“Will?”
He looked back at me. “Yeah, babe?”
“Theo’s here.”
Will’s eyes became as wide as the sky as he looked frantically around the marina. “What?”
I took a step back with my hands raised. “Whoa, calm down. P-please. Not here here. I saw him today. At the studio.”
He flinched at the sound of my stutter. “Don’t tell me to fucking calm down, Maggie! Your rapist showed up at my place of work to harass both of us, and you want me to calm down? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I wanted y-you to take a second to think about it,” I said. “You just got done talking about how the idea of him makes you feel v-violent—I didn’t want you to risk anything. And I didn’t want to ruin what little time together we actually had today!”
“I can’t believe you waited this long to tell me.” He whipped his phone out and started swiping violently. “Fuck!” he shouted when it was clear he had no service. He snatched my hand and started dragging me back through the marina, around a corner of the dock toward the parking lot where Garrett and Hakeem were still waiting for us in the car.
And somehow, it was like turning that corner brought us immediately back into the real world. Both of our cell phones went off immediately, as we walked back into service raising an alarm of multiple text messages, emails, missed calls, and more. People had been trying to reach us for hours.
“Oh, shit.” Will stared at his phone with pure horror.
“What?”
All the anger that had carved up his beautiful face moments before vanished. Now all I saw was regret.
“Oh, Lil,” he said as he sank down to a squat. He rocked back until he landed on his ass, then buried his face in his hands.
“Will, what is it?”
“I’m sorry,” he said over and over again. He handed me the phone, which had some kind of gallery on it. “So fucking sorry.”
He buried his face in his hands, turning back to the ocean while I scrolled dumbfounded, through picture after blurry picture of the two of us only a few hours before. Will lying on his back, long limbs relaxed in bliss. The water on either side of the boat blinking in the light while I took off my shirt, then my bra. Pictures of me kissing him. Of Will kissing me. Of his hands, my hands…everywhere until, eventually, he picked me up and we disappeared into the cabin.
It wasn’t porn. But it was…close. And it was my body, gyrating atop him like a two-bit dancer at some gentleman’s club. Mine and his, so intimately entwined, and completely on display.
I couldn’t breathe.
“What—w-what the hell is this?” I stuttered, holding the phone back out. “I d-don’t understand. Who took this? Where is that posted?”
My hand shook, but Will managed to take the phone before I dropped it. He clambered back up.
“Some psycho with a telephoto in the trees, I’m guessing,” he said as he pulled me into his chest. “Probably sold it to some shitty tabloid sites. Benny says it’s on a bunch already.”
“In f-four hours?” My head hurt trying to process how quickly this was happening. “How—how did they even—where were—” I shook my head, unable to get out a coherent sentence.
“I know, babe, I know.” Will shushed into my ear, rocking me lightly. “Come on, let’s go home. We will find out who did this, Lil. I promise.”
Stunned, I let him guide me down the dock while he swiped on his phone. Benny picked up immediately, but I could barely listen while Will shouted.
“The only people who knew we were on that boat were Corbyn, Garrett, and Hakeem. So I want to know who the fuck ratted us out, Benny.”
There was a long silence while Benny talked.
“Yeah,” Will replied. “She saw it. She’s…she’s shook up.” He listened a few more minutes, then his eyes flashed open. “What? Are you kidding? Benny, how the fuck do they even know where we are now?” There was some more talk, and Will swore heavily under his breath. “Fine. No, no, it’s fine. I need to get her out of here. Yeah, I’ll call you when we’re back at the house.”
He ended the call and turned to me. “Well, when it rains, it pours, I guess. Things just got a lot worse.”
“There is a fucking porn movie of me on the internet, Will! How could things get worse?”
“They could have filmed us inside the cabin too?”
Will was joking, but I only glared at him, not finding the idea at all funny. He wilted, and it was then I realized that familiar weight, which had settled on his broad shoulders ever since he’d left the lake, was back.
“What?” I asked “What made it worse?”
He just pointed down the length of the long dock. I squinted past his shaky fingers.
“Fuck,” he said as he scanned the marina parking lot. “Fucking fuck.”
Will dialed another number, and almost immediately, Hakeem answered.
“Hey, man,” he said, his voice sounding clearly through the speaker. “We got a bit of a situation here. About twenty-thirty paps are basically stuck to the gate. You ready to go?”
Will glared down the dock, where we could see Hakeem speaking into the phone while Garrett was doing his best to block off the pack of photographers crowding the entrance. We’d been spotted, and already, flashes were going off.
“What the fuck is going on?” Will snapped. “How did they even know to come here?”
“Man, I don’t know.” Hakeem’s voice was tight. He clearly didn’t care for the insinuation on Will’s part. “But we need to get you out. Safely. Then we can talk about who the fuck snitched.”
I frowned. Hakeem and Garrett wouldn’t rat out our location, which meant that it must have gotten out on set somehow. Corbyn had been talking…and someone else had tipped off the paps.
