Lose Me: (New Adult Billionaire Romance) (Broken Idols)

by M. C. Frank

  He lets out a harsh sound, as though he’d like to throttle said friend.

  “She was trying to help,” I say quickly. “I made the decision.” I pause for a second, thinking. “Actually, even that’s not entirely true. My fear made the decision. You did nothing wrong. And when I saw you with Heather, I thought—”

  I stop.

  When I saw you with Heather, I thought I’d been right. I hadn’t been that important to you after all.

  How to say that out loud? But it’s true. It’s another fear. Another demon I have to fight against. After the worst has happened to you, it’s somehow easier to keep expecting the worst. And it’s the good stuff you find hard to put your faith in.

  I got used to feeling guilty and sad and worried the short time I was with him in Corfu; now I don’t know how to enjoy him. Us. Me.

  “When I saw you with Heather. . . ” I repeat, but still the right words won’t come.

  But Wes is already nodding with understanding. “You thought you hadn’t mattered to me, after all,” he says. I swear that dude can see inside my head. My eyes snap to his in surprise. “I know you’ve been thinking about this from the beginning. I just wish you’d trust me.”

  He sounds hurt again; I hate it.

  “How could I think that a random girl you met on set would matter to you, Wes? I mean, your world is so different from mine, I can’t even imagine what kind of life you’re living.”

  He laughs ruefully, repeating ‘just a random girl’ under his breath. “No, I didn’t say you weren’t right. All those things that happened with Elle, the stuff I told you not to read in the tabloids. . . You were that important, Ari.” He turns me so that we’re face to face, so close that our noses are almost touching. His voice is impossibly low and intense. It shakes me to my bones. “You are. But basically, yeah, you were right about the kind of life I’ve been living.”

  He stops to moisten his lips, and I notice for the first time that he’s shaking a little bit. As though he’s shaking inside, too. As though this conversation is tearing him in apart. As though I’m not the only one who’s feeling like this.

  “I am that type of person,” he repeats. “The person who’s been with a million girls, insignificant girls, forgettable girls.” He winces. “The person who cares about nothing and nobody but myself. But you made me care. You made me care, Ari, you were the first person who ever did that to me. At first, I cared in spite of myself. I didn’t want to care whether or not you died, but I did. I jumped from that deck and I found you in the water and then I forced myself to remember the lifeguarding lessons I’d taken when I was seventeen.” He passes a hand across his chin. “I didn’t want to care, Ari, you know what I was. Who I was, you saw me, when everyone else saw a movie star. You saw the real me, the sorry, arrogant moron I was. And then I wanted to care. I wanted to be that person, the person who cares about others—who cares about you. You changed me.”

  “What happened to me changed you,” I correct him. “And I’m not sure it was a good thing.”

  “It was a good thing,” he replies. His voice sounds so calm, so sure. I wish I felt that way. “It changed us both.”

  I stand up, still sniffling like an idiot, and try to straighten my pajama top.

  “What if it starts happening again?” I say, looking at the wall instead of him. “I can’t stop thinking about that. And being here again, in a hospital, I just. . . I can’t. . . ” It’s getting hard to breathe again. I can’t stand this. Why am I still like this?

  Wes takes me by the shoulders and turns me to face him. Green eyes shining with concern and pain fill my vision and I notice a lone tear making its way down his right cheek.

  “Stop,” he says. “Come here.” He wraps his body around me and his heat envelops me. I feel his chest suck in. “I need to know two things,” he says slowly, but I can hear the urgency in his voice.

  “Wha. . . what are they?” I stutter and his face breaks into a smirk.

  “Do you still feel anything for me?” he asks.

  “I feel everything for you,” I whisper. Emotions assault me and my voice wavers, but he tightens his hold on me. I feel him shiver against me.

  “Yeah, let’s not get into the ‘everything’ right now,” he says, rubbing against mine. “Gosh, you’re killing me. Even in this ridiculous yellow top that covers you up you’re the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen. What is this, a bear?”

  “Shut up,” I murmur, and I grab a fistful of his shirt.

