I was making noises I didn’t recognize. Hearing my sounds of encouragement and moans of pleasure, Jake’s breathing became more labored and our movements turned urgent. His fingers increased their pace and his other hand strayed from my hip to knead and tease my breasts.
I felt the slow burn build deep inside me, fueled only by him. The faster he went, the harder I pressed into him, determined to let him get to the very core of me. It built layer upon layer until my knuckles went white from gripping the bedcovers. I was overwhelmed by the feeling of him, senseless and delirious, and it felt better than anything I’d ever experienced before. I was slick with my need for him and he stroked me inside and out, over and over, again and again.
I clenched around him involuntarily, my body acting of its own accord, and I felt him straighten behind me, reacting to my grip on him. The shift of direction made me clench harder and suddenly the feeling inside me overflowed, becoming too big to contain. I pressed against him like we were joined at the hips, riding the wave of bliss that reached every part of me, from my fingers to my toes, shock waves trembling through me.
His hands found my waist, his fingers digging into my skin as he rode the wave with me, relinquishing his final restraint.
We crashed together and he gathered me up in his arms, flipping us onto our sides with a deep groan as our bodies gave out and could no longer hold us up.
We didn’t say anything for a long while and lay together listening to the sound of our breathing as it steadied. Eventually, he smoothed a wayward tendril of my hair away from my face and kissed the back of my head.
“What do you reckon? I win?” he asked.
At sex? At orgasms? At sex appeal? Where did I start? “Um,” I mumbled lamely.
“Yep, I win.”
Obviously I’d lost all capability to think straight or have a normal conversation. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s because I win,” he said confidently. “Your lasagna may be the best I’ve ever tasted, but this has proved it. Endorphins win.”
“Oh,” I said.
“What? You’re not going to argue?”
I smiled to myself. “Nope.”
He laughed into my shoulder.
Chapter 28
We were getting dressed when there was a quiet knock on my door.
Shooting Jake a wide-eyed look, I gestured for him to move near my dressing table where he couldn’t be seen. He raised an eyebrow, shrugged, then went to stand where I’d indicated.
I took a deep breath and opened the door. Lena’s serious face greeted me.
I felt a flush of shame creep its way up my neck. What sort of friend was I? Here she was dealing with a marriage breakdown of epic proportions and I was upstairs getting up to no good with Jake. Under her roof no less.
Lena immediately read my expression and a faint smile touched her lips.
I gaped at her.
“Relax, Ally. You don’t need to hide him. Hi, Jake,” she called.
“Hey.” He appeared by my side and gave her a sheepish nod.
“It was his fault,” I blurted, and Lena actually laughed.
What was so funny? Why wasn’t she angry with me? Gosh, I was angry with myself. Well, not for sleeping with Jake. Definitely not. That had been extremely nice. But our timing was horribly wrong, that was for sure.
“I needed that,” she said when her laughter subsided.
“You’re not angry?”
She looked between the two of us. “Why would I be angry? I’m actually surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
“Yes, but not here. Or now. I’m so sorry.”
“Ally, you have nothing to be sorry for. First of all, we’re grown women and this is your home while you’re here. Plus, it’s a big house. And why would now be a problem, anyway?”
I dropped my eyes and stared hard at my feet. Crap. Me and my big mouth. I felt Jake rub my shoulder.
“Ally saw you talking to Duncan out the front earlier,” he explained.
“Oh. That,” she said, liked she’d tasted something she didn’t like. “Ally, just because I made a bad choice of partner doesn’t mean you have to tiptoe around me. Actually, that would just piss me off.”
I looked up again and gave her a weak smile. “I know, but still. I’m sorry.”
She waved a hand at me. “I didn’t come up here to hear you apologize.” Her eyes darkened. “Marc’s here.”
I blinked. It was getting hard to keep up tonight. First Duncan, now Marc. “He is? Has he figured out who broke in?”
“There’s a development,” she said carefully. “Can you come downstairs?”
“Sure.” I met Jake's eyes and he frowned, in the dark just like me.
I hadn’t yet had the chance to air my suspicions about Duncan, and possibly Miranda, to Lena. But maybe she’d put two and two together herself after her altercation with Duncan and called Marc?
We followed Lena downstairs, not saying anything. At the top of the stairs, Jake reached over and wove his fingers through mine. Jake’s hand felt strong and sure, and perhaps I was imagining it, but it felt right. Like the sort of thing we had been doing for years even though we hadn’t known each other very long.
When we arrived in the kitchen, Marc nodded at both of us then indicated for us to sit down at the table. Chloe was sitting at the far end and, strangely, she didn’t meet our eyes. Instead, she was focused on her smartphone. I thought she looked paler than usual but it was hard to tell.
With a concerned look at Chloe, I sat down opposite Marc, Jake doing the same on my other side. Lena hovered behind us in the kitchen.
“How long have you had your social media accounts?” Marc asked.
“Um,” I said, thrown by the unexpected line of questioning. “Well, I’ve had personal ones for several years. The ones related to my fashion label were only set up when I moved here to design Lena’s dresses.” I resisted turning around to seek Lena’s agreement.
