Courting Trouble (Reality Romance Book 5) (5 page)

“Assholes.”

She laughed, soft and startled. “Yep. But what are you going to do? Argue that yes you took your clothes off on national television but there were
nuances
that got lost on the editing room floor?”

“You could have.”

“I shouldn’t
have
to. And it’s not like anyone would have believed me. Why should anyone care about the little shades of truth when what they already believe is so much juicier? It’s not like I wasn’t willing. I went along. Even if it was always Daniel pushing down the accelerator, I wasn’t exactly pumping the brakes. And I’m still kind of pissed off that America thought I should. Like it was my job as the woman to be the moral compass of the relationship.”

“Fuck them.”

She laughed again, louder this time. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

“I say what I need to say.”

“A man of few words.” Which was fine because she had more than enough words to fill up the silence. “I guess I have a lot to say.” But that wasn’t new. She’d never been good at keeping her opinions to herself. It was just the topics that had changed. She’d never seen herself as a vigilante for feminine justice, but then she’d never thought she’d be slut shamed by America at large, either.

She studied the man beside her, marveling that he didn’t see anything trashy when he looked at her. The last good man.

“Are you gay?”

Chapter Six

Adam choked on a startled laugh. “What makes you ask?”

“You haven’t made a pass at me.”

“And only gay men don’t try to get you into bed?”

She shrugged, the movement a confirmation.

Adam wanted to apply his fists to every man who had ever treated her like she was only good for sex, but he simply said, “I’m on the clock.”

It was a lie, but a convenient one.

“Ah. No mixing business and pleasure.”

He nodded and she mirrored the gesture, seeming relieved to have an explanation that made sense.

She turned her attention back to the waves, drawing up her knees and resting her chin on them with her arms looped around her legs. “I don’t know what to do if I can’t be an actress,” she mused. “No one will hire Slut Elena for a regular job. Morality clauses. Who knew? Maybe I
should
do porn.”

“You were so much hotter when you weren’t feeling sorry for yourself.”

She shot him a flirty glance. “I thought you were gay.”

He just looked at her, letting the silence speak. She was gorgeous, almost so beautiful it hurt his chest when he let himself really see her. Black hair moving against her shoulders in the slight breeze, full, kissable lips and dark, challenging eyes. And then there were her curves, which were—as she’d said—fucking spectacular. His body reacted, tension and heat gathering as blood rushed away from his brain, but still he held her gaze.

She was temptation and sin, but she was more than that. She was a dare from the universe. A wild, brilliant flame.

“I should go.”

Horny hope died a painful death, but it was the right call and they both knew it. He stood before she had a chance to change her mind, offering her his hand to help her up. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

She gathered her shoes and took his hand. They walked up the beach in silence and back to the house, which was silent and dark now. The bridal party guests were asleep upstairs, but the patio was quiet and empty, lit only by moonlight.

He stood sentry as she collected her purse from the room where she’d stashed it, and then watched as she slipped the heels back onto her feet. He put a hand under her elbow when she wobbled on the cobblestone walk, applying barely enough pressure to keep her steady without indulging his senses by touching her more.

Her car was parked where she’d left it this afternoon, among the row of cars of those who were staying overnight. He stood with her as she dug into her purse for her keys.

“Are you okay to drive?”

“I was never that tipsy and I haven’t had a drink in hours.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

She lifted her head, coming up with the keys. “Are you worried about me?” A smile played around her lips. “Careful, Galahad. You’ll spoil me.”

She unlocked the car and he held her door as she slipped into the driver’s seat. One of the business cards from his inside jacket pocket was in his hand before he formed a conscious decision to give it to her. He extended it through the open door. “In case you ever need a bodyguard.”

She took the card from him, studying it for a moment before looking up at him with another of her guarded smiles. “I can’t afford you.”

Impulse and the need to see her again made him add, “Or we could go out sometime.”

Her smile widened and something bright kindled in her eyes, but she was already shaking her head. “Honey, I’m trouble. You can’t afford me either.”

Then she was tugging the door out of his hands to close it and he didn’t fight it, allowing her the exit line. Watching her drive out of his life. Kept company by the certainty that he’d missed out on something incredible.

* * * * *

His business card taunted her.

She should have thrown it away—gotten rid of temptation—but instead she’d tossed it into her purse and now every time she dove into the messy jumble for something it seemed to be the first thing to touch her fingertips.

She could call him back and accept his date. She’d certainly replayed the moment when he’d asked her out enough times in her head. She’d almost said yes. It had been so long since she’d been asked out by a quality man and the way he’d asked her—as if there were no expectations behind it, just an honest interest to see more of her—he’d made it so damn hard to do the right thing and say no.

