by Shayla Black
Cutter pressed his foot to the gas pedal and the SUV lurched up the hill, hugging the winding road, until they pulled into her driveway.
Without a word they both climbed out of the vehicle. From the backseat, he grabbed the few belongings they’d bought—half of which he’d had to gather from the beach.
Once he’d unlocked the front door and turned off the alarm, he left Shealyn in the shadowy foyer so he could do a quick check of the interior. When the coast was clear, he returned, holding the key out to her. “I want you to stay safe. Hide this somewhere other than beneath the flowerpot on the front porch.”
Shealyn held out a shaking hand, and he plopped the little bit of metal into her palm. He didn’t dare touch her. It would only test his resolve to leave her without begging for a chance to explain or hold her one last time. A man had to have his pride . . . but Cutter was sorely tempted to ditch all that and beg for the opportunity to stay by her side and explain.
Even if you do, what will happen next time Shealyn finds herself in a situation where she’s not sure she can trust you? They’d only repeat this cycle over and over unless she truly believed in him. Since she didn’t, might as well end it now.
“I will. What will you do next?”
“Go home. Get married.”
Shealyn teared up, her face filled with yearning. “Do you love her?”
The frustrating part of this mess was that he felt sure Shealyn had genuine feelings for him. She was merely too afraid to work past them.
“Not the way you mean. Not romantically, but it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Her expression closed up, and she shook her head. “I’m trying to understand how you could tell me you love me, too.”
“Because I do, with my whole heart,” he said in all honesty. “You have the instructions for the household security system. The cameras at the front door and patio are recording. If you have questions about how to enable or disable anything, the vendor left a number. It’s in the folder of information on the kitchen counter. And now, I’ll gather my things and go.” He nodded. “Good-bye, Ms. West.”
Cutter didn’t wait for her reply, just forced himself to turn down the hall and make his way to the bedroom that contained the rest of his belongings. With every step, he felt her eyes on him. He sensed the questions in her stare. Why the hell wouldn’t she simply ask? But he knew the reason. She wasn’t ready to trust him or his answers, and he couldn’t make her.
When he emerged from the bedroom again, Shealyn was no longer standing in the family room. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen. In the morning still, he heard the spray of her shower pelting down from the direction of the master suite. Dawn was beginning to shed its glow all over Los Angeles, dazzling him with the view—and the reminder of what might have been.
With a sigh, Cutter gripped his duffel bag tighter and headed for the front door. He set the security system and locked himself out of her house, shutting the door for the final time. He dreaded the drive back to LAX, the five hours he had to kill before his flight, and the long journey home.
The 405 freeway was a fucking zoo. It would be for a few hours. Morning rush. After a sleepless night, he needed coffee. Food would probably help. He wasn’t sure if he could choke it down, but he supposed trying would beat sitting in the airport for hours, wondering if he’d made a mistake in not fighting harder that he would regret forever.
Just two exits from Shealyn’s house, he turned off the highway slogged with cars all going southbound, like he was. He managed to find a little café tucked into a strip center not far from the off-ramp. As soon as he was seated, a waitress swung by and gave him a speculative double take. He scowled, glad when she brought him coffee, took his order, then left him in peace.
While he waited for his over-medium eggs, bacon, and toast, he flipped his phone over and over in his hands. What was Shealyn doing now? If he called, would she answer? Had she been too caught up in her anger last night to listen? What if she was ready to hear him now?
Yeah, and what if she isn’t? What if she never is?
Before he could decide what to do next, the device buzzed in his grip. Cutter flipped it over.
Work again. This time Joaquin Muñoz was calling to chew his ass out. Fun times . . . Of his three bosses, the former NSA agent was the most serious and probably the least willing to let Cutter’s very public relationship with Shealyn West slide. Somehow, Cutter didn’t think reminding the guy that he’d seduced his ballerina bride while saving her from the killer hunting her family would spare him a bit of grief.
