by Nicole Helm
Vivvy placed her bag on the table and began to pull folders out of it. Though her face remained businesslike and unreadable, Nate noticed there was a slight tremor in her hands as she pushed identical folders toward him and Ry.
Nate looked down at the folder. A bright white label read VIVVY MARSH PRODUCTIONS in big, bold print.
“What is this?” he demanded, not even bothering to open to the papers inside.
Vivvy folded her hands together, looked down at the folder rather than meeting his gaze. “It’s a business plan. A proposal. It’s a lot of things.”
Nate could hear Ryan flipping through the pages, but Nate still couldn’t get his hands to do the same. “What happened between you and Tyson?”
Vivvy’s gaze moved from the folders to Nate’s face. He did everything he could to keep his expression hard, unfeeling.
“We no longer saw eye to eye. I still believe in the project the three of us came up with, and I know you two aren’t interested in the family angle Tyson wanted to pursue.” She blinked, and looked down at her hands. “Unless you’ve changed your minds.”
“I never wanted this damn show. Not once, ever. I agreed to the stupid me and Ry thing for you.”
Her brows drew together and then her mouth flattened into a scowl. “Right. Because you had nothing to gain from it.”
“I—” He tried to formulate an argument, but she was right. Damn it. He’d agreed to the second show because of her, yes, but because it would give him something too. Publicity and opportunity. He’d agreed because it was a good business decision as long as Mom, Dad, and Grandpa were out of the way.
“I realize you’ll need time to think about it. I can only stay in Demo until Wednesday, but I want you to take your time. Look over this. Talk to each other about it. It’s still not a guarantee. By going with a start-up, there will be more risks, including Tyson getting a little prickly about competition from a former employee. I can’t make any promises, but it’s something.”
Something. “Until you go back to LA and change your mind again?”
Her head snapped back, and she frowned. “I tried, Nate. I quit my job over the family angle. You don’t have to agree to this idea. You don’t have to believe me. I just had to try.” After a long pause, she pointed back to the folders in front of them. “If you have any questions, you still have my cell and my e-mail. I can come out and meet with you both any time before noon on Wednesday.”
Ryan stood and nodded. “We’ll take a look, Vivvy.” He held out his hand and she smiled as she shook it. “Where are you staying?”
Her hands dropped to her sides. “Oh, well…” Her eyes darted back and forth. “Um.”
Her evasion was an uncomfortable reminder that he still cared, that she could still worry him. That he wanted her to be safe and sound and with him. “Where, Vivvy?”
“I’m, um, staying at Ivy Vines, but—”
The anger was starting to win against control. He stood, gripped the table in an effort to let some of the pressure go that way. “Are you nuts?”
“No.”
She offered nothing more, and Nate was sure he was about to grind his teeth into dust. “Why the hell are you staying at Ivy Vines when you know what it’s like?”
“It’s all I can afford,” she snapped. Shoulders back, chin up, defiance waved off of her. “Deciding to go into business for myself was quite a financial undertaking. At this point, I don’t have investors. I was hoping to have a show to shop before I looked for more backing. Travel is out of pocket, so I’ve had to cut some corners.”
“Christ. You are nuts. You know what would have cut some damn corners? A phone call. You can’t stay at Ivy Vines.”
Vivvy pulled her bag onto her shoulder, walked around the table so they were face-to-face with no barrier between them. “You don’t have any say in the matter.”
“The hell I don’t. I don’t know what kind of crazy pills you’ve been taking the past week, but there’s no way in hell you’re staying in Ivy Vines. Unless being raped and murdered is appealing to you.” The words flew out of his mouth, angry and stupid. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was overreacting, but he couldn’t get a handle on it, couldn’t let the anger fade or die. He wanted to hold her too badly, and anger was a much better option than getting his heart stomped on again.
“I can take care of myself,” she returned, drilling him in the chest with her index finger. “I survived twenty-seven years without you in my life, Nate Harrington. So shove it.”
Nate knew they weren’t just talking about Ivy Vines anymore, or the TV show. They were both overreacting. She was so focused on the show, and he wanted her to be focused on anything but the damn thing that had screwed everything up between them.
“Fine, but don’t come crying to me when your precious laptop gets stolen or some creep breaks into your hotel room.”
“Ha!” She turned on a heel and stormed out.
Ryan patted Nate’s shoulder. “You guys are made for each other, bro.”
“Fuck off.” Nate shrugged Ry’s hand off, stomped out of the room. Made for each other? Nothing said made for each other like an inability to communicate. Nothing said made for each other like a woman who cared more about her job than the people in her life and a man who couldn’t keep his emotions under control.
Made for each other? Not by a long shot. They were on opposite sides of the spectrum in every way.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean Nate had gotten over her. No, he still wanted her. All of her.
…
Vivvy stood in the slushy rain outside Nate’s house. The heat of embarrassment fought off the cold of the ice falling around her. She couldn’t possibly go knock on the door. She couldn’t do this after the stand she’d taken a few hours before.
