The Princess and the Porn Star (29 page)

“The ticket. Shit, it’s—” She snatched something out of her purse. “Thank God.”

I shielded her as much as I could while she handed the ticket off to the valet, but it didn’t take long for people to close in around us on the sidewalk.

“Olivia, why a porn star?”

“Ms. Taylor, aren’t you worried about catching diseases?”

“How can you perform for young girls when you’re—”

I slammed the passenger door and cut off the voices, but Rachel had to be careful pulling out because part of the crowd had spilled onto the street in front of us. While the valets herded everyone off the road, Rachel eased out into traffic. This was one of those times I wished she had a bodyguard or a driver—she didn’t like an entourage, and driving herself made her feel more normal—so she could keep her head down until we were in the clear.

I never thought I’d curse the invention of camera phones, but tonight? Fuck every last one of them and the jerks who invented them. Every time I looked in any direction, someone had a phone pointed at us. Sometimes they had the decency to at least try to be surreptitious about it, but most of the time it was obnoxiously blatant.

I shielded my face with my hand, wondering what headlines and commentary would accompany these pictures in the morning. I’d go to my grave wondering how the A-listers—including Rachel—put up with this shit on a daily basis.

And deep down, I wondered how long she’d put up with it in exchange for dating me.

I’d never regretted my career, but now? Now I didn’t know what to think. What if that career cost me Rachel? What if it cost me the first woman I’d ever felt this way about?

Because no woman had had this effect on me. Ever. The pang of disappointment whenever I logged into the Xbox and didn’t see her username, and the little thrill when I did. The dull ache under my ribs when our schedules kept us from more than the odd text for a few days, and the… God, was that giddiness? That fluttery feeling when we finally reconnected.

I didn’t want to lose any of that. I didn’t want to lose Rachel. Even if I quit working in porn right then and there, the publicity and the backlash would continue. She’d still catch hell for me, and our relationship would still be hanging in the balance.

I didn’t know what to do.

Neither of us said much on the drive back to my condo or even on the walk up the stairs to my bedroom. Once we got there, she sank onto the edge of my bed, and her shoulders slumped.

“You okay?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

I sat beside her. “It wasn’t just me, baby.”

She didn’t speak, just leaned against me as I put my arm around her. After a long moment, she ran a hand through her hair, the gesture slow and fatigued as if it took everything she had left. “I’m exhausted.”

“I know.”

“I mean,
exhausted
. Like…” Looking up at me, she bit her lip and raised her eyebrows.

I touched her face. “Do you want to just go to sleep? We don’t have to do anything if you’re not up for it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. I’m pretty beat myself.”

We got undressed and got into bed. Slowly, lethargically, without an ounce of enthusiasm from either of us. Any other night, the sight of Rachel swimming in my Raiders jersey would have had me reaching for her and catching my breath. I did reach for her, but only for contact, not for anything more.

She felt small in my arms. Fragile. Huddled in on herself. I couldn’t even rest my arm comfortably on her waist because I was sure she’d somehow crumble under its weight. I didn’t pull it back, though. The tension in my shoulder climbed up into my neck, and I’d regret it tomorrow, but I didn’t want to let her go.

I closed my eyes, nuzzled her hair, and breathed her in. I didn’t have it in me to have sex tonight, but I still wanted to be near her like this, and I wanted to feel something. I wanted a few goose bumps on my forearms or a memory ignited by that familiar shampoo.

But all I got was a sinking feeling in my gut.

It was the first time I’d held Rachel like this—her warm body molded against mine, our fingers laced together over her stomach—and didn’t feel a thing.

I was just as numb, and more than a little tense, when I walked off the set the next evening. How I was going to make it through the rest of the shoot, I had no idea, but I’d find a way. Fortunately, Marta was here.

As I stepped into the room that was, for the time being, my dressing room, Marta looked up from her paperback. “How are you feeling?”

I replied with a taut shrug and untied the white bathrobe. “I’ll live.”

She patted the table. “Something going on with Rachel?”

No point in trying to get the truth past her, so I just said, “Yeah.”

“No surprise there,” she said. “You two have been all over the news lately.”

The weight of the world pressed harder on my shoulders. It took all the energy I had left to strip out of the robe—I still had on boxers—and lie on the massage table.

Marta went to work. “Wow, honey. You really are tense.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it.”

“Something else going on?” she asked. “Besides being hounded by the media and all of that?”

“That’s pretty much it,” I said. “Never thought about how stressful that would be.”

“Seems like it would be hell,” she muttered. “Is it worth it?”

She had to have felt all of my muscles tense beneath her hands.

Was
it worth it?

“I don’t know,” I said after a moment. “Lately, I just… I don’t fucking know.” I lifted my head off the doughnut pillow and turned toward her. “I think today was the most difficult day I’ve ever had on a set.”

“What do you mean?”

I swallowed. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about Rachel. And the fact that what I do—what I was
trying
to do all day today—is the reason she’s taking so much heat right now.”

“But if not for your job, you and Rachel never would have met.”

“I can’t decide if that would have been a good thing or a bad one.” I sighed. “I feel like I should let her go, but I can’t help thinking that would be the biggest mistake I’ll ever make.”

“It’s a tough call,” she said. “If you let her go, you might regret it. But if you get back together with her, and the record company dumps her over this, then she might resent you.”

I swallowed, but didn’t speak.

After a moment, Marta said, “It’s really fucked up, if you think about it.”

“Which part?”

“The part where everyone’s calling her a whore, saying she’s dirty, diseased, ruined for life.” Marta clicked her tongue. “
You’re
the one fucking women for a living.”

With anyone else, I might have been insulted by the comment, but it was just typical blunt Marta. And she was right. I had sex with other women on camera, and for dating me—monogamously—Rachel was the dirty slut.

“Hooray for double standards,” Marta grumbled.

“No kidding.”

I released my breath as she continued working on my shoulders. “Some of the girls at the set think I should be flattered that Rachel’s taking this much of a risk for me, but…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I know what it’s like to fight tooth and nail to break into a career, and she’s fighting tooth and nail to
keep
a career half the people in this town would sell their souls to have.” I looked at Marta. “If she loses that because of me, she’s going to resent me forever.”

“And if I know you,” she said softly, “you’ll hate yourself over it too.”

I lowered my gaze and nodded. “Yeah. I will.”
With all the shit she’s been through because of me? I already do
.

“You really do have some serious feelings for her, don’t you?” Marta asked.

“Probably more than I should.”

Any other day, Marta would have made sure I knew just how true that last part was. She’d have told me I was an idiot for letting myself get this attached and emphatically warned me against carrying on.

But she said nothing. She didn’t need to.

Deep down, it didn’t matter what I did. If I walked away, I’d hurt Rachel. If she stayed with me, we’d damage and possibly destroy her career. Every path ended with her getting hurt and us going our separate ways. The only variable was how much damage was done to her life and to our ability to stay friends.

No matter how much I wished otherwise, there was no way Rachel and I could make this work.

Chapter Nineteen

Rachel

Some things were worse than being mobbed by obnoxious stalkerazzi and fans with no sense of privacy.

Being alone didn’t usually bother me. Being away from someone I was dating? I could handle that.

But tonight, while I sat here on my couch in my silent, empty home, Lee was Buck Harder. He was on the set, probably fucking the hell out of a woman with an equally comical stage name, giving her everything he had so people could buy the DVD or download the video and jerk off.

It hadn’t bothered me until now. Not really, anyway. I knew about it, and I wasn’t crazy about it, but it was part of being with Lee. I could tell myself that Lee wasn’t Buck Harder, but the fact was, Buck was as much a part of Lee as Olivia was a part of Rachel.

And right now, Lee, the man I was falling for so much harder than I should have been, was probably fucking another woman. In front of people, and cameras, and in front of a world that also knew he was dating me.

I hugged myself tighter, rubbing my hands up and down my arms like I could brush away this dirty, creepy feeling. Not because my boyfriend was a porn star, but because of what people thought. What they said. What must have been going through every one of their minds whenever they saw me onstage or heard me on the radio.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I rested my elbows on my knees and dug my fingers into my temples. God, I just wanted to not care for a little while. A few hours, maybe an entire night, of just not giving a fuck. One night where it didn’t matter that the world disapproved of the man I was dating.

Like the night after he took me to the House on the Beach, when we locked the world outside and had sex like nothing else even existed. When it was just us, a bottle of nonalcoholic cider, a piano and a beach that I could have walked up and down for the rest of my life. It was perfect.
Perfect
. And even that night still had the taint of the media’s morning-after commentary.

My throat ached, and I brushed at my stinging eyes in case a tear tried to slip free.

Damn it, why did Quinn have to pick this weekend to take a couple of days off? I made huge demands of his time, and he never complained about it except in jest. I steadfastly refused to contact him when he was on vacation. No matter how much I needed him.

I picked up my phone. Though, I’d long ago deleted my dealer’s number, I knew people who knew people. With a few phone calls and some cash, I could have anything I needed within the hour.

I scrolled through my numbers.

She knows a few people.

My skin crawled.

He knows a good one.

My heart pounded.

He can definitely hook me up.

What was I doing? This was a bad idea. A terrible idea. Too easy to throw too much away over a moment of impulsive stupidity.
Don’t do it.
But I kept scrolling. Up and down. Up and down.

I finally stopped at one number, and before I could talk myself out of it, pressed Send. With a shaking hand, I held my phone to my ear.

Please answer. Please, please answer.

And on the third ring: “Yes, ma’am?”

“Hey.”

“What’s wrong?” Quinn’s tone was instantly serious. “Rachel, sweetheart, are you okay?”

I dug my teeth into my lower lip, silently cursing the way my eyes stung. “I just needed—”

“Do you want me to come over, baby? Are you at home? I can be there in twenty.”

I blew out a breath. “You don’t mind?”

Something rustled on the other end. “I’m on my way.”

“Are you—”

“Don’t move, sweetie. I’ll be right there.”

True to his word, twenty minutes later, Quinn’s key turned in the front door.

I pushed myself up off the couch to go meet him in the foyer. He was faster, though. I hadn’t taken three steps before he appeared in the doorway, and as soon as I met his eyes, I lost it. Just like I had in the dressing room after Blair Fox had had her way with my reputation, I fell apart.

I didn’t
do
this, damn it. I wasn’t like this.

But now that Quinn was here, I couldn’t stop myself, and I caved in. Completely fell apart.

I distantly heard Quinn saying, “Oh, honey,” and a second later, his arms were around me. He guided me back to the couch, and we sat together.

For the longest time, he just hugged me and let me release all this pent-up frustration.

As I started to catch my breath, he said, “I wondered how long this was going to take.”