Will shook his head. His entire body was starting to shake. “You didn’t think to call some backup?”
“Of course we did,” Hakeem snapped. “But it’s motherfuckin’ rush hour in Los Angeles, and didn’t nobody ask you to go European on a boat, did they?”
“So what’s the fucking plan?” Will growled. “How the fuck are we supposed to get out of here with that mess?”
I shrank, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me close. His grip was so tight, my bones crunched.
“Don’t let go,” he whispered, and it was then I realized his gruffness covered his fear. Will wasn’t angry at me or anyone else. He was as scared as I was—maybe more.
He continued to listen, holding me close while Hakeem rattled off a set of directions.
“Okay,” he said after he ended the call. He shoved his phone in his back pocket and turned to me, sliding his sunglasses back down despite the darkening sky. “Put your shades on, Lil. Otherwise you won’t be able to see.”
I glanced again toward the photographers, setting off another round of flashes and audible clicks, even from fifty feet away. Then I reached into my purse and did as I was told.
“Garrett and Hakeem are going to do their best to block our way to the car. But it’s not going to be like the premiere. There’s no blockade or extra security. They are going to shout at us—at you, probably—maybe even grab you, try to get you to look at them. Whatever you do, don’t let them in, okay? Don’t talk. Don’t give them anything. Not even a ‘no comment.’ Hey.” Will pulled me back to look at him. “You ready?”
I wished to God I could see his eyes, measure his expression. Was I ready? I didn’t know.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
I followed him down the dock, and as we approached the entrance where Hakeem and Garrett were forcefully preventing the horde of photographers from crossing through the gate, the flashes went off in a frenzy. They started shouting our names, anything they could think of to get us to look at them.
“Fitz! Where were you and Maggie, Fitz?”
“How does Amelia feel about your new girl?”
“Did you have a nice sail?”
“Whose boat is that?”
“Are the two of you living together?”
“Are you engaged?”
“Maggie, where are you from?”
“Hey!” Will shouted out as we were pushed roughly to one side, then the other, pinballing between them.
“Back off!” Hakeem shouted. He spread his big arms, attempting to make a sort of barrier with his broad body.
But there were too many. And the questions continued as we started to run toward the car.
“Did you have sex on the boat?”
“Oh, honey, don’t hide that pretty face.”
“Maggie, do you always take your shirt off in public?”
“Maggie, are you a stripper?”
“Did Fitz pay you?”
At the last one, I was jerked backward, out of Will’s embrace, hard enough that I fell to the pavement, where I was quickly surrounded by a horde of paparazzi. My sunglasses fell off, and I heard a crunch as they were trampled. Flashes blinded me, and I covered my eyes as I tried to stand.
“Will!” I shouted, though the avalanche of questions obscured my voice. I couldn’t see—couldn’t tell which direction to go. Where was Will? Where was the security?
“Maggie, are you trying to become an actress?”
“Are you with Fitz for his money?”
“Are you in adult films?”
“Maggie, are you a prostitute?”
One hand, then another grabbed my shoulder, then my shirt, trying to pick me up roughly, but only succeeding at pushing me down more.
“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked, my arms flailing outward, knuckles scraping on the pavement as I fell back to the ground.
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!” Will’s voice, loud and feral, cut through the crowd as one photographer was yanked back and tossed aside. I heard another loud thwack that sounded like someone’s head hitting cement, and another chorus of shouts, among them Hakeem’s and Garrett’s: “Will, stop!”
And then hands—not ones trying to pull or yank on me, but big palms, one my body knew intimately, hands that could slide around my waist with ease, pick me up like I weighed nothing—slipped under my back and my legs and lifted me off the ground. I squeezed my eyes shut as I was enveloped in his scent—light, water, sun, soap. Will.
“Hakeem, open the fucking door!” His voice vibrated against my cheek, but I kept my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see the chaos still swirling around us. The shouts, the stares, the reflection of our terror in their long, black lenses.
I was placed roughly in the back of the SUV, and with a fight, Will was able to shut the door behind us, locking us in the back of the truck.
“Oh, fuck,” I cried softly to myself as the world slowly came back into focus. There were still stars in the periphery of my vision, but soon I could see straight ahead.
“Go,” Will ordered the second Hakeem clambered into the passenger seat. “I don’t care if you run every motherfucking one of those bloodsuckers over. Just get us the hell out of here.”
I turned away from the window, cowering into Will’s shoulder while I tried to ignore the slaps of hands on the glass, the continued flashes through the windows, the shouting and yelling as Garrett backed the car out of the spot, forcing the paparazzi to move with us until finally we were able to turn the car toward the exit and go.
“You’ve got about five on your tail,” Hakeem said as we were turning out of the lot. “And probably ten more getting in their cars.” He turned to Garrett. “Do we have shells?”
“Shells?” I asked.
Garrett nodded. “Three.”
Beside me, Will shuddered. “A shell game. Remember when we switched cars in New York?”
I nodded, blinking as my vision continued to focus.
