by Sybil Bartel
I hadn’t corrected Sawyer the first time he’d called me by my surname because the fucker was a goddamn enigma. Rich as hell, his life set before he ever took his first breath, but the stupid fuck had given it all up to aim a government-issued M4 at fucking hajjis in a forsaken sand trap. I respected the hell out of him for it at the same time I thought he was crazy as shit. Too damn quiet for his own good, I’d never seen the fucker smile, look twice a woman, make a personal call, or say one goddamn thing about his upbringing. In fact, he never said shit unless you asked a direct question or he was talking about work.
“What the fuck do you want, Sawyer?” If he didn’t call to school me, then he needed to get to the fucking point.
“It’s not like you to not see something like that coming.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “I fucked her, I didn’t get in her goddamn head. And for the record, I fucked her in private.” I wasn’t a goddamn idiot. But the second I thought it, I realized I was. The pool, the motherfucking pool yesterday. Visible from both the neighbors and the beach.
Goddamn it.
Sawyer didn’t say shit.
“You got something to say, fucking say it,” I warned. “Otherwise this call is over.” I’d already gotten reamed by Luna. I didn’t need Sawyer’s shit too.
“I can make a call for you. Put a spin on this.” He hesitated, then added, “Professionally.”
Fuck me. I ground my teeth and tried to tamp down my anger. “Do I look like a goddamn Hollywood small-dicked actor to you? Do I seem like I need a fucking publicist to handle my shit?” I’d served four tours with the United States Marines. I wasn’t a fucking pussy. Let that asshole TV host release whatever the fuck he wanted. That shit was already out there thanks to a spotlight-loving actress who held her hands up like I cuffed her on the regular.
“Don’t discount what someone familiar with the industry can do,” Sawyer advised.
“I’m not in the industry!” I yelled. “I don’t need a goddamn handler.” What part didn’t he fucking understand?
Unfazed by my anger, Sawyer kept his tone like he always kept it, this side of a fucking automaton. “Offer stands if you change your mind.”
Christ. “Anything else?”
“Don’t fuck the client next time.”
Prick. “I don’t make the same mistake twice.” Ever.
“Good.” He hung up.
I tossed my phone on the bed, and it vibrated with another incoming call. Glancing at the screen, I swore before I answered. “What’s up?” Luna calling again wasn’t a good sign.
“Her lawyer’s not taking my call.” Luna cut to the chase. “She in contact with him?”
How the fuck would I know? “No clue.”
“Well, get a clue,” he clipped. “From here on out, I want to be ahead of this bullshit. Get the lawyer to call me. She isn’t going to ruin my reputation over this.”
If anyone’s reputation was fucked, it was mine. All hope of starting my own security firm was now dead in the water, but I wasn’t pussy enough to bitch to Luna about it. He wanted to talk to her lawyer, fine. I’d make it happen. “Ten-four.” I hung up and stormed out of the master bedroom.
I checked the kitchen and living room before backtracking and throwing open the guest room where all her shit was.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands in her lap, head down.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I scanned the room until I found what I was looking for. I strode toward her purse on the nightstand and grabbed it. Without a word, I dumped the contents on the bed and snagged her phone.
“What are you doing?”
Ignoring her, I stormed out, slamming the door behind me.
I was dialing her lawyer as I walked back into the master bedroom.
The fucking prick answered on the first ring and launched into it. “Audrina, I’ve been calling you. Where are you? If you’d told me what you were planning, I would have advised against such a public display. All you did was create more trouble for yourself.”
“No shit.”
Silence. Then, “Mr. Gunther?”
“The one and only. Now, listen up, Stanislas. André Luna has been calling you. You’re going to call him back. Then you’re going to talk to your client and tell her if she doesn’t want to face multiple defamation suits, she better get her shit together and make a statement. Then you’re going to find her a new security detail and new accommodations. You have thirty minutes. Understood?”
I could practically hear the fuck swallow. “Thirty minutes is not a lot of time, Mr. Gunther. I understand she—”
“You don’t understand shit.” I glanced at my watch. “Twenty-nine minutes. Call Luna. Now.” I hung up and walked back into the guest room.
Wringing her hands, she stood in front of the bed.
I didn’t give two fucks about the duress in her posture or her bullshit remorseful expression. I was a fucking tool for thinking I could have a piece of this woman.
I shoved her phone at her. “Your lawyer’s calling you. Answer.”
She took the phone.
I turned to walk out.
“Are you going to talk to me?”
I kept fucking walking.
She followed me into the hall, and her small-ass hand landed on my arm. “Please, wait.”
My nostrils flared, and I spun. Looking first at her hand, then at her, I said everything I needed to say, but she didn’t fucking clue in.
Her mouth opened and more bullshit came out. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. I was only thinking if I preempted Jonathan’s statement, then maybe….” She trailed off and inhaled nervously, looking exactly like she looked a half hour ago on camera, then more lies came out in a rush.
