by Ava Claire
I kept my eyes straight ahead, my words tight and concise. “Whitmore and Creighton is a multi-billion dollar company. Surely you can make it rain for any prodigious paparazzo that snaps personal pictures of me that might negatively impact my image.”
“True,” she said, her voice equally frigid. “But juicy gossip is priceless and you make it too easy for them to stay fed when you send your assistant to stalk an elementary school teacher.” Missy clucked her tongue like a parent scolding a petulant child. “If you wanted some Plain Jane vag, we have ways to sate your needs and avoid a photo op.”
Megan. I knew she wouldn’t shed a tear if I stopped existing if the premiere was any indication, but I still felt the need to protect her. To make it crystal fucking clear that she was more than ‘Plain Jane vag’.
“You need to chose your words wisely, Miss Diaz,” I glowered, my hands tight on the edge of the bar. “What’s going on between me and Megan is none of your business.” Whoa, what’s going on between me and Megan? Nothing was what was going on between us.
‘Why her?’ was on Missy’s tongue, laced in her amused little expression. It was a fair question, but not one she’d get an answer to. She wouldn’t get the challenge; my need to prove something to myself. To prove something to Megan...that I wasn’t just some cocky asshole. That I was more than meets the eye.
I sat back in my chair, glaring at the brown liquid in my glass. I was a goddamn contradiction. In one breath I was saying that I was different, but five minutes ago, I was thinking about taking Missy to bed and before that, I was contemplating how easy it would be to sleep with any woman in the room.
“Look, I’m sorry about the Plain Jane comment,” Missy grumbled, acquiescing. “I shouldn’t have gone there.”
I threw a skeptical glance her way, but I let it go when I saw the genuinely apologetic look on her face. I raised my glass to Missy and took a gulp. The burn shouted down the questions, encasing me in a warm, impenetrable bubble.
“How about we talk about your next public appearance?”
“Another TV show?” Maybe this time I would wait until after I did the interview to trash the room.
“Not quite,” she said demurely. Her eyes sizzled with a mischief that made my stomach knot. You think I’d be used to the publicity game. I could put on a suit and smile big, go on some show and shill the hell out of virtually any movie, but this movie was different. Soldier’s Creed reminded me of the old days. The old Cade. The actual heroes I met during my time in the service.
It was the first time I genuinely cared about the story. Cared that people saw past the special effects to the real hero behind it all. Something in Missy’s face told me whatever she had planned would be the antithesis of it. A partnership with some corporation. Some spoof on Saturday Night Live.
“How do you feel about a meet and greet at a local school?”
I sat up, surprised, and definitely interested. I loved kids. They didn’t bullshit, and they were genuine. “Hell yeah,” I said, grinning from ear to ear.
She mirrored my surprise. “Really? Because the good will such an appearance would generate—”
“Don’t ruin the moment with shop talk,” I cut in, shaking my head. “Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”
She told me she had to make some calls, but she was shooting for the following Wednesday. After we had a moment of agreement, she turned the charm back on, but I made an excuse and ducked out of the bar alone.
I could have had her, made her scream my name. But it was all too easy. All the time I spent putting up walls and for once, I wanted someone who saw right through my bullshit. Who ignored the ‘thing’ and demanded more of me.
Someone like Megan.
As if Lisa read my mind, an email was waiting in my inbox, the message subject ‘Don’t Make Me Regret This’. I scrolled through the body of the message, picturing the saucy redhead with the narrowed green eyes that peeled the flesh from my bones.
“Megan Scott,” I read aloud. She was local and had attended the same school as Leila. She had starred in several theater productions in college, and apparently majored in theater before switching her major to education. After spending the summer after graduation volunteering at a village school in Costa Rica, she accepted a teaching position at a low performing inner city school.
I smiled to myself. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that liked a challenge. She had a high GPA and plenty of work experience with children—she could have taught wherever she wanted. She chose to go to a school that had a high turnover rate of teachers and kids with abysmal test scores: PS 52.
And then it hit me.
I pulled up my phone, bringing it to my ear. Missy picked up after one ring.
“So did you change your mind about that second drink?”
“How long is your list of possible schools for me to do the meet and greet?”
She paused, surprised by my question. “Not very long, why?”
“Make sure you add PS 52.”
Chapter Four
Megan
My phone shook to life on the counter. I closed the tab on my browser, shucked my laptop to the side, and padded over to where it sat on the island. I fully expected a text from my best friend, Leila. She was dating gazillionaire Jacob Whitmore, and even though she loved him madly, their fairytale had been more of a nightmare lately.
The number that shone up at me was unfamiliar. I read the text aloud.
“Hello stranger.”
I made a face. Obviously they texted the wrong number, but I’d gotten up and wanted to get something out of the deal, so I sent the awkward inducing ‘who is this’. I returned to the couch, sure whatever, if anything, came next could be spied from a distance while I finished my lesson plan. We were about to take on long division and I was trying to come up with a way to tackle the subject matter and engage with them in a way that didn’t make their eyes glaze over—or instigate all-out anarchy.
