In an instant, he sank into her. Tight inside her, inside that dreamlike state that was somehow reality and he fell into it closefisted. Prolonged it as long as he could. VJ arched against his chest in a beautiful bow and tangled her legs with his, thrusting him deep and tunneling under his skin with her soft sigh.
At the moment he fractured, the theme for
Visions of Black
came to him on a spur of inspiration. It was so brilliant and obvious. How had he missed it?
VJ collapsed into the pillow and fell asleep wrapped firmly in his arms. His brain clicked into high gear with lighting angles, set pieces, script changes. But he couldn’t give up holding VJ just yet. Soon, he wouldn’t have a choice but to give her up. His life didn’t have a fairy-tale ending and he’d be selfish to continue down this spiral when he couldn’t promise her anything past the next few days.
The longer he spent with her, the wider she’d crack him open and the harder it would be to keep the lid in place. The harder it would be to control the darkness he knew lived inside, lurking, waiting to turn something beautiful into ugliness.
At dawn he crawled out of bed. Work beckoned. And he needed some time away from VJ or he’d never regain his balance.
As soon as his laptop booted up, he typed a ton of notes.
Visions of Black
had two elements: the full-color, disjointed visions and the black-and-white hospital scenes, which represented the main character’s reality of blindness and amnesia. He’d been stumbling over it, but in his moment of clarity, he’d realized the visions were her reality and the hospital the altered state. That’s why it hadn’t been working. Once he flipped them, everything came together. The theme was altered reality.
After a couple of hours, he’d finished pouring the contents of his brain onto the page. Next, he opened the Creative Financing file and added the idea he’d come up with a few minutes ago.
Borrow against future gross.
Which was not great, because it granted rights to profit on a film he hadn’t even conceptualized yet, but it beat the fake engagement.
The other ideas weren’t stellar, either. He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the screen. None of this would net the backing he needed to make a blockbuster of
Visions of Black.
Guys starting out did this kind of scrambling, stuff he’d done ten years ago to put enough money in his hands to commit brilliance to film and impress the deep pockets into taking a chance on him.
And finally, after years of bleeding his emotional center onto the screen, one of those deep pockets stepped forward. Jack Abrams signed on the dotted line, but to compensate for Kyla’s exorbitant salary, Kris had agreed to cut advertising dollars and stir up publicity with the engagement. It had seemed like a fair trade at the time.
Studios were evil. But they had connections, distribution channels, promotional departments. Things an independent film director only dreamed of.
Kris made coffee and waited until the brewer trickled the final drop into the pot before pulling out his phone to call Jack Abrams. He’d put off the call, hoping a genius idea for promoting
Visions of Black
would fall from the sky.
The hour was still early on the west coast but Jack was a morning person, too. Kris hoped their good working relationship would smooth out the issues from the bomb he was about to drop.
“Mr. Abrams,” he said when the other man answered. “It’s Kris Demetrious. Sorry to bother you, but I need to tell you I’ve decided not to announce my engagement to Kyla Monroe.”
“Not announcing it?” Jack paused. “Or not going through with it at all?”
“Not going through with it at all,” Kris said. “It’s not the right path. I’d like to discuss other options.”
“I’m a little taken aback,” Jack said gruffly. “We all agreed on this publicity angle.”
“Yes, sir. I changed my mind. I’d like to renegotiate funds for advertising instead.”
“That’s not possible. The numbers are the numbers and our contract is solid.” Jack Abrams was a powerful man and the nuances of his statement weren’t lost on Kris.
“I understand. I intend to honor the contract. I’m asking you to be open to other possibilities.”
“I wouldn’t be opposed to reallocating.”
Which meant Kris would have to cut somewhere else, but the budget was too tight for that. Kyla’s salary was the major sticking point. She was a huge draw, and she’d already approved the script. Above all, the role needed her particular spin. No other actress would be right. He couldn’t shoot the movie without her. “Thank you, sir. I don’t think that will work.”
