“You need to try to call him again.”
“I doubt he’ll answer.” Her emotional pain at Nick’s departure had been tripled by the betrayal. Quadrupled.
I’ll have to ask Sir Nerd what is more than quadrupled.
“Maybe not, but try.”
She stared at her phone. “What good will that do?”
She wasn’t even sure she wanted to talk to Nick. Trevor. Whatever his name was. If he’d so callously fled back to California without telling them any of the truth, did he even have feelings for them? Maybe everything had been a lie, a cruel role he was playing in preparation for something bigger.
“This is a serious problem, Leigh. He needs to know the personal devastation that will happen if he decides to open up and talk to the press about this. He needs to know he absolutely cannot name the two of you.”
“He…” She stopped cold. She’d been about to say, “He wouldn’t do that,” but the truth was, she didn’t know what he would or wouldn’t do.
Not when she hadn’t even really known who he was to start with.
“I’d rather let Sir do it,” she quietly said.
Ed let out a sigh. “Do you have any cash on you?”
“What?”
“Seriously.”
That was right. They’d have to figure out how to pay the man. She pawed through her purse and found a couple of crumpled ones. “Just this. Unless you want a credit card.”
He took them, smoothing them out. “Perfect. I’ll take the case.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, this will be as pro bono as I can make it. I won’t lie and say I won’t enjoy the free publicity it’ll give me and my office, but this way, I work for you and Lucas, and attorney-client privilege protects you.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“We’ll get you two through this. And if bad things happen as a result of this, I’ll make sure we file a lawsuit against him for your financial losses. Likely, he’ll settle quickly and out of court just to make it go away, but it’ll give you guys some firm financial footing until you can rebuild your lives.”
She shivered, despite the warm afternoon. It was an internal chill, not from the office’s AC units. “You think it’ll get that bad?”
“I’m not going to lie to you, it could. Let’s see what shakes out.”
* * * *
Lucas cited a family emergency, arranged coverage for his afternoon classes, and to take Friday off, too. He went through these motions in a numb sort of haze, the news Ed broke to him still sinking in.
Part of him was afraid to go out to the parking lot, for fear of who might follow him.
Part of him feared for their future together, his and Leigh’s. Losing Nick felt like losing a part of them, and he wasn’t sure the phantom-limb syndrome would heal soon enough for them to recover. Especially now that it turned out Nick might not have been real to start with.
I never should have played with him.
Thinking back to that first night, the munch… Hell, he and Leigh had been talking about marriage on the way over to the restaurant!
Now their life lay in turmoil, and he knew Leigh felt the same way.
Man, I fucked things up.
He slung his laptop bag’s strap over his shoulder, donned sunglasses, and headed out of the building. With his keys in his hand, he angled out and away from his car at first, looking around to see if there were any lurkers.
He didn’t spot anyone, but he stopped behind a van, stooping down and peering through its tinted windows toward the front gate.
There was a car parked out there, on the street, and it looked like someone was sitting in it, but that could easily be anyone. A parent waiting for a student with an early release for a doctor’s appointment, maybe. Anything.
Keeping low, he moved quickly between rows, back to his car, opening it and getting in, glancing around again.
The car still sat parked on the street outside the gate.
He knew he couldn’t sit there all day on a maybe. Leigh needed him.
He buckled up, got the car started, and backed out of the space. In the mornings and afternoons, the exit gate to the teachers’ lot was left open and unlocked, and a moving arm was used for the entrance gate. But while school was in session, the gates were closed, and you couldn’t enter them unless you had an RF tag, or had a four-digit access code to get inside. When he paused for the gate to roll open to let him out, he turned left, away from where the car waited. It would mean a longer way around through one-way streets to get back to the main road, but it would be a quick tell.
Sure enough, the car pulled out, turned around, and started following him.
He ducked through a couple of back streets, finally losing the other car when he pulled into a Publix parking lot and parked, shutting the car off and ducking down. The pursuer kept going, brake lights coming on when the driver realized his quarry had slipped away, finally making a right turn onto US 41.
He pulled out a different entrance, hurrying back to the east and toward I-75. It’d mean a much longer drive, but he could go fast, bypass traffic, and would likely miss being spotted by his pursuer.
Before he arrived at Ed’s, he paused in another shopping center parking lot, waited a few minutes, then circled around twice, watching for tails before he finally went to Ed’s. When he finally pulled into the parking lot at Ed’s office, he drove around back and saw Leigh’s car parked there.
The receptionist waved him right through when he gave his name. Leigh looked up when he walked in, bursting into a fresh round of what looked like several rounds of tears, based on how red and puffy her nose and eyes appeared.
He sank to the couch, enveloping her in his arms. “Shh, it’s okay, babe. We’ll get through this.”
“What if they talk to my work? Or yours? What are we going to do? Why didn’t he tell us?”
Feeling helpless, he looked at Ed.
“I want you to try calling him,” Ed said. “Leigh wanted to wait until you got here so you could do it.”