My phone trembled on the coffee table before I could even reclaim my pen. I flashed my gaze to the screen and my stomach twisted like a wash rag.
The mystery text response read, Cade.
Cade Wallace.
Questions slammed into me, one after the other. The first was why I heard his name in a smooth British accent in my head, James Bond style. Maybe it was because my favorite one of Cade’s movies was a spy thriller, where his muscled exterior kept throwing everyone off, and he kept being mistaken for the bad guy.
My nostrils flared. He was the bad guy. The cold touch of my anger came rushing back. I remembered the premiere, stealing glances in his direction, and pointedly letting him know I had my eye on him. His powerful aquiline features, the devastatingly green eyes and a half smile that made me tingle—
I snatched up a bottle of water and took a solid gulp, dousing the fire that raged in my veins.
What the hell? Why was I fantasizing about Cade Wallace? What happened to my vow? No more guys that thought they were God’s gift to women. Guys who used their power to control women mercilessly...like finding private cell numbers.
Fingers trembling, I drummed out a response. Do I even want to know how you got this number? I hurled the phone to the other side of the couch, putting some distance between me and the building excitement I refused to acknowledge. It was impossible to hold up the ruse when I lurched to pick it back up when he replied.
I know a guy who knows a guy...you know the drill ;)
Was that a winky face?
Cade Wallace winked at me. Knocks sounded at this door, cutting through my moment of insane happiness. I blazed a trail to the door. I perked on my tiptoes and looked out the peephole. Even distorted, there was no mistaking the distress on my best friend’s face.
I pulled open the door. Leila Montgomery stood on my welcome mat, her pretty features downturned. Her curls had been sleeked into a low bun that accentuated her cheekbones, but her eyes were puffy and red from crying. She hadn’t even opened up her mouth, and I al
ready knew she had a bad case of Jacob Whitmore.
“Oh Leila,” I said sympathetically. She melted in my arms, her curvy frame trembling as she let the tears come.
If you had told me a few months ago that my best friend would end up dating Jacob Whitmore, the billionaire with his own TV show and a long line of women willing to do anything for a night with him, I wouldn’t have believed it. Not because he was out of her league or anything like that—Leila was gorgeous, effortlessly so with wild curls that gave her a chic, bohemian aura. She had soft curves and big brown eyes that held more expression than anything I’d ever seen in a single gaze.
The thing that made her most beautiful was that she walked around like she couldn’t see just how breathtaking she really was.
Despite that, it still seemed like dating a celebrity, being swept to a foreign country, photographers snapping pictures—just didn’t happen to girls like us. Normal girls. All the glitz and flashing lights was something that happened to other people. People that lived charmed lives.
Leila pulled away, snot glistening in her nostrils before she wiped it away with the back of her hand. There wasn’t anything charming about the bleary eyed girl in front of me. In fact, it seemed like her life had been nothing but stressful since she met the billionaire. I kicked the door shut with my foot and handed her the box of tissue on the island.
“What’s going on?” I remembered the infuriatingly charming client that had caused their last fight. The same client that was now texting me. “This about Cade?”
“Please,” she snorted. “I handled Cade, remember? He’s no longer a problem.”
I glanced over at my phone warily. I knew all about guys like Cade Wallace. Blessed with good genes and an inability to be faithful. When they’re hot, and told just how hot they are by everyone, why tether themselves to a single woman? Every little glance he’d thrown at me during the premiere was a double edged sword. He wielded charm like a weapon. Guys like Cade Wallace were trouble.
“I doubt that,” I grunted. “Want some tea?”
She nodded, then headed toward the cabinet. I put on a tea kettle.
Her heels clicked on the linoleum as she pulled down two mugs. When she handed them over, she’d almost scrubbed her face of all emotion. “I walked out.”
I frowned, her three word explanation bringing more questions than answers. “What?”
“I just walked out,” she said, her face taut and defensive.
“What do you mean, you just walked out?” I peered at her strangely, then reached in the fridge for a bottle of water and handed it to her. Clearly, we couldn’t wait for the water to heat up. She was dehydrated and giving me pieces of the story that made no sense.
She gingerly accepted it. “Rachel Laraby stopped by.”
“Ah,” I breathed. Let me make an addendum. I couldn’t believe my best friend was dating a celebrity, or that she was duking it out with Rachel Laraby for his heart. I’d always gotten an unsettling vibe from the popular brunette actress. There was something sinister behind her glittering eyes and blisteringly white smile. Leila had told me that my assumptions had been correct, and Rachel Laraby had everyone fooled. Her whole sweet personality was complete bullshit—Rachel was a complete snake to Leila, trying to sabotage Leila’s relationship with Jacob at every turn.
The kettle whistled, and I took it off the heat, shaking my head in disbelief. With Cade and Rachel coming at her, Leila probably had to sleep with one eye open.
“I won’t even bother asking why you were talking to Rachel Laraby in the first place.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking to her. I didn’t say a single word to her or Jacob. As soon as she told me that he said he loved her, I got up, marched to the exit, took the elevator down to the garage, and drove here.”