But there’d been a rat. In. Her. Bed. A rat. Vivvy shuddered at the memory of the creature brushing against her leg. Nausea rolled in her stomach. She couldn’t go back to Ivy Vines and her credit card didn’t have enough left on it to go stay in Addington for even one night. Not if she wanted to have enough gas to get back to Wichita on Wednesday. Hiring a lawyer to look at her Tyson contract had depleted her meager savings.
So, what were her choices? Find somewhere to sleep in her car? It was cold, and she was afraid she’d be iced in by the end of the night. She certainly didn’t have the funds to leave the car running for eight straight hours of going nowhere. She had rationed gas and food down to the last cent and things were already going wrong.
How could she go crawling to Nate after the things he’d said? She was not crazy. She was a smart, capable woman. She’d come here to find a way they could both get what they want, but he’d thrown it in her face.
Maybe that was partially her fault. She’d focused on business, and she hadn’t once given him even a hint that she was here for him.
Tears had been threatening for the last hour and Vivvy finally indulged. After all, icy rain poured down her face, why not mix it up with a few tears?
When Vivvy started to shake from the cold, she knew she had to make a decision once and for all. Why not go for it? Why not put it all out on the table? She was already a mess. What would be the harm in letting Nate know that? It wasn’t like he was her biggest fan right now anyway.
What the hell did dignity matter?
Vivvy’s shoulder slumped as she trudged over the icy ground toward Nate’s house. Lights shone inside and she had to swallow down the urge to flee in the opposite direction.
She knocked on the door, not giving herself time to retreat. Best to do it before she could second-guess herself any further.
Nate opened the door looking all big, handsome, dry, and warm.
His mouth dropped open as he took in her appearance. She winced, sure she looked like some kind of bedraggled orphan with runny eye makeup.
“V-Vivvy.” He stared for another long minute before he got it together. “Come inside.” He pulled her in, rushed over to the couch, and grabbed a worn-lo
oking blanket off the back. Though Vivvy opened her mouth to protest, he wrapped the blanket around her quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I know I shouldn’t have come.”
His hands gripped her shoulders, hard. “Did something happen at Ivy Vines?”
It shouldn’t, it really shouldn’t, but the concern in his voice warmed off some of the icy cold. “Well, kind of, but—”
“What happened? Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
“It was a rat,” she blurted, wishing he would let her shoulders go, wishing he would pull her close.
“A rat?” His grip loosened, though he didn’t let go.
“In my bed,” she added, wishing he wouldn’t loosen his grip. Wishing he’d hold on tighter and tell her everything would be fine.
“There was a rat in your bed?”
She looked up, nodded. His mouth almost quirked upward and with just that little tic she had a surge of hope. Maybe he didn’t hate her. Maybe if she laid it all out, they could figure something out. That was probably crazy, but after sharing a bed with a rat and standing for at least ten minutes in an icy downpour, she was pretty convinced she’d lost her mind anyway.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Ryan demanded, walking out of the spare bedroom. “Oh.” He took in Vivvy’s mussed appearance. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Rat,” she offered weakly. Nate’s fingers tightened on her shoulders and she looked up at him. “Can we talk? Alone?” If she was going to lay it all on the line, she didn’t want an audience.
He jerked a chin toward his room and she avoided eye contact with Ryan as she walked over. She clutched the blanket around her, trying to hold off any obvious shivers.
“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” Nate said. He slammed the door behind him as he entered the room and went over to his closet and rummaged around in the messy piles of clothes.
He shoved some sweats at her. “They’ll be big, but they’ll do.”
Vivvy dropped the now-damp blanket. Nate turned so his back was to her, as if he’d never seen her naked before. Maybe he didn’t want to see her naked ever again. It would serve her right.
She shed her wet clothes as quickly as possible, shivering against the cool air on her wet skin. She pulled on Nate’s oversized sweatpants, pulled the ties as tightly as they’d go. Right before she pulled on the sweatshirt, she caught Nate peeking.
“Hey!”
“Geez, I’m only human,” he muttered. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, but his head didn’t turn away again. “What do you want to talk about?”
He stood next to his closet with arms crossed over his chest. The muscles of his jaw were clenched and every line on his face was a firm groove. He was all tense muscle. One big block of ice against everything she was feeling. And yet there was something about the way he looked at her that made her heart warm.
Vivvy had no idea why that made her want to spit it all out. Especially knowing it might bounce back into an even bigger disaster than she was already in, but she wanted it out. She’d been keeping it inside, now she wanted it gone. Maybe then it would stop affecting her judgment.
“I think I’m in love with you.” The words fell out like a whoosh, and left an empty, jittery feeling in their wake.
His expression didn’t change. His arms didn’t unfold. He stood, an immovable, unreadable statue. “You think you’re in love with me?”
“Yes.” Not exactly the strong statement she had hoped to make when the yes came out like a stuttered question.
“Why are you wincing?”
“I’m not wincing.”
“You look like you’re about to get punched.”
Vivvy sunk onto the edge of the bed. “Well, a ‘screw you, Vivvy’ would probably be equivalent to a punch.” This wasn’t how she’d expected things to go. Not this casual, unaffected observation of how she’d delivered her declaration.
“And in what fucked-up world do you live where I’d respond with a ‘screw you’?”
