by Chloe Cox
He buried himself as deep in Adra as he could get, and he just let go.
By the time he was done, they’d cleared the desk. The chair was tipped over. The office in shambles.
Both of them laid out, done.
Happy.
When he had the strength, Ford propped himself up on his forearms and kissed Adra deeply before pulling out, hating to lose contact with her. She rewarded him with one of those little sounds, like a mix between a whimper and moan, one of the many things she did that drove him wild.
He brushed the hair out of her face and said, “You ok to walk?”
Adra laughed, looked off to the side, covered her eyes with her hand. “I don’t know. Probably?”
Ford kissed her again. Couldn’t help it.
When Adra finally caught her breath again, she said, “How about you?”
“I’ll manage,” he said. “Barely.”
A strong man could always admit weakness, after all. And this woman was his kryptonite.
He touched her face, and she looked up at him. She looked different now than she had this morning. He’d knew he’d done that, or at least he’d helped. He’d do it all the time if he could.
“You ok?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, and smiled up at him.
Fucking heaven.
Then he remembered what she’d said about her morning, and he gave her an evil grin. “So how was the interview?” he asked.
Adra pushed him back into her own chair, laughing, and did her best to fix her near ruined skirt.
“You are a brute,” she said, grinning back.
“Only when it counts,” he said.
“You’re lucky I always keep a change of clothes here.”
“You should start keeping two.”
Adra paused, and gave him a sidelong glance.
“I don’t know how you can still make me blush, Ford Colson,” she said, shaking her head while she quickly changed clothes.
“I’m good at it, that’s how,” he said. He watched her carefully. “So how was the interview?”
Adra shrugged. “They wanted to know about Derrick.”
Ford stifled the impulse to go hit the nearest member of the media. Of course they asked about Derrick. They didn’t have anything on the movie production, because it was kept so under wraps, so that was all they cared about—those rumors of an affair. Rumors that had no basis in fact. Rumors that only hurt Adra.
“I’m sorry, Adra,” he said. “I should have guessed.”
“I told them…” Adra paused and looked at him. Questioning. Like she was hesitating, trying to figure out if she should say whatever it was she was thinking.
He didn’t like that.
“What?” he said.
“I told them I’d never be the other woman,” she said quietly. “Which is true, obviously. But I meant more that…I don’t know. I have my pride.”
It was the look on her face that got him, though. The look on Adra’s face. Because he couldn’t read it. Not entirely. All he could see was that uncertainty, that wariness, that expression she had when she was guarding something painful.
And he had no idea why.
“What’s wrong?” he said, standing up. His strength had come back full force; all he wanted to do was hold her.
But Adra backed away. A half-step, but in the wrong direction.
“Ford,” she said, again like she was trying to pick her words. “Your wife…”
“My ex-wife,” he corrected.
“Your ex-wife.” Adra nodded.
They stood in silence.
Finally, Ford said, “Adra, what do you want to know?”
“You never talk about it,” she said, picking another blouse out of her office closet.
“I told you why.”
“You said it wasn’t relevant,” Adra said, looking up at him while she did up the last buttons.
“Exactly,” Ford said.
“Ford,” Adra said, softly. “Is that really possible?”
It was hard to tell if Adra was asking about Ford’s life, or her own. Ford figured it was a little bit of both. Whatever it was that was getting to her, whatever it was that had been bringing her down—whatever was going on with her brother, most likely—it was something she dearly wished was no longer relevant to her life.
That, and maybe she wondered whether Ford had really moved on from his disastrous first marriage. That last possibility was, for various reasons, bittersweet. He didn’t like having his motives or mental state questioned in any way, shape, or form. But he damn well liked the idea that she cared about it.
“Is it really possible?” she asked again. And this time she sounded hopeful.
Ford smiled, and pulled her in so he could kiss her on the forehead.
“Anything’s possible, Adra,” he said. “And I promise you, Claudia is not part of my life. I’ll see you later tonight.”
***
In fact, Ford saw Adra again almost immediately. And for fuck’s sake, he wished he hadn’t.
At least not the way it happened.
He left her office, intending to make sure everything on this godforsaken production was still running smoothly so that they could get out of his club on schedule, and the first thing he saw was his ex-wife.
Of all the damn luck.
Claudia was dressed to intimidate, her eyes hidden behind giant sunglasses, her mouth smiling and flirting with some production assistant. Standing next to her, looking bored, was Jesse.
His ex-wife, and his ex-best man, standing in the middle of Volare.
He’d been prepared for this, and he was gratified, if not surprised, to see that it didn’t really affect him directly. But he was surprised that it affected him at all. Because his first thought was to get these people the hell away from Adra.
He’d just left Adra looking contemplative and vulnerable, and wondering about his ex-wife, and then, like his ex had been summoned by some demonic ritual, here Claudia was. And Ford was gripped by the absolute need not to have this ugliness ever touch Adra. By the need to protect her from…all of it. From his previous life, from the ways people could treat each other, from the cold, hard fact that most people in the world just couldn’t be trusted.