  “You shut me up,” he answers, and brushes my lips with his, as a challenge. His hand slides down my back, and heat travels through the thick fabric to turn my bare skin on fire.

  I’m not ashamed to say I blush furiously. He watches me with an appreciative gleam in his eye, but then he takes a tiny step back, letting a little air come between our bodies.

  “Ari.” His expression turns serious. “You know I love you,” he says, searching my face. “You know, right? I did yell it outside the operation room as you were being wheeled in, although now it occurs to me you were heavily sedated and it might bear repeating.”

  “I did hear it. I kind of wondered if I was dreaming, but yeah. I heard it. Wes.” I say his name the same way he said mine, and, hearing it, he shuts his eyes tightly in relief. “I heard it so many times. I heard it again every time I pressed replay on ‘How to finish a boat’ and ‘How to pick up a girl’ on YouTube.” He takes in a sharp breath, biting his lip. “And yes, it so bears repeating.”

  He cups my neck and brings his lips hard on mine. “I love you,” he says against my mouth.

  His hands are running down my back, sending a wave of heat all over my body, and right then a nurse comes into the room to tell him his papers are ready and he can go. We part abruptly and as soon as she leaves, Wes pulls me to him and starts kissing my neck.

  “If we don’t stop right now,” he mumbles, his voice muffled against my skin, “we’re going to end up on the hospital bed, and that nurse will barge in on us at the worst possible moment.”

  “End up on the—”

  “Do you have any idea how sexy you are in those jeans?” he says in a rough voice.

  “I’m wearing half of my pajamas and the cheapest jeans I own.”

  “You could wear a sackcloth and make me crazy. And this pixie hair. . . I could barely keep my hands to myself that day in the rain. Your wet shirt was pure torture, they way it was peeled to your skin, and the raindrops that were clinging to your throat. . . ” he stops to tilt his head against my neck and run his lips all the way down to my collarbone. “I mean,” he murmurs against my skin, “how much is a bloke supposed to take?”

  “Hey, that tickles,” I say, hearing the nurse’s hurried steps in the corridor again, and trying to exorcise the memories this particular sound awakens. His mouth trailing against my shoulder helps a lot.

  He tips a finger under my top and rubs the skin under it. He lifts his head and takes a rugged breath. I feel his muscles tense beneath my touch.

  “You’re not. . . Are you. . . . ?” his question trails into silence.

  “A virgin? Well, yeah. But you seem about to remedy that.” Still he doesn’t relax. “I was joking, don’t stop,” I add as he removes his hand from my sleeve.

  “No, I know,” he says absently. He stands up and goes to stand by the window. “Ari, what you said before about forgiveness. . . I don’t just want to be forgiven. I want to be different. Different to who I was, different to everybody else, if that’s what it takes.”

  “If that’s what what takes?”

  “I’m not a virgin.” He turns to face me, his eyes serious.

  “I kind of knew that,” I say, smiling uncertainly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What? Why are you—?” Now I’m confused.

  “You should be the first,” he says slowly, as though he’s thinking this up as he goes. “You should be the only one. It should be you, us, this. Not some girl at the back of a movie set. . . I feel
like all the sex I’ve had before you is something I need to be forgiven for.”

  He lifts his eyes to mine. They’re glistening with tears.

  “No,” I say, reaching him in two strides. “No, you don’t need to explain yourself to anyone, you don’t need to apologize. Maybe you’re tired. Come on, let’s get you home.”

  “Do you get what I’m saying?” he insists. “I want to fix us first. . . I want to fix me before I’m yours.”

  “I get it.” My eyes start stinging again. “I wish. . . I wish I could sort myself first too. But that may take time.”

  He comes closer and lifts a finger to wipe my cheek.

  “Not a problem,” he whispers, his voice impossibly tender. “Baby, we’ve got nothing but time,” he tells me, leaning down to press his lips on my temple. “Come with me?”

  I nod and he walks to the bathroom to pack his things.

  We’ve got nothing but time.

  Time.

  Huh. How about that?