She liked him. Liked him way too much, if she was honest with herself. And she
trusted
him, which was even more dangerous.

Trust was not to be trusted. So she would keep her distance.

But she also kept the card, running it absently through her fingers as she waited for one of the self checkout stands to open up at the grocery store on Monday afternoon. People left you alone in the self-check lines and she didn’t have the energy today to deal with the excitement or censure or feigned nonchalance that came with being recognized by the sales clerk.

And the absolute last thing she needed was some enterprising store employee selling her shopping list to the tabloids. She might be living off of Ramen noodles and cereal, but she didn’t need all of America to hear about it, thank you very much.

She scanned the glossy magazines as she waited for her turn, automatically checking for her face, her name. Her hashtag.

Nothing. The issues with bootleg pictures from Caitlyn’s wedding would no doubt hit newsstands in a few days, but right now they would only be online.

There was an odd sort of relief to not being on the cover of some scandal mag. Odd, because she’d always wanted to be there. Always wanted to be one of the glamorous people living their glamorous lives on the covers of glossy magazines. When she’d first started appearing on them, Elena hadn’t minded that the coverage was negative. It had been a thrill. Her picture had been bigger than Jennifer Aniston’s one week. Who cared if they were using that damn hashtag? She certainly hadn’t.

Not at first.

But it was a funny thing, publicity. Like being slowly buried in sand, a handful at a time. It’s all fun and games…. Until suddenly you can’t breathe and the sand doesn’t stop. It just keeps coming, burying you deeper and deeper.

It was a relief to see no one was piling on this week. At least not yet.

A register opened up and Elena moved to it quickly. She was wearing the cliché celebrity disguise—baseball cap, sunglasses, hair in a sloppy ponytail—and no one gave her a second glance, everyone absorbed in their own lives, thank goodness. Some days it was nice to just buy her Ramen noodles without a production number.

She quickly tucked her groceries into her canvas tote—god forbid Elena be seen to be environmentally insensitive—and swiped her debit card, wondering exactly how long she could live on Ramen and cereal before even that exceeded her budget. She hadn’t been this broke since college, but that was the price you paid for living your dreams, right? She was just in her starving artist phase. So what if it seemed to be lasting longer than a single phase ought to? That would make the vindication of pulling herself out of it that much sweeter.

She’d have an excellent story to tell Barbara Walters. The Year I Lived on Ramen, she would call it. Provided Barbara Walters was still doing that sort of thing by the time Elena dragged herself out of the Starving Artist Pit of Despair. But of course Barbara would be—even if she had to come out of retirement to do it. Barbara was the Methuselah of Hollywood. Barbara was forever.

Elena was preoccupied envisioning her triumphant Barbara Walters interview as she stepped out of the elevator on the third floor of her apartment building, so she barely registered the envelope taped over the peep hole on the door to 303. Her door. When she did notice it, her brain shuffled through the logical explanations—change in building policy, misdirected mail, neighborly complaint, invitation to a roof party. It wasn’t until she got closer that she could read the writing on the front.

The big block letters. The bright red pen. The pair of words slashed across the front of the envelope that stopped her in her tracks.

DIE WHORE.

Chapter Seven

He’d hoped Elena would call, but not like this.

Adam hadn’t planned to spend his afternoon off hauling ass down the freeway, his hands tight on the steering wheel and his heart in his throat as he remembered how shaken she’d sounded.
Turns out I could use a bodyguard after all. Someone was in my building. They got inside
.

He took the exit ramp too fast, weaving his Jeep through traffic and accelerating through a yellow light. How long had she been being harassed? Was it just notes or was there more to the stalking? He told himself he was only concerned because he felt a sense of responsibility for her after Saturday night, but he was more worried about her than he had any right to be.

He got to her apartment building in half the time it should have taken him and lucked into a parking space less than a block away. Elena waited on the sidewalk outside, a re-useable canvas grocery bag slung over the same shoulder as her purse, making her look lopsided. He took in the cap and sunglasses as well as the flip-flops, snug jeans, and half-zipped hoodie over a plain white tank top. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her middle and she was pacing—two steps north, two steps south—until she caught sight of him and moved to meet him halfway.

“I didn’t know who to call,” she said, apology dusting the words.

“Are you okay?” He hated how often he seemed to have to ask her that question.

“I didn’t touch anything,” she said, instead of answering. “You aren’t supposed to touch anything, right? In case there are fingerprints?”