He didn’t even care that it didn’t make sense. He just knew he’d left Adra feeling wary again, knew from how scared she was of love that she must already have reasons not to trust people to treat her right, and he’d be damned if she ran into another one of those reasons. He’d be absolutely damned if he let these two ambush Adra in the one place she should be comfortable.
Yeah, it wasn’t his most rational thinking. But Adra had that affect on him.
So he walked over there, and excused the production assistant.
Claudia and Jesse stared.
Claudia spoke first. Jesse still couldn’t look him in the eye. All these years, and Jesse still couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Ford,” Claudia said. “It’s nice to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same, Claudia,” Ford said. “But this isn’t a good time. What are you doing here?”
“Well, we were looking at schools for Andrew in the area, and we thought we’d stop by to check the club out in person,” Claudia said.
The name ‘Andrew,’ said so casually, like it was just another name of just another child.
It pierced through Ford like a stiletto.
And it took Claudia a beat or two to remember why, but the exact moment she did was clear on her face. There was an uncomfortable silence.
“We were just looking around,” Jesse finally said. “We apologize for the intrusion—we should have realized, with the movie—”
“How did you even get in?” Ford demanded. Security was still a joke.
“Jesse called one of the producers,” Claudia said. She sounded subdued now. “Remember I told you he did some work on the financing.”
“You’ll have to come back another time,” Ford said. He was done with thi
s. “We offer tours for exactly this purpose, and we’ll be in touch with new applicants as soon as filming is complete.”
“Of course,” Jesse said. For a moment it looked like he might extend his hand.
He decided against it.
Claudia stayed back while her husband turned to leave, her eyes locked on Ford’s. Then, hesitantly, she reached out and touched the back of Ford’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
It didn’t help that Ford knew she meant it. Claudia might have been a bad wife to him, but she wasn’t a bad person. Real people were never that simple. She could be supremely selfish, and had made more mistakes than many, but the woman had a working heart.
None of that mattered anymore to Ford. He’d made his peace with it.
But when he turned around and saw who’d been watching the entire time, he saw that it apparently mattered to Adra.
chapter 16
It shouldn’t matter. Adra knew that. It really, really shouldn’t.
But it freaking did.
It was obviously her own fault for obsessing about Ford and his ex-wife the past few days. Adra hadn’t asked Ford about it partially because she almost didn’t want to know, and partially to protect the boundaries of whatever the hell this arrangement had become. Or, if she was being honest, to protect herself.
It had shocked her to find out Ford had an ex-wife, and she’d been hurt at the time. But in the end? It had put this distance between them that made her feel safer, like it would be easier to keep herself from falling in love and then inevitably getting her heart broken. And the longer this went on, the more Adra needed to feel safe, because Ford was anything but safe.
Besides, it made her feel less crappy about not telling him about Charlie and her family. She liked that Ford was like this blissful island in the middle of her otherwise chaotic life, untouched by all the garbage she had to deal with.
That is, until she saw him with his ex-wife.
So that was what jealousy felt like. It wasn’t necessarily a stabbing pain; it was like this great, yawning gulf opened up inside of you and then slowly filling with despair.
Oh man, be more dramatic, Adra. See if you can do it. Go for the gold.
She felt like a freaking teenager. She hated feeling like a teenager. She had been almost universally stupid as a teenager.
Worse, it was absolutely one hundred percent unfair that she felt like this. This was explicitly against the rules, wasn’t it? They were under no romantic obligations, which was the way it had to be. He was technically free to fall for someone else, or even to not be over his ex-wife. And yet watching the evidence of intimacy between Ford and his ex—how she’d put out her hand to touch his and revealed years of history, of emotion, of things Adra knew nothing about, in one tiny gesture—had made her insane.
And it had made her realize how much she missed emotional intimacy with Ford. It wasn’t just that she was afraid to tell him about Charlie, or afraid to ask him about his ex, it was that at the same time she desperately wanted to do both. She wanted to know him, and share with him, and…
She was right between a rock and freaking hard place. And it was her own fault, since she was the one who couldn’t handle the real thing. Adra had exactly zero right to complain.
And, conveniently, she had no one to complain to, not if she didn’t want the intense scrutiny of Lola to fall on her and Ford.
Which was why she’d already been on shaky ground when her brother’s wife called her. And why, after they’d talked, and Nicole had sounded so tired and defeated, and had said in that flat voice, “You know you can’t take care of us all the time, Adra,” Adra had decided to hide in one of the playrooms during a break in shooting. Here, she could cry and feel sorry for herself and only feel mildly silly about it, because she was alone.
Well, she was alone for about five minutes.
Then the door opened.
It was funny. Adra’s first thought was that it must be Ford. She’d been trained by a million romantic comedies, maybe? Like in the world of Hollywood, it absolutely would have been Ford, no doubt about it.
