Sparking the Fire (33 page)

“Ryan,” she said, regrouping and affecting boredom. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He chuckled, a sound that used to send sexy shivers through her but now just curdled her stomach. “My sister lives here, remember?”

She did remember, but that didn't answer her question. He recognized this. Smirked.

Eager to take him down a notch and put them on equal footing right off the bat, Molly went for the jugular. “Worried about your release next week?” she asked sweetly. “I hear they're not screening it for reviewers.”

His face darkened. Bull's-eye. It was a well-known fact that a movie not made available for pre-release reviews was considered a dud by the studio. The head honchos didn't want to risk the bad press, so they hoped to slide it by an unsuspecting public. As the public was pretty much in on this, no one was fooled.

“Thought I'd take you to dinner, Molly. For old times' sake.”

“Somewhere private and romantic where, shocker, the paps appear out of nowhere to see RyMo in a cozy tête-à-tête. Is reconciliation in the air?”

“So suspicious,” he said with the grin that made millions. It made her furious. Anger hurtled through her veins, unblocking those frozen streams of ice.

“I know what you did.”

“You'll have to be more specific, Molly. According to your lawyers, I inflicted pain and suffering that more or less approximated the value of the house in Malibu. Tell me. What else did I do after plucking you out of obscurity and making your goddamn career?”

A twitch in the vein on his forehead confirmed that he knew exactly what she was talking about. Nevertheless, she'd spell it out because saying it aloud was necessary.

“Your agent clued me in that you were behind the photo leak.”

Not one iota of surprise registered on his face, though she was happy to note he was finally looking his age. “Because he's always wanted to do you. He'd say anything to get in your panties.” He stood and approached, his hand reaching for her jaw before she could pull away.

“You piggy-backed onto the hacking scandal to humiliate me, Ryan. You put those photos out into the ether to win points.”

His expression hardened. “You were supposed to come back to me, Molly. Run into my arms so we could weather the crisis together.”

Breath whooshed out of her. She hadn't expected him to come clean so quickly. Every concession had always been so hard won. “You. Fucking. Prick.”

He passed over her observation. “No one seems to know where you're staying. Don't know how you managed to go off grid, but it shouldn't be too hard to find out.”

“I'll make sure to pump a few extra thousand volts into the fence. A little welcome for when you come visit.”

Ryan winked. “Aw, honey, I've missed this. None of them can hold a candle to you.”

“Well, when you hook up with bimbos who can't pick out Canada on a map, your dinnertime conversation is probably going to be lacking.” As for this conversation, it wasn't getting her any closer to what she needed to know. Praying that her voice wouldn't crack with the hurt of what he had done, she asked, “Why, Ryan? Did you hate me so much?”

He blanched, evidently surprised at her question. He truly had no idea how much pain he'd inflicted. Several attempts at calling up various emotions ensued before he settled on a particularly terrible approximation of sorrow.

Poor Ryan. Botox had played havoc with his range.

“We okay here?” Words carved out of a granite cliff face entered the room, soon followed by the hard body of the movie's CFD tech consultant. Two seconds was all it took for him to assess. Three seconds more and he was in her personal space.

“Is this your bodyguard?” Ryan asked in that voice he reserved for the help.

Wyatt sniffed. “Just one of my jobs.” He pulled her into his body and—oh, God—patted her ass. Like he owned it.

Which he did, but so not the point.

“Moved onto rough, honey?” Ryan asked, though really he should keep his mouth closed because the seething rage that was Wyatt Fox was like a fourth person in the room. Ryan divided a look between Wyatt and Molly, awareness dawning.

“So this is the Hooded Avenger? I've seen you in action, man. Thanks for taking care of my wife.”

“Your ex-wife,” Molly corrected.

Ignoring her, Ryan addressed Wyatt, bro to bro. “We have a Taylor-Burton thing going on, and you know what happened with those two. Married twice. Couldn't stay away from each other.” His gaze slipped to where Wyatt's fingers were digging into Molly's hip, and she saw it: the familiar green tinge of his overly tanned skin.

Though furious at the pissing contest with her at risk of being pissed on, still she resisted pulling away from Wyatt. Ryan would not get any satisfaction from her.

“Think you should go, Ryan,” she gritted out.

“Sure, honey. I'll leave my number here. I've misplaced yours since we started going through legal proxies.” He dropped a card on the vanity and left the trailer.

Only then did she pull away from Wyatt. “What the hell was that?”

“That's me taking care of what's mine,” he said, demonstrating evolved male at not misunderstanding the reason for her annoyance by uttering the most unevolved statement she had ever heard.

“I am not yours.”

Wy-brows rose, but no words were spoken. Infuriating man.

“Listen, Cro-Mag, I've had it up to here with men thinking I'm property. Studios, agents, Ryan, you. I didn't ask you to step in with your alpha pain-in-the-ass shtick.”

“Didn't need to ask. Just did what had to be done.” Frowning, he picked up the card Ryan had left. “You want this?”

“What? No, I don't want that.”

She expected him to crumple it. Instead he stared at it for a good five seconds. “Reckon it might take you a few to hash out this pissy thing. Later, babe.”

And then, goddamn him, he left the trailer.

W
yatt would never claim to be an expert on the female mind, but he knew this much: Molly was not going to calm down until he'd given her space to get there. He'd thought about stripping her naked and running his tongue all over her body because her in that hissy fit would have made for some mighty fine bed sport, but he figured he'd play it safe.

And in a manner that protected his junk.

Her ex hadn't moved far. Two trailers over, he held court with a few of the assistants facing him in a horseshoe of admiration. On his approach, Wyatt gave the girls what Alex called his “badass resting face.” They got the message and left.

