The Someday Girl (The Girl Duet Book 2), page 10
Shaking myself, I watch him disappear down the sidewalk. I’m about to start digging for my phone again when Masters’ SUV pulls to a stop by the curb. A darkly-tinted window rolls down, revealing Harper’s worried face.
“Did you kill him?”
“Tempting as it was, I really don’t feel like serving a thirty-year sentence just for the pleasure of permanently removing Grayson Dunn from my life.” I climb into the backseat and sigh heavily as I relax against the leather. “God, I need someone to take me out.”
“On a dinner date?” Harper asks.
“Or with a sniper rifle. Either one.”
Masters laughs.
I’m stunned; I didn’t think he knew how to do that. When he realizes we’re both staring at him open-mouthed, the laugh morphs into a cough and his lips press into a stern line.
“Don’t look so shocked. I know how to laugh.”
Harper snorts. “Babe. We’ve been together a month. I’ve never heard so much as a chuckle from your general direction.”
“Just because I don’t cackle like a hyena at every little thing, as the two of you are prone to…”
“Hyenas?” I wrinkle my nose.
“Definitely not hyenas,” Harper concurs.
“What’s wrong with hyenas?” Masters asks.
“Besides the fact that they’re the ugliest creatures on the planet?” I grimace. “Nothing at all.”
“We’re much cuter than hyenas,” Harper murmurs. “Meerkats, maybe. Oh! Or otters. Otters are adorable. Did you know they hold hands to keep from floating apart while they nap?”
Masters merges the car left, taking the turn toward my neighborhood. “Don’t care what you see yourself as, so long as you can acknowledge you’re also crazy.”
“Rude,” Harper says.
“True,” he mutters.
We reach my house fifteen minutes later. I’m barely out of the car when Harper spots the silver envelope in my hands and swipes it from me.
“What’s this?”
“See for yourself, you’ve already stolen it.”
She pulls the thick card-stock out and reads aloud. “A masked affair… Sloan’s having a New Year’s Eve masquerade party? Am I invited?”
“Does it say I get a plus one?”
“Yes.”
“Then consider yourself invited.”
“Excellent.” Her eyes glitter. “I have an Olympic gold medal in coordinating cute New Year’s Eve outfits.”
“Didn’t know they gave those out,” Masters says dryly.
She waves his words away. “You’re just jealous because you aren’t invited.”
He glances at me. “Assuming you’ll need a designated driver?”
I nod.
He glances at his girlfriend. “Apparently, I’m invited.”
I laugh as she narrows her eyes at him, then stomps inside. Alone with Masters, I pause before following her in.
He looks at me questioningly.
“You’re good for her,” I inform him.
His brows go up. “But?”
“Who says there’s a but?”
He just waits.
I sigh. “But… if you screw it up… you know I’ll have to kill you, right?”
“Appreciate the sentiment.” His lips twitch. “Not planning to screw it up.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“You okay?” he asks. “The Dunn situation. Not ideal.”
I let a gust of air out from between my lips. “No. Definitely not ideal.”
“You gonna tell him?”
“About?”
He waits a beat, eyes flickering down to my stomach and back.
I feel my heart lurch. “You know.”
He nods.
“How do you know?”
I don’t know why I bother asking — Masters is the most observant person I’ve ever met. He knows everything. Still, he humors me.
“No alcohol in weeks. Running to the bathroom at the sushi place. Keeping saltine crackers in your purse everywhere you go to stave off nausea — figured you’re either seasick or pregnant, and you don’t strike me as the nautical type.”
“Shit. Apparently, I’ll have to be more careful. Still… No one else has figured it out. Even Harper…” I blanch. “Wait… you didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Not my place to tell her, Miss Firestone.” His eyes are steady on mine. “But, for the record, I think you should.”
“I can’t. Not yet. She’ll freak.”
He nods. “Yeah. She does that. But, when she’s done freaking, she’ll help. And, right now, I’m thinking you could use some help.”
