Submit and Surrender (14 page)

And then, stupidly, oh so stupidly, she lowered her window. As if the problem was that they hadn’t heard her. It was just a reflex. A stupid, human reflex, because she was worried.

“Get away from my car!” she shouted, and she heard the fear in her own voice. What if that guy had slid off the hood, under the wheels? What was wrong with them? “Someone could get hurt!”

“Adra! What’s it like working on the movie with your ex?”

“Adra, tell us about Club Volare!”

“Adra, are the rumors about you and Derrick Duvall true?”

Adra had never been on this side of it before. She’d always just tried to comfort clients when they’d done something stupid and the tabloids picked up the scent. She always told them to hang tough, that it would blow over.

She’d had no idea.

She was trapped. Completely, utterly trapped under this assault.

And for a moment, she was frozen with fear.

Then she said, “Oh, screw this,” turned off the car in the middle of the garage entrance, opened her door, and hurled herself through the scrum of photographers.

She ran all the way to her building’s entrance with the pack in tow, somehow outrunning a bunch of grown men who were wearing comfortable shoes—it was the adrenaline, maybe? Or maybe the photographers were just soft; you couldn’t be a wimp and wear Adra’s kind of shoes—and slipped inside the door held open by Greg, her building’s lone doorman.

Greg locked it behind her.

That didn’t stop them from shooting pictures through the glass.

“Ms. Davis, get to the elevators,” he said. “I called the police, but they weren’t breaking any laws. If I’d known they were here for you, I would have called you. Come on, get away from the glass.”

Adra didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing her run away. Well, anymore than she already had, anyway. That first sprint was kind of unavoidable. But now? She’d conduct herself with dignity, damn it.

She smoothed down her hair, her back to the glass doors behind her, pretending there weren’t any men outside, screaming lies about her framed as questions.

“Greg, I left my car in, like, the exact middle of the garage entrance,” she said. “Do you think you could…?”

“No problem,” Greg said, taking Adra’s keys. “I’d be happy to do it.”

“Thanks,” she said.

The relief was almost palpable. It felt…it felt weak. Like the moment she stopped to rest, she might be pretty upset about this whole thing. And she didn’t want to be upset. She didn’t want this to be a big deal.

Really, she just didn’t want it to be true.

“Ms. Davis, you know they’re not going to go away right away,” Greg said. He’d come with her to the elevator bank, and was standing between her and the doors, obstructing any view the photographers might have had.

Greg was a good man.

“I just hate the idea of letting them get to me,” Adra said. “I don’t even know what the story is yet.”

But right as she said that, she realized it was a lie. Of course she knew. She’d been in this industry a while; she knew, suddenly, exactly what had happened. That photographer who’d broken into the Volare grounds and snapped pictures of her—he hadn’t been checking his camera for damage before Ford knocked it into the koi pond. He’d been removing the memory card.

And once he had pictures, it probably took all of ten minutes to find out that Adra and Derrick used to live together. Every gossip rag in the city kept a file on stars like Derrick; Adra had probably been just a single line in a long biography.

Well, not anymore. She might have her own file now. The story practically wrote itself. Kinky ex-girlfriend and movie star on kinky film set—what could possibly happen?

Adra grit her teeth.

“You sure you don’t want to go somewhere else?” Greg said, gently.

“And go through that again?” Adra said, looking back at the photographers gathered outside. “They know my car, so they’d just follow me. I just…I just need to get upstairs.”

“Call down if you need anything, all right?”

Adra smiled. She’d stayed in this building for years, even buying the unit next door to hers when it became available rather than move to a bigger place, because somehow it felt like a big enclosed neighborhood and not an impersonal apartment building. Greg was a big part of the reason why. He’d been there over twenty years.

“Thanks, Greg,” she said, beginning to feel a little better about the whole thing. “They’ll probably lose interest.”

Greg waved as the doors started to close.

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said.

Well, except that she wasn’t, and she knew it. It was wishful thinking. Derrick Duvall had become a huge star, and now that they thought Adra was sleeping with him, they’d look into his private life and discover that Derrick had a long term girlfriend, and that he’d actually left Adra for Ellen way back when. Now that she thought about it, one of the only decent things Derrick had done once he got famous was keep his private life private. It wasn’t an option for everyone, but Derrick had definitely tried to protect Ellen, as far as Adra could tell.

And now that was all coming to an end.

“Shit,” Adra said as the doors opened.

She was exhausted. She had no idea how she was going to handle this. How she was going to handle getting out of her freaking apartment and over to Volare in the morning, how she was going to handle the inevitable horrible story that would run on the blogs starting any second now, how she was going to handle Derrick on the set when he caught wind of the whole thing.

All she wanted was the privacy of her own home. For the safety. For the comfort.

For the bathtub.

Adra laughed out loud, letting herself into her apartment. She was still,
still
, thinking about Ford and his orders. Her mind clung to it like a life raft. Somehow it was like having him with her, and she felt…safe.

Not just safe. Wanted. And wanting.

Which was a whole lot better than terrified. She decided to go with it.

She ran the bath first thing, wondering how much time had elapsed, wondering when he’d call. And she was smiling. Smiling as she undressed, as she tested the water, as she poured her favorite bubble bath. And definitely as she carefully set her phone on the edge of the tub.

And then her doorbell rang.

