by Max Monroe
“I am,” I murmured to Camilla. “Someone just pulled into the driveway.”
The love-bitten version of my sister was gone in an instant, and in her place, my assistant Camilla took charge. “No one is supposed to know you’re staying there, Ivy. Call the police.”
I rolled my eyes and argued. “They’re probably just turning around. I’m not calling the police.”
“I thought the house was in the woods.”
A shiver ran down my spine. “It is.”
Oh my God. What if Mariah was right, and this is my stalker?
“Ivy, call the police,” she ordered, just as the headlights shut off and the shadow of a man inside cut a menacing shape through the windshield.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered, true panic taking hold for the first time since he’d pulled in. “Camilla, he just turned out the headlights.”
“I’m calling the police!” she snapped before the line went dead.
My previously steady breathing devolved into pants as I sat there, frozen in the moment. After nearly a minute, he opened the door to the truck and moved to get out.
I jumped back from the window and, heart fluttering a hundred miles an hour, I backed up until my ass hit the couch.
Jesus Christ, what was I thinking, demanding that production secure Grace’s house for me? Sure, stepping inside her world was the easiest, realest way to learn to be her, but she’d been murdered by a serial killer! She had lived in the middle of nowhere!
Yeah, and now you’re here, in the middle of nowhere with a strange man outside…
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Footsteps crunched in the gravel out front, and I had a fleeting thought that I might pass out.
I had no weapon, no means to protect myself, and I was in lingerie, for shit’s sake.
Oh God. This is it. This is how it ends.
First rape, then murder.
The door creaked and cracked as the man on the other side forced it out of the frame and into the space of the small living room. My muscles locked, and everything inside me turned cold.
And my heart—it was beating so fast it felt like it wasn’t beating at all.
The door shut, and his heavy shadow weighted the room. He was big and I was defenseless, but I had to try. “Stop right there!” I ordered on a nearly shrill scream.
He jumped at the sound of my voice, spewing curses left and right before finally finding the light switch next to the door.
At the sight of Levi Fox—not my stalker, thank God—standing there, five feet away, in the small living room of the house I’d rented for my time here, you could have knocked me over with a feather.
He looked good in all the ways he hadn’t this morning, and it was painfully evident that this was his normal. But for all the tanned, warm skin and clear blue of his eyes, the shocked line of his mouth and the furrow of his brow stood out so starkly it was like all of his perfect features didn’t exist.
“What in the fuck are you doing here?” he finally roared, his volume just shy of glass-shattering.
“I live here!” I yelled back. “What are you doing here?”
“This is Grace’s house.” His voice was raw and his edict unarguable. Something in the sandy rasp of his voice made me gentle mine.
“Her family rented it to the production company for me to stay in.”
He shook his head almost violently, turning in a circle, and gave the wall next to the front door a look so vile, I was almost certain I’d be getting the opportunity to learn a thing or two about drywall repair.
He reeled it in, though, somehow, and turned back to look at me. His eyes were intense, and his appraisal of my body made me shake.
I wasn’t decent, I knew that much. I was just a step up from pornographic, if I was honest. But sexy sleepwear was a guilty pleasure, and I clearly hadn’t been expecting anyone out here.
He sounded strangled as he asked, “What are you wearing?”
Despite indisputable knowledge of how absurd I looked, I kept my answer simple. “Pajamas.”
I got lost in the flare of his eyes for a second, maybe two, but ultimately, the clench of his fists was too obvious to ignore.
But what I found when I let myself look at them closely wasn’t obvious at all.
“Is that nail polish?”
For half a second, he was self-conscious, but it didn’t take him long to talk himself out of it. Apparently, the asshole inside of him was much better at battle than the insecure man.
“I was babysitting tonight. Not that that’s any of your fucking business.”