“You aren’t wrong,” I admit softly.
“Plus,” he says quietly. “Secret like this… there’s only so long you can keep it.”
His eyes drop to my stomach again. I haven’t started showing — it’s still too early for that. But it’s only a matter of time.
“Wait too long, you won’t have to tell,” he murmurs. “It’ll be plain for everyone to see. Even someone as self-absorbed as Grayson Dunn.”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
…And especially someone as observant as Wyatt Hastings.
Six
“I need you right now.”
- A girl waiting at the window for the pizza delivery guy.
After the way we left things, I wasn’t sure Grayson would actually show up to drive me to the radio interview the following day, but at noon on the dot there’s a short beep at the gates outside my house. I push a button to open them and watch as his Bugatti glides to a soundless stop by my walkway.
He doesn’t get out to greet me as I lock my front door and approach.
I don’t say anything as I climb inside and strap on my seatbelt, replaying the last words I spoke to him over and over in my head.
As far as I’m concerned, when the cameras are off, we have nothing more to say to each other.
A frozen silence descends over us and doesn’t thaw for the entirety of our trip from the Palisades to the LA-FM building downtown, a sleek glass tower home to five of the biggest West Coast radio stations, where we’re scheduled to record multiple interviews with different entertainment news shows.
There’s a mob scene of paparazzi waiting for us when we pull up to the valet. They go wild when they recognize the car. Grayson’s security team, following at a discreet distance in their dark SUV, climb out and do their best to keep the crowd under control. Even with their solemn expressions and steel-forged shoulders clearing a path for us to the doors, I’d feel safer with Masters by my side.
“Showtime,” Grayson mutters.
They’re eager for photographs of Hollywood’s newest couple; we do our damnedest not to disappoint them.
Grayson holds my door open like a gentleman, making a show for the camera-wielding men lining the curb. I lean into his chest and let him kiss my forehead like a smitten idiot, all for the sake of his fans, who live-stream our images to various social media platforms with cutesy hashtags that make me die a little inside.
#GrayKat
Outside, I’m smiling.
Inside, I’m screaming.
Moving between several different recording rooms, we do three radio interviews back to back — joking and giggling while the microphones are live, holding hands to keep up the appearance of a loving couple as we enter the recording studio and greet each host. They’ve all heard the news, by now. Clips from our interview with Eileen have been playing on a loop on every entertainment site, trending worldwide on every social media platform, and freeze-framed on the front of every gossip magazine.
The radio personalities want to know about everything — all our firsts. First kiss, first date, first moment he knew I was the one finally worth giving up his man-whorish ways for.
The saddest thing is, we don’t have to fabricate much. It sounds, to the unknowing ear, like a fairy tale: two childhood co-stars, reunited after a decade of distance, starring in the most epic romance of the year. A love tailor-made for movie screens.
Unless, of course, you know the truth.
That the hero wouldn’t stay.
That the heroine couldn’t change his mind.
That it wasn’t really love at all — just the potential for something wonderful, wasted on two people who were never meant to be.
I smile as I listen to Grayson talking about our waterfall hikes on the shores of Oahu, I laugh as I hear him describing our moments drinking rum beneath the stars. I’m the perfect impersonation of a happy, star-crossed girl, chiming in with careful details here and there, to flesh out the tale. But, all the while, inside me something is unraveling. The last shred of attachment, cut clean through with the sharp blade of his calculation, for I cannot fathom how he could so casually lay bare all our secrets for strangers, or use our story as fodder for the masses.
All for what?
Soundbites and ticket sales.
I sit beside him, listening to him talk about our love affair as if it happened to someone else, and know that he is not the man I thought he was, nor the man I wished he could be. The Grayson Dunn in my head has always been an embellished version of his true self — kinder, more compassionate, infinitely more caring.
I have been loving and hating and mourning an illusion.
