by Jean Oram
She stared into his eyes, absorbing their intensity. “I see someone who wants to be larger than life and who will be quoted in fifty years. Someone who makes a difference. I also see a wonderful man denying his true side. You know the world would love the real Finian as much as I do.”
“You love me?” He shot her one of his sexiest grins.
“You know what I mean.” She slipped out of his grip, retreating as she gave him a sassy glance over her shoulder. “Women like me don’t go for men like you. We like men with five-year plans.”
“I have a five-year plan. It involves being bad to the bone.” He grabbed her elbow, pulling her to him so he could shimmy his hips against hers. “Besides, you keep telling me I’m not bad.”
“I was wrong. You’re a bad, bad boy.” She pushed him away, unable to stay mad at him. He was like a big balloon full of life and joy.
So damn likable.
Finian released her, his face suddenly serious as he fell into her old armchair. He heaved a sigh laced with exhaustion and frustration. “I don’t know what to do, Hailey, but I can’t be that Renaissance man you want. Not yet.” He cleared his throat, jaw tight. “Are we still working together? Because if we are, I need to set some boundaries and I need to have the final say on my image.”
She shifted her gaze away. She’d already broken that rule.
“There are some things I am willing to do with my image—a lot, in fact—but there are some things that would destroy me within a week.”
She knelt in front of the chair, clutching his face. “I want to leave a mark on your life, Finian. A marker you can go back to and say, ‘That was where my life changed, and it was all because of Hailey Summer’.”
“Trust me, there will be a mark, Hails.” He pulled her into his lap, kissing her temple.
“If I’m going to work with you there needs to be a certain artistic element. If not, then you have to pay me more, and I have to remain anonymous.”
“Okay.”
“I want to work with you, Finian. You energize me in ways I can’t figure out. But I can’t be selling this whole bad-boy side and shooting tabloid photos unless there is a spin to it that allows me to use my artistic, creative side.”
“Fine. We’ll figure that out shot by shot.”
She pressed a hand against his chest. “Do you trust me?”
He gave a light laugh. “Not especially. You tend to slap me a lot.”
She shook her head and smiled. “I know your audience, Finian. They are people like me and they are ready for real. They crave it.”
“Do you crave it, Hailey?” He pushed her off his lap so he could stand. “Because it seems to me that you get enough real life. You need the lighter side. The joy and frivolity.”
“I’m…I’m getting better at it.”
“Because that’s what Finian Alexander provides—a break from the mundane for two hours or less. Nothing more. It’s all I am. And it’s what people need.” He clutched her chin, his voice softening. “Even you.”
“You also provide hope, Finian. Hope for a better world, a better future. Letting out your real side can only add to that. When you are real is when I like you the most, and let go of all my burdens.”
His eyes softened with affection and pride.
“But, Hails, is that what you’re doing with your show? Creating hope? Leaving your indelible mark on the world? Letting your artistic side out to play?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Thanks to you, I scrapped the commercial images and I’m going to hang the more artistic ones. The ones I feel. I’m choosing art even if it means breaking my sisters’ hearts and taking a big financial risk. You taught me that.”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”
“I have to be true to myself and I can’t keep hiding behind what works. You might not be there yet, but I am.” She pulled him into her arms, kissed his lips. “As much as that surprises me, we aren’t that different. We’re just making different choices and taking different paths. You’ll see what I mean.” She tugged him toward the door. “Come on. I want to share something with you.”
* * *
Finn moved with an intense focus, his actions purposeful. Hailey’s photos were amazing. She’d taken every one of the most stellar shots from the pile of incredible pictures in her studio and framed them. There wasn’t a single commercial shot like he’d expected. He still didn’t understand what she’d meant about breaking her sisters’ hearts, but he understood having to make decisions that sometimes went against what family members thought was for the better good.
Here in Simone’s two-story boutique, he’d ended up pushing Hailey aside, a map popping into his mind of where each photo should be hung. Getting to work with her images was a privilege, and it stirred up his creative side as he imagined himself as an artistic director as he moved around the old converted house.
This was his role, and he was getting deeper into the zone and hanging pictures faster than Hailey could prep them.
He could see the whole story laid out in her images. The conflict here in the entry hitting people as soon as they came in, the resolution finalized on the top floor. He was breathing shallowly, finding the excitement of creating with her work invigorating.
Hailey had left to find more hooks, and he could hear hurried chatter and giggling in one of the side rooms. He smiled and switched two photos. Hailey’s friend Simone, the store’s owner, had been staying out of the way, plying them with coffee from a small pot in her office, and running ideas by Hailey.
The energy was contagious and consuming. Fun.
Finn slipped into the entry to grab an armload of images for one of the smaller rooms, and heard Simone shush Hailey. “I can’t believe you slept with him,” she said in a whisper that carried through the empty building.
“More than once, I might add,” Finn called. He glanced around the corner to where Hailey was flushed clear from her sandaled toes to her forehead. She smiled shyly, in a way that warmed him. He wanted more. More of everything he probably could never have.
He ducked back into the hall and leaned against the first available wall. What was this woman doing to him? He couldn’t do this with her. Not now.
He lifted the framed photo in his hands. It was of him.
His breathing hitched as if he had taken a fatal blow, and he sagged to the floor. He couldn’t be the man she wanted. Needed. Deserved. He wasn’t this guy she’d captured in black-and-white.
Still on his butt, he leaned around the door frame, intending to call out to Hailey, but changed his mind. The two women had their backs to him, studying a photo he’d hung only moments ago.
He held the picture of himself in his hands and swallowed. This framed man was the guy he wanted to be. How had she captured him? Revealed him? Seen him? And why was his image here with her nature photos?
He hugged the picture, then, kneeling, flipped through the others waiting to be hung. The rest were all nature related, and ones he had seen earlier. Where had this shot of him come from?
Turning, he moved quietly into the room where the women were tacking tags beside each photo, with the title, artist, and price.
“When does he go home?” Simone asked quietly.
Hailey shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Like hell it doesn’t.”
“It’s just a fling. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Simone made a derisive sound and Hailey turned with a handful of tags and sticky tack, her face pale. Finn ducked behind a rack of dresses before she could see him, listening to her move around the room, hating the fact that she thought of him as a fling.
But that’s all it could ever be, right? They lived in two different worlds and he would soon return to Hollywood, leaving her behind. He had to. Besides, it wasn’t as though she was going to move away from her family for some movie star who wasn’t even close to her type. And it didn’t matter that she saw him for who he really was, she kept thinking of him as the celebrity with the s
hoddy image she needed to change. And when he returned to Hollywood all she’d see was the side of him that he could safely reveal to the world.
“You seem pretty sweet on him,” Simone said.
“He’s a great guy. Too bad he’s a movie star.”
The women laughed.
“I could swear I was listening to Snap,” Simone said. “Hey, speaking of Maya and your sisters, how’s the cottage thing going?”
“I rented it out.”
“They went for it?”
“Anything for the cottage, right? And—”
“Hey,” Finn said, pretending he’d just entered the room. He placed a light kiss on Hailey’s cheek and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “The show looks great.”
“Thanks to you.” Hailey moved to study at a row of photos to the left of the dresses he’d been hiding behind, the old floorboards creaking as she walked. “I love how you paired images. Some seem to work together based on their texture, or filter. Some even fight with their neighbor. You know, elbowing each other out of the way so they can gain more attention. But there’s something else I can’t quite figure out.” She gave him a look that resembled admiration. That was what he was missing from her. That was what he wanted. Every day from now until the end of time. He pulled her into his arms as Simone left to answer the phone ringing in her office.
“It’s a story, Hailey.”
She quirked her head, her lips twisted into a puzzled shape that made him want to kiss them back into a smile.
“A love story.”
She glanced at the images from the corner of her eye. “But the subject matter…”
“You’ll see it. Start in the shoe room. It begins with a quiet spring, then builds to a climax before the resolution on the top floor. It’s perfect.”
She went to move out of his arms.
“Look later.” He bent to kiss her on the lips, pulling her closer and closer until her breathing turned heavy with need. Need for him. He broke the kiss and smiled. “Thank you, Hailey. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life.”
“So, there is more to you than fistfights and explosions?” she teased.
“Only on Fridays.”
“Friday? What time is it?”
“Two.”
She slipped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer. “Excellent. Lots of time.” Her lips were tantalizingly close and he could smell her raspberry lip gloss, wanting to taste it. “Because I think you deserve a reward for helping me find my way with my art, as well as helping destiny.”
“I think I have time for that.” He slipped out of her grip after pasting a big kiss on her lips. “Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
Finn hustled out of Hailey’s car, laughing at how she’d nicknamed him Arty. He had no idea why that made him laugh. It wasn’t a great nickname and it likely meant they were going to have another fight about him following his real side, but he loved how Hailey was smiling, and how that made him smile in return.
Hanging out with her felt so right. He’d gotten to the point where he couldn’t stop touching her—and didn’t want to. It was becoming difficult to imagine his life back in Hollywood, especially without Hailey.
He pulled her toward his little cottage with the wooden sunflower cutouts, and she laughed, dragging her feet, all smiles. “What’s the big hurry, Arty?”
He growled like a primal beast and slung her over his shoulder as she laughed and pretended she wanted to get away. “I’ve been promised a reward for hanging your show with artistic flair, before showing up at the opening tonight as the artist’s arm candy. It’s time to pay up, sugar toes.” He gave her a light slap on the butt and leaped up the steps to his cottage. “I’m going to make you enjoy living.”
“You always do,” she giggled.
Invigorated by letting his artistic side loose over at Simone’s, he banged open the cottage door, unable to believe it had only been three days since she’d slapped him for coming on to her like a big jerk. And only two days since they’d been hunkered over a rare turtle like a couple of schoolkids.
A couple.
He laughed to himself. Like that would ever work. She was getting under his skin in ways he’d never thought possible.