Adra jumped. But she tried to be rational, she really did. It was probably Greg, checking on her, or her neighbor, Theresa, trying to find out what had happened. There was absolutely no reason to freak out. There was no reason to ruin the mood.

She put on a robe, and went to the door.

“Who is it?” she said.

“Delivery came downstairs,” the muffled voice said.

Adra frowned; normally Greg called up. Maybe he was just trying to be nice.

She opened the door.

The flash was immediate and blinding.

“Adra, what—”

She slammed the door in the photographer’s face, lights dancing in front of her eyes as she leaned against the door and tried to block out his shouted questions. How? How had they gotten in?

How could this be happening?

What was she going to do?

Adra had fought all day to keep from panicking. No, she’d been fighting for longer than that; it had been creeping up on her since she’d screwed things up with Ford, since Charlie had started to let his marriage unravel, and then with the movie…

There had been a lot of things. And she’d managed to keep it together, for the most part.

Until now.

She couldn’t breathe. No, she could breathe, she was breathing, but no matter how fast she inhaled it felt like she couldn’t get enough air. She was starting to sweat, and she felt hot, too hot, so hot that she actually took off her robe, standing there next to her front door buck naked, trying not to listen to the jerk shouting questions on the other side of it.

She was having an actual panic attack. And
then
her phone rang.

~ * ~ * ~

Adra could tell that Ford had known right away that something was wrong. He’d spoken calmly, his deep voice enough to drag Adra out of the panic attack, and he’d asked for only the barest facts. He didn’t tell her what he was going to do; he’d only told her that he’d handle it, and to pack a bag.

She’d thrown one together in about thirty seconds flat. She suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near this building that had been her home. Even Greg could tell she was upset when she called down to tell him about the photographer; she’d never heard the poor guy sound so upset, himself. She bet that photographer was going to have a bad night after this.

And then she’d only had to wait about five more minutes. Ford must have set a new land speed record.

“Ms. Davis, there’s a Ford Colson asking to see you,” Greg said over the phone. He sounded suspicious. Good man.

“I’ll come down,” Adra said.

And then, not for the first time, she took a moment. She’d dressed herself well, in a simple, beautifully cut black dress and a white shawl, for the same reason she’d stopped in front of the doors downstairs. She wanted her dignity back. As soon as she’d gotten off the phone with Ford, she’d felt embarrassed about the whole thing. She really had gone straight from the verge of a panic attack to being embarrassed about said panic attack in about a minute.

She hated that other people could make her feel like that.

She hated even more that, for the second time—for the third time?—Ford was coming to her rescue.

No, that wasn’t accurate. She didn’t hate it. She secretly loved it, loved that he didn’t demand to know anything other than how to fix it, loved that it was his first thought—but it scared her. So she’d dressed in what, for her, was battle armor. Pity she didn’t have time to properly do her makeup.

The elevator doors opened, and she held her head high, prepared to step out and face the whole thing all over again.

And then there was Ford. Holding the doors open, his big, muscular body dressed perfectly in that suit, his dirty blond hair tousled across his forehead, his worried blue eyes searching her face for anything, anything at all…

She couldn’t look away.

He stepped in, and she stepped back.

The doors closed.

Gently, he touched her face. “Are you ok?” he asked.

Why couldn’t she speak? She opened her mouth, she tried, she just…

“I don’t know,” she said finally. It was the truth. He always got the truth out of her, in the end.

Ford smoothed his thumb across her cheek and Adra turned into it, unable to help herself, her body just…it had a mind of it’s own, when it came to Ford. She could feel her shoulders begin to relax with just that touch.

He dipped down and kissed her lightly, gently, just once. And then he wrapped his arms around her.

And Adra gave in.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Ford said, as she cried softly into his chest. “Ever.”

Adra pulled herself together, and raised her head, trying not to think about what she must look like. She had just needed a good cry. That was all.

Nothing more.

“Well, I’m not going to let anything happen to this suit,” she said, trying to smooth the now wrinkled material. “Anything else, anyway.”

Ford smiled at her, kissed her once more on the nose so that she had to swat him away, and then picked up her suitcase.

“Having you on my suit will always be an improvement,” he said, winking. Adra opened her mouth in mock outrage, but couldn’t quite stifle a smile.

“That is one dirty mind, Ford Colson,” she said.

“You have no idea,” Ford said, pressing the button for the garage. He smiled brilliantly. “But I’ll tell you more in the car.”

Oh, of course. Adra hadn’t thought of it. Ford could drive her out in his car; they photographers would never know the difference. And of course she’d need to stay somewhere with actual security. Her building was generally not designed for the needs of the famous or even the temporarily infamous.

She sighed as practical thoughts invaded her brain all over again.

“What am I going to do?” she whispered.

“Right now, you’re going to step to the side of the elevator so that you aren’t visible from the garage,” Ford said, herding her into the corner. “You’re going to let the doors close and then you’re going to press the emergency stop button so the elevator doesn’t go anywhere. I’m going to get my car, and I’m going to drive up here, in case any of those vultures are hanging around. And then I’m going to get you into my car.”

Well. That was good enough for her.

And it worked. She didn’t know why she was surprised, and she definitely didn’t expect Ford to simply ignore the existence of a curb and pull his truck right up to the elevator—and it was his truck he’d brought instead of the Jag; somehow she loved that—but it all worked. And when he drove out of her garage, all she had to do was duck down.

“Are we clear?” she asked after a few minutes.

“It was a brilliant escape,” Ford said.