When we reach the car, he holds open my door like a gentleman, but there’s anger in his eyes. I rip my hand from his grip as soon as we’re out of the paparazzi’s line of sight. He slams my door with a bit more force than necessary. I smash the buckles of my seatbelt together with a harsh click, then stare pointedly out the window as he climbs into the driver’s seat and starts the engine.
Neither of us speaks. We have used up all our falsely bright words and unfailingly happy smiles on strangers. The only thing left to simmer in the air between us is resentment and rage.
The drive home is slow and silent. It calls to mind another car ride with him, back before everything got so sad and twisted and broken between us, when he dropped me off after playing chess in my favorite park. It seems far longer than two months have passed, since then. I was a different girl entirely. Someone I don’t even recognize.
We pull up to my security gate and I murmur the code under my breath. He punches it in with aggressive jabs and pulls silently up to my front walkway. The car has barely pulled to a stop but I’m already reaching for the door handle, eager to escape him.
“See you tomorrow, sweetheart,” he snaps as I step outside.
“Can’t wait, darling,” I drawl, voice thick with sarcasm.
I slam the door and disappear inside.
The next day follows a similar pattern as the Uncharted press junket continues — we do two more talk show sit-downs in front of a studio audience, then make an appearance at AXC to take photos with fans who’ve paid for a VIP studio tour package. I spend hours smiling until my cheeks ache, laughing at things I find humorless, letting Grayson run his hands over my body and leaning into his touch instead of smacking his hands away.
It’s painful… but it’s part of the job.
For days, I barely see anyone except Grayson. Harper comes over in the mornings to do my makeup and Masters checks in on me at night, but the majority of my waking hours are spent alone with my co-star, either grinning at each other for the cameras or glaring at each other in private. We don’t discuss the hostility burning bright between us. There’s nothing left to say. Rehashing the same old arguments would be a waste of breath, and we’re both too stubborn to apologize — him for his hasty actions, me for my antagonistic words.
By the third day, the tension has reached a breaking point. It’s Christmas Eve, and everyone around us is practically overflowing with holiday spirit… which only seems to make our silent war of wills more strained by comparison. There’s something physically draining about being surrounded by happy people when you’re acutely miserable. Perhaps that’s why suicide rates skyrocket this time of year. Depression in the face of all that god-awful cheer makes you wonder if something is wrong with you, down to your DNA.
We’re walking back to Grayson’s car after a particularly mundane interview with a panel of popular teenage internet bloggers who Sloan assures us are influencers, when a paparazzo slips through the security perimeter on the sidewalk, camera shoved close to our faces.
“Grayson! Kat! Can I get a picture of the two of you?”
His voice is piercing, and his question is less request than confirmation — I can hear his shutter clicking down rapidly as we try to skirt around him. The security guards are occupied, holding back a swarm of teenage girls desperate to get close enough to touch the legendary Grayson Dunn.
“Hey!” I snap, pushing the telephoto lens away when it practically smacks me in the nose. “Watch it!”
“Kat, how do you feel about Grayson’s past conquests?” the man yells from my left. “Do you really believe he’ll stay faithful?”
“Back off.” Grayson grabs my hand and tugs me behind him with an indelicate jerk. “Or I’ll make you back off.”
“So you don’t care about the other women?” the pap yells, ignoring Grayson’s warnings. “Even after what he did to Helena Putnam?”
Grayson stops short. I see his shoulders tense.
“Grayson,” I mutter, tugging at his hand. “Ignore him.”
But the paparazzo isn’t about to drop it. “Do you feel at all responsible for her current situation?”
Grayson’s voice is a furious growl. “That’s not your business.”
“We have no comment,” I insist, tugging at Grayson again. He doesn’t budge.
“Do you know anything about her rumored hospitalization or current mental state? Have you even been to see her?”
