit card she could use to buy her ticket home. If Ryker didn’t come through with a check soon enough, she could borrow money from Gunther to pay the bill. It didn’t matter how she got there, really. She simply had to leave. Staying in LA, seeing Gunther, or anyone else she knew, was not an option. She needed Rex. She needed her house and the stark, empty Oregon beach outside her window. She needed the comfort of rain against her windows and clouds moving across the horizon.
She needed to look at her pictures and reassess. Finish the book and take some time off. Gunther had said she was using the book as a crutch, and maybe he was right. He’d been right about so many things. She had been scared to take a risk. And now that she had, she knew why. Because love hurt. It hurt like nothing else in the world.
Numb, unable to think or process anything beyond getting herself on a plane, Alix found a parking spot, locked the car, and made her way to the terminal. She mailed the parking ticket and keys to Gunther, bought a one-way ticket home, and didn’t look back.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Friday dinner at Rosa’s was always unpleasant, but as Ryker left the studio and got in his car, he knew this meal had the potential to be the worst ever. He’d been answering questions all week from the cast and crew about Alix—Where had she gone? Why had she left so abruptly? When would she be back?—and it was driving him mad. Seeing Emilio and Rosa required a healthy hold on his temper at the best of times; coming into the night with a chip on his shoulder was going to make it exponentially harder.
It wasn’t just the questions about Alex he was dreading. Everyone at dinner tonight would be primed for a fight. Emilio was always pissed after Ryker failed to go to his mother’s grave. Rosalia would need extra handling because he’d hurt her feelings when she came to pick up Fifi. He’d managed to upset Maria because she’d called to see if Alix would be coming to dinner, and he’d bitten her head off in response. Hector and Eduardo would hang back, trying not to get crosswise with either Ryker or Rosa, but they’d be disappointed in him too. He could see it in their eyes.
If only she’d stayed. She could have come tonight. She would have helped him with Rosa and Emilio. If Alix were here, everything wouldn’t seem like such a nightmare.
Ryker slammed on the brakes to narrowly avoid running a red light. Had he even thought that? Thought about bringing Alix back to Rosa’s? Alix was gone. She’d done her work, the check was in the mail, and they were finished.
So why did he find himself thinking about her every dammed day?
He changed lanes abruptly, weaving around cars and trucks in an effort to clear his mind of the volley of images that followed. Alix, tears in her eyes as she left the studio for the last time. Alix, in the screening room, cheeks flushed and eyes heavy with pleasure. He had a hollow feeling in his chest every time he walked around the set, simply because she wasn’t there. Looking at film was even worse. He kept turning to talk to her, to mention some idea he had for editing or some complaint about the angle of a camera, and he’d get a painful shock when he realized he was alone.
He’d stopped swimming because he couldn’t walk outside the house without seeing that image of her, sunlight dancing in her hair, Fifi cuddled in her arms. Even his bed was infected. He kept seeing her beneath him, and the sheet tangled around her body in the morning. He’d started sleeping in the guest room just to avoid it.
He had clearly been tainted with some of his mother’s self-destructive romanticism. Or perhaps by Alix’s. After all, he’d been working sixteen or eighteen hours a day with her for a month. It must have affected his brain. Addled his thinking. Which was further proof that it was lucky she had gone. He refused to go where that romanticism would take him. He didn’t like the hollow feeling, or the regret or the loss he was experiencing now. He absolutely would not let it become something even greater.
When Ryker pulled up to Rosalia’s house, Hector stood in the front lawn, talking to Emilio.
“Where’s Daisy?” Emilio asked. “I thought she’d be here with you.”
Ryker gritted his teeth. Right out of the gate, Emilio was going to needle him. Maria knew Daisy wouldn’t be here tonight, and surely she’d told Emilio and Rosa. Emilio was just proving a point, like he always did.
“She went back to Oregon.”
“Too bad. I thought she seemed like a nice girl.”
Ryker inclined his head but kept silent. He refused to let them bait him. He looked longingly at the house and dreamed about grabbing a beer and chugging it like some college kid trying desperately to get drunk as quickly as possible.
“Are you going to see her again?” Emilio asked. “Will she come back to LA when the movie comes out?”
“No.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
Emilio nodded sagely. “I see. You drove her away, then.”
“Oh Lord, Emilio, can’t you give it a rest?” Ryker exploded, hands clenching into fists. “For one time in my life, can’t you give it a damn rest?”
The porch door slammed shut. Rosa stood on the porch her mouth wide with surprise. Little Emilio followed closely at her side, hanging on to her skirt. “Ricardo!” she scolded, gesturing toward the child. “Watch your language, for heaven’s sake.”
The sound of his Spanish name, the trill of the “R,” Emilio’s knowing look—it all combined to send him into a blind fury. “I’ll say whatever I damn well pl
ease,” Ryker said loudly.
“Hector, take Emilio inside,” Rosalia said.
In that moment, her voice—quiet, but with an underlying hint of steel—sounded so much like his mother’s that Ryker actually flinched. When Hector and the little boy disappeared into the house, Rosalia stepped down off the porch.
“While you are in my house,” she snapped, “you’ll be civil, at least.”
“At least? Good to know your expectations of me aren’t high.”
“How can they be?” Rosa shot back stiffly. “I call you, and you don’t call me back. I try to help you, and you insult me and send me home like a servant.”
Ryker stifled a groan. “You took it on yourself to rescue Fifi from me. Don’t blame that one on me.”
“I’m nothing more than a burden to you, am I?” Rosa clicked her tongue in disgust. “This whole family is nothing more to you than an embarrassment and a burden.”
“Are we going there again, Rosa? If so, perhaps I can help fill in the rest of the list for you. I’ve turned my back on Boyle Heights and my heritage and become one with the dark side. I’m ungrateful, disrespectful, and cruel. Anything I missed?”
Rosa closed her eyes. “You started this. All I wanted was for you not to swear in front of the children. Don’t make this into something it isn’t.”
“Right. So this is my fault.”
“Rosa.” Emilio directed a flood of Spanish at her. Ryker didn’t know what he said, but it was clearly about him, because Rosalia kept glancing in his direction as Emilio spoke. She argued briefly with Emilio, but he cut her off with a raised hand. She bowed her head in acknowledgement. Then, after shooting a quick, almost pitying look at Ryker, she disappeared back into the house.
“What did you say to her?” Ryker growled. He hated how vulnerable he felt when they spoke Spanish around him. Worse when they spoke it about him.
“I told her she needed to hold her tongue,” Emilio said calmly.
“Why?”