Ryan examined his manicure and Wyatt, in that order. “Did Molly send you out to get me?”

Fuck, this guy needed to be high-fived in the face with a chair. With great restraint, Wyatt put the card in the breast pocket of his sharp suit. “You forgot this. Also somethin' else you forgot.”

“Oh yeah?” To think Wyatt had actually wasted some of his hard-earned dollars seeing this guy in a movie. Just one, though. That first time where he and Molly had paired up to save the world from the nuke threat, the movie that had propelled Molly to stardom. The one where they had supposedly fallen in love during filming.

“You forgot that you had your chance to treat her right but you fucked up. A quality woman like that needs a lot of attention from her man. She needs to be told early and often that she's the center of his universe.” He leaned in, using his size to intimidate. “That sweet little body of hers is like a song, y'know. Gotta play the notes right. Hit it up high, take it down low. Don't know where you went wrong and don't need to. All you need to know is that your time has passed.”

“I could have you fired,” Ryan sputtered. “Blacklisted.
Destroyed
.”

Wyatt's laugh was mirthless. “People have tried before you and they'll keep on trying. I've survived enemy fire, flames all around, the world against me and my family. Bring it if you don't value your moneymaker. I see you near Molly again and there'll be no more talking, only doing. Consider this your last warning.”

Done with speechifying, he lifted his gaze and found the entire cast and crew, including Gage and Roni, staring at him.

Good job keeping your hot fling under the radar, Fox.

Wyatt left Ryan and the black storm on his face, and headed back to Molly's trailer. Gage fell into step with him, pretty jaunty with it, too.

“Bro, you are so screwed.”

Wyatt grunted. “That guy? Please.” He reached Molly's trailer, pulled on the door . . . and found it locked. Shit.

His brother shook his head pityingly, the beginnings of a smile teasing his smart mouth. “Like I said. Screwed.”

As usual, Gage was right. Wyatt might have survived enemy fire and flames all around. He would likely survive the threat of being Hollywood blacklisted by a dickweed like Ryan Michaels.

But the odds on him surviving Molly Cade were dropping with every passing second.

 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“I
thought I did awesome.” Gage grinned at Molly. “Tell him how good I was.”

Molly delayed the moment by taking a sip of her wine and giving the flames in the fire pit on Gage's patio a thoughtful stare. She chose her next words carefully. “I'm seeing an Oscar nod for . . . best special effects.”

Gage sat up, wounded. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that those abs of yours could win an award, but you're really too pretty to be taken seriously as an actor.” She caught Brady's eye. The hulking chef was doing his best not to laugh. “Ryan Reynolds has the exact same problem. It's a compliment, Gage. Truly.”

Brady threw his arm around Gage's chest and drew him into a claiming clasp. “I don't want to lose you to the bright lights, Golden. Stay in the sticks with me.”

Gage sighed. “This face and bod, both a blessing and a curse. We'll see what the people demand. When does the movie come out?”

“Next year.” She didn't have the heart to tell him his small walk-on part in the firehouse locker room might end up on the cutting room floor in post.

Postproduction, post-Chicago, post-Wyatt.

Although after that ridiculous stunt he'd pulled with Ryan, Molly honestly couldn't say whether that was a good thing or a bad one.

“So your ex visited the set,” Gage said. “Must be fun seeing the men in your life getting along so well.”

Molly took another sip of her wine. The August night had turned cooler and sitting so close to the fire, she should have felt warm. But it seemed the only heat she could draw depended on Wyatt, who was working tonight at the family's bar. Not that she cared, because she wasn't talking to him after his caveman antics on the set. She'd been running searches all day—something she never, ever did—trying to determine if the gossip mill of a love triangle had started its grind. Nothing had surfaced yet, but her naked photos were enjoying new Photoshopped life now that she had officially crawled out of her cave. Molly wearing a firefighter's helmet, and nothing else, while climbing a ladder. Molly spread-eagled on the mound at Wrigley Field. Molly perched in a very uncomfortable manner on top of the Sears Tower.

There was a reason she had Cal as her buffer.

She looked up to find Gage watching her intently.

“Shooting wraps in a week,” he said.

“It does.”

“Have you talked to Wyatt?” His voice was graver than usual. “And don't say about what.”

“We're just having fun.”

“So that's why you look like someone just stole your gelato.” Gage sat up straight. “Lots of people do the long-distance thing, and it seems to me a woman of your means can live anywhere she wants. Unless this isn't grand enough for you.”

“Gage—”

“I'm kidding. But not really. I'm not just talking about how this might be ten steps down for a woman with a twenty-mil mansion in Malibu. Wyatt's not really Hollywood, is he?”

Absurdly, she felt insulted. Wyatt was about as far from Hollywood as she was from shopping at the Gap for sexy undies, but she didn't care about that.

“I don't want to hurt him,” was all she could manage. And it was true. She suspected that's all she would do if she tried to entwine him further in her world. She had no idea what Wyatt said to Ryan today, but she had heard Ryan's loud response from the confines of her trailer:
Blacklisted. Destroyed.

He had the power to make things difficult for people. Look what he'd done to her.

Gage's expression softened. “I know you don't. Thing is, today, Wyatt did something I've never seen him do. He put himself out there and claimed you in front of a bunch of strangers. He's in pretty deep, and if you're not going to make a go of it, then you need to let him down.”

Brady growled. “Stay out of it, Gage.”

“He's my brother. And everyone thinks he's this tough guy automaton who doesn't care about stuff, but that's wrong. He cares too much.”