“No comment!” I yell, stepping in front of Grayson when he whirls, hands clenched, to face the man with the camera. I glance over my shoulder in warning. “Seriously, drop it.”
But he doesn’t.
The shutter clicks down again. “Do either of you have a comment regarding her apparent hysterical pregnancy?”
“Sure. Here’s my comment.” Grayson reaches out and grabs the long lens of the camera. With a vicious tug, he rips it from the man’s hands. Before I can stop him, he reels back and hurls the expensive equipment with all his might. It sails through the air and lands in the middle of the street, the impact shattering it into several pieces.
The paparazzo screams bloody murder as a car runs the camera over, obliterating it beyond recognition.
“My camera! You broke my camera!” He’s wailing incredulously, staring at Grayson with furious eyes. “That’s a thousand-dollar lens! You’re insane! I’m calling the police!”
“SHUT UP!” I yell at him, before he antagonizes a still-fuming Grayson further. It’s taking all my strength to hold him in check. “Unless you want him to break you next.”
The man wisely falls silent, and I don’t wait around for him to reconsider. I grab Grayson’s hand in mine and drag him to the car. A stunned valet hands me the keys to the Bugatti and vanishes, no doubt terrified by the dark look on Grayson’s face. I don’t trust him behind the wheel at the moment, so I push him toward the passenger side and round the hood. It says something about his mental state that he doesn’t fight me on my decision to drive.
I can hear the paparazzo getting worked up again on the sidewalk behind us, screaming at Grayson’s security team, who have finally stepped in; I don’t spare them so much as a glance. Sliding into the low leather seat, I stare at the complex dashboard. It looks like a damn rocket ship — all glowing panels and indecipherable buttons. I find the ignition and start the engine, but my feet are so far from the pedals, I’d need stilts to successfully operate it.
“How the hell do I adjust the seat?” I mutter to myself, searching for the controls. I finally locate them and, after a cursory adjustment of the rearview mirror, I jam my foot against the gas.
Mistake.
Big mistake.
This beast of an engine does not drive like my crappy old Honda or even the sporty little convertible I purchased with my Uncharted check. The Bugatti was built for speed and acceleration. The tiniest pressure of my foot on the pedal sends us lurching forward at light speed.
Later, after a curiosity-fueled Google session, I’d learn the technical specs are zero to sixty in 2.46 seconds.
But now, in this moment, all I feel is terror. My stomach slams back into my spine. My heart stutters inside my chest as the world blurs around us.
“Christ, are you trying to kill us?” Grayson shouts.
I’ve never been a particularly religious person, but someone up there is definitely looking out for me, because the stretch of street ahead of us is empty. If not for that, we’d most definitely be dead — flattened like a pancake against the back bumper of another car.
I ease up on the gas, but we’re still careening far too fast.
“Kat, the brakes! Use the fucking brakes!”
“Sorry, sorry!” I yell, pounding my foot onto the other pedal. We stop so short, Grayson’s head slams against the dashboard with a resounding thud.
“FUCK!”
“I’m sorry!” I yell again, readjusting my foot pressure. “I think I’ve got it now.”
“You think?”
“I’ve got it! I swear, I’ve got it.”
And I do. The car glides along smoothly, practically purring beneath me, and for the first time I actually understand the allure of a well-crafted engine. I drive for a while, lost in appreciation for the automobile. I might as well enjoy it while it lasts; no doubt Grayson will never allow me within a five-foot radius of it ever again.
I glance over at him and see he’s rubbing at a large red lump in the center of his forehead. It’s not funny — really, it’s not — but a laugh pops out from between my lips anyway.
His eyes narrow. “First she tries to kill me, then she laughs at my pain…”
“I’m sorry!” I say, gasping for air as mirth overtakes me. “It’s not funny. I’m not laughing. Really.”
“Convincing.”
Another snort escapes. “I really am sorry.”
“For the attempted vehicular homicide, or the shameless amusement at the goose egg on my forehead?”
