Authors: Heather Leigh
Sam leans in and picks up the stack of papers, flipping through them.
“Holy crap,” I whisper under my breath.
“The manager of your website alerted us to this. They kept banning the poster’s IP, but the person kept getting a new one each time. Very crafty actually,” Agent Connors says.
“What makes you think this is credible?” Drew asks. “Crazy people say shit like this all the time.”
“We didn’t put much into it at first, just as you’re not. But as the quantities and intensity of the threats increased, we began to look at them more closely,” Agent Smith tells us. “Then we got a break that made us believe this was more than just a crazy fan.”
“What break would that be?” Drew asks the agents. Sam stops flicking through the printouts and leans forward in interest.
“The poster used their personal cellphone to create their latest account. Before that, it was always a hotel Wi-Fi or a wireless signal from a café or other business,” Smith says. “They got quite careless.”
“What does that mean?” I ask them, my heart racing in my chest.
“It means, we know who’s been doing this,” Connors says. “We no longer think that the threats are real or that there’s any actual intent to harm, but we will be making an arrest today.” He pauses and looks at us with sympathetic eyes. “A Miss Kiera Radcliff will be in our custody shortly.”
“What?” Drew yells, jumping to his feet. I grab his hand and try to pull him back down. He doesn’t shake me off, but he doesn’t sit either.
“Drew,” I tug harder and he looks down at me. His face is contorted into a mask of rage. I lift my eyebrows and indicate that he should sit back down. He smashes his lips together in a tight line and rejoins me on the sofa.
“You’re telling me that Kiera Radcliff, the actress, has been spending her free time the last three months posting threats about me on the internet?” I ask. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“No,” Drew snaps. “It actually sounds just like that crazy, manipulative bitch.”
“When will the arrest take place?” Sam asks from his seat across from us.
“She’s in California, so as soon as the agents can get to her residence, probably nine their time, so noon here. About an hour and a half from now,” Agent Smith says as he checks his watch.
Sam stands up and buttons his custom fitted suit
coat and adjusts his cufflinks. “Gentleman, I’ll come back to your office with you to work out the details.”
“We really need to know about the
CelebCast
incident,” Smith says.
“I think you have enough information to prosecute Miss Radcliff, you don’t need anything else,” Sam
replies firmly.
“We want to tie her to the eavesdropping case,” Connors insists. “We just need more information…”
Sam cuts him off. “Take her into custody and see what you can get from her first, then we’ll see about further interviews with my clients.” He gestures towards the staircase to follow the men out. “I’ll be in touch Drew,” he says, shaking hands with my enraged fiancé.
“Thanks Sam.”
“Yes, thanks for being here,” I tell him, giving him a hug.
“Evan, Steve, let the men out please,” Drew says.
They leave and we’re alone in the brownstone. Drew walks over to the windows, a cloud of fury surrounding him like a thick fog. After trying to talk to him about the Adam disaster the other night, I know better than to say something to him when he’s this pissed.
I see his fists clenching at his side, itching for something to strike. I jump up and go to
him, taking one of his hands in mine. “Hey,” Bumping his hip with mine playfully, I try distraction. “Let’s go for a run.”
Drew looks down at me and hi
s hardened features soften some. “We were physically assaulted on the sidewalk last night, we just found out Kiera has been cyber stalking you, we can’t go anywhere without paparazzi chasing us, and you want to go for a run?” He strokes my cheek gently, running his hand over the bruise and scowls.
“Yep,” I say confidently. “Our guys will just have to try and keep up.”
A reluctant smile gets through his rigid exterior and he shakes his head in disbelief. “Only one question remains then,” he says in a teasing tone.
“Oh yeah?
What’s that?”
“Wigs or no wigs?”
When we realize that it’s already over ninety degrees out, we ditch the idea to go running and decide to head over to Drew’s gym instead. He says that he’ll teach me some useful moves in the cage to ward off all of the ‘fucking perverts’.
I roll my eyes at him, but he insists that it’s always good to be able to protect myself, even if it’s just the ability to knock a full grown man on his ass so I can get away. When I remind him that I did just that in a London nightclub, to not one but two men, he laughs and says it doesn’t hurt to learn more.