“Then it doesn’t sound as if you have a choice but to stick with the original plan.”
“No, sir. It doesn’t.”
Kris ended the call and contemplated smashing his phone through the laptop screen. But he needed it to call Kyla and talk her into taking less money. That conversation didn’t go any better. She refused to listen and instead issued a thinly veiled threat to speak to her lawyer if he didn’t get with the program. So much for hoping their history might sway her toward a peaceable solution.
His temples throbbed. Years of work, about to go down the drain because he couldn’t pretend to be engaged to Kyla. Yes, he’d agreed to it. But that had been before VJ put his cynicism through the shredder and spliced his psyche back together into something he didn’t fully understand yet. But he did know people should see
Visions
because he’d created something brilliant, not because of a fictitious engagement.
He had no choice but to find another way. He would not be forced to cool things off with VJ to make an engagement to Kyla believable, all because Abrams and Kyla refused to budge. The cool-off would happen when and how he decided. Hollywood did not control his life.
Disgusted, he stabbed the power button on the TV remote. He hated TV. The chances of finding a decent enough distraction were about zero but he flipped through the channels anyway, hoping to stumble over an old Hitchcock or Kubrick flick.
Photos of him and VJ leaving the club last night, as well as ones from the restaurant the night they didn’t eat, crowded the screen of a national morning talk show.
“Wow. That dress photographs well.” VJ plopped down on the couch next to him and kissed his shoulder.
His black mood lightened as she tucked her legs up under the robe and leaned against him. He turned up the sound, curious how the two of them were news, just as the still shot dissolved into one of Kyla.
“...statement from her publicist, box-office sweetheart Kyla Monroe confirms her relationship with director Kristian Demetrious has ended,” the reporter said. “Unconfirmed speculation names the unidentified woman in these photos as the cause.”
“What is she talking about?” VJ glanced at Kris.
“I have no idea.” He shrugged.
“Well, your relationship with Kyla is over. At least they got that part right. But it was over a while ago.” Her tongue came out to lick her lips. “Right?”
Not this on top of the conversations with Abrams and Kyla and
you have no choice
still ringing in his ears. His temper veered back to bad. “Kyla and I broke up a few months ago, but she asked me not to issue a statement and I didn’t. Thanks for the trust.”
“I’m sorry. We’ve never actually talked about it.” She rubbed his shoulder and cleared her throat. “Speaking of which. There’s something else we really need to get straight. The promotion for your movie. Kyla said a few things last night that didn’t make sense.”
Great. First VJ accused him of playing two women at once, and now she wanted to hash out wisdom from the mouth of Kyla. “Kyla says lots of stuff, especially if she thinks it’ll get her what she wants. What did she say?”
“Well, she made it sound like the engagement and the movie go hand in hand. Without one, you won’t have the other. Is that true?”
“I’m making
Visions
no matter what.”
“Good.” With a sexy growl, she swung a leg over his lap and straddled him, wiggling against his ever-present erection.
And that was the end of it. Dropped, like it had never happened, and minus any drama. VJ might be the perfect woman. And he might have to face that his resistance to the engagement had more to do with VJ than he’d been willing to admit.
He stared into her gorgeous eyes sparking with that wealth of acceptance and understanding and suddenly couldn’t speak.
Passion faded. Then all that simmering emotion had to go somewhere. What would he do then? He refused to give in to the black side of passion—the rage, the anger. The way his father did once his parents’ forbidden love affair fizzled.
The right move was to disengage and shove everything back into the box. Save VJ the heartache. He never should have gotten involved with a victim of abuse. Never should have gotten involved with someone so singularly qualified to break that seal on his emotions. Maybe if they’d met later, at a point when he’d practiced balancing a whole lot more, things would be different.
Regardless, they’d met now, and he couldn’t keep his hands off of her. She called to him and every cell answered, reaching out, seeking to unify at a level so deep, he hadn’t realized it existed. He trusted her like he’d never trusted anyone.