Leila, Leila, Leila. I gripped the kettle’s handle tight. I poured piping hot water in the first cup, then the second. You know how I said one of the beautiful things about Leila was that she didn’t realize how gorgeous she really was? It was also frustrating, because she had a bad habit of letting jealous girls make her small. Rachel had money and fame, but she was as bitchy as any of the sorority girls that tried to come for Leila back when she was dating a jock back in college.
I’d laughed off her comments when she said that she wasn’t like them, that she couldn’t hold a candle to the rail thin, bottle blonde robots—until I realized she was being serious. She told me about being picked on as a child for her hair, her weight...and how that self consciousness still plagued her. But we’d gotten past that. I told her just how full of shit they were, that their words were worth less than nothing.
We’d left college behind, but it was like were back in the dorm, and she was disappearing into herself. I wasn’t going to join the pity party.
“Huh.” I hoped the single syllable would show her just how disappointed I was that she was letting Rachel under her skin. She was stronger than that.
“The thing is, when she said that he told her loved her, I got this feeling.” Apparently she was ignoring my attempt at tough love. She stared into space, lost in the memory of the confrontation. “I felt like I was back in the hotel restaurant, barely over the fact that this mega-actress was sitting beside me, totally ignoring my existence, and picking up on the not-so-subtle cues that she cared about Jacob. “She scissored her bottom lip with her teeth, her self-consciousness showing. “And he couldn’t possibly not return those feelings because she’s Rachel Laraby. How could he not fall for her?”
I scoffed at that, flinging the notion away with my hand. “I know you’re not going down that rabbit hole, thinking that you can’t hold a candle to her. If you start drinking that crazy chick’s Kool Aid—”
“It wasn’t that,” she said, not even remotely convincing me. She took another swig, like she was mining for liquid courage. “Well, of course at first I thought I was a rookie playing in the big leagues. Rachel is gorgeous and successful and I...I was still trying to get Jacob to open up to me. But back then, I immediately had this feeling that what they had was more than physical. And now I’m frustrated all over again because I had to collect scraps of how he felt about me, demanding more, having him add brick after brick to the wall around his heart until he finally let me in—and someone had already gotten past his defenses.”
I settled back in my seat, washing her words down with a gulp of water. I knew all too well how frustrating it was to feel like you had something special, something monumental...and then reality bitch slapped you.
Mark and I had been dating for a little over a month. He was the first to say I love you and as soon as those words came out, I forgot all the reasons why I didn’t just throw those words around.
I said it back. I even meant it, with an eye on the future, and pretending I didn’t hear the voice that told me it was too fast. That he was a little too comfortable with eyeing other women while he was with me. If he was cool with eyeing them with the girlfriend he was supposed to love sitting right there, what was he okay with doing when I wasn’t there to glare at him?
I peeked over at Leila. She was so lost in her thoughts. I was fairly certain she was weaving some intricate web, lines being drawn to support her conclusion that she wasn’t good enough for Jacob. That she could never hold a candle to someone like an international superstar.
A bitter taste rose in my mouth. At least she had someone that was willing to fight for her. Someone that was willing to make a real commitment to her.
I was screwed in that department. The guys were different, but the story always ended the same.
Everyone I loved broke my heart.
Chapter Five
Cade
Everything about PS 52 brought back good memories. The flag that caught the wind, ruffling as the breeze cluttered over the red white and blue. The stone and brick that led up to the entryway. The school’s name etched in stone. The stragglers that skirted through the front door with backpacks almost as big as they were.
I r
olled down the back window, inhaling deep. I had fond memories of this excited feeling, pulling up to the curb in my mother’s old station wagon, backpack on my shoulder and barely kissing her cheek before I was off.
It wasn’t necessarily an eagerness to learn. It was an eagerness to experience kids my age. Have a conversation with someone that wasn’t the television. All the kids in our trailer park were either too young to do more than babble and slobber all over everything, or too old to care about anything school related.
At school, there were books to be read, jokes to be made, jungle gyms to be conquered. School was an escape.
Lisa stepped out beside me, shuddering apprehensively.
“You better be glad I like you,” she quipped. “I’m breaking a promise: never step a foot into a place like this voluntarily.”
“Well if it helps, it’s not exactly voluntary.” I flashed her a grin. “Who else will make sure I don’t corrupt young minds?”
She pinched my bicep with her black nails. “Good point.”
Missy Diaz was in a decidedly un-jovial mood. She looked up at the school like it was some haunted house with horrors more terrible than anything she could imagine. Considering she was all but running this show, that was a problem.
I turned to her, voice lowered. “You all right?”
“I...I don’t do kids.” She sniffed, collecting herself. When she blinked, the cool businesswoman had shifted back in place. “Shall we?”
She led the way, walking briskly toward the entrance. A tall, lanky man in a wrinkled shirt, tie and painfully snug slacks stood outside, waiting for us. His eyes were beady brown things, intensifying a large nose and thick lips that were pulled from ear to ear. Yellow teeth glittered at me as he ignored everyone else and zeroed in on me.
He thrust his hand out. “Mr. Wallace, it is such a pleasure!”