“Okay Sydney, arms like this,” Damien says as he positions me opposite the ring from Drew.
A small audience has gathered to watch Drew’s trainer and friend, Damien Spader, teach me how to drop Drew onto the mat. Since we’re not
doing real sparring, we don’t have to put on all of the protective gear that the guys normally wear. I’m glad, because the gear stinks to high hell, but I’m also a tiny bit annoyed because now the entire gym can see our faces. Damien and Drew both swear that no one here will record anything that happens inside this building. Some sort of MMA guy-code or something like that.
I stand opp
osite Damien as he instructs me. “Drew, come at her like an attacker. Sydney, when he does, jam this hip into his gut and pull him by the shoulders over your body and to the mat. Watch.”
Damien stands upright and motions for Drew to rush at him. He does the move exactly how he described it and Drew goes over his head and crashes on his back next to me.
Holy shit!
Drew pops up off of the ground as if nothing happened and goes back to his original position. Damn, he looks so hot right now. He’s wearing black and
green fighting shorts and nothing else, no shoes, no gloves; I’m practically salivating onto the mat.
“Ready?” Damien asks me. I nod and stand still, waiting for Drew to attack. Damien motions for Drew to start and he comes at me, but stops before he gets close enough for me to touch him.
“Why did you stop?” I ask.
“I can’t,” he says to me. “I can’t attack you, it’s… it’s just not something I’m comfortable with.” Drew puts his hands on his hips and turns away.
“Here, we’ll switch places,” Damien says. “I’ll be the attacker.”
He moves to the other side of the cage and gets into a crouch.
“Ready?” he asks me.
No not at all.
“Yep, ready.”
Damien
’s muscled and tattooed body comes at me and I hip check him in his abdomen and grab his shoulders, flinging him over my body and onto the mat.
Wow
.
“That was great,” Drew says proudly, giving me a quick kiss. Our impromptu audience claps and cheers for me.
“Alright assholes, get back to training,” Damien says to everyone, waving them off. The group of fighters disperses and the usual background noise of grunts and punching starts up again.
The guys show me a few Krav Maga moves, which mostly
seem like coordinated eye poking and testicle kicking. They assure me that it will work on an attacker, so I learn everything they show me. After an hour I’m wiped out, so I step out of the cage and let them punch the crap out of each other. Something I know Drew has been dying to do since he heard about Kiera.
Now that I have a few minutes of downtime, I start thinking about the whole mess with Kiera Radcliff. She’s just flat out psychotic. When I piece together the dates given to me by the FBI this morning with the timing of everything else going on, it all makes sense. The death threats started coming after Drew told her off at her hotel and came to London to be with me. She knew at that point that she was never going to get him and it completely unraveled her.
My God, she was probably planning this from the second she was cast opposite Drew. She dumped Adam, by letting him catch her screwing someone else, with plans to go after Drew during filming. What she wasn’t counting on was me being in the way. That means that Kiera was in on the spying, trying to break us up. She’s the one with the biggest motive, except for the studio that wanted to sell tickets.
Shit, I shiver when I realize how lucky I am that she didn’t physically attack me at Drew’s charity ball in July.
“C’mon Forrester, cut the shit!” I look up from my contemplation and see Damien taking off his headgear.
“Sorry man, I’m fucked in the head today,” Drew says as he removes his and throws it down in frustration.
Both men are breathing heavily and sweat is dripping off of them and onto the mat. I have no idea what happened because I was spacing out thinking about Kiera.
“What’s going on with you two?” I
look from Damien to Drew to see if I can figure it out from their expressions. Frustration and fury, that’s all I see.
Drew averts his eyes and stares at the design in the center of the ring.
“He’s not concentrating, no big deal Sydney,” Damien says, holding up his hand and trying to make it sound like everything is fine.
“Okaaay,” I say skeptically. “Are you done then?”
“Yeah,” Drew says. “Sorry man.” He fist bumps Damien and exits the cage. I hand him a towel and he skims it over his body to wipe off the sweat.