“It may not be my business, but I’m pretty sure CPS should be involved. Whoever leaves their kids with you can’t be a good parent.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” he snapped, his voice harsh to the point of scary. The old wood floor creaked with his weight as he leaned forward menacingly. “You don’t know anything about me, and you sure as fuck don’t know anything about Jeremy and Liza.”
I was uncomfortable, a little scared of how badly he could hurt me if he was inclined, but as much as it looked like he might have wanted to, he didn’t come any closer. I fought back with words and truth, the only way I knew how. I hoped they’d be enough to make him leave.
“I know you’ve shown up here, at my home for the moment, in the middle of the night, and accosted me.”
“Accosted,” he scoffed. His skin whitened at the roots of his hair, so rough was the hand he ran through it. “Sure is a fancy fucking word. No doubt something they taught you in Hollywood.”
“What would you call it, then?” I shouted. “You showing up here in the middle of the night and treating me to this scene?”
His face was vehement, and his words weren’t far behind. “Bad fucking luck. I didn’t know you’d be here. Trust me, if I had, I’d have driven forty miles in the other direction.”
It stung, his hatred. I felt the same way about him, and yet, somehow, I loathed that his opinion of me was so low. I guessed it was the people-pleasing part of me; it wanted acceptance no matter the people—even assholes.
Well, sexy assholes.
God, I hated my brain sometimes.
Lack of validation for that segment of my personality fueled another, though. The bitchy part.
My throat burned as I spat, “Dramatic, Officer Fox. Sounds like I’m not the only one with a penchant for Tinseltown.”
“I don’t need this bullshit,” he grunted on an angry turn toward the door. As if he was the one inconvenienced by his unannounced arrival at my house.
I followed his retreat indignantly, bare feet smacking against the wood floor with every step, feeling emboldened to take a jab at him now that I knew he was leaving. “What’s the matter, Levi? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”
“A goddamn joke,” he muttered as he ran his eyes over me once more and found only disgust. “Choosing you to play her. Red hair, green eyes, and a set of tits do not a Grace Murphy make.”
“They chose me based on more than her appearance!”
His smile was lethal. “Keep telling yourself that, honey.”
“What would you know about it?” I yelled, getting even more in his face. He planted his feet and bore my attack without moving.
He hadn’t been in my audition. He hadn’t cried the tears I had while letting Grace Murphy’s last words haunt me. He didn’t know shit.
His sapphire eyes moist with emotion, his voice was no more than a whisper. “More than you ever will.”
The power in those five words rocked me.
Time jammed and slowed as I realized how off base my pride had taken me. How arrogant I’d been in my stubbornness.
Officer Fox.
For just a fraction of a moment, I was back in my audition, reading the scene where Grace lay on the floor, bleeding from her wounds and fighting for her life. There’d been a man there, tending to her, his face fuzzy through the ebbs in her consciousness. The script notes had said only one thing.
[The glint of his nameplate shines in her eyes. It reads “Officer Fox.”]
Christ. He was the one. Grace, in a pool of agony and desperation, had died in this man’s arms. That was why I’d recognized his name.
I’m such a fool.
There were a million stories and haunted memories in his eyes, and I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen it sooner. He’d known Grace well, better than I could even fathom in my limited time getting to know her through secondhand information. And like a vampire’s vow, he’d just sworn to himself and me that I would never know the details of any of it.
Why had anyone thought Ivy staying in Grace’s house was okay?
Obviously, Hollywood had no goddamn problem trampling over her memory.
I wore pulsing temples like a symbol of my fury as I left Ivy behind, staring after me with the gentlest expression I’d ever seen her use.
I felt drunk from the confrontation, like my heart wasn’t pumping enough blood and oxygen to my brain, and yet, she seemed composed. An eerie calm had overcome her in the last moments I’d allowed myself to stand there taking in the vision of her in light pink satin and lace scraps. And if I was honest, that scared me exponentially more than all of her pint-sized rage.