  ◊◊◊

  The hospital’s security guards and Wes’ bodyguards escort us to the car. The driver is the same guy who took me to Wes’ house. This time around I learn that his name is Archie and that he’s got a great-great grandmother on his mother’s side who might have been Greek.

  We chat the whole way, and Wes doesn’t talk at all, but he just lies on the seat, his head tipped back, his eyes shut behind his dark glasses. But his lips are permanently curled into a smile.

  Once we’re at his house, Wes walks in and yells:

  “Helen! Get down here, my darling.”

  Helen comes mumbling down the stairs, but her eyes sparkle as soon as she sees Wes. Wes folds his long body until he’s eye to eye with her and leans down to give her a peck on the cheek, proceeding to tell her to take the rest of the day off.

  “Go home, feed your kids,” are his exact words. Then he turns to me. “Shower?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

  I walk into one of the bathrooms and turn on the shower. Scalding hot water pours over my head and I fumble with the taps, trying to fix the temperature.

  The water falls on me at full force, and I imagine it washing the night’s sweat and fear away. I close my eyes, letting it seep into my pores. Hot water on cool skin.

  I’m lathering shampoo into my short hair and starting to hum a Christmas melody that’s been stuck in my head for over a week, when I stop, hand in midair.

  Wes is taking a shower as well.

  He’s somewhere in this huge house, standing naked under the showerhead, his ripped muscles glistening with droplets as the water hits his skin, running down his. . .

  I stop myself before I finish that thought. Suddenly the water feels so hot on my skin, it’s burning me. My knees have turned so weak, I have to lean against the glass door.

  Stop it. Right now. Finish in here and get out.

  I finish washing as quickly as humanly possible, and get out, walking into the other room—yes, the bathroom is actually split into two rooms in this place. Next to the sink, neatly folded in a pile, there’s one of his sweaters and a pair of sweatpants that could fit two of me.

  He left them out for me to wear, I think as I put them on after quickly drying my hair.

  ‘I hate your wigs so much,’ Wes’ words echo in my head.

  I look into the fogged-up mirror; there’s a different person in there. It’s not the Ari with the long, brown hair who’s working for the first time in a real movie set, and is scared to meet her own eyes. It’s not the Ari with the hollow cheeks and the bald head of the hospital, either.

  It’s someone else.

  But at the same time, it’s not.

  This person I see in the mirror, this girl with the sharp planes on her face and the fierce look in her eyes; with the muscles in her arms and her short hair that’s beginning to fall across her forehead. . . I know her.

  She’s been through a lot, but she’s becoming stronger because of it. She’s becoming herself.

  The pain behind her eyes, the determination in the set of her lips, those words that are waiting to be said in her throat. . . I know them. I know her.

  She’s me.

  ◊◊◊

  As I walk down the stairs, the aroma of thyme and basil wafts up to my nose. I follow the smell to the kitchen. Wes is over the stove, chopping vegetables into a pan. A red sauce is shimmering in the corner.

  He turns towards me, eyes turning into a dazzling green as soon as he sees me. His hair is still wet, and his entire face is transformed by a dazzling smile.

  “Hey,” he says, setting a wooden spoon down, and walking up to me. “You clean up good.”

  I was feeling a bit self-conscious in these huge clothes that are drowning me, but Wes doesn’t take his eyes off me. He keeps staring at me with that look in his eyes again.

  “Thanks for leaving these out for me,” I say, trying to tuck that stupid piece of hair behind my ear. It won’t stay.

  He lets out a long sigh. “You’ve got to stop wearing my clothes, Phelps. You’re going to kill me.”

  There’s naked desire in his eyes, telling me he might have been having the same thoughts as me while he was in the shower.

  “There’s that blush again,” he murmurs, stopping just two paces away from me.

  “Sorry.”

  “I love it, actually.”

  Laughter bubbles up my throat. He raises his eyebrows in question. He’s wearing loose jeans and a simple tee, and going barefoot; he’s so gorgeous my chest tightens. “The way you said ‘actually’ was so. . . British.”

  The eyebrow climbs further up. “Was it now? And that’s funny why?”