“You good?” I whisper to him. Drew just shrugs and continues toweling off. He’s not handling all of this very well. I decide to cheer him up some. “Don’t bother with the towel,” I say seductively in his ear, “Let’s go home and I’ll clean you up.”
Drew freezes for a moment, then turns to look at me with a dark, carnal expression. He tosses the towel over his shoulder, yanks off his gloves, and grabs his shirt off of the bench next to us, pulling it over his head. Curling his tape-wrapped hand around my wrist he starts dragging me toward the door, nodding to Steve and Evan who go outside to get Bruce.
I stumble trying to keep up, but Drew keeps tugging on my arm. “Hey, slow down,” I complain.
His head shifts toward me and I catch a glimpse of a smile. “After your offer, I have no intention of slowing down babe,” he says in a low voice.
I guess my distraction worked
.
Laying my head back on the cool leather of the seat, I close my eyes and think about how glad I am to be getting the hell out of the city for a while.
In the two weeks since Kiera Radcliff was arrested for posting death threats against me on Drew’s official fan page the media scrutiny has exploded. Evidently, online threats are given the same weight as threats delivered in person or by letter as far as the law is concerned. So basically, Kiera is screwed legally speaking and the press loves it.
Drew was not only enraged by her actions, but now their film has been shelved indefinitely until they can reshoot her scenes with a different actress. The studio exec who hoped to increase hype for the movie by recording our conversations and using the information to break me and Drew up, ended up sending the film to an early grave and himself to jail. I guess no one wants to see two people portray romance on the screen when you know one is certifiably insane in real life.
Who would have thought?
Thankfully, the press never got wind of the bizarre Drew shrine that the FBI found in her house. I knew she was fucked up, but I had no clue as to the level of obsession she had for my fiancé. Drew didn’t take the news well, breaking several items that were within his reach when he found out.
On top of all this, I still haven’t broached the subject of Adam Reynolds with Drew. He isn’t rational when you mention Adam’s name. I’m pissed that he thinks he gets to tell me whether or not I’m friends with Adam. Not that I necessarily want to be friends with
him after the bullshit he pulled at my Dad’s premiere, but it should still be my decision.
“Hey, you going to sleep already?” I smile at the sexy voice whispering in my ear.
I turn my head to look at Drew, sitting in the seat next to me on the studio-owned private jet that will take us all over the world during the next fifteen days. He looks relaxed for the first time in a long while. Probably for the same reason as me, getting the hell out of New York and focusing on something besides death threats, controversies, and ducking the paparazzi.
“No, just enjoying the quiet,” I say to him.
“Yeah, it’s good to be away from that shit.”
“Hey guys, I just want
ed to hand you a final schedule.” Drew raises an eyebrow at Jane as she gives him a sheet of paper. “I know, it’ll probably change but it’s the final schedule so far, not the final-final schedule,” she admits. “I emailed it to you too, but I know you can’t check it now so I thought you’d want a hard copy.”
A stewardess walks up to Jane.
“Ma’am, I’ll need you to take your seat.”
“See you later,” Jane says as she heads to an open seat a few rows in front of us.
I peek at the schedule that Drew has in his hands. I only know that we’re going to L.A. first. This has a lot of cities on it, Toronto, back to New York, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, and Sydney. That’s a lot of flying, but still better than house arrest.
Day one is the press junket in Los Angeles where we’ll spend a few days so Drew can film national and local TV talk shows. My Dad lives in L.A. not far from the hotel we’ll be at.
“What are you thinking?” Drew asks, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“I was just wond
ering if I should visit my dad while you’re doing the junket. I’ll just be sitting around the hotel all day waiting, so I was thinking…” I let my sentence end, not sure where I’m going with it.
“That’s a great idea,” he says encouragingly
, sitting up and leaning toward me. “Just find out if he’s in town when we land. I’ll have Bruce take you and one of the guys.”
Yes, the infamous guys, who are currently sitting beefy arm to beefy arm in the
row in front of us. I giggle. They look like a giant tattooed wall of manflesh.