Marc nodded. “What’s your Twitter name? For your fashion label?”
“It’s just Allegra Valenti. All one word with a capital ‘a’ and capital ‘v.’ ” This conversation was definitely strange. Why had Marc made a personal visit to discuss my social media accounts? He could have looked up that information quite easily himself.
“Were there any other names you considered when you set up that account?”
I frowned. “No. Lena’s PR agency set the accounts up for me.”
“So you weren’t familiar with an account using the name Allegra underscore Valenti?”
“No.”
“And your personal Twitter name is Ally Valenti, is that correct?”
“Yes. Why? What is this all about?”
Marc didn’t say anything. He opened a laptop that I’d been too distracted to notice before. After pressing a few keys he turned it to face me.
I looked at the screen. The page was open at my Twitter account, except it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t actually my account. It was the other one Marc had mentioned with the underscore.
I leaned closer to the laptop, still not entirely able to process what I was seeing. My eyes settled on the stream of latest tweets.
I jumped up, horrified, and pointed at the screen. “I didn’t write that!” I cried. “That’s not me.”
Jake caught my chair before it fell backward and then gently tugged my arm so I sat back down again.
I collapsed into the seat, my entire body trembling. Unlike before when I’d been with Jake, this wasn’t a good sort of trembling.
Marc’s face remained completely unreadable and he reached out to swivel the laptop so he could read it. “So you didn’t write ‘@ChloeKing Not all floral prints are equal. Looking frumpy @goldenglobes #muumuu’ ”
“No! No! Absolutely not.” I turned toward Chloe. “I didn’t write that. I swear I didn’t write it. I thought your dress was gorgeous.”
She was watching me, her eyes guarded. “I did, too. It was Given
chy. If you did write it, it was pretty stupid.”
“I didn’t!” Then another, even worse thought, occurred to me. “Oh my God. Everyone thinks I wrote those tweets, don’t they? I think I’m going to be sick.”
I went to stand up again but Lena came over to put a glass of water in front of me. “Drink.”
I forced the liquid down my throat but I didn’t feel any better. “What should I do?”
Lena sat down on the other side of me. “The first thing we’ll do is get Suzie’s company to post a message on your real social media accounts. It will outline the situation to make it clear those comments weren’t made by you.”
“But won’t those tweets still be out there? If people don’t know, they’ll still think it’s me?” I asked.
“There’s an impersonation policy that Twitter has that allows for an account to be suspended, so we’ll report the account to them,” Lena assured me.
“OK,” I said, perturbed that she would know that. I was learning she’d had too much weirdness in her life since making it big in Hollywood. I forced myself to take another sip of water. “Is there any chance we can find out who’s responsible?”
“It’s unlikely,” Marc said. “Obviously we’ll try, but if they were smart they will have registered the account using an email address they created just for this purpose, with a fake account name. We might be able to get an idea of location, but even if it’s California it still won’t tell us anything.”
“But what about your IT geniuses?” I demanded. “Can’t they track them? I thought investigators like you could do all that stuff?”
Marc sighed, and for the first time I noticed he looked weary. “If they’d commented on your blog or your website, then we’d be able to track their IP address, which would give us a more accurate location. Twitter doesn’t work like that though.”
“Oh.” I had a feeling whoever was responsible probably knew that, too. “Surely it’s the same person who destroyed my dresses?”
Marc closed the laptop. “Anything is possible. We’re looking into all options.”
“Which means you don’t know.”
Marc raised a dark eyebrow and stood up. “Yet.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “My reputation is in ruins and you’re just going to leave?”
Instead of being offended, Marc almost appeared amused. He looked different without his oh-so-serious poker face. “You’ve got friends in high places,” he said, referring to the famous movie stars sitting around the table. “They should be able to help sort out your reputation. In the meantime, I’ve got a job to do. Unless you’ve got a problem with that?”
I shook my head. “No, no problem.”
Marc stood and I jumped up, too.
“Wait!”
I bit my lip at his unimpressed expression. “Um,” I said. I’d been about to tell him of my suspicions about Duncan and Miranda, but thought the better of it. I hadn’t even discussed it with Lena yet, which seemed only fair.
“Yes?”
I forced a smile onto my face. “Hey, why don’t you take some leftover lasagna?” I offered. “These precious Hollywood types are too scared to eat it again it’s that good.”
Jake chuckled under his breath and I swatted his arm.
Marc’s eyes narrowed at us and once again I had the feeling he could see everything, including the fact that I’d just been upstairs doing indecent things with Jake.
Ignoring his serious expression, I got up and went to the fridge. Marc was almost out the kitchen door when I pushed the Tupperware container into his hands.
“Take it,” I ordered, not letting him escape empty-handed.
He looked at the container. “Lasagna?”
“Valenti lasagna,” Chloe called out, like that explained everything.
Marc sighed like I’d asked him for a particularly big favor, but accepted the lasagna and left. I hid a triumphant smile as I turned back to face the others.
“I knew you couldn’t have written those things,” Chloe said when he’d gone. The color had returned to her face and she tapped her fingertips on the table impatiently. “And I’ve got an idea. Want to hear it?”