“I thought if I spun it a certain way, I would prevent him from showing any video of you. Of us. I didn’t want you to get caught up in this. Which I know I stupidly did anyway. I panicked. I thought I was making the better choice by throwing enough of a bone to stop the release of whatever footage Jonathan had until I could text my lawyer and get him on it, which I already did. I have no words for how sorry I am. I just… after last night, I just wanted to protect you as best I could. I didn’t want to screw things up. I was trying to, I thought, I mean….” She looked up at me like a fucking actress playing a part, then she dropped her voice to a whisper for the finale. “You kissed me.”
I didn’t say shit.
I didn’t even blink.
I glared at her.
“Tank, please.” Her eyes welled. “Say something. Yell at me. Do something.”
A better man would have kept his fucking mouth shut. I wasn’t a better man. “I didn’t think I was sticking my dick in a spoiled, immature narcissist last night.”
Actress-practiced shock spread across her face, and the mouth that’d sucked my cock opened.
I didn’t wait for her response, because I wasn’t fucking finished. “I thought I was fucking a woman.”
The sound of her gasp hit the air around us and bounced right the fuck off me. I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for her.
I was fucking finished.
UNYIELDING, FURIOUS, HE STRODE OUT of the room.
I thought I was fucking a woman.
The cruel words ricocheted through my head, then stabbed into my heart. Crushing pain stole my breath, and I couldn’t remember one single reason why I thought throwing him under the bus was a good idea.
He was right.
I was selfish. And self-serving, and so, so immature.
I should’ve taken responsibility for myself during the interview. I should’ve realized Jonathan, of all people, was bluffing about actually showing the video. I should’ve never said what I said, but I wasn’t being honest with myself, and I hadn’t been in a long time. Honesty would’ve been admitting that I knew Colton was a junkie, that he’d always tried to get me to take drugs, and that partying with him at a club would only lead to trouble.
&n
bsp; I should’ve fired my agent years ago when I first realized he was manipulative and I wasn’t happy with the path he was taking my career on or the way he spoke to me. I should’ve owned my choices a long time ago.
But I didn’t.
And now the only man who’d ever made me feel like a real woman, hell, the only man who’d ever made me feel, period, just walked out on me.
But he didn’t just walk out.
The utter disdain in his eyes took aim and destroyed me worse than any bullet from the gun he carried like an extension of himself.
Reeling, I spun in a circle and took in the four suitcases that comprised my life.
Three were full of clothes I’d never shopped for, and the fourth held all I had left of the life I used to have. A life I could never go back to, but desperately wanted.
Throwing that beat-up suitcase on the bed and opening it, I pulled out the old backpack I’d come to LA with as tears started dripping down my face. My hands riffling through my life’s possessions, I didn’t stop to think.
I didn’t think about the day my mother walked us out of the farmhouse like she was walking me to the bus stop, only to sneak us out back to the barn where we kept the old beater car she used for her once-weekly trip to town for groceries. I didn’t think about the cold expression on her face as she drove me to Ned’s Diner and dragged me inside, telling me not to say a word.
I didn’t think about the woman who I would later learn was a casting agent, who had legal paperwork my mother signed as she smiled and made empty promises of taking good care of me. I didn’t think about the horrible feeling when my mother told me I was lucky she was giving me my dream after what I’d done. I didn’t think about the first time the casting agent tried to send me home for Christmas so she didn’t have to deal with me, only to have my mother say don’t bother.
I didn’t think about any of the past ten years of acting lessons and school tutors and living with a woman who only saw me as paycheck and booked me with nonstop publicity and back-to-back films.
I didn’t think about any of it because I was already on a trajectory.
I haphazardly shoved the few pictures I had, an old baseball cap, and some jeans and T-shirts I’d bought myself into the backpack. I swept my arm across my purse’s contents and pushed everything that got caught in my one sweep back inside.
My phone lit up with a call, and I glanced at the screen as Peter’s name flashed.
Sending him to voice mail, I swiped through my contact list and dialed a number I never thought I would call.
Colton picked up on the fourth ring. “What the fuck do you want, Dreena MacKenzie?” His canned laugh was more bitter than usual. “You already took my balls.”
“If you want me to drop charges against you, you’re going to do me a favor.”
I heard the distinct click of a lighter then a deep inhale and long exhale as he lit a cigarette. “Why should I believe you?”
“Did I ever once bitch about your nasty cigarette breath on set?”
He laughed in earnest. “No. But why the fuck would you? You were making three times what I was.”
Wow. That I didn’t know. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Oh, so now it’s help you? After you castigated me on live television?” He snorted out a half laugh. “Sure. Lay it out, sweet cheeks. Tell me how I can help you.”
“I need a car.”
He took another drag of his cigarette. “So buy one.”
I didn’t want to buy one. I couldn’t wait that long. “I don’t have enough time.”
“Time for what?”
“None of your business. I need you to rent me a car and not tell anyone about it.”
The dry humor left his voice. “Okay, for real, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I lied, reminding myself that despite the few laughs we’d had on set on the rare occasion he was sober, he wasn’t my friend. Not even close. The asshole had drugged me. “I need a car, and I need it now.”
“Have Janette get you one, or your asshole agent. Fuck, rent one yourself. There’s a place with Lamborghinis around the corner from the hotel.”