He looked at me with dread. “We’re going to do that about three times right now, and we have to move fast, okay?”
I frowned. “Won’t they—won’t they leave us alone when we get to the house?”
“Lily, they don’t know where we live, and I’d like to keep it like that, all right?”
There was a grumble in the front of the car, and Will snapped his head forward. “What?”
Hakeem shook his head. “Nothing, man. You want to play a shell game, we can do that. But they’re going to figure out where you live one way or another. Move a thousand times if you want to, but they always do.”
“Just get us home,” Will bit out. When my head thumped against his shoulder, he didn’t pull me close. Instead, he bent forward and cradled his face in his hands, chanting some unintelligible mantra to himself as we raced up Catalina and then Ripley toward the 405, going much faster than the speed limit.
“Why don’t we go to the studio?” I asked. “Couldn’t we go there and…”
“Oh, honey, you don’t really think it’s gonna be that easy anymore, do you?” Hakeem turned back around and smiled at me like he would to a small child. “They know your face real well now, sweetheart. Well, to be fair, they know more than that.”
“Hakeem!” Will’s voice was a bark, though he didn’t move from his silent prayer.
Hakeem rolled his eyes, then turned back to me. “For the last two months, they’ve only been after him. We’ve done a pretty good job of shielding him. He only gets followed maybe once every other day, but that’s only because his life is boring. But that little stunt the two of you pulled on the boat? That was news. You fed the beast, and now it’s gonna want a whole lot more.”
“First stop’s in five,” Garrett called as he pulled onto the freeway. “At least we’re not jammed.”
The SUV took off like a shot, and it was then I looked over my shoulder to see several other cars weaving around the typical LA traffic behind us. Garrett cut in front of a large semi, earning a middle finger and a loud honk.
“Well, I’d rather be jammed than dead,” Hakeem said as he checked his seatbelt. “Let’s not get rolled on the freeway, all right?”
“Are you okay?” I asked Will as he remained in his trance. I set a light hand on his back, and he started, popping up with wild eyes.
“No,” he said clearly. “No, I’m fucking not.”
I watched in shock as he shook off my hand and proceeded to open the center compartment in the armrest and pull out three small bottles of vodka. He unscrewed the top of the first and threw it back like water, the only sign that it was something stronger was the way his eyes watered slightly.
“Will, what are you—” I started, but I was quickly cut off.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said before chasing the first shot down with a second. “Right now, I just need to calm the fuck down before my heart explodes like my old man’s.”
I wanted to take the bottles away from him, but I was too stunned to do or say anything. Will’s breath was wheezing, and his face was white. He shook his head when I reached out again, tossed back the third bottle, and then collapsed backward against the seat. Within minutes, his face took on a rosy glow, nose pink at the tip. It was a look I knew—my mother’s face was always unnaturally pink that way.
But before I could say anything else, Garrett was screeching across four lanes of traffic, causing a chorus of car horns to explode as he lost several other cars in pursuit of us.
“How many now?” he asked as he sped off the exit.
“Maybe two,” Hakeem replied. “Nice work, man.”
Garrett nodded. “Let’s
see if we can shake the others with only one switcheroo. You two ready?”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
Will looked like he wanted to throw up as Garrett took a sudden turn into a hotel parking garage, wheeling around the spiraled corners with glee until we reached an empty floor containing two other cars.
As soon as we parked, the driver of one of the Town Cars hopped out, and Garrett and Hakeem opened the back doors of the SUV. Will spilled out, a little shaky after drinking all that vodka on an empty stomach.
“Car one, car two,” Garrett said, pointing at each of us separately.
“I’m not leaving her!” Will spat, his voice a little looser than normal, like his lips were made of rubber.
Garret frowned. “Fine. Be difficult then.” He tossed a set of keys to the other driver, who went to take the SUV. “Get in, asshole,” he said to Will, who sneered in return before guiding me into the back seat of a shaded Town Car. Hakeem got into the other identical one, and we started the chase again, waiting first for the other man to drive the SUV out of the garage, then Hakeem in the first Town Car, and then us.
Garrett didn’t see any other photographers following us directly, but according to both him and Will, that didn’t mean they weren’t, and so, we repeated the process twice more. Maybe it was a bit extreme, but I could see why it took so long.
I fingered the torn edges of my shirt, pressed my fingertips over the new bruises on my arm, and floated them over the strawberry on my knee. For the first time, I understood something of the deep-seated fear that Will carried of being found. If this was just the tip of what these people were capable of, I didn’t want to imagine the kind of terror he faced at the height of his fame.
Eventually, when it was fully dark outside and Will was finally convinced that no one would follow us back to the house in the Hills, he allowed Garrett to drive us home. But when I turned to make sure Will was following me inside, I was shocked to see the car pulling away again.
“Hey!” I shouted, banging on the trunk. “Stop!”
As if the metal heard me, the car jerked to a halt, and the back window opened.
Indiscreet (The Discreet Duet Book 2) Page 25