Step Wilde: A Stepbrother Romance (15 page)

A half-enthusiastic sound erupted from the crew. A few people clapped. Mostly there were only murmurs. My stomach dropped through my feet and I broke out in a cold sweat. The world felt like it was spinning around me. I took a step back and bumped into someone.

I felt a small hand squeeze my arm. I looked back and saw Lydia standing there, holding onto me.

“Breathe, Liv,” she whispered under her breath.

I took her advice as Hailey started speaking.

“I know this seems sudden, but honestly, this movie is the reason we were brought back together. I just wanted you all to know first. We wouldn’t be here without you all.”

I looked over at Fox, whose eyes were narrowed. He lifted his bucket hat up slightly off of his head, then returned it into its normal position. He walked over to Wilder to shake his hand. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Wilder was beaming.

Lydia tugged on my arm. “Let’s go,” she said, pulling me off of the set and behind the tents. I realized after a few long minutes that she was walking me back to the hotel.

“You okay?” she asked when we were on a busy road.

Cars were honking and gorgeous Italian women were pushing past us while talking into their cell phones. I felt like I’d stepped through an invisible barrier back into the real world. Everything seemed intensely loud to me.

“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” I asked.

Lydia sighed and pulled me into a small coffee shop. It was mostly empty. The silence and the smell of coffee relaxed me at once.

“Because I got six phone calls from former co-workers that Wilder has been chasing your curvy ass since the first second of filming. He can’t stop eye-fucking you and suddenly he’s engaged to the Queen Bitch of Pop Music?” Lydia sat down at a table and held up her hand to a waiter who ambled over. “Two espresso, please.” The man, a tall, olive-skinned man smiled and nodded.

“I don’t know what you’re-“

“Please, Liv. Stop. It’s embarrassing when you try to lie to yourself. You’re also wearing mascara. You never do that. You’re clearly trying to impress him.”

I opened and shut my mouth several times. “You’re right,” I acquiesced.

Lydia laughed. “Of course I am. So I will ask you again:
are you okay?
”

I looked around at the coffee shop, the signs in Italian, and the sunshine hitting the cobblestone street outside. “I’m in Italy. I’m employed. Of course I’m okay.”

Lydia smiled and nodded. “Good. That’s what I want to hear.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

WILDER

The worst part of the first forty-eight hours of our fake fucking engagement had to be the ring shopping. Hailey had paid a photographer, a short guy I was certain I’d seen lurking outside of the hotel, to take ‘candid’ photos to post to Instagram.

We’d spent two hours pretending to look for rings when I knew that she would choose the biggest one in the store. I had to feign affection, doling out cheek kisses and smiles while that asshole snapped away with his camera. I wasn’t used to acting for a camera for longer than about eight minutes at a time.

Two hours was a new kind of excruciating.

My cheeks felt like they were going to fall off. When we finally stepped outside, Hailey wearing the five carat yellow diamond ring she’d chosen on her finger.

It was dark out, and there was a pleasant, cool breeze sweeping across the streets.

“I’m surprised you can hold your hand up with that thing on it,” I said to her.

She rolled her eyes. “I wore ten times this weight in diamonds on one hand at the Grammy’s last year,” she retorted. Her handler rushed over, holding up his phone to show the time. Hailey sighed. “We have time for dinner down the street. The press are already there. Then dancing at a night club…security’s already been alerted.”

I felt my eyes start to roll back into my skull but I caught them just in time. The photographer was still lurking a few feet away. I opened my mouth and faked what I hoped was a convincing yawn.

“Hailey, baby. I’m exhausted. I’ve got an early wake up tomorrow. Rain check?” I put my arms around her waist and pulled her close to me.

She was wearing a pasted-on smile. She was also trying her damnedest to be ‘on’ for the photographer. I could tell she secretly wanted to scrape her red nails down my cheek until I bled.

“Baby, I think that you’re hungry and we should go to dinner.”

I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. It felt like granite to me. She put her hands on my chest.

“I know, but I don’t want to burn out. Go without me. Seriously. Show off your new rock.”

She grimaced and reached up to pull me into a full kiss. I resisted putting my tongue into her mouth, instead doing a soap-opera-kiss. I felt nothing as she slipped her own between my lips. I pulled away.

“I’ll see you later tonight, then, baby.”

She walked away in her six-inch heels. The photographer chased after her.

I breathed a sigh of relief and slipped through the dark streets of the city.

I needed two things: a shower and a workout. In that order.

The only thing that could get my mind off of this fucking shit show was a ten mile run.

I started jogging so I could get back to the hotel as quickly as I could. The paparazzi had cleared out, so I ducked through the front door and stepped into the elevator, tapping my foot as it climbed the floors.

I exhaled.

My head was pounding again. I never used to get headaches, but this week was putting my body through the fucking wringer. I stepped into the hallway and used the keycard to get into Harrison’s room. I was surprised that he wasn’t in there.

I stripped off my button-down shirt and slacks. Hailey had insisted I dress up for our photo shoot at Tiffany’s. I ran the water in the shower, leaning against the countertop and staring in the mirror. I was thinking dangerous thoughts.

Reckless thoughts.

Thoughts of Olivia. Her blonde hair, her curvy body.

“Get your shit together, Wilde,” I muttered.

This movie had to happen. It wasn’t going to happen if we had to re-cast the leading lady halfway through the first week of filming. I stepped into the shower and felt the water pounding my body.

My mind kept flashing to dangerous places. Hailey’s words of warning kept flashing through my head. I couldn’t even look at another woman without her knowing, she’d said.

But how would she know?

I shut the water off and grabbed a towel. I wrapped it around my waist but I didn’t bother drying off. I dripped on the marble tile and onto the low-pile carpet.

I sat on the bed, leaving a wet spot that would probably piss Harrison off to no end. I picked up the room phone and dialed reception.

They answered within one ring.

"Mr. Brando, how may I help you?" I marveled that they knew it was me. Although there was a more than small chance that Harrison had told them he would be out all night and to treat me well if I made any calls.

"I need to be connected to Olivia Martin's room," I said, feeling butterflies in my stomach when I said her name.
Fuck. What the hell is wrong with me?
I thought to myself. Then I grinned.
Nothing that a good, thorough fucking of the woman who got away wouldn't fix.

"Certainly. Please hold," said the quiet voice on the other end of the line.

My heart pounded as I waited to be connected. This was ridiculous. I felt like a middle schooler.

"Hello?"

I would know that sexy voice anywhere. "Olivia? It's me. Wilde.”

I heard a muffling sound through the receiver and then a quiet giggle and another voice.
Shit.
She wasn't alone.

"Yeah," she said in an even voice. "What is it?"

"Uh," I replied, running my hands through my hair and panicking.

I hadn't thought ahead that far. I never stumbled around women like this. I was supposed to be Mr. Suave and Sexy movie star. This was bullshit. This woman made me fall apart just from her voice alone.

"I wanted to know if you wanted to eat dinner with me. In my room tonight.”

Olivia sighed. “This is a joke, right?”

I felt like she’d slapped me. “A joke? What the fuck does that mean?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,
Mr.
Wilder
,” she spat. “Excuse me for assuming that an engaged man might not
actually
be asking a woman who isn’t his fiancée to be his private dinner companion.”

Fuck.

“I didn’t think about that,” I said honestly. Okay, that was a lie. I’d thought about it, but I’d thought she wouldn’t mind.

“You really have been in Hollywood too long,” she sighed. “I’m guessing most women wouldn’t care about that, would they? You expect me to drop my plans and just come running to you because you asked me? No.”

No
. There was that word again. I felt annoyance and anger rise up in me in equal measure.

"You know what, your highness? Never fucking mind." I slammed the receiver down, feeling deeply annoyed.

All I knew was that I had hormones and anger coursing through my body. I needed a workout. Immediately.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

OLIVIA

"He hung up on you?" Lydia asked me, spooning Nutella out of the glass jar in her hand.