Anger filled him. “Not sure I have anything to say to him right now. Nothing good, at least.”
Ed calmed him, explaining why the call needed to be made.
Lucas couldn’t argue with Ed’s logic.
They’d never asked to be dragged into the spotlight. Lucas wasn’t an idiot. He knew how vicious paparazzi could be, just from seeing news stories.
Their lives were private. They didn’t want to be stalked by photographers looking for a money shot, their lives under scrutiny, their friends left vulnerable…
Shit. “Guess we won’t be going to the club again anytime soon. Or to the munches. Or pretty much anywhere.”
“Make the call,” Ed said. “The sooner, the better.”
Chapter Fifteen
Nick was sitting in his living room, laptop balanced on his thighs and staring at the breaking news ticker on TMZ.com, when the phone rang.
Not his regular cell phone, but the special one. The one he’d used for Leigh and Lucas. He kept it on the coffee table, unable to toss the phone.
He knew he should ditch the number—and the phone—but he hadn’t had the heart yet. He still looked at the texts from Leigh and Lucas.
He felt like an utter shit for the way he’d had to leave, without being able to tell them the truth about who he was, but he needed to protect them. He couldn’t risk anyone tracking him to them, exposing them.
If he’d realized in the beginning how sensitive their position was to start with, he never would have let things get as far as they had. He was too caught up in the new, the shiny, as Tilly would say.
When he looked at the phone, the screen read Lucas.
Dammit.
He hadn’t responded to Lucas or Leigh’s texts and voice mails. After a few days of radio silence, he’d hoped they were moving on, even though the thought of never seeing them again painfully twisted a knife in his guts.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t in love with them. Both of them. He missed what th
ey’d had together, and not just the sex. He missed having Lucas as his Dominant, and Leigh as his playmate. His partner.
He missed them.
Finally, voice mail kicked in. Or Lucas hung up.
But when the voice mail chime sounded, and a notification popped up, Nick’s heart raced a little more.
I shouldn’t listen to it.
He swiped through to the app. It was thirty seconds long, so wasn’t like Lucas stayed on just long enough to hear the message before hanging up.
He’d said something.
It felt like forever before he finally made the decision and played the message.
The sound of the man’s voice filled and warmed Nick…right before his words chilled him.
“Hey, Nick, or Trevor, or whatever the hell your real name is. I need you to call me back ASAP. Some reporter showed up at Leigh’s work this afternoon and chased her. I had one waiting for me outside the school. They apparently have video footage and pictures of us coming and going from your condo and are threatening to out us. Thanks for the heads-up and leaving us hung out to dry. Guess you Hollywood big shots don’t need to work, but we sure as hell do. If you don’t call me back to deal with this, you can call 941-555-8642 and talk to our attorney, Ed Payne. Bye.”
Horror filled him.
Shit!
He had thought—prayed—that he had left Sarasota soon enough to prevent anyone from seriously catching his trail. Or catching on to the fact that he’d been seeing Leigh and Lucas.
Dammit!
He played the voice mail again. He felt like shit about this. He didn’t want them hurt by what he’d done.
Not when he’d fallen in love with them.
He knew what Clark would tell him if he called him and asked for help and advice—fuck ’em. That, legally, there was nothing Nick was responsible for.
Shit happened. They were adults. That if he wanted to give them some hush money for this, he’d be opening himself up to a precedent of handing out money to anyone who yelled loudly enough, an invitation to fake claims.
But in his heart, Nick felt beyond heartsick. That didn’t even come close to describing what he currently felt.
He’d hurt the two people he loved, in more than one way. By lying to them, and now by exposing their private lives to public humiliation and not even being there by their side to take the brunt and protect them from a lifestyle he was used to. One far more vicious than a Dom wielding a cane.
The Hollywood paparazzi.
After thinking about it for a while, he picked up the phone and called Clark and his publicist and told them how he was handling it. Neither of them were happy about his decision to address it and release a public statement, but Nick wasn’t going to leave them hanging out to dry.
Then he called the attorney, Ed Payne, to talk to him and let him know he’d be releasing a statement.
Then he went online and started to do his research.
* * * *
Friday morning, Lucas went around and unplugged all their house phones. Fortunately, the press hadn’t managed to get their cell phone numbers—yet—but the house phone was ringing off the hook by seven a.m. When he’d walked out to get the paper, three guys standing on the street had run over to take his picture.
He ignored them and gave silent thanks for having pulled on a T-shirt and shorts instead of walking out in a robe.
When he returned inside, he pulled all the blinds shut, even the ones on the back side of the house.
He didn’t want to take any chances.
Leigh finally awakened a little after nine, eyes puffy from her tears the day before. She walked out and curled up in his lap on the couch.
“Why’d he do this to us?” she whispered. “I thought he cared about us.”
Lucas held her tightly, resting his chin on the top of her head. “So did I, sweetheart. I really did.”
A little after ten, she received a call from her office. As her face fell, Lucas could tell it was bad news.
