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Hailey frowns, “I revealed my true self to him and he freaked. Called me some terrible names and told me he’d kill me if I came near him again.”
“That’s terrible! You didn’t report him?” Vanessa asks.
Hailey shakes her head. “I didn’t want to out myself. You’ve seen how crazy people get when a shifter is revealed in Hollywood. I couldn’t bring myself to sink my career.”
“I understand,” I reassure her. “It’s nobody’s business but yours.”
Her gaze holds longing as she says, “Maybe one day we’ll be accepted, but we’re not there yet.”
“The reckoning might be coming sooner than you think,” I murmur, thinking of my brother and the dead shifter. It should be unrelated, but I have a feeling it’s not. I push my chair away from the table and hold my hand out to Vanessa as I stand. “Thank you. You’ve given me a lot to think about.” My thoughts turn to Stelios. “I’ll be having a chat with our mutual friend.”
“Please don’t mention my name,” she says, her eyes sliding away as she leads us to the front door. “He may have some footage of us together…”
OH. MY. GOD. SHE HAS A SEX TAPE!
Thank god my mate had the decency to use her inside-the-head voice. “I’ll make sure it gets buried.”
As we make our way to the Jeep, Vanessa says, “Do you think I should’ve told her Wesselman changed the ending again and our character gets to live?”
It’s cute how she now thinks of her character as belonging to both her and Hailey. “I think you should let her find out on her own.”
Chapter 23
Safe Haven
VANESSA
Instead of driving back to the lot, we decide to spend the night in my old apartment. I run my finger through the dust on my TV stand. “I suppose I should start looking for a new place to live.”
Keenan sets our bags down and closes the door. “We can live anywhere you want.”
I smile at the ‘we’ as I look around. “It worked for what I needed it for, but I think I’m ready to move on. The house in Mesa has spoiled me. I think I need multiple bedrooms to be truly happy.”
“Good.” Keenan sounds relieved. “The security here is awful.”
I pull out my phone. “What do you want for supper? Let’s order take-out.”
“I’ve never done that before,” he says, looming over my phone. “We can get it to come right here?”
I look at him to see if he’s serious. “You’ve never gotten take-out before? For a guy who’s lived over 700 years, you really haven’t lived.”
“I guess not.”
We settle on American Chinese food, and I queue up a movie. I’ve been systematically remedying Keenan’s woeful lack of film education. “Okay, this one’s called American Psycho. It’s about a guy who has it made but he goes crazy and kills a bunch of people.”
“It sounds terrible,” Keenan replies, opening take-out boxes on the coffee table and pawing through them like a man who hasn’t eaten in days.
“It’s really good,” I insist. “It’s satire.”
We eat our food and watch the movie, me snuggled against Keenan’s side. He gasps, jumps and laughs in all the appropriate places while I watch him from the corner of my eye.
I wonder how he’ll react when it’s me on-screen. Will he be glued to the movie in the same way? I hope so.
I must fall asleep at some point because I wake up to Keenan picking me up off the couch. I loop my arms around his neck. “Bedtime?”
“Mmm hmm,” he murmurs, his warm golden gaze filled with affection. “Or something else.”
I grin and tug his head down, capturing his lips, showing him I’m up for something else.