“If you’re calling to reprimand me, save yourself the breath,” Cutter said in greeting. “She sent me packing like a bad suitcase early this morning.”
Joaquin hesitated. “I’m sorry, man. That might be for the best, but I know that doesn’t make your situation feel any better. That’s not why I’m calling, though.”
That made him feel even more idiotic. “Shoot.”
“Since it’s Monday, I was talking to Tyler about tonight’s football game. I think the Steelers are going to squeak this one out, but he likes the Titans to win. Dumbass.”
Was there a point to this? “And?”
“I was telling him about your . . . predicament. He used to work for the LAPD. He still has contacts over there. He knows a guy who knows the detective interrogating Faith Holt. So he made a phone call.”
“Give me the update. Did she admit to conspiring with Foster so they could blackmail Shealyn? Did she confess to murdering her brother?”
“She said she was aware of the blackmail, but had nothing to do with the scheme. Not sure I believe her . . . But his death? I hope you’re sitting. She has an airtight alibi for the window of Foster’s murder.”
None of that could be true. Because if it was, then the accomplice Cutter knew Foster must have had was still at large. “You’re sure?”
“Faith claims her brother had another partner for the blackmail scheme. Police haven’t found the evidence yet, but she admits to taking the coma story he manufactured to divert Shealyn from suspecting him and running with it to milk some money out of the folks back home. Nice, huh? But ask yourself: Why would she admit to a federal offense but suddenly turn shy about extortion and murder?”
Joaquin had a point. Cutter didn’t have an answer.
“I’m still listening. What’s her alibi?”
“The night her brother was killed, she’d hooked up with some guy she met at a bar. An hour before the time of death, she was seen entering the lobby of a nearby hotel and confirmed walking down the hall of the twenty-second floor. She emerged five hours later, a full two hours after Foster’s estimated time of death. LAPD has seen the hotel’s surveillance video.”
Cutter froze. So Faith hadn’t killed Foster. Which likely meant she hadn’t been his partner in bilking Shealyn, after all. Then who the hell had?
Suddenly, his terrible, sinking dread returned with a vengeance.
“I have to go,” he barked at Joaquin.
“Stay safe. Call the locals for backup if you need it.”
“Got it.” Cutter didn’t wait for his boss’s reply, just thumbed the button to end the call as he leapt to his feet.
Digging through his pocket to find a few bills, he tossed them on the table and barreled his way past an overloaded server, then toward the door. He hoped Shealyn wasn’t in danger. He prayed Foster’s accomplice believed that he’d gotten away with his crime and had decided to walk away with the $50,000 in cash the police hadn’t recovered.
And just give up the other $200,000 the police had confiscated at Foster’s apartment? Foster must have cooked up this scheme because he wanted the cash to repay all the debts he owed, but his accomplice had either wanted cash, too . . . or he had wanted Shealyn dead.
As soon as Cutter stepped out of the greasy spoon, a horde of reporters swarmed him.
&nb
sp; “Is it true you’re engaged to your hometown sweetheart while sleeping with Shealyn West?” a smarmy-sounding guy shouted at him.
A woman jumped in his face. “Now that she knows about your fiancée and baby, has she kicked you out of bed?”
Did these people have nothing better to worry about than other people’s love lives? He figured the answer was no when someone stuck a phone in his face, obviously rolling video.
“No comment.” He shouldered his way past them, focused on his rental and reaching Shealyn’s house.
“Will you dump your small-town girl now that Shealyn West and Tower Trent may no longer be an item?” A short man with a bad comb-over thrust a photo on his phone just under Cutter’s nose.
It was a picture of the very first cast and crew of Hot Southern Nights, the one taken by an extra. Cutter remembered seeing it among Shealyn’s photos. Gary James, the show’s first director, was front and center. She and Tower were on his left, arms around each other. Jessica stood to his right, holding the hand Tower extended toward her, out of Shealyn’s line of sight. Everyone else involved with the show fanned out behind them. The caption above the photo from a known gossip site read: TOWER TRENT DUMPING SHEALYN WEST THIS TIME?