“What?” Drew
asks, a puzzled look on his face.
“Nothing,” I say, failing to stop another giggle from escaping.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” he says playfully, ducking his head to nuzzle my ear.
“I’m just happy to be doing something. It’s a nice change
.” I shiver from his hot breath on my neck.
“I know what you mean.” H
e pulls away and responds with his own lopsided smile.
I close my eyes again and lean my head on Drew’s shoulder, content to just listen to the sound of his even breathing. He says nothing, letting us relax in comfortable silence. Every once in a while, one of the other people flying with us stops by to talk, but since most of the cast and crew live in Los Angeles, the plane is empty for now.
About an hour into the flight, Drew starts playing with my ring, twisting it around and staring at it randomly. After twenty minutes of this, I lift my head and watch him.
“What?” he asks when he catches me staring.
“Why are you doing that?” I know he’ll do it when we’re in a stressful situation, to help calm either him or me down. As far as I know, there’s nothing stressful happening here in this plane.
“Doing what?” he asks innocently. Hmmm, he knows exactly what I’m asking, he doesn’t want to tell me.
I give him a look of disbelief. “Drew, what’s wrong? I know you’re thinking something, just tell me. There’s no one around.” Evan, Steve, and Sal have spread out around the plane, having realized that there were plenty of seats available and they didn’t all have to pack into one row.
He sighs before speaking.
“Just wondering when we’re going to… you know.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Drew shifts in his seat so he’s facing me as much as he can. He picks up my hand and turns the diamond face up on my finger. “Don’t you want to get married?” He has a look so heartbreaking on his handsome face that I feel tears build up behind my eyes.
“Of course I do. I w
ouldn’t have said yes otherwise.”
“When?” Drew
asks, suddenly determined to have this conversation. I’m sure it’s because he has me trapped here. I can’t beg off or go anywhere. He has a captive audience.
“Can’t we please just get t
hrough all of this crap first?”
“Why should that have any effect on this Sydney? I want to marry you, now. Today if I could make it happen.”
“You’ve seen the press around us Drew. Is that what you want?” I start to panic, knowing that the circus we’ve seen so far is nothing compared to what would happen if we announced an engagement or a wedding.
“The media is already a nightmare
, Syd. My thought is to just roll through it. We’re skipping the engagement party because of the press. Are we going to skip getting married too? The press is bad now, why wait for it to get better, then reignite it with a wedding later on?”
“So you want to marry me now because it’s easier to just let the shitstorm continue?” I clarify.
Drew’s mouth turns down in the corners and his brow furrows in the center, forming a ‘v’. “No Sydney. I want to marry you because I love you. I want you to be mine. Permanently.”
“I am yours pe
rmanently, Drew. You know that.”
“Do I?” he questions, looking into my eyes to read my emotions.
Now I’m mad,
shit
. “You doubt my intentions?” I’m trying, and failing, to keep the venom out of my voice.
“I don’t doubt you Sydney, I just… Jesus, I just want to make it real. That’s all, and I want everyone to know.”
He looks at me with that face. The face I can’t ever refuse because I love it so much. It’s his open, honest, perfect face and it’s melting me into a puddle.
I throw up my hands in defeat. “Okay Drew. We’ll do it your way. You decide, just tell me when and I’ll show up. But no media.” I warn him.
Aren’t I supposed to be the one pushing him into a church and he’s supposed to be dragging his feet?
In giving in to him, I’m rewarded with a huge grin, all perfect white teeth and gorgeous dimple.
Wow.
Why was I resisting marrying him right away? “I’ll make you a deal,” he says.
“What?” Ok, now I’m worried. He looks too happy for this deal to benefit me.
“No media now, but if I win an Oscar, I get to tell everyone about us.”
His face is so hopeful, I laugh. “Deal.”
After we land, we all climb into a stretch limo and head for the Four Seasons where we’re staying. It’s weird being in the back of the car with Bruce. Everyone teases him for finally getting to be a passenger in one of these things. He’ll get to drive tomorrow, when our rental car is delivered to the hotel.