He nodded, even though forensics had never been his specialty. “Show me.”

She waved him toward her building. “I couldn’t wait inside,” she said as he watched her unlock the exterior door.

He studied the security, realizing it was fairly decent. A CCTV camera was aimed at the door, which had reasonably new looking locks.

“I couldn’t have been gone more than an hour,” she said as she led the way to the elevator. “Just to the grocery and back. Do you think they were watching me? Did they know when I left?” She didn’t seem to expect an answer, which was good because all he had was directionless anger at the bastard who’d frightened her.

The elevator opened and she preceded him inside, hitting the button for three. The building was five floors, with a handful of apartments on each floor. Not big enough or ritzy enough for a doorman, but the kind of place a single woman shouldn’t have to worry about feeling safe.

“I’m used to getting them online,” she said, speaking more to herself than to him, as she had been since he arrived. “The insults, the threats…”

“
Jesus
,” Adam mumbled, appalled by her reality.

“But this is different,” she went on, as the elevator doors opened. “Someone was here. Where I live.”

She waved toward a door with an envelope taped at eye level. He read the words scrawled there and the buzz of worry for her in the back of his brain escalated to full on rage. His hands fisted, but there was no one to punch.

“You need to call the police.”

“I can’t,” Elena protested. “It’ll get out. The press. They’ll spin it. Total fiasco.”

“Fuck the press. This is your safety.”

But she was shaking her head.

“Elena…”

“Don’t you know anyone? You do all that bodyguard stuff. Don’t your clients have problems like this? Problems they want handled quietly? This is what you do, isn’t it? This sort of thing… it’s normal for Hollywood, right?”

He wanted to argue that stalkers shouldn’t be normal for anyone, but he forced himself to focus on the problem at hand. “Max will know who to call.”

Elena nodded eagerly. “Right. Good. We’ll call Max.”

Max, unsurprisingly, knew a guy. Within the hour they had Max’s detective friend and a very discrete team of police investigators at her apartment. The pros confirmed that it didn’t look like anyone had been inside her place—and Elena agreed that nothing had been touched that she could discern—but they were taking the envelope on her door very seriously, especially after the threatening letter inside was revealed to contain some “concerning phrases” and disturbingly graphic details.

They asked Elena about previous incidents and he was relieved to hear this was the first time something had happened at her house, even as she put the cops in touch with her agent who was keeping a file on her ”most concerning anti-fans.”

Adam hovered, feeling useless, wishing for a battle to fight. He told the police about the incident on Saturday night, but they agreed that it was probably unrelated—which did nothing to make him feel better about the current situation.

After the detectives had gathered their evidence and left, Elena stood in the middle of her kitchen, her arms still wrapped around herself, not even leaning against the counter as if she was afraid to touch anything. It had gotten dark out and even with the lights on, the apartment seemed to be filled with shadows.

“Do you have somewhere you can stay tonight?” he asked, hating the idea of leaving her alone when she looked so fragile.

“A suite at the Beverly Hilton would be the Hollywood answer, but I can’t really afford that at the moment,” she admitted dryly—unbreakable Elena holding herself together by sheer force of will.

He couldn’t just leave her.

“I have a guest room. You’re welcome to it, if you like.” He trailed off, because she was already shaking her head.

“No,” she said, and he wasn’t in the least surprised. He may not have known Elena long, but he’d learned she was not the kind of girl who accepted help readily. “Thank you, though. It was nice of you to offer.”

“Who’s being nice? You’d be doing me a favor. I’m not going to be able to sleep if I leave you alone here. It’s either you crash in my cozy guest room or I camp out on your lumpy old couch—and that thing does not look comfortable.”

Her lips twitched, but a smile didn’t break the surface. “Has anyone ever told you that your savior complex is a little over-developed?”

“Once or twice.” He thrust his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t reach for her. “It’s okay to say yes. We’ll both sleep better,” he coaxed, fully expecting her to refuse again.

It was a sign of how rattled she must be that she said softly, “You don’t mind?”

“Not exactly what I’d envisioned for our second date, but I’ll take what I can get.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “We had a first date?”

“I’m counting the beach.”

“Ah.” Her smile was small, but real. “I don’t really want to spend the night here by myself,” she admitted. “But I’m not sure I’m up to driving either.”

He kept his expression neutral, knowing how difficult that confession must have been for someone as fiercely independent as Elena. “We can take my car and come back for yours some other time.”

“If you’re sure?”

“Positive.”

He didn’t question his jolt of relief when she moved toward the bedroom. “I’ll just get a few things.”