“Okay,” she softly said. “I understand. We’ll come by Monday to clean out my desk and pick up my last check.” She ended the call, the phone dropping into her lap as she flopped over on her side on the couch and started crying.
He didn’t need to be a mind reader. As he held her, he stroked her hair. “We’ll get through this, sweetheart,” he said. “I promise you, we will.”
“I have to work. We can’t afford to live on just your salary.”
“I know.”
When her phone rang again a few minutes later, it was her mom calling.
Lucas took the phone from Leigh and answered the call himself.
“Lucas? What is going on? We’ve been getting strange calls all morning and—”
“I know, Mom,” he said, glad, at least, that they had the familiarity. “It’s a long story, a complicated one, and the tabloids are trying to spin things up into something it’s not.”
“What do I tell people?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Tell them absolutely nothing.”
Lucas thought the day might get a little less crazy, despite the refusal of the paparazzi outside to leave.
Then around four o’clock, his own cell rang.
The principal at his school.
Leigh was dozing on the couch so he took the phone into his bedroom and shut the door before answering the call. “Hello?”
“Hey, Lucas. It’s Deb Scorcini.”
He closed his eyes, rubbing at his forehead. “Don’t bother with the formalities.”
“Here’s the thing…”
By the time he finished talking with her, he suspected it was only a matter of time before the ax dropped. She asked him not to come in Monday, to wait for her to call him to let him know if there was going to be any fallout.
He didn’t tell Leigh, not wanting to worry her or stress her out any more than she already was.
In his mind, he was already revamping his resume.
* * * *
Saturday evening, Lucas held her as they sat on the couch and watched the entertainment tabloid TV show talk about the official statement issued by Trevor Nichols’ publicist on Friday evening. That there was apparently some sort of misunderstanding, and that the two people he’d hired locally in Florida to help him with research, and with whom he was only friends, had been dragged through the mud by paparazzi looking for a story that wasn’t there. That he’d left Florida to preserve their privacy, since they weren’t public people, but apparently the paparazzi had latched onto them anyway. He requested that they be left alone, and that if anyone had any questions they direct them to his publicist.
Lucas hoped the statement would be enough to save his job.
Prayed it would.
Leigh snorted. “So we were just ‘research.’”
“I honestly don’t know, sweetheart.”
“I thought he meant what he said to us.”
“So did I. It wasn’t just you.”
She went quiet for a moment. “Maybe he’s just saying that so the press drops it.”
“Stop,” he gently said. “Don’t do that to yourself.” The truth was, it would be too easy for him to delude himself, too. To grab hold of that excuse and try to fool himself into thinking that.
Nick was gone. If he’d ever really been there in the first place.
Well, he’d been there, obviously, but Lucas didn’t know if the man had actually meant anything he’d said to them.
Frankly, at that point, he didn’t care if Lucas had meant it. All he cared about was how much Leigh was hurting.
And he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive the man for that.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a long, lonely, rough weekend. They told their friends who called not to come over, because they didn’t want the press going after them, too.
Monday evening, Lucas sank onto the couch next to Leigh and pulled her into his arms. “Hey,” he softly said. “We’ll be okay. We have a little savings, and we’ll find new jobs.
I know this sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.”
“It sure feels like it,” she said. “I thought he cared about us. The way we…” She went silent and didn’t finish her statement.
“The way we loved him,” Lucas said when she couldn’t. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I loved him, too. I did. There at the end, I was trying to figure out a way to talk him into staying here in Florida. Or maybe him moving here.”
She kept her face pressed against his shoulder. “I love you,” she whispered. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“Of course I’ll never give up on you. I love you, too.” He cupped her chin in his hands. “I think it’s time we have that wedding we’ve talked about.”
She laughed, but it was anything but humorous. “Uh, we can’t afford one. Especially now.”
“We can afford Loren and Ross and our friends at the club.”
“I don’t want any of them near us right now. They can’t afford the exposure.”
“Then I’ll talk to Seth and Leah. They live in a gated community. We drive somewhere else, make sure we don’t have a tail, and get a ride with someone. Easy.”
“How do we do that?”
He smiled. “I have an idea.”
* * * *
Lucas felt horrible for Leigh. While he’d hoped the call wouldn’t come, it had, just a little before noon. He’d expected to get fired just because of the parental moral outrage when the shit hit the fan.
Okay, technically he didn’t get fired, he was asked to resign by the principal and not force an awkward school board hearing on the matter.
It meant, at least, that they’d give him a good recommendation when he applied elsewhere. And his unused personal leave time would be paid out to him.
Not that there was any school district close by who wouldn’t have heard about this already.
He honestly hadn’t expected Leigh to get fired, too. Yes, he knew her bosses were conservative with a capital C, but it still hadn’t really sunk home until now. Especially since Nick—Trevor—had issued the statement about them. Tilly and Loren had gone by her office for her and picked up her things. They would store them for her at Tilly’s until the heat died down enough they could go get them.
Out of the Spotlight [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) Page 10