“This exchange isn’t much better.”
His arms finally unfolded and some of the clenched stoicism in his expression softened. “I don’t know what to do with you. You keep showing up talking about business and now it’s about being in love with me? Which is it?” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It can’t be both. It’s one or the other.”
“But it’s both.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You want me to pick one. I get it. You or the show, but can’t you see I already did? I came here with a plan. A plan for us. Not just me and not just a business. If this was just business, why the hell would I come to Demo, Kansas?”
“Vivvy—”
“I spent a fortune on a lawyer to make sure I could pursue this show without getting sued by Tyson. And it’s not because you’re the only show possibility out there, Nate. It’s because I wanted a reason to be here. To be with you. To find a way we can both have what we want.”
She couldn’t read his expression. Not granite pissed-off anymore, but what? The tension was still there, but the anger simmering off him seemed to dissipate.
“And I never would have come up with the idea without your example, you know. Seeing you, the way this is yours, it made me want something of my own. I just needed a few extra pushes to get there.”
“What if I don’t want a show? Even if it’s the show I agreed to.”
Vivvy took a deep breath. It would set her back. It would suck, but she’d made this gamble knowing that his saying no was a possibility. Loving was a gamble; that’s why she’d avoided it for so long.
She had to believe she could handle it whether it paid off or not. “Then we’ll figure it out. I’ll find a different show to start my business on and…it doesn’t change anything between you and me. I’m still in love with you. I still want to be with you. I didn’t give up my job and my life in LA to not get you out of the deal.”
His jaw hung open for a second. “What do you mean your life in LA?”
“Well, now that I’m in business for myself, I’m not tied to LA. I’ll still have to go there, but with the Internet, I can do most things anywhere. I’d still need to travel and still want to, but I could spend a decent amount of time here. If I did that, we’d have time to really be together.”
She took a deep breath. This was it. Putting it all on the line. “All you need to say is that you love me, that you want me here. We can figure everything else out from there.”
…
Nate tried to wrap his head around everything she was saying. Standing there in his oversized sweats, looking sincere and beautiful and hopeful. So damn hopeful.
His chest constricted. She was giving him everything he wanted. And what did he have to give her? A crappy little town in the middle of Kansas? A crazy family who would always say the wrong thing at the wrong time?
He could give her the show, but somehow that felt so minuscule now. Compared to everything she was ready to give up for him.
Him.
She loved him.
“Why would you want to leave LA? What could living here possibly give you?”
She smiled a little, her hands clasped in front of her. “You.”
Christ. It just about broke him. He crossed over to her, framed her face with his hands, and looked directly into her dark brown eyes. “I love you, Vivvy.” It didn’t feel so scary anymore. “I want you here.” The hurt lifted, vanishing into the smile on her face.
“That’s enough right now, right?”
Enough, maybe, but he wanted to give her more than enough. “You are the calm anchor I’ve always needed. I wanted you here even when I knew I shouldn’t.”
Tears shone in her eyes. “I wanted to be here, too, and I haven’t let myself want to be anywhere in a very long time.”
He pulled back, studying her face. “We’re going to make this work. Your business. My business. Us. Everything.” It wasn’t a question.<
br />
“Absolutely,” she replied with a firm nod.
Between the two of them there was enough determination to make it fact.
Epilogue
Vivvy drove through downtown Demo, irritated when she managed to hit the one and only stoplight on red.
She glanced at her phone. She’d met with five potential investors the past three days in LA and had yet to hear anything back. She needed just one to give her some backing. Just one.
And a B-list star or one of those people famous for being famous to be interested. So far she had one former child star on tap, but she needed more than someone no longer relevant. Drumming her fingers on the wheel, she glared at the red light that made no sense since there were no other cars around her.
Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the text message. Be home by now if you let me fly you.
Vivvy grinned and hit her foot to the accelerator when the light changed to green. Home. She had a home and someone waiting for her there.
Kind of amazing.
When she pulled up to the Harrington parking lot, she let go of the little flutter of panic. Allowing herself to make a home somewhere, to belong somewhere, hadn’t been easy, but she was getting there.
No one could take this away. She got out of the car, straightened her shoulders. Nope, this was hers now.
Hers.
No panic allowed.
She pushed into the main office, her heels clacking on the concrete and echoing in the building. Her heartbeat kicked up. Stupid. She’d been gone four days. It was silly to be excited to be back. Excited to see Nate.
She amped up her pace, and almost ran smack-dab into Ryan.
“Whoa. A little happy to be home, are we?”
Vivvy bit back a smile. She was pretty sure she’d never get tired of the word home. “It’s not half-bad.”
“Hey, I’m glad you’re back, I’ve got to talk to you about this celebrity thing.”
Vivvy nodded, looking past Ryan to the back windows for Nate. “Sure. Sure.”
“Jeez, go make out with my brother first,” he muttered, walking away. “It’ll keep.”
Vivvy was only too happy to do exactly that. She stepped out the back door to the hangars and runway. Nate stood next to a plane, chatting with Bob. He was wearing the jeans, T-shirt, and cowboy boots ensemble she’d first seen him in, with that windswept, sexy air about him.