If only he could trust himself as much.
As she lifted his T-shirt over his head and her soft hands sparked across his chest with sweet, intense heat, her scent drifted into the space between them, clenching his gut. He should push her away.
But he couldn’t. Not yet.
He had no illusions about what VJ wanted. Expected. A happily ever after. VJ deserved that, deserved someone’s whole heart forever. But what did that mean? What if he wanted to be that person but couldn’t figure out how to keep his balance? Then it would be too late.
It was better to disappoint her than to take a chance.
This passion between them was going to end in a world of hurt and not all of it was going to be hers. The sooner he let her go, the sooner they could both move on.
* * *
By noon, VJ had sent Kris off to a meeting with Some Important Movie People, with strict orders to come back in a good mood, and then parked herself in front of the TV, intending to call Pamela Sue and giggle over how she’d made the news. She owed her friend some juicy details about Kris, too.
She raced through the channels to an entertainment news network. It was noon, so they’d probably lead in with more important stories. Except they were already showing pictures of her in that lovely, obscene red dress, which was currently balled up in the comforter from Kris’s bed.
“...unidentified source claims Oscar-winning actress Kyla Monroe was dumped by Kristian Demetrius via phone yesterday. The source, a close friend of Ms. Monroe’s, describes her as heartbroken and confused about why her longtime boyfriend would end their relationship over a women he met a few days ago.”
The reporter paused as the photo of Kyla next to VJ’s head morphed into one of VJ and Kris at Casa di Luigi when the sexual tension had been so high, the sparks between them were practically visible.
VJ flinched. Her fingers were in Kris’s mouth in the photo—but when weren’t they? She and Kris should have had more discretion. Mama would be so ashamed, especially to hear her daughter had been carrying on with a man she’d just met.
The reporter’s face grew grave. “Social media is frenzied over the alleged betrayal of an actress beloved in the films
Sweet as Snow
and
Long Way Home.
”
Text appeared on the screen and with a roiling stomach, VJ read the vicious slurs people had posted to various websites. Calling her a home wrecker. A boyfriend stealer, though that was ridiculous since Kyla and Kris hadn’t been together. Calling her a nobody. Well, that one was true.
Who went to that much effort to say things about someone they’d never met? And over a situation they knew nothing about? Hilarious how all this was her fault. Apparently the man in a cheating and heartbreak scandal had no culpability.
Breakfast almost reappeared when the author of one of the slurs identified herself as a technician at the spa VJ had gone to. She went so far as to say she’d seen VJ’s breasts and they were nothing special. As if that made it obvious Kris had chosen the wrong woman.
VJ had to get out of this room and away from the TV.
She stretched out at the pool and tried to empty her mind through sheer will. She didn’t even pick up
Embrace the Rogue.
Her runaway carriage had already crashed and burned and the hero wasn’t around to save her anyway.
A commotion by the pool’s gate interrupted her misery. Two women in Hotel Dragonfly uniforms were blocking the pool entrance. Another woman clutching a microphone and a man with a camera tried to get past them. Even at a hundred yards, the news channel logo and the raised voices were painfully clear. It was a reporter looking for VJ.
Well, what better way to handle this than to make a statement? According to Kyla, Kris liked strong women who could take care of themselves. So she’d take care of it.
Twelve
V
J wove through the loungers and other hotel guests to the exit. “I’ll talk to them,” she said to the uniformed women.
“If you’re sure, Ms. Lewis.” The two hotel employees nodded and melted away.
The camera lens was much bigger than it had looked from the other side of the pool. The cameraman zeroed in on her bikini. She should have scheduled time later, when she was dressed. Too late now.
“I’m Rebecca Rogers from KTVN.” The reporter was a sleek blonde woman in heels, with flawless makeup and a tan dark enough to draw the attention of every skin-cancer specialist in Dallas. “Ms. Lewis? Is that your name?”