  “It’s not funny, not really.” I shrug. “It’s just. . . you.”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “Know what else is ‘just. . . me’?”

  Before I know what he’s up to, he’s grabbed me and kissed me full on the mouth. Then, leaving me almost sagging, he asks casually:

  “Can you grab the salt?”

  The forgotten vegetables are sizzling.

  “You’re full of surprises.” I hand it to him, wiping my lips. “Are you ‘actually’ cooking?”

  “Well, I’m trying to. Only thing I can make. So far.” He flashes me a smile.

  “It smells delicious—almost like Greek food.”

  He laughs out loud, fake-punching me at the shoulder.

  “Wow, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

  “It was. You’ve tasted Greek food. Hey, can I cook these butterfly thingies?” I look longingly at a packet of fancy pasta on a shelf—we call them ‘bowtie’ pasta in Greece.

  “It’s farfalle and you most definitely can. Okay, here we go.”

  He brings the large wooden spoon to my lips and waits until I open my mouth to taste the sauce. I make yummy noises but pretty soon it becomes obvious that I’ve scorched my lips, so he runs into the next room to bring ice cubes.

  He puts one between his teeth and approaches me menacingly.

  “What are you doing with that?” I ask, giggling.

  “Don’t move,” he says through closed lips. He stands in front of me and presses his lips to mine, passing me the ice cube. He cups my neck as I let it melt against my pallet. “Too cold for you,” he murmurs next to my mouth. “Had to warm it up.”

  Then Hook trots in and I scoop down to scratch behind his ear—and the place where his other ear would be. “Oh, I get it now,” I say. “He’s ‘Hook’ like a pirate who’s lost his ear instead of his hand.”

  Wes is still smiling. “Looks like I’ve got some serious competition there.”

  I don’t answer, because Hook jumps up, putting his paws on my shoulders, and I pretend to fall over. We roll around on the floor, and I tickle him all over. He licks my face with enthusiasm.

  Ten minutes later, we’re both exhausted, our tongues hanging out in tandem, and we flop on our backs on the thick carpet to rest. Wes is standing still, the kettle blowing up a steam behind him, watching us with a curious express
ion on his face.

  “Oh, right,” I say. “I was helping you.”

  “No, don’t get up, it’s fine,” he says in a hoarse voice, picking up a fork. “You look. . . ” He has to stop and clear his throat. “Table will be ready in. . . ” he glances at his watch. “Ten seconds.”

  He barely touches his food; I almost say something about it, because he hasn’t eaten since last evening, but then I see that his face is beaming, so I don’t press him.

  Five minutes after we sit down, his phone rings. He looks down, ready to turn it off.

  “It’s Ollie,” he says to me, wincing slightly. He answers it.

  Ollie proceeds to yell at him for about twenty minutes full—Wes gets up to go into the next room, but I can still hear my brother’s voice through the earpiece. Then Wes tells him that I’m there, and Ollie must ask him to pass the phone to me, because he walks back into the kitchen and sits across from me.

  “Ari found me,” he says to Ollie, clutching his phone and sending a glance at me, his eyes hooded. “She kept me breathing, she saved my life.”

  I can’t hear what Ollie is saying, except a screeching sound coming from the phone.

  “He wants to talk to you,” Wes tells me in a second, “although I wouldn’t recommend it.” He hands me the phone and stands up to give me some privacy, but I lift a hand to stop him. He looks pale again.

  “Hey, bro,” I say.

  Ollie doesn’t speak right away. It sounds like his breath is coming short. “Ari, I swear to—”

  I interrupt him. “Where are you?”

  “I’m landing in an hour,” he replies. His voice sounds tortured and impatient at the same time and I wish I was there with him.

  “He’s fine,” I tell him quickly. “He really is. Don’t worry, Ollie, the danger’s passed. He’s perfect now.”

  Wes bites his lip. “Perfect is a bit of an overstatement,” he whispers to me, “considering there’s an entire table between us.”

  I stifle a laugh.

  “What did the buffoon say to you?” Ollie asks me. “Just tell him to remember this is my little sister he’s got in his lair and to keep his paws off you.”