Sparking the Fire (39 page)

“The game? So those fuckers take photos of my niece, get all up in the business of my woman, and I'm supposed to accept that? No fuckin' way.”

“I'm not saying you should! If I'm not around, you and Roni won't be targets. Problem solved.”

“Back to that?” He shook his head, exasperated. “I know you're scared, Molly. After all that shit you went through, you kept your head down and no one would fault you for playing it that way. You have it in that beautiful skull of yours that you belong to them. Your public. Your critics. The only person you belong to is you.”

He was wrong. She belonged to him. Utterly, completely.

His big, coarse hands cupped her face. “Baby, I've never met a strong person with an easy past. But you can't hide forever or rely on making a good movie to be your only statement. Inside here”—he touched gentle fingertips above her breast—“is the heart of a warrior. The mama bear who protected Roni. The woman who scratches and claws to mark her man. So your ex did a number on you. That's why he's ex. But if you let the bullshit mask the good stuff, he wins.”

He didn't understand. The warrior heart, the mama bear, the Hollywood producer—all an act. Roles she slipped into when the part required it. She wasn't as strong as this man before her and she sure as hell couldn't live up to his standards in a mate. Eventually he would tire of the brutal slog. Of repelling the wolves from his door.

Every day she lived it, and she was exhausted.

“It's not just that me being in your life turns your normal world upside down, Wyatt, but there's the other side. You in mine.” Gage's words of warning came back to her.
A life in the spotlight would kill him.

His hands fell away. “You think I don't belong in your world, Molly?”

Not as it was currently crafted, and she could never belong in his without tainting it forever. She let her silence be the answer. Set the bar so high that not even her badass marine firefighter could reach it.

None of this was supposed to happen. She hadn't expected love.

She hadn't expected Wyatt.

There were a million ways she could have hurt him, but implying he wouldn't fit her life was the deepest cut of all. Clueing him in was the only way she could make him understand. Those bubbles of sex and comfort he'd created for her had to burst eventually.

He searched her face, looking for some sign that the words she left unsaid might not match the intent in her heart. Unable to bear the furious pain she saw there, she reached for him, but he drew back, the hurt on his face a stab to her heart.

“We're not doin' comfort hugs or good-bye kisses, Molly. I can't stop you from rewinding to the memories we've already created, but you'll get no more from me. I won't fill that well you'll draw from for your next big role.”

He made her sound like a leech, an incubus who survives by feeding on others' emotions. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but she had zilch. He was hurt, he was right, and there was nothing she could say that would make this better.

In case she had any doubts that they could emerge from this horror with some semblance of goodwill existing between them, he asked, “You need a ride?”

She shook her head, her agony mirroring his. She knew he didn't want to cause her pain, but he had to manage his own the best way he could. Dazed, she headed toward the door.

“Use the kitchen,” he said with a gruff softness. “Safer.”

He walked her out, back to Gage's house, staying a couple of steps behind. Molly could already tell how this would go down: Once she had packed up, he would escort her to the rented Lexus parked beside his Camaro in the garage. He'd load her luggage into the trunk and check to make sure she was wearing her seat belt. He'd stand with hands shoved deep in his jean pockets, watching with those unholy blue eyes as she snuck out of the alley and through the gauntlet.

This man had had her back from the beginning. He would protect her to the last.

Right until she drove out of his life, her coward's heart in pieces.

 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

T
he doorbell chimed. Wyatt waited. A full minute passed before it was opened by Judy, Roni's grandmother.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” she said around the cigarette dangling from her lips. “Jen's at work. Guess you know that.”

“I'm here to talk to my niece.”

“Wyatt?” Roni's voice echoed from above. She came into view halfway down the stairs and his heart stuttered to a stop thinking of how much he loved and missed her. It had been a hellborn week, a nightmare without her and the woman he loved.

He held his breath. Anxiously waiting. Slowly dying. Would she even care?

She ran the rest of the way down, threw her arms around his torso, and snuggled in close. “You're here.”

“Damn right I am. Not givin' up on you.” He kissed the top of her head and raised her chin to face him. “Got time for lunch with your uncool, embarrassing uncle?”

She looked at her gran, who gave a heavy sigh. “Go get your phone, so I don't have to listen to that beeping while you're gone.”

Grinning, Roni went inside.

“Try your best not to abduct her. My daughter will never let me hear the end of it.”

Wyatt snorted. “Surprised she's even letting you near Roni after the stunt you pulled dropping her off in Chicago.”

Judy's smile was sly. “I love my Jen, but I didn't agree with how she was handling things. Something had to be done.”

An unexpected ally. In the haze of all that had happened this last year, Judy had walked a fine line through this whole mess. She was the one who'd contacted him initially, who'd gone over Jen's head and let him know he had another human being with his blood in her veins.

Sometimes he forgot he had people on his side.

T
hey went to Applebee's because Roni said the chicken fajita roll-up was “to die.” Once the server had taken their order, Roni fixed Wyatt with a strong, unflinching gaze, like she'd grown into a woman since he'd seen her last.

“Molly texted me.”

Three little words that sliced right through him.

“She's being really encouraging about film school. I'm thinking about Columbia.”

His heart twanged. “New York.”

“Chicago,” she said with a shy smile. “I'd like to major in cinema art and science, focusing on screenwriting. I'd start in two years, assuming my grades are good enough.”

“They will be. Or I'll kick your ass.”

Smiling, she tweaked her earring. “Might need a place to live. Keep my costs down.”