“No comment,” he growled.
But the man wouldn’t go away. “Sources close to Tower say he’s done with her, that she’s confessed to cheating previously. How do you feel about being another man in what seems like the long line of her lovers?”
Cutter snarled at him, then glanced at the image on the reporter’s phone. Something about this picture tugged at him. He looked past Shealyn, beyond Gary’s fake puppet-master smile . . . and focused on the background. In an instant, he saw the horrifying detail he’d overlooked before.
And he knew immediately who Foster’s accomplice had been.
“Move!” he demanded as he shoved past the throng and made a mad dash for his rental.
As he climbed inside the SUV with paparazzi still shouting questions, he closed the door and turned the engine over. While launching the app to access Shealyn’s home security cameras, he zoomed out of his parking spot. Yeah, he should have deleted the access. And he’d planned to once he’d boarded the plane to Lafayette. If he was honest, he hadn’t been ready to completely let her go. He still wasn’t.
Now he feared he’d overlooked a suspect he should have seen sooner and that he would reach Shealyn too late.
Cutter peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the gaggle of leeches behind, and set a course for the fastest route back to her house, still waiting for the app to load the live feed of her camera on his screen. “Come on!”
The whirling dial kept spinning, trying to connect as he ran a yellow light, took a right with tires screeching, and sped up the hill. At this hour, Barney would have left his post and Lance should be there. Hopefully Shealyn hadn’t yet instructed the guards to restrict his access to her neighborhood. He prayed she would be alone so he could convince her that she had a traitor in her midst. More than anything, he hoped like hell that her would-be killer hadn’t already come to finish the job.
Finally, the surveillance video popped up to show the person he feared most ringing Shealyn’s doorbell, snake-in-the-grass smile firmly in place. Cutter’s blood froze as he grabbed the phone from the console and frantically dialed 911.
* * *
—
After a long tearfest in the shower, Shealyn nursed a steaming cup of coffee and a wrenching case of heartbreak. After he’d left, she had wandered the big, lonely house, realizing Cutter was gone for good. The pain stabbed her like a hot poker in the heart. But he’d admitted he was getting married and that his fiancée was pregnant. What else was there to say?
On the other hand, she had more than a few choice words for Tower. The idiot had knowingly and jealously ruined Cutter’s life by outing his name to the world. Cutter might have been less than honest as a lover, but he’d been a damn devoted protector. She couldn’t vindictively celebrate Tower’s thoughtless wrath.
Naturally, when she’d called to give her co-star a piece of her mind and demanded an explanation, an apology—something—he hadn’t deigned to answer. So she’d left him a long, scathing message, demanding that he come over ASAP. The jerk.
It wasn’t quite seven A.M. when Shealyn heard her doorbell ring. She made use of the app on her phone to make sure her visitor wasn’t a curious reporter who’d managed to sneak past the guard post. Instead, she saw Jessica waiting on the other side.
Her friend had texted late last night, asking how she was holding up and if she needed a shoulder, a bottle, or some girl time. Shealyn had responded this morning that Cutter was leaving, everything was terrible, and she could really use a friend. She hadn’t expected Jessica so early, but bless the woman for dropping everything to console her.
Shealyn headed to the front door, feeling Cutter’s absence keenly again. She missed seeing his coffee cup in the sink next to hers, missed his soft footsteps around the house as he cased every square inch to keep her safe. Most of all, she missed the comfort of his warm, solid presence and the passion of his embrace.
How could she have been so wrong about him? Why hadn’t he been any different than everyone else who’d let her down in life? What had she really expected? If her own mother refused to stay, she shouldn’t be shocked that a man she had known for a week hadn’t, either. But once she’d called him out, he’d pretty much shelved whatever lame story he’d dreamed up and moved on.
Because he’d been guilty as sin. Or . . . because, like he’d said, she hadn’t put her faith in him?
Shealyn didn’t know and she was confused. After a long night of being assaulted on social media by nasty accusations questioning her character and even a rant or two about whether she deserved to die, her thoughts were in a tangle. One thing she knew for sure? Foolish or not, she still longed for Cutter with every cell in her body.
After fumbling with the security code, Shealyn managed to open the door. Jessica stood on the porch in head-to-toe black, a huge Louis bag slung over one shoulder, and a sack of doughnuts from the shop just down the hill in her hand.
“Oh, my god. Honey, you look wrecked,” Jessica murmured as she stepped inside, shut the door behind her, and thoughtfully locked it.
Even if they had started Hot Southern Nights as rivals, Shealyn felt so blessed in this moment to call her a friend, especially when the tears threatened to fall. “I am.”
“Then let’s get you some sugar therapy.” Jessica hustled her into the kitchen, ripped off a few paper towels, then withdrew two huge donuts.
The smell of sugar and yeast and chocolate rose, wafting to her nose. Normally, that would have her mouth watering and send her pleasure receptors into a frenzy. At the moment, she feared she would throw up if she took a single bite.
Nothing felt right. Nothing comforted her. Like a fool, she hadn’t understood until now just how truly attached to Cutter she was. She hadn’t realized how in love she was. She hadn’t known just how necessary he felt to her happiness until he was gone.
“Thanks for bringing these. I’ll eat them later.” She wrapped the pastries up in the paper towel and put them back in the sack.
Jessica sent her a frown full of pity. “Tell me what happened. You fell in love with him . . . and he already had someone else?”
“Looks that way.” Shealyn frowned.
“But you’re not sure?”
She sighed and leaned against the counter, sipping her coffee. “The more I go over last night in my head, the less I understand. He admitted that he is engaged and that his fiancée is pregnant, but then he seemed angry—no, disappointed—that I didn’t want to hear his side of the story.”
“What other side of the story can there be?” Jessica snorted. “Except that he wants to have his cake and eat it, too. That’s a man for you.”
“Normally, I’
d agree but . . .” Shealyn shook her head. “I really didn’t think Cutter was like that. He was noble. He seemed . . .”
Trustworthy. That had been her top-of-mind thought. Until Sienna’s phone call, she hadn’t believed he was capable of deceiving her for any reason. After being confronted with evidence otherwise, her faith in him had drained out. Horror and hurt now filled the empty space. She’d felt again like that little girl whose mother preferred heroin over her children. If she’d let Cutter talk, would he have truly explained . . . or given her another line of crap she would have believed in desperation?
Could she live the rest of her life not knowing?
Shealyn feared she knew the answer.
“Actually, until that moment, he seemed perfect. I was ready to marry him, have his babies . . . do whatever it took to spend my life with him. He tried to tell me his relationship with his pregnant fiancée wasn’t what it seemed.”
Jessica snorted. “Men always say that, and usually it’s exactly what it seems.”
“I know, but . . . I lied to him, too. More than once. Even about important stuff. He never lost his temper or accused me of shit. I did it to protect myself and Tower, and he got that. Maybe . . . It may sound crazy, but I’m wondering if there’s some explanation. It’s a long shot, but I’m not sure I can live with myself until I know. Sorry, but I have to go.”
With another heartfelt frown, Jessica clutched her chest. “When does Cutter’s plane take off?”
“A little after noon.” She bit her lip and tried to picture what would happen if she chased after him at the airport and somehow stopped him from leaving.
Or had it already been too late the minute she’d thrown him out?
“Then there’s not much time . . .” Jessica pointed out.
“You’re right. I need to go after him. I have to try.” She grabbed her phone and searched for her keys.
Before she could dash out the kitchen and head to her car, Jessica grabbed her arm in a surprisingly strong grip and ripped the phone from her hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t leave. That would ruin everything. If I’m able to work this situation the way I planned, Cutter won’t matter. He’ll be going to prison.”