“VJ Lewis. I didn’t steal Kris from Kyla. Can you tell everyone?”
The reporter’s expression didn’t change. “Is this on the record?”
“You can quote me if that’s the question. I heard what people are saying about me and it’s not true. None of it is. I’m not that kind of person, who deliberately goes after a man who’s unavailable.”
She flinched at the lie as soon as it came out of her mouth. No, the engagement was never real and Kris wasn’t actually with Kyla, but at the top of the Ferris wheel, she’d kissed a man carrying an engagement ring intended for another woman. They’d had an agreement and VJ had plunked herself down in the middle of it.
“You deny that you’re intimately involved with Kristian Demetrious?” The reporter almost shoved the microphone into VJ’s mouth in her eagerness.
“I’m denying that he was involved with Kyla Monroe. They weren’t engaged. They’re not going to be engaged. It was supposed to be a publicity stunt to promote their new movie.”
That got the reporter’s attention. She fired off a series of questions, and VJ answered them as best she could. She was a good girl from West Texas, not the vixen home wrecker people thought she was, and this reporter could clarify that.
“You work fast,” Rebecca concluded with a smarmy grin. “This is quite a cozy arrangement you have going on with Kristian.” The microphone was in her face again. The reporter asked, “What’s next for you two?”
Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? “That’s private.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows rose. “But the rest of your relationship isn’t?”
“It should be. But thanks to people like you, it’s not. I can’t sit by and let everyone believe bad things about me.”
“So, you just want people to believe bad things about Kyla Monroe and Kristian Demetrious. Right? You said they were planning to pretend to be engaged as a publicity stunt.”
“No.” VJ shook her head and frowned. She shouldn’t have said that. No one had even mentioned anything about an engagement. Except VJ. “I didn’t mean for any of this to come across as bad.”
“Comes with the territory. Don’t shack up with celebrities if you can’t take the heat,” Rebecca advised with a condescending head tilt.
“This interview is over.” VJ whirled and scurried to her lounger, but the pool wasn’t a sanctuary any longer. All of this because she was chasing a happily-ever-after with Kris that was still a happily-right-now. She snatched her bag from the adjacent lounger and blew past Rebecca’s prying eyes to go back to the room.
By the time Kris got back from his meeting, she’d curled up in a ball on the couch and cried all the tears her body could produce.
He dashed into the room, tossed his phone on the coffee table and gathered her up in his arms. “I’m sorry.”
Which left no doubt he’d either seen or heard about her newfound notoriety. This was so not what she signed up for. Casual sex, trading off men with celebrities. Media scandals. None of that had been on her mind when she got into the Ferrari.
“They think I’m evil,” she said.
Kris’s phone buzzed against the coffee table but he ignored it.
“What can I do?” he asked softly and stroked the back of her head.
“I don’t know. None of this is your fault. I feel like the villainess in a soap opera.”
The phone buzzed again.
“Answer it. Please,” VJ said and jumped up. “I’ll be fine. I’m taking a shower. By myself.”
His eyes tracked her as she stepped away from the couch, but he didn’t try to stop her. “Okay.”
She stood under the spray for what seemed like hours and still couldn’t eliminate the oily feel to her skin. If it had been a sleazy tabloid,
that
she could have shrugged off. Maybe. But Rebecca the Reporter was from a local TV station and had gotten a stellar scoop by locating VJ at the Dragonfly.
When she trudged back into the main living area of the suite she slammed into the wall of Kris’s mood. The atmosphere had changed like a squall line tumbling over the mountains, about to let loose a toad-strangler of a storm.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He paced a mad trail along the carpet behind the couch, turning sharply before he hit the wall. A black band held his hair in place at his collar but it was a jumbled mess and Kris was never a mess.
“Why is your hair tied up?”
“It was irritating me.” And back to pacing. “I’m trying to calm down. That’s what’s wrong.”