Instead this was real life, which meant she got Derrick.
“Shit,” Adra said, and tried to dab at her eyes. Wouldn’t do much good; mascara was a bitch on a day like this.
“I thought I saw you come in here,” Derrick said.
He sounded different. Gentle, almost? Adra had forgotten that he could be gentle, she’d gotten so used to his asshole Dom performance. But they had been together for almost two years all those years ago. He hadn’t been an asshole all the time.
Still, she was wary. Especially because Derrick had been taking every opportunity to either hit on her or remind her that they used to have sex since the shoot began.
“I came in here because I wanted a moment alone,” Adra said.
Screw being polite. She didn’t have the reserves.
“Yeah, you do that when you’re hurt,” Derrick said. “You hide like a wounded animal.”
Adra turned away. She didn’t need to be reminded that he knew her so well. “Derrick, I’m not trying to be rude, but I really can’t handle any crude jokes, or inappropriate flirtation, or…I just can’t, right now. So please leave.”
The door didn’t open. Which meant he didn’t leave.
Adra turned around to find Derrick standing there with his hands in his pockets and an absolutely miserable hangdog expression on his face.
“I am probably the world’s biggest asshole,” he said.
“You are at least in the running, yes.”
“I know it won’t help to say I’m sorry,” Derrick said. “But I am.”
“Derrick…” Adra shook her head. She thought she was past being angry at Derrick for his behavior and had just moved into this dismissive, stoic sort of attitude, but it turned out that his admission of asshole-ness actually made her angry all over again.
She glared at him. “Why?” she said.
Derrick ran a hand through his artfully messy hair and stared at the ground. “Fuck if I know, Adra,” he said. “It wasn’t even about you, it was just this stupid fucking dominance thing, like territorial, you know, and—”
“I’m trying to decide if you were this bad a Dom when we were together,” Adra said.
Silence.
Derrick stared at the ground, angrily this time.
Mostly, Adra found it sad.
“You don’t treat people like objects in some sort of Dom competition,” Adra said. “What kind of person treats someone they used to love like that?”
And as soon as she said it, Adra found herself wondering: Well, maybe he never did love me.
That would explain a lot. It would explain how he left, for one thing. It would almost make things easier.
And like he could read her mind—maybe because he could, in that way you get to know someone you’ve lived with—Derrick went from angry to saddened and contrite in about the space of a heart beat.
“Damn, Adra,” he said. “I really am sorry. About all of it. About the way I ended things. I was young and didn’t know how to handle it, but it’s not excuse.”
Adra shook her head. “Ancient history. I’m over it.”
“I really am sorry about being a jerk the past few weeks, too,” he said, taking his cue to come sit beside her. “I guess I’m just not used to being around you and not being…”
Adra looked at him. He was thoughtful. He was the way she remembered him in the beginning, when they first became close. The way he was when she decided to trust him.
“I’m not used to not being the most important person in the room to you,” he said, smiling ruefully. “Fucking childish, when I say it out loud.”
She stared at him.
“Yeah, it is,” she said. “Jesus, Derrick.”
He shrugged, not particularly bothered by his admission. He’d always had an ego. It had always been what drove him—you couldn’t become a successful actor without that, honestly. A
dra had never understood how Derrick had withstood the countless rejections that came with working his way up, but now she kind of got it: an impenetrably thick skin made of pure ego.
Well, whatever worked, right?
“That’s not even why I’m here,” he said finally.
“You’re not here to be a jerk while I’m crying?” Adra laughed. “I don’t know if congratulations are in order, I’ll be honest.”
Derrick nudged her with his elbow, laughing.
“No, shockingly,” he said. That old charm coming back. “I’m here to see if you’re ok. Obviously, you’re not.”
Adra paused. “Obviously.”
“You going to tell me about it?”
“Derrick…”
The thing was, Derrick knew about Adra’s screwed up family. He knew all about it, because Adra, in her youthful exuberance, had decided to trust him. No, it was more than that: Derrick had known about the walls Adra put up, he’d known about the limits she set on her relationships, and he set out to get around them. And eventually it had worked. And she’d told him everything.
“Is it your dad?” Derrick asked softly.
Adra sighed.
The thing about people you once trusted was that you couldn’t take it back. They’d always have that part of you; they’d always know. And most days that made Adra crazy. But right now, mostly what she kept thinking about was how good it felt to have someone to talk to.
Even if it wasn’t the person she wanted.
“Not exactly,” Adra said, staring at her hands. She didn’t want to look at Derrick, for some reason. “We haven’t heard from Dad in years. It’s my brother, Charlie. He’s just…pulling the same old stuff.”
As soon as she said it, it felt wrong.
It felt wrong to be in this room with Derrick Duvall. It felt wrong to be telling him anything about her life, anything at all, but especially about something she couldn’t bring herself to share with Ford.
“You haven’t told him, have you?” Derrick asked.
Adra snapped her head up. “Who?”