Chapter 29
The good thing about being friends with movie stars is that reputation management is second nature.
Before Chloe left for the night, she’d helped me to write a blog post. As well as outlining the situation around the unfortunate tweets, she came up with the bright idea to respond to every single one in a positive way. Instead of writing that Chloe’s dress was frumpy, we wrote, ‘Did the genie escape the bottle? @ChloeKing embodies classic elegance in @givenchy at @goldenglobes #newfragrance?’
By the following morning, the stars and media were retweeting me with additional comments about how cowardly the fake tweets were. I was even contacted by a couple of television stations about doing interviews, but declined politely.
“What took you so long? Your tweets are awesome,” Arabella said over the phone the next day. I’d woken to a barrage of texts from her demanding an explanation. She seemed to have forgotten about the time difference. In the background I could hear a babble of girls talking, with the occasional squeal or peal of laughter.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“On the bus home from school.”
“You don’t need to worry. I think it’s all sorted.”
“Understatement. It’s like a publicity stunt that kicked ass, expect you didn’t plan it. If I was the scumbag who impersonated you I’d be seriously pissed right now. Serves the asshole right.”
I didn’t bother to call her out on the swearing. “Well, it’s under control thankfully. Now I’ve just got to work hard to be ready for the Academy Awards.”
“I thought you’d already designed Lena’s dress?”
I bit my lip. I had to be careful. I hadn’t told Bella about my designs being destroyed and I wasn’t about to. “Lena’s dress is basically done, but Chloe has asked me to create one for her.”
“Get out. Chloe Kemp?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, wow. Are you like besties now? Isn’t she like my age?”
I tried not to laugh. “I’m not that old and Chloe is about to turn twenty-one.”
“Right, well you need to leverage this opportunity,” Bella announced.
“Leverage? Since when do you know anything about that?”
“I’m doing some business subjects at school. Anyway, this is too good an opportunity to pass up. Chloe’s got a different sort of brand to Lena. She’s younger and trendier—no offense intended to Lena, of course. Lena’s classic.”
Brand? Maybe while I’d been too busy at the restaurant and babysitting all of my cousins’ children, Bella had grown up and I hadn’t realized it. “What do you suggest?”
“We do a series of blog posts in the lead up to the Academy Awards then broadcast the links on social media. First up we could do one on classic elegance for Lena. Then another one on modern elegance for Chloe. It’s a great chance to cross-sell your upcoming ready-to-wear collection. You do have pieces that will fit into those categories, don’t you?”
“I . . . ” I let my voice trail off. If I worked hard I would have, but that wasn’t the point. When had Bella become so savvy? “I think it’s a great idea,” I told her when my head had stopped spinning. Then I made a decision. “If I send you the bullet points and pictures for the blog posts will you write them for me? I’ll need to review the drafts before you publish them, obviously, but I think you’ll do a better job than me.”
There was a pause and then I had to move the phone away from my ear courtesy of a particularly enthusiastic squeal. “Yes! I would love to. Thanks, Ally. You won’t be disappointed.”
“I know.”
“I’ve got so many ideas. Do you mind if I suggest some other topics for the blog, too?”
I smiled into the phone even though she couldn’t see me. “That would be great.”
“OK, got to go. Dana is whining abo
ut her latest boyfriend and I need to tell her to get a life. Later.”
*
I spent the next week working almost non-stop on Chloe’s dress. When I wasn’t doing that, I got to work on remaking the ready-to-wear designs that had been destroyed. Fortunately my meticulous approach to design helped. I had images and patterns saved on my laptop, which had been stored safely in my bedroom when the break-in occurred.
I’d finally managed to talk to Lena about her conversation with Duncan. She told me I didn’t need to worry and she was talking to her lawyers. But of course I worried. Although she wouldn’t say it, I knew she was hurting, which made me hurt for her.
It hurt even more to air my concerns about Duncan and Miranda, but in typical Lena style she took it in her stride. She admitted she agreed with my thoughts and had already discussed it with Marc, who was looking into it.
It was another reason I spent the week working—so I could be near her. She had a rare week at home preparing for a new role due to start filming in March, and I didn’t want her to feel alone.
“You can go stay the night you know,” Lena said as we ate dinner later that week.
“Huh?”
“At Jake’s. Why don’t you stay the night?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy for Jake? Come on. I heard you on Monday.”
My fork clattered onto my plate. “What?”
Lena smiled. “I’d be having withdrawal symptoms if I were you.”
“You heard us?”
She shrugged. “It was kind of hard not to.”
“I thought you said this house was big?”
“The noise carries. I’ve always thought this house was too echoey. I’ve decided I’m going to sell it later this year.”
“You are?” I was having trouble keeping up with the conversation. And mortified she’d heard us.
“Yes. This house was Duncan’s idea. I want to find something that suits me better.”
“That’s great. Good for you.” My phone beeped. I gave her an apologetic look. It was Jake. I picked up the phone and read the message quickly.
Miss you. Tell me when I can see you. Stella says woof—that’s dog for ‘hi.’
Heartthrob (Hollywood Hearts, #1) Page 21