“No shortage of Dempseys who'll put you up.”

“I'd rather live with you, if that's okay.”

His tongue felt too thick for his mouth. “I won't rent out your room, then.”

The server brought their drinks, and Wyatt was grateful for the interruption. It was getting a little heavy there.

But it could always get heavier, because the people he loved were nothing if not dramatic. Roni sucked on her straw and raised her gaze to him, now looking close to tears. “It's my fault you and Molly aren't together. If the paparazzi hadn't taken that photo of me—”

“Girl, your career as a screenwriter will be over before it starts if you think that tired old cliché is going to work.” Mercifully, no photos of Roni had seen the light of day. Why bother when they had a much better shot of Molly Cade's is-he-or-isn't-he lover losing his ever-loving shit on a photographer? “You're not to blame. Molly and I are worlds apart. It's not just a distance thing, it's the way our lives are playing out.”

“Wy, you guys are great together, like Sandy and Danny. Like Andi and Blane, though it should have been Duckie.” Jesus wept. Far too much time spent with Alex and Gage. “Like Thelma and Louise!”

“They drove off a cliff.”

“You know what I mean. An unbreakable team.”

Except Molly wasn't looking for another player to travel that journey with her.

“Roni, a woman like Molly needs someone larger-than-life, someone who'll reflect all her light back on her. That's not me.” Some people were doomed to their roles. Charmless son, silent protector, killer in the shadows.

He'd spent his entire life in the background. It was where people expected to find him and he liked it there. With a woman like Molly, it was all or nothing.

“You don't want to wear a tux and be her plus one at all those premieres?”

“Could you see that?”

Her smile was sad and beautiful. “Yeah, I could. And not just as her stone-faced bodyguard with a finger in your ear and an eye on the crowd looking for weirdos. Not two steps behind, letting her absorb all the light because you're such a freakin' vampire you can't handle the attention.”

“Roni—”

“Her life isn't all galas and premieres and hot costars. That's just a small piece of it. The rest is hanging with friends and family, doing stupid yoga, and dropping everything to get dumbass teens out of trouble.” She squeezed his hand. “That's what's real. That's what matters.”

“You should be a screenwriter.”

“Stop deflecting.”

“Or a psychotherapist.”

“Wyatt!” Her raised voice drew the attention of diners five tables over. “Oh, sorry,” she mocked. “Am I making a scene? Is your skin getting all vampire-tingly because the world might be watching?”

Yes, and hell yes. “Roni, she's got her life, and coming home to my hovel between jaunts around the world is not on her agenda.”

The divide ran deeper than whether he was willing to suffer the attention that followed her everywhere, play the game of star versus paparazzi. Threaded through her rejection was the inescapable conclusion that he was good enough for a secret fling in a hotel room, a bout of backseat action in his Camaro, but not ready for prime time. She didn't want him dulling the edge of her glittering life, and that hurt more than he could have ever imagined.

“Do you love her?”

“Roni,” he warned.

His all-knowing, old-soul niece stared him down like a Dempsey. “Do you love her?”

“The whole world loves her.” Of course he did. Why the hell would he be different from every other loser in every darkened theater around the world? You could adore the moon and stars from afar, but they weren't going to love you back. “She's up there, shining bright, and yeah, your vampire uncle doesn't want to get burned. Me loving her is not the issue. How could I not?”

The food arrived, so neither of them was forced to consider that.

“Y
ou told him he didn't belong in your world?”

Cal almost did a spectacular spit-take of her Pinot all over Molly's Jonathan Adler white leather sofa. Maybe Molly was tempting fate by (a) letting her friend drink red wine in the pristine living room of her Malibu beach house and (b) telling her about her last conversation with Wyatt, which admittedly was a doozie. She could afford to reupholster, but her Midwestern values would go apeshit.

“Perhaps we should move this outside.” The September air was sea-breeze balmy, but she'd resisted spending time on her deck since she'd come back to LA. It was just so big and lonely and Dempsey-free. No immaculate koi pond, no Gage flipping burgers in an X-rated apron.

No Wyatt staring into her soul from across a food-laden patio table.

For the last two months, she'd had no shortage of company, whether it was Roni while they binge watched
Jessica Jones,
Gage and Brady's easy companionship over a cheese and charcuterie board, or Alex giving her the insider scoop about taking no prisoners in the CFD. And Wyatt's solid and sensual presence the foundation of it all.

The memory of him lingered inside her, an incurable ache.

At the Chicago wrap party for
Into the Blaze
ten days ago, she'd spent the entire night fending off a drunken Gideon while willing a certain CFD tech consult to walk through the door. He never came. (And after Molly had spread a little rumor about her costar's “shortcomings,” neither did Gideon.) If someone had told her at the beginning of the summer that the worst of her problems during her first movie production would be wrangling her man-child costar, she would have smiled serenely and said, “Bring it!” Now she had a great product, a movie she was so damn proud of, but where was the sense of accomplishment? The joy at achieving exactly what she'd set out to do? Falling miserably in love apparently made all the good stuff taste like crap.

Well, screw love and the horse it rode in on!

Cal curled her legs under her body. “Let's talk about how you're feeling.”

“Should I lie down? Maybe think back to the time my parents wouldn't let me get a dog?”

Cal snorted. “You had three dogs. Dogs are not the problem here. It's you.”

“You're blunter than my last therapist.” She sighed. “He said my ex did a number on me.”