“I can’t.” I channeled my best sullen teenager voice. “I’m not twenty-five.”
Sighing loudly, Colton held the phone away for a second. “Hey, you, wake up.” I heard the rustle of sheets, then a female voice mumbled something incoherent. “Yeah, whatever. I need a favor. Here, take….” Paper rustled. “Here’s two grand and change. Go rent me car… Yeah, right now. Go, giddy up. Get your ass out the door.” The female voice said something. “I don’t care, any kind of car. One that runs.”
“Colton,” I warned. “I don’t want to get in trouble over this.”
Colton came back on the line. “You couldn’t get in trouble if you tried. Even your stunt today has your fans swooning over your new bodyguard slash boyfriend and placing bets on how soon you’ll pop out little Hollywood babies.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “Which, if you’d told me you were into kink, I would’ve been more than willing to ride that freak train with you.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed. Hard. “I knew it. It was a total act, wasn’t it? Did you even fuck meathead?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“An asshole who’s getting you a car,” he reminded me.
I ground my teeth. “Where are you?”
“The fuck motel, where else?”
“I’m on my way.” I hung up and shut off my phone.
Thirty seconds later, I was skirting the pool and running toward the beach with my backpack.
I WALKED OUT OF THE home gym Christensen had, marginally less pissed off. Dripping with sweat, instinct hit me. I dropped the hand towel and palmed my 9mm as I moved to the kitchen without making a sound.
My senses on high alert, I didn’t know what the fuck was different, but something was. I scanned the open plan kitchen and living room, but nothing stood out. The doors were all closed, the lights were still off and the sun had just set.
Listening for any movement, I silently made my way down the hall. Bypassing the master and third bedroom, I went straight for her room and tried the door handle.
Locked.
I banged on the door once. “Audrina, open up.”
One second, two, three. No response.
Shit. Shit.
I kicked the door right below the handle. Wood splintered as it swung open and slammed into the wall.
The second my gaze hit the room, I knew what was wrong.
Slider door open, the worn suitcase opened on the bed, shit strewn all over—she was gone.
I hit the lanai running.
Circling the pool, scanning the side yard, I ran toward the beach access and sprinted out to the sand. When I hit the beach, I looked south and north, but I didn’t see her. I didn’t see anyone except an older couple with a dog a hundred yards south.
“Fuck!”
I was running back toward the house and the garage when I realized I still had the car keys in my pocket. I checked the garage for the Escalade anyway and sprinted into the house after I saw it parked where I’d left it.
I went straight to the security panel and scrolled through the video footage of the back of the house and the pool. A minute later, I saw it.
Audrina with a backpack jogging around the pool and heading straight for the beach.
My gut constricted as I looked at the time stamp, then at my watch.
Two hours ago.
Two motherfucking hours ago.
Which was a goddamn lifetime when tracking someone.
I pulled my phone out and dialed Luna.
He answered on the first ring. “This better be good. We lost three celebrity clients today.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. “She’s gone.”
Silence.
I inhaled, then fessed up to my fucking negligence. “Two hours ago.”
“Jesucristo,” Luna swore. “What the hell happened?”
&n
bsp; “I was pissed. I needed a workout. She was in her room, talking to her lawyer.”
“For two hours?” Luna practically yelled. “What the fuck, Tank? You do that shit on your own time.”
I didn’t defend myself, because he was right. I didn’t have an excuse. I’d crossed every professional line I could think of. Fucking her was child’s play compared to turning my back on her. She could’ve been kidnapped, for fuck’s sake.
“Christ,” Luna swore. “Tell me what you have.” He started typing on a keyboard. “I’m bringing up the security feeds there.”
“She left through the slider in her room and went toward the beach. The cameras lost her after that.”
“Shit, I don’t have coverage on that property past the yard.” He typed some more. “I’m bringing up her cell now. Hold on, I’ll trace it… Mierda. Last ping is your location, two hours ago. She either turned it off or left it there.”
Fuck me. I strode into her room, and sure enough, in the middle of the pile on the bed was her phone. “It’s here. She left it.”
“Damn it, hold on. Let’s see who she called last.”
Luna clicked away on his computer, and I fucking stewed. Rifling through the shit she left behind, I couldn’t believe she’d taken off. Then again, I could. I’d been a dick. She’d deserved it, but I was still a dick. I should’ve fucking checked on her before working out.
“Okay, got it,” Luna said absently. “I’m calling the number. I’ll put it on speaker.” A few seconds later, I heard a phone ringing, then someone picked up.
“Derks, you prick, that you? Where the hell are you? You said you would bring my shit hours ago.”
“Motherfucker,” I cursed. “That’s Payne. Play it out.”
“Copy,” Luna whispered, before raising his voice. “Yeah, I got held up. I’m on my way.”
“About fucking time,” Payne slurred. “You get what I wanted?”
“Yeah,” Luna answered. “On my way. Where you at?”
“Where the fuck do you think? The W, you moron.”
“Room number?” Luna asked.
“You have a fucking seizure since yesterday? You already forget I’m in the east penthouse?”
Luna cleared his throat. “On my way.”