The limo glides to a stop in front of the hotel. “I’ll go in and get the keys from Quentin, he’s already here,” Jane says right before jumping out and shutting the door behind her. She waves off a valet and a bellhop and disappears into the lobby.
“I’m going to check out the lobby,” Evan says, and before anyone can blink, he’s gone too.
“Huh,” I say. “I guess we aren’t the only ones with cabin fever.”
Bruce smiles and Steve shows no emotion whatsoever, but Drew and Sal burst out laughing.
About
ten minutes later, Jane comes back to the limo with Quentin and they slide in next to Sal. “Good to see you guys!” Quentin says, shaking hands with Drew and giving me a nod since he’s too far away to shake my hand and it’s too cramped to hug me.
“Quentin,” Drew says to his agent as he hands ov
er our keycard. “Where’s Rhys?”
“Inside, getting all of the interviews coordinated for tomorrow. Setting up the parameters with the reporters
and letting them know the Kiera thing is off limits. You know, all that PR crap you and the studio pay him for,” Quentin says laughing. “Anyway, Chad’s driving over tonight for dinner and he’ll join you for the junket at the hotel tomorrow.”
“I finally get to meet the infamous Chad?
The one with the gorgeous house in St. Bart’s?” I ask incredulously.
Drew turns to me, s
miling. “Why yes, I believe it
is
that Chad who directed this movie.”
“I forgot he worked with you on this ‘project’ when you were in California,” I say, making air quotes around the word project. I hadn’t realized at the time that Drew was an actor, and he explained his work as a bunch of freelance projects so he wouldn’t freak me out.
“Well, he hasn’t forgotten about you,” Drew tells me. “He asks about you all the time, pestering me to meet you.”
Interesting
. I try to picture Drew sitting around on the phone discussing his girl situation with an Oscar winning director. Nope, can’t picture it.
“So,” Quentin says, handing out the
remaining keycards. “Dinner at eight in the hotel restaurant. I’ll see you there?”
Drew answers for us. “Yes, eight o’clock.”
Quentin smiles. “Then I’ll catch you later, I have to get back to my office.” He opens the door and slides back out of the limo.
The rest of us follow quickly, ducking inside and crossing the elegant lobby. I ignore the stares of the other guests, keeping my head down and my sunglasses on. I hear the whispers but choose
to block out as much as I can.
We’re waiting for the painfully slow elevator to arrive when I see Steve shift to block the path of a man who seems to be heading straight for
our group.
“Andrew!” he calls out, attempting to step around Steve’s massive body.
“It’s okay Steve,” Drew says and Steve steps aside.
The
gorgeous man is smiling wide, putting his hand out for Drew to shake. They do that whole man-hug/shake/slap on the back thing and exchange quick hellos.
“Sydney, this is Zane McNamara, one of my co-stars in
Mind of the Enemy
.” He gestures to the handsome man standing next to him. “Zane, this is …”
“The intriguing Sydney Tannen,” Zane says smoothly, taking a step towards me and offering his hand, focusing his rich brown eyes on my face.
“Nice to meet you,” I say politely as we shake.
Intriguing? Yeah right. More like a hot mess
.
“I’m glad you made the trip out here,” he says to me as he rakes his hand through his short blonde hair. “What, with all of the craziness going on,
if
you believe everything you read which I rarely do,” he jokes.
Steve and Evan move noticeably closer to us, stopping all conversation. Then I hear the tell-tale clicks of the cameras and understand the big men’s reactions.
“You can’t be in here!” an irate hotel employee calls out, rushing up to escort the paparazzi out of the lobby.
I see several hotel guests with cellphones pointed at us, recording videos of the swarming photographers and the hostile S
EALS that try to intercept them. I roll my eyes and turn my back to them.
Drew reaches over and grabs my hand again, clutching it tightly. “Zane, we’ll talk later,” he says as the elevator doors open. An elderly couple steps off of the elevator and is startled by the chaos in the lobby, and by the three giant bodyguards standing in front of them. Drew gives them his fake Andrew Forrester smile and tugs me into the
small enclosure. Steve, Sal, Evan, and Jane close behind.