"Yeah.
Mr. Roman Wilder
isn't normally ignored, I guess," I replied, absentmindedly folding up the dirty clothes I'd worn that day, not thinking that they just needed to be balled up and placed in the hotel laundry bag.

I felt like I'd been living in someone else's body since the announcement on set earlier.

“What did he want, anyway?” Lydia asked me.

“Wanted me to come have dinner with him in his room apparently.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows. “Without Hailey?”

I nodded. “Seems to be.”

“She’s eating at some five-star place a few blocks from here. Alone, according to Twitter, but with an enormous diamond on her hand.” Lydia held up her phone so I could see what she was looking at.

I couldn’t resist. Hailey was, indeed, eating alone at a candlelit table. A diamond the size of an espresso cup reflected outside light off of her hand.

“That’s nice,” I said, shrugging.

Lydia guffawed. “It’s enormous. Probably cost more than a house on the beach in Maui.”

“Well, between the two of them they have plenty of money to spare I would guess.” I got off the bed and bounced on the balls of my feet. I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. “Can we talk about something else?”

“God, I had no idea you were
this
hung up on him, Liv!” Lydia exclaimed, putting her Nutella jar down on the bedside table and sitting up on her knees.

I shook my head. “I’m not. I’m really not. It’s just been a long week and I’m on edge. We were doing more script rewrites overnight.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you seem
exhausted
.”

I stopped bouncing and walked over to the closet and tore through my suitcase until I found the clothes buried in the bottom. I replaced my lacy bra with a Lycra sport bra.

I stepped into running shorts and pulled my hair back up into a ponytail, digging into my bag for the blue bandanna that I always wore to keep my forehead sweat from creeping into my hairline.

“I don’t get it. He was such an ass to you, Liv.” Lydia tilted her head to the side. “I mean I
do
get it. He’s gorgeous. He’s ripped. He was great at sex seven years and what must be about a hundred women ago. God, imagine how good he is now…” Lydia drifted off into a daydream.

“You almost done lecturing me?” I asked her, tying the bandana and digging through my purse for my room key.

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Great,” I replied shortly. “I’m going to go work out.”

"Bye!" Lydia announced to my back. "I guess I'll see you for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Yeah," I replied quickly. The door slammed behind me as I jogged to the elevator, mashing the button as hard and rapidly as I possibly could.

"Come on, come on, come on," I muttered. It dinged and the doors slid open. I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the basement that had the word 'gym' on it.

I felt like my lungs were closing up in that tiny, airless elevator. It seemed to crawl at a pace of an inch a minute as it sank downward toward the basement.

As the doors finally opened and I smelled the familiar scent of sweat, sanitizer, and the rubber of the treadmill tracks, I felt like I had a touchstone. A foundation. Something to hold onto tightly.

It had been years since I could afford to go to a gym, but in college I went every single day. Part of me felt like I was stepping back in time to greet a long-lost part of myself.

I smiled at the desk clerk who handed me a towel. Then I hopped onto an open treadmill and stared at the touch screen. Technology had come a long way since I was in undergrad. I tapped the screen a few times and soon enough the belt was moving at a warm-up pace.

I closed my eyes and eased into the rhythm, finding my footing underneath me. I loved the controlled vertigo of running with my eyes closed. I always did it for the first few minutes until the treadmill picked up more speed. My breath found itself quickly, and my heart pumped steadily. I heard footsteps pass behind me but I kept my eyes closed.

Whoever it was could fuck off.

My feet pounded the moving track below me. I heard the beeping and whir of another treadmill start up. I ignored it. I just kept running.

When I was at my seven miles an hour pace, I opened my eyes. I blinked a few times as the world came into bright focus around me. That’s when I realized that I had an audience.

Twenty feet away, across the room, was Wilder. He was running on a treadmill exactly opposite from mine.

I thought about stopping the run, but instead I hit the screen to make the treadmill move even more quickly. He squinted his eyes at me and touched his own screen. His legs pounded faster against the bottom of the treadmill.

Fine.
We could have a little competition. This was exactly what I needed to get my anxiety out of my body.