The familiar weather-stained wood of Grace’s front porch under my feet, I moved as fast as I could toward my truck. But I didn’t make it far before the ring of my cell phone in my pocket made me stop. I had half a mind to ignore it and concentrate on getting the fuck out of there, but the cop in me came awake and made me pull it out to look. The chief’s information proclaimed he was the caller.
Without hesitation, I answered. “Chief?”
“Levi, thank fuck,” he rumbled. “Dispatch got a call from Ivy Stone’s sister, all the way in LA, panic in her blood about someone breaking in to Ivy’s house. I’m on my way, but you’re closer. She’s at Grace’s place.”
Ah Christ.
My head dropped back, and my furious steps came to an abrupt stop. “I’m already here.” The admission felt painful. I didn’t have to elaborate for him to know why.
“Tell me you’re not the shit-stain that was breaking in.”
The bite of self-deprecation in my laugh tasted unpleasant. “That’d be me.”
“Well, fuck. I hope she at least put a bullet in your shoulder.”
Some days, I swore that’d make things easier. “No such luck, Red.”
“Have you lost your goddamn mind? I mean, truly?”
“I didn’t know she was staying here,” I protested. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I would have shown up here if I’d known.
No, the truth was far more pathetic.
When the memories were strong and the regret became too much, coming here, to Grace’s home, felt like the only way to get my head straight. Here, I could hear her telling me to stop being such a fuck-up. I could hear her telling me it was time to get over it. I could hear her telling me that a real man smiled when he wanted to yell.
Tonight, however, all I’d been able to hear was Ivy.
She had been screaming, though, so…
I took in a gulp of piercingly cold air and let it back out slowly. “In the future, that might be the kind of information I should have.”
“Yeah, sure, Levi. Next time, I’ll be sure to tell you in between you becoming blackout fucking drunk and getting in a fucking five-foot-three woman’s face, that that same woman is staying at your old—”
“I get it,” I interjected on a grouse.
“Do you really?” he asked. The disappointment of all my failures rang clearly in the words he didn’t say. “I sure as hell hope so. Tomorrow morning, I want the asshole Levi gone and my reliable officer back. You understand me, son?”
For the four millionth time in two days, I gritted the words I’d been saying with ease for the last decade of my life. “Yes, sir.” I wanted to make him proud, but feelings didn’t turn off with a switch. I couldn’t make myself be okay with all of this.
“Levi?” Ivy summoned from the porch. The sound of her calling my name ran through me like a current as the line went dead in my ear. My traitorous body went so far as to like it.
Immediately, every other fiber of me went on the defensive.
I swallowed hard around another knee-jerk reaction, one that would be hurtful and vile and all the things I’d just promised the chief I’d work on, and turned woodenly to face her.
“What, Ivy?” Her name was a snap, but all in all, I’d managed to prompt her for more information fairly normally.
“It’s just…” She looked at me hard, trying to see beneath the surface, but my skin was thicker than that. With the life I’d lived, it had to be. “Is everything all right?”
I forced myself to examine her with new eyes—ones untainted by misery and remorse. Her wild hair was even more untamed than the two times I’d seen her previously, and her face was makeup free. Still, even without the aid of all that armor, her lashes were long and her skin nearly luminescent. And her body, clad in next to nothing, was the kind that made grown men into hormone-ridden adolescents.
I could play the part as though I saw none of it, but internally, in the sincere, lie-incapable section of my mind, I knew she was the stuff of legend.
It was no surprise this woman was followed and mimicked by millions—she was that beautiful.
I had to try a couple of times, the first attempt coming out garbled by the knot in my throat, but eventually, I got an explanation out. “Your sister. Apparently, she called the police.” I pointed to myself with a hook of my thumb. “Police.”
“Oh my God, Camilla!” Back into the house, she took off at a run.
I chewed at the inside of my lip, one of my anxious habits, and weighed my options. I could finish walking to my truck, climb in, and drive away—off to somewhere with a bottle or, at the very least, a bed. Or, I could follow her back into the home of a ghost that haunted me, just to say goodbye.
