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Our relaxed morning was ruined. Not because I couldn’t hold my own with the bitch, but she wasn’t worth my time. I was with Aspen and–
Right. I was with Aspen to get Lacey out of my fucking life. Aspen was here posing as my girlfriend for a moment just like this one. This was her role.
Now that Lacey was crossing the shop to start shit, it felt even more wrong, our… arrangement. I wanted to protect Aspen from someone like her. She didn’t deserve one second of her scheming aimed her way because of me. My protectiveness flared to life.
My fight was different now.
With my hand around Aspen’s waist, I pulled her into me, as if I could shield her from what was to come. This was my fight. It was time to take this woman down.
28
ASPEN
* * *
I looked around, not sure what had bothered Luke.
“Hello, Derek.”
Oh. It was the woman approaching. She blended in with every other overly made up LA woman that I hadn’t paid her any special attention. Her using Derek indicated she only knew him as an actor.
“Lacey,” Luke said.
Lacey? This dark-haired Barbie doll lookalike was Lacey? She was the one who said she and Luke–no, Derek–were dating but when that didn’t work told the tabloids he was in rehab? That Lacey?
The one whose dark hair was surely half extensions. Her eyelashes looked like caterpillars had fallen from a tree and landed on her face. Her tan was… orange and it clashed with her pink sweatsuit. Her gaze raked over me like I was assessed, then deemed worthless.
But it was the smile she gave Luke that was fake–how white could teeth be?–and catty.
Oh, this bitch was going down.
“You’re looking good,” she told Luke.
“Thanks,” he replied, his voice deep and in a tone I’d never heard him use before. The way he was eyeing her was full of disdain, although I had to wonder if he was using his acting chops not to call her out in front of an entire coffee shop. “I was in Montana, in case you heard I might have been elsewhere.”
“I missed you at the premiere,” she replied, glossing over the veiled words.
“I’m Aspen,” I said, cutting in. “The girlfriend.”
This was what I was here to do, to make this woman go away. I could cause a scene, but since Luke hadn’t started one yet, it was probably best if I pulled a Bergstrom. I may have ditched the last name when I was pregnant with Sierra, but I’d been trained and trained well to live up to the family name, even though I’d failed.
Luke wasn’t the only one who could act.
“This is Lacey,” Luke told me, although he’d already said her name. Maybe he really thought I had no idea since I didn’t have a TV and she hadn’t been in the first season we saw the night before. “She works with me on NYC ER.”
“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” I said, my voice laced with sweetness. What was the saying, you could catch more flies with honey?
She looked my way, and the smile was gone. “You’re from Montana?”
“Yes.”
“How… quaint.”
I noticed a man come up behind Lacey. Not too close, perhaps three feet back. He had a phone in his hand, and he was filming this. He didn’t look like they were together–he was dressed in jeans, