by India Lee
“I think.” She bit hard on her lower lip. “He never has a camera.”
“Jesus Christ, Amanda.” Liam ran a hand over his mouth as he turned away, bitter disbelief curving his lips. “I understand keeping certain things to yourself but this is something you tell me about.”
“I wasn’t sure if I was overreacting or recognizing him incorrectly,” Amanda lied.
“Assume you never are.”
“Why? So I can give you a bunch of false alarms to worry about?”
“I worry about you anyway, Amanda! This is what keeps me up at night. Thinking about you. Wanting to know that you’re okay, that you’re not so much as bored or lonely let alone being followed by some creep.”
“I didn’t want to give you yet another thing to worry about. You have enough on your plate — enough that I put there.”
“Amanda, if you see him again, will you call me?”
“Probably not.”
Liam grabbed her by the waist again, urgent. “This is about your safety, Amanda. I’m never going to prioritize a job or a movie before that.”
She pushed him away from her. “Well, you have to, Liam. You’re in a contract.”
“I need you to promise you’ll call me if you spot that creep again.”
“So you can break your contract and I can live in guilt forever?”
“I’ll send Connor to save you.”
She tried not to make a face. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can. I find it incredibly sexy that you can. But I need you to let me do things for you sometimes that put my mind at ease. Chalk it up to that.”
“I can’t.” Amanda frowned. “Not if I know it’s going to completely screw something up for you or your career. If you chased that guy down today and laid so much as a finger on him, there would’ve been pictures and Terrence would’ve gotten to instantly fire you from The Legends.”
“Can we have one second where we don’t talk about Terrence or contracts?”
“No, because that’s what’s governing our relationship right now — or our complete lack of one. It’s why we sneak around to see each other and it’s why I don’t tell you things because I know they’ll only worry you and make you do something stupid, something you shouldn’t.”
“It’s stupid for me to protect you from someone who might be dangerous?”
“When we’re under this contract? Yes.”
“Then fuck this contract.” Liam shook his head as he backed away a few steps. “I’m done with it.”
Amanda pushed herself off of the door as he started buttoning his shirt back up. “What?” She watched him grab his tie off of the foyer, draping it around his neck. “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed.”
She shook her head and frowned. “Wait. No.” She removed his hands from his shirt. “Why?”
“So I can go downstairs with clothes on.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Why are you going downstairs I mean.”
“Terrence’s drone is probably still here trying to locate me. I’ll find him and let him know I’m done with the goddamned contract.”
“Liam! No, you won’t,” Amanda protested, grabbing the end of his tie and whipping it off. She balled it up and tossed it across the room, relieved to hear his laugh. “And take your clothes back off too, Liam. I’m serious.”
“You first.”
Arching her back, Amanda reached behind it, unzipping her dress in a single pull. She’d gotten good at that lately. Liam cocked an eyebrow, watching her slightly wriggle to push the stiff leather dress off of her form until it was in a ring around her ankles. Stepping one bare foot out, Amanda gave the other a light kick, sending the dress flying up in the air for her to catch. “Happy?” She handed it over to Liam, whose fingers wrapped around it for about a second before he tossed it behind his back.
“That… would be an understatement.”
Amanda grinned at the way Liam’s eyes locked on what she wore underneath. Looking down herself, she almost laughed. Jesus Christ, no wonder. Having been completely dull and blank while getting ready, Amanda had simply put on whatever Wendy handed over. She required no mirrors to zip or fasten or herself anymore, which was probably why she hadn’t registered the fact that Wendy had chosen the lingerie set she’d gifted Amanda for her birthday to wear beneath the Thierry Marc dress she’d chosen — the three-strip lace bra that opted for total seduction over any ounce of cover or support.
Hair tumbling down from her up-do as she looked down, Amanda continued staring at herself, at her barely covered breasts and the flashes of her skin between each horizontal strip of lace. She giggled. “This is the most ridiculous bra ever,” she breathed, hearing Liam’s low laugh follow.
“You should just take it off then.”
Looking up, Amanda lifted an eyebrow up at Liam, realizing that the focus of the night had miraculously shifted from the prospect of tearing apart Terrence’s contract to… sex. Thank God. She could live with that. She was more than happy to work with that.
“You first.” Amanda nodded at Liam’s half unbuttoned shirt, at the collar he had flipped up in preparation for his tie. “Off. Those too,” she said, pointing to his pants. She could see Liam watching the grin spread on her lips as she collected each article of his clothing in her arms, heaving them across the suite once he was done.
“Back to you,” Liam said the moment he stood a few feet before her in just boxer briefs, the dim lights of the room highlighting all the best parts of his shoulder and chest muscles. Her head tilted and her eyes glued to the sections of his abs, Amanda pulled both thin, satin bra straps down at the same time, taking her arms out and reaching behind herself again to unfasten the back.
Her bra had hardly come all the way off before Liam had her bent over the back of a chaise and her breath already ragged as it escaped her fully parted mouth.
Her hands tried to grab handfuls of satin cushion as Liam’s lips and tongue warmed the tingling skin on the back of her neck, his hands cupping her breasts from behind and kneading firmly as he pushed his body against hers.
Parting her legs for him, Amanda closed her eyes, feeling his hands in her hair and obliterating its structured up-do as he positioned himself outside of her. She had barely finished groaning his name before he’d sunk himself into her, his thrusts immediate and strong, each one bringing down a new lock of waves from her messy topknot. Grinding her hips back against him, Amanda peered over her shoulder, her lips instantly curving at the sight of Liam’s dropped jaw and sloping, knitted brows as he held her sides, watching in awe but mostly ecstasy as her bent body swiveled against his.
If all the problems in their relationship could be ignored this way, she’d be such a happy girl.
Chapter 18
“So… you always keep extra clothes in the car for easy getaways?” Amanda asked breathlessly as she wiggled out of her leather dress in the backseat of the Audi.
Upon sneaking out of Liam’s room at the top of Metropolis, Amanda had noticed the barrage of missed calls and text messages from both Ian and Harper in her phone. Apparently, Ian had been calling for them to meet him for hours. Assuming the worst, Harper had spent twenty minutes calling Amanda, reaching her only after Amanda had decided to sneak out of the room while Liam slept.
Harper nodded in response to Amanda’s question, already fully changed from her asymmetrical saffron gown into a loose T-shirt, boyfriend jeans and ankle boots. She fished through the giant nylon tote that they had taken from the trunk, digging through the various tops and bottoms before pulling out a quilted Chanel sunglasses case.
“Mm-hm. Picked it up from my friends,” Harper replied as she decided against the shades, probably because of how dark it already was out. “They also taught me the whole leaving-without-telling-anyone trick so you get a head start on being out without the paps tailing you. And they like, attract nine thousand times as many cameras as you or I do so this should definitely work.”
Amanda nod
ded as she pulled on oversized heather grey raglan to go with a pair of black leggings and linen sneakers. Once fully changed, Harper knocked on the window, signaling for her driver to come back in and drive them to the Chinatown cafe that Ian had asked them to meet him at.
“I hope nothing happened,” Harper mumbled absently as she gathered her hair into a ponytail. “He sounded all urgent on the phone but he wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”
Amanda shrugged, unsure of how to tell Harper that Ian had more than likely found something on Casey with which to develop some sort of revenge plan. So she remained silent, pretending to text throughout the short ride across The Bowery to Chatham Square, where Ian was waiting.
They spotted him the minute they arrived at the small cafe, which was empty aside from an elderly couple at the counter. Sitting in a back corner, Ian’s leg bounced as he swiped about on his iPad, the hood of his maroon sweatshirt pulled almost over his eyes. Despite her tension, Amanda couldn’t help laughing with Harper the second Ian spotted them and burst off his seat with such excitement that his hood flew off of his head.
“Thank God — I can’t be alone with this information anymore.”
“What’s going on?” Harper asked curiously, running her hand through Ian’s messy hair. Her eyes followed his iPad as he handed it over to Amanda. She cocked her head when no one answered her. Amanda’s lips had made a brief attempt but stopped when her eyes went to deciphering the image on Ian’s screen. It looked to be a page from a blog but the writing wasn’t in English and the only words that Amanda could read were names — “Casey Mulreed” and “Quinn Colwell.”
“What is this page? And this language? And who’s Quinn Colwell?” Amanda asked, looking up quizzically at Ian, who bit back a grin.
“It’s a page from some I think Russian gossip site that doesn’t exist anymore. The website shut down years ago. But their content is still floating on the Internet — you just have to brave through a lot of weird pop ups and broken links to get to it.”
“Nothing ever dies on the Internet,” Amanda mumbled wryly.
“Which is good,” Ian said. “At least in this case ‘cause this website has, or had, a very useful obsession with Casey.”
Harper’s hands dropped from her hips. “Oh God. Are you two trying to go after Casey?”
Ian shrugged at her, surprisingly unapologetic. There was that excited spark in his eyes that Amanda recognized. Hardly anything could get in his way when that look took over. “I need closure,” he said simply.
Harper blinked at him and then Amanda. “You two are some masochists.” She shook her head, her peach-tinted lips puckered in disbelief. “This isn’t just bad karma, this is like, a death wish. You can’t mess with Casey Mulreed, she’s untouchable.”
Ian made a face at Harper. “You never struck me as someone who was scared of other people.”
“Good, because I’m not,” she replied, her tone acidic. “But I know what things are good for me and challenging something who doesn’t lose doesn’t fall under that category.”
“Everyone loses at some point,” Ian retorted. “Amanda and Liam have this bullshit going on. You and I went to rehab. Now it’s Casey’s turn.”
Harper shot an icy glare at Ian. Amanda hadn’t seen it since her days as a Hollywood mean girl. “She’s an addict, Ian, who isn’t seeking help. And she comes from a family of people who died or almost died because of the same problem. She’s going to have her loss eventually.” Disappointment knitted her normally wrinkle-conscious forehead. Her voice softened. “You and I went through exactly what she’s going through right now — with the addiction, the completely screwed up families. You shouldn’t put a target on her back, you should sympathize with her.”
Ian’s green eyes widened at Harper’s plea. Suddenly, he burst into a bitter laugh that made even Amanda cringe. “Holy shit, are you kidding, Harper? Sorry, but I’m not one of those people who gives an instant pass to other addicts or former addicts. I wouldn’t expect anyone to excuse the shit I did earlier this year because I was drunk or high. I got what was coming to me — and none of that shit was even half as bad as what Casey’s done in her life. To me, to Amanda, to Liam and all the other people you grew up watching her screw over.”
Sitting helplessly on a chair between them now, Amanda peered up at Harper, who wore a wounded expression she’d never seen once from her before. “Whatever,” she murmured, hoisting her bag up onto her shoulder. “I just want you to be okay. But if you insist on messing with Casey, go ahead and do it. Just don’t expect me to be a part of it,” she said before turning on her heel and walking out the door, the door chime ringing loudly to punctuate her exit. Amanda studied Ian’s flexing jaw as he watched her go. She stared down at the iPad and the jumble of words and letters she didn’t understand.
“God, I hope this ends up worth it.”
The words were Ian’s but she had been thinking the same exact thing. “Yeah. So.” Amanda heaved a breath before holding up the iPad. “How’d you find this article? Or blog or whatever it is?”
Ian plopped down on the seat next to her, bringing his knees up on the chipped wooden chair. “Was Googling ‘Casey Mulreed Jake Tatum.’ The only website that gave me a result was this one but the link was broken so I Googled the name of the site and found out it was an old Russian gossip blog. Googled the blog and ended up finding a lot of the posts archived on some webpage. There was no search feature though, so I basically went through a hundred stories before finding this one. There were other Casey pieces but this was the only one that I probably hadn’t heard about yet considering the names involved. Like, Quinn Colwell. No idea who he is.”