The smart part of me decided to leave almost immediately.
But the dumb part of me was much more persuasive these days.
I moved quickly to avoid rethinking and headed back up the steps and into the house. But this time, when I pushed open the door, I knocked.
She was pacing the living room, her hair completely hiding her face, but it flipped up and over in an impressive show as she heard my knuckles meet wood.
As she waved at me to come in, she talked. “No, no. I’m fine. It’s fine. It was just a stupid mistake. I know him.”
Her eyes flicked to mine briefly, and a roil of discomfort ran through my chest. I didn’t like the idea of someone talking about me on the other end of that line, not being able to hear what they had to say.
“No, Jesus, would you stop? I told you it’s not like that. I know him from work. He’s one of the cops here.”
She rolled her eyes but looked right at me, clearly repeating her sister for my benefit. “Yeah, Cam. I’m completely aware how ironic it is that we called the cops on a cop.”
Caught off guard by the honest lilt of her self-effacement, I almost smiled.
Christ, I have to get out of here.
Ivy’s eyes widened expressively as I waved my goodbye, but I didn’t see them for long. I turned on my boot and went back out the door before I felt anything else. My manic moods had run the gamut today, and I was tired of living the extremes.
Besides, I’d be seeing her again soon—first thing tomorrow morning.
Mona’s face did nothing to disguise her feelings about my outfit as I stepped into the Cold Montana Police Department for the second day in a row.
I’d had all sorts of grandiose visions about the outfits I should be wearing, but planning didn’t always translate into ease of execution.
“I know. Trust me, I know. I ordered some plain jeans off of Amazon yesterday as soon as I left the station, but they won’t be here until tomorrow. I can’t believe you don’t have same-day delivery. And the closest mall is two hours away!”
> White silk, my blouse billowed around my midsection with a flirtatious drape where I’d tucked the front of it into my rhinestone-encrusted jeans. They just had tiny clusters every so often, but they weren’t the makings of a simple outfit. And, on top of it all, the same Zac Veeson coat. My brown suede ankle booties weren’t exactly backcountry, but the flat sole was at least practical.
Mona’s answering smile was downright comical. Overexaggerated and toothy in the middle, she was basking in my misery. “Welcome to Montana.”
The phone trilled its demand to be answered, and she held up one unmanicured finger toward me. Just as I nodded, a body-numbing wind rolled up my spine. The door had evidently opened behind me.
My smile bright and welcoming, I turned to greet the chief for the second morning in a row. Only, instead of wily eyebrows and an untucked shirt, I found Levi, clothed in a crisp, pressed uniform and shiny black shoes. He looked as handsome as the time I’d first laid eyes on him—if not better.
His eyes were pointed at my mouth, a tiny wrinkle forming in the skin between his eyebrows.
I spoke quickly even as my smile dimmed, trying to head off the confrontation before it came to pass. “Good morning, Levi.”
“Ivy.” His answer was a grunt. Nearly monosyllabic. But at least he wasn’t calling me a stuck-up bitch.
I struggled to find conversation for the first time in my life. The door, the ceiling, the floor, and my shoes—all of it became complex and inspection-worthy.
Oh, look, it’s my shoes. The same shoes I put on this morning. Wow, let’s keep looking at them for no apparent reason at all. Maybe they’ll get interesting soon…
I wasn’t accustomed to not knowing what to say. Normally, I could chat my ass off, ask interesting and insightful questions, and make people feel completely comfortable. But, apparently, when it came to Levi Fox, I only knew what to say when I was yelling.
Mona, bless her, interrupted our silent evasion. “Got a callout, Levi. It’s Joe Morris. He’s supposedly got a squatter on the property, and his wife says he just came in and got his shotgun.”
“Fucking hell,” Levi muttered with a shake of his head. “On it.” He didn’t acknowledge me at all before turning and shoving back out the door, moving to his cruiser in the back lot at a brisk clip.