Instinct told her she shouldn’t press him when he was this upset, but what should she do? She couldn’t sit quietly when agitation hung in the air so thick she almost needed snorkeling gear. But neither could she hide in the bedroom, away from the force of his distress on a day when so much had already gone wrong. “Is there another news story circulating about how I’m the love child of Satan and used a voodoo spell to make you break up with Kyla?”
“Not quite.” He whirled and faced her, arms stiff at his sides. Unapproachable, like he’d been at the club. “There is this one circulating where you informed the media the engagement was a publicity stunt. You know. The one thing I asked you not to tell anyone.”
Her eyelids flew shut, and she struggled to breathe. He
had
asked her not to say anything but she’d forgotten that.
“I’m sorry. So sorry. It slipped out. I was so upset about all the horrible things people were saying. Are you mad?”
“Mad.” Wearily, he weaved to the carpet and rested his forehead on the tips of his fingers. “Mad. At you? No, I’m not.”
“What are you, then?”
“One more statement to the press shy of losing my career,” he said with a short laugh and it crawled across her chest with sharp needles.
Losing his
career?
Not the film and only the film? “What does that mean?”
“What it sounds like. My executive producer called, and he’s a little unhappy about news coverage, which is the exact opposite of the agreed direction for
Visions of Black
’s publicity. He’s threatening breach of contract. No one will work with me if that happens.”
“But you’re not mad?” she asked cautiously.
“I’m not happy. The engagement wasn’t going to happen regardless, but I haven’t had a chance to figure out an alternative. I needed that time. Kyla is beyond furious. It took me fifteen minutes to calm her down long enough to coherently explain to me what you’d done.”
“That’s who was calling. Before I got in the shower.”
“Yeah. It should be funny. She won’t admit it, but I have no doubt she’s the one who told the press about you and me, trying to upset you and make you look bad. She didn’t expect you to return the favor. Good job. It’s rare to beat Kyla at her own game.” He stared at the floor instead of at her. “I’m going to lose everything without some serious damage control. I have to go back to L.A. and start salvaging. If I’m really lucky and invest a gallon of blood, sweat and tears, I’ll still be able to show my face in Hollywood.”
The option where Kris ended up with her and the movie dissipated into thin air. She’d fooled herself into believing his greatest emotional need was to embrace his passionate side when in reality, he’d already embraced his passions through his career.
Film was his release, his outlet. Not her.
Even if he threw himself at her feet, vowed undying love and swore to give it all up for her—the film, his career, Hollywood, his soul, all of it—she’d tell him to get up and stop being ridiculous. That wasn’t happily ever after, to gut a vibrant, brilliant man, leaving only a cavity behind. But hey, he loved her. Wasn’t that all that mattered?
Not even close.
She swallowed to keep the bile down and knelt on the carpet to take his hand and squeeze it. “You can be mad at me. I deserve it. I—” Another swallow. “I screwed up, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“That’s not on you. I have to put my career back together. I shouldn’t have even agreed to such a stupid stunt. Actually it’s a relief I’ll never have to do it now.” Pain planted deep lines around his gorgeous mouth. “Though I wish it hadn’t been ripped off the table with such final and devastating consequences.”
That made two of them. “When are you leaving?”
“An hour.”
“Is this it, then?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It has to be. For now. I’d like to come back and see you again, but I have no idea when. The only reason I came to Dallas is to start work on
Visions of Black.
”
And there it was.
She’d also fooled herself into believing love conquered all—and that Kris sought it, too, she just had to push him into admitting it. This was a fairy tale, all right. Absolute fiction. He wasn’t looking for love, not with her, or with anyone.
She wasn’t special or gifted with some miraculous ability to understand him. She was nothing more than a fun diversion, which he’d been chillingly honest about.
“I understand.”
“Stay in the suite as long as you want. I’ll give you my number. Let me know when your condo is ready, so I can settle the bill. Don’t be weird about it. Please,” he said as if he’d rehearsed the lines ahead of time. Because he’d known for a while he’d be leaving, and nothing had changed except the day. “I like being your knight in shining armor charging to the rescue. That’s right up your alley, isn’t it?”
If only he’d said that yesterday. This morning. With a vulnerable smile as he said he loved her. At any point when she could still pretend she was woman enough to bulldoze through that wall he kept around his heart. The wall that still had a giant No Trespassing sign, despite her best efforts.
She swallowed against the hot shower of grief in her throat. “Thanks. That’s very generous.”
She sat frozen, staring at the wall, fighting to hold on to the belief that love could be enough to bridge the chasm between them.
“Generous,” she repeated, because it was. “But I can’t accept. In fact, I’ve already accepted too much. I’ll take your address and mail you a check for everything as soon as I can.”
She couldn’t ask him to come back and fall in love with her when she was stable, because that dream was over, but it didn’t remove her responsibility to be a strong woman who could take care of herself.
Perhaps if she had been that woman in the first place, they’d be having an entirely different conversation. He deserved someone like Kyla, a natural part of his world and an asset to his career instead of a disaster. Someone who understood him a whole lot better than she did.
“Don’t go there. Please. I don’t want your money. I want you to stay. I would feel better.” He tilted her chin up to force her to look at him. “I’m sorry. The timing sucks. All of this sucks. I can’t ask you to come to L.A. with me.”
“Of course you can’t. You have a reputation to recover. You can’t do that with me around. I’d be in the way.” She waved it off and fought back a sob. Strong women didn’t fall apart when a casual relationship ended. When the man they loved didn’t love them back. “You don’t owe me anything. We had some fun, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done. We would have parted ways eventually, right? Now’s as good a time as any.”
Confusion clouded his expression. “This isn’t how I expected this conversation to go.”
“Why? Because I fell for you a little?” She shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she could never, ever feel. He was going to lose his career over her unless she let him go, and she loved him too much to be that selfish. “Who wouldn’t? This has been the most amazing fairy tale. But fairy tales aren’t real. Our clock just struck midnight. I understand that, Kris. Ball’s over. It’s time to get back to reality.”
The confusion melted from Kris’s eyes and twisted the knife a little farther into her heart. He was a sucker for honesty, and she’d spoken nothing but cold hard truth. But now she had to lie to him about the most important thing.
“Reality is, I’ve got a bruise or two but I feel the same way when the Cowboys lose to the Redskins in overtime. I’ll get over it. We’ve only known each other a few days.”
Her voice broke. They weren’t and never could be strangers.
“If that’s how you feel,” he said.
Maybe she
should
call Kyla’s agent if he believed that. His expression was marble hard and unapproachable and she couldn’t look at him anymore. “Pack, or you’ll miss your plane. Check out when you leave, and I’ll be right behind you.”
“Where will you go?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. It’s time I figured out how to rescue myself.”
He stood and helped her up, but didn’t release her hand. He hauled her into a fierce embrace, and she almost lost her flimsy grip on sanity as his familiar arms came around her, sliding her into the groove of his body no other woman could possibly fit as well. Greek whispered through her hair, and he kissed the spot where his words had branded her scalp.
“What did you say?” She pulled back and searched his expression.
“Maybe in another life.” There was a glimmer in his eye, and it looked like sorrow. But it was probably only a reflection of what he saw in hers.
She fled into her room, the one she hadn’t used since the first night, and lay on the bed, hating the scratchy comforter against her raw skin. She stared at the clock with dry eyes until an hour and four minutes had passed. Then she picked up the phone on the bedside table and called Pamela Sue to wire her some money because she had no pride and no choices left.
“Thank God,” Pamela Sue said when VJ identified herself. “I’ve been calling every hotel in Dallas for hours. Beverly Porter said you’re not staying with her and no one had any idea where you went. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but your daddy had a heart attack.”