“Me neither,” Amanda murmured. “Did you translate the page?”
“‘Course I did.” Ian nodded, taking the iPad back and swiping around until he reached his desired page. “Saved it here. You ready?”
“Yes. Read it to me.”
“Okay, here goes.” Ian cleared his throat. Amanda gave him a strange look as he struggled to contain his broad smile. “‘A boy with name Quinn Colwell to court the American film actress O’Casey, infringement Mulreed original work. However, there was no evidence was not to find these allegations, and loss.’”
“Oh my God.” Eyes wide, Amanda sucked her lower lip between her teeth before she burst out laughing with Ian. “What? Holy shit, that’s amazing. What the hell do you think it originally said?”
“Something about infringement of an original work. And ‘to court the American film actress’ was maybe ‘to sue’ or ‘to bring to court.’ Not sure though. That shitty translation actually shows up in a few other Google search results so I guess other non-American websites tried to pick up the story at some point. But it made no sense, obviously.”
“Hm.” Amanda wiggled her pursed lips. “But why would a random Russian gossip blog have this story when the U.S blogs didn’t? I sure as hell don’t remember approving any story like this on HDU — not that Casey got much tabloid attention until this year.” She rolled her eyes, reminded of the fact that she and Ian had been the ones to finally deliver Casey from the pages of Elle and Vogue to the more sleazy gossip blog headlines, which of course, had been exactly what she wanted. “When did this news come out, anyway?” Amanda asked with a frown.
“Two years ago. We were both working for HDU at that point. I know I never saw this story submitted,” Ian said. “I’m assume it spent a day on American blogs and wasn’t even juicy enough to get picked up before the Mulreed’s lawyers wiped it off the face of the Internet like they did with the, uh… the video I made for Casey.”
Amanda’s peered up at Ian with a bit of a grimace.
“Don’t make that face,” he laughed. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Totally fine?”
“Yeah. Because I think we might have the makings of a hammer to drop on Casey here.”
Amanda made a face and gave a weak smile. “I… don’t know. It doesn’t make sense that we wouldn�
�t have known this story or been able to search it. Kind of seems like it can’t possibly be legit if it’s not anywhere but this random blog.”
“You’re actually totally wrong,” Ian insisted with a big grin. “We can’t search it because it was a legit enough story for Casey’s lawyers to take down from every corner of the Internet. They just forgot one random Russian corner, I guess.” Ian nodded excitedly as Amanda’s eyebrows lifted to consider the point. “I don’t know if you remember this because we were kids but when Casey’s parents were going through a divorce, it was all over the news that her dad cheated on her mom with some other actress. But then another story came out that he also cheated on her with the nanny, who was like, possibly not eighteen yet when it started.”
“Holy gross.”
“Yeah. But try Googling that shit today. Everyone remembers the news coming out for a hot second but now you can’t find one story on it unless it’s some random person’s comment on a blog, but even that’ll get zapped eventually. ‘Cause the Mulreed lawyers will erase anything the family doesn’t want out there. And the only reason they wouldn’t want it out there is because it’s either insanely humiliating — like boning an underage nanny — or totally mundane but completely true — like the possibility of stolen work.”
Amanda felt her eyes slowly widen at Ian’s explanation, once again struck by one of his eloquent and well-researched arguments. It was like the good ol’ days. “That sounds actually… quite possible.”
“Right?”
All it took was another twenty minutes of speculation over a round of blueberry rooibos tea for Amanda to be almost fully convinced — if anything, that the name Quinn Colwell did somehow mean something to Casey. “We just need to figure out what,” she murmured as they pushed through the front door of the tea house, onto the quiet street.
“Amanda!”
What the hell now? The second she stepped onto the sidewalk, Amanda froze, staring at the hooded figure who had just called her name before jogging from across the streets in his ridiculously large sweatpants.