While she vanished to pack, Adam pulled out his phone and checked in with Max, taking the opportunity to request his schedule be lightened for the next few days. He was optimistic the surveillance tapes from the front door would reveal Elena’s stalker and he’d be behind bars in the next twenty-four hours, but until he knew for sure she was safe, he wasn’t going to take any chances. And he wasn’t going to evaluate when she had become such a high priority.

She stepped out of the bedroom pulling a small hot pink leopard print roller bag. Manners drilled into him by his mother urged him to get it for her, but his training had pounded that instinct into submission.

“Can you manage that? I want to keep my hands free.”

Elena nodded, understanding without needing to be told why she couldn’t pull a diva act. Not that she would have. In spite of her reputation as the Queen Bitch of Reality Television, he’d never seen any hint that she was the kind of woman to put on airs and make ridiculous demands.

He was hyperaware of his surroundings, taking note of every detail as he led her down to where his Jeep was parked, Elena his silent shadow. She didn’t speak as he drove them north toward his place, maneuvering through pockets of heavy traffic on his way to the freeway—which gave him plenty of time to think. And to kick himself.

Tonight had been an education.

He’d known about the show, of course, had known the paparazzi went into a frenzy when she drove by at the gate, but when she was complaining the other night on the beach he hadn’t realized the extent of it. When he’d been trying to coax her out of her funk, he hadn’t suspected how much she was dealing with. He hadn’t understood.

The hashtag. The online threats. Email accounts hacked. Cell phones hacked. Losing her job. Months of harassment. All for a single impulsive moment caught on camera.

The frantic coverage around his moment of heroism had been one hundred percent positive and he’d found it hard to handle. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like if the media firestorm was negative.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, as they finally found a stretch of open road and he could accelerate. “About the other night. On the beach, I didn’t know you had every right to bitch—”

A soft laugh from the passenger seat cut him off. “So now my life is pathetic enough that I have the right to a pity party? What was the tipping point? The
whore
on the door?” She snickered. “God, it even rhymes.”

He frowned, trying to study her without taking his eyes off the road for too long.

“What? Why are you suddenly checking my straightjacket size?”

“You’re laughing about it?”

“Too soon?” She shrugged and slipped out of her flip-flops, propping her bare feet on the dash so her sky blue nail polish caught the light of passing streetlights. “Some days it’s laugh or cry and I do
not
cry.”

“I’m sor—”

“Stop it. You’re one of the few people in this country who doesn’t owe me an apology right now. Save it for when you need it.”

“Can I apologize on behalf of America?”

“No. Trust me, you don’t want to take on the blame for that crap.” She looked out the side window. She’d lost the hat and the sunglasses, but she still looked softer somehow. Vulnerable.

He hated that this day had done that to her. That her
life
had done that to her. But she was right. He couldn’t take responsibility for every asshole with an internet connection—no more than he could pummel sense into each and every one of them.

“I look them up sometimes,” she said conversationally, her head turned to watch the lights flow past the passenger window. “It’s amazing how few people make any effort to hide their identity when they’re insulting you from the safety of their home computer. And sometimes it sort of helps to know who is screaming the invective. When you can’t ignore them. When they feel too real. So I make them all the way real. Like imagining the audience with no clothes to get over stage fright. Make the mob human. It doesn’t make me feel better about it—sometimes it feels worse, but it takes away the fear.”

The simple truth of her reality made his stomach churn.

“This was different,” she said softly. “Today. It’s one thing for some asshole online to tell you that you’re a slut who doesn’t deserve to live, but something else for someone to come to your house and write it on your door. Funny, I never thought that would be a distinction I would have a reason to think about.”

“We’re going to find whoever left that note,” he said, instilling confidence into his tone. “And you can stay at my place as long as you like. I have plenty of space.”

“My hero,” she murmured, but the sarcasm she’d tried to lace into the words didn’t quite make it.

“I’m not a hero.” He’d never liked that word. It was a pedestal he didn’t deserve.

“That just confirms it. The ones who protest they aren’t anyone’s hero are the really heroic ones.”

His driveway saved him from having to respond. He hit the button to open the gate. The security lights—tastefully concealed in the landscaping—illuminated the beach house as he spun the wheel and pulled into the drive, the gate sliding silently closed behind them. “Here we are.”

The cottage, Sandy had called it when she gave it to him, proving that movie stars had very different definitions when it came to real estate.

Elena dropped her feet from the dash, her jaw dropping as well. “You’re kidding. You live
here
?”

Adam’s neck heated. “It was a gift.”