He dropped Hailey on her feet and slipped his hands under her shirt, his lips making their way down her bare throat. She let out a purr of contentment, her hands reaching for his belt.
Oh, things were about to get good.
He began shuffling her backward toward the bedroom when a familiar perfume, heady, overdone, and expensive—he should know, he’d bought it—froze him in place.
“Well, isn’t this just too cute for words,” cooed a female voice.
Hailey pulled away so fast she struck his chin with her head, making him clutch it in pain.
“Finian?” His mother joined his ex-girlfriend.
Jessica crossed her arms over her bust, which was spilling out of her tight tank top as she watched Hailey adjust her T-shirt. “We have things to discuss.”
“Oh!” Finn’s father just about ran over Jessica as he came hurrying in to see what the commotion was about. “Well, this is awkward.”
Jessica tugged Finn’s arm, her rings digging into his flesh. “I need to speak to you.”
Finn’s mother pulled Hailey into the kitchen, chatting softly. Finn extracted himself from Jessica and followed them.
“We need to talk about our relationship,” Jessica called, dogging his steps.
“We have no relationship. I’m seeing Hailey.”
Hailey grew taller, a smile lighting her face, and he stepped to her side to wrap an arm around her shoulder, planting a kiss on her forehead.
“Yeah, that’s kind of a problem.” Jessica slapped a tabloid on the table. “Because according to the papers you’re two-timing me.”
“Well, that does fit with his reputation,” Hailey replied, and Finn let out a laugh, giving her a squeeze.
“That’s an old photo.” He glanced at the caption Kissed and Made Up.
“This is what the public wants.” Jessica slapped another tabloid down. Back Together? And another old photo. She dropped another tabloid onto the growing stack. Exclusive Insider on the Girl Who Broke Up Hollywood’s Favorite Couple.
He glanced at Hailey, who was reading the paper with red cheeks.
“Hailey.” He reached for her, but she stepped away. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Did you talk to someone?” He looked back to the tabloid, flipping it open.
“No.”
“Of course you didn’t, because there is no you and him.” Jessica gave Hailey a condescending look. “Daisy, can you take this girl out for coffee or something? Finn and I need to have an emergency meeting in regards to his image, as well as this latest development.” She bored her eyes into Hailey on the last word, gazing straight down her surgically upturned nose.
“I think I’ll go for coffee, too,” Finn said.
“We need to address this, Finn. Now.”
Something inside him grew taut to the point of breaking. “No.” He stepped closer to Jessica. “I’m tired of these games. We were never real.”
She let out a throaty laugh. “What does any of that matter? This is business, Finn, not love.”
“How did I ever think you were some sort of a reward or prize?”
“Maybe we should let them talk business,” his mother whispered to Hailey.
Hailey stepped toward the door, the crease between her eyebrows deepening. “Actually, I need to meet someone, so I should get going. Thank you, anyway.”
Finn caught her on the porch, ignoring the paparazzo angling for a better shot on the path between the small cottages. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was coming. I don’t want her back. I didn’t ask her to come.”
“Finn, it doesn’t matter.”
He caught Hailey’s hand in his, feeling as though he was losing the one thing he’d always wished for. “It does to me.”
CHAPTER 13
/> Hailey stood on the dock and waited for the Walkers, her cottage renters, to return from their stay on Nymph Island. They were supposed to meet her forty minutes ago, and without her boat she couldn’t run out to the cottage to check on them. Where were they? Had she got the time wrong? Had they decided to stay an extra day and she didn’t get the message?
She checked her phone for messages again and tried their cell number.
Nothing. No answer.
Today didn’t seem to want to go her way, and she no longer knew if she was coming or going. And why had Jessica come to Muskoka so suddenly? It was as though the woman knew Hailey was trying to change Finian, and she’d come to his rescue.
Her phone rang and she answered without checking it.
“Hailey, Cedric here. Sold your photos.”
She rubbed her forehead. “What photos?”
“The ones of Finian as a good boy up in the woods. You’ll have a nice slider on…which site was it…” She could hear clicking in the background.
If this was what Hailey thought was going to work for Finian, then why did she feel as though she’d just stuck a knife in his back?
“Hmm. I just lost the email. But they’re sold and it was decent money. Not great, I mean, it wasn’t Finian showcasing his bad-boy side or anything particularly spectacular. But I managed to convince an editor that you had something there, and another side of the Finian Alexander we all know. We’ll get some speculation going about him and build it up, and you’ll be there on top, right?”
“Right. Of course.”
“You okay? You sound kind of funny.”
She closed her eyes to stop the world from swaying. She’d betrayed Finian. Gone against her word. Sold out both of them. And for what? To prove to him that she thought she knew best? She was no better than all the righteous people telling her to take the commercial route and skip making art.
She looked up at the sky, but the moving clouds made her dizzy and she had to close her eyes again. Finian would be back in Hollywood in a flash now that Jessica had come to claim him. He couldn’t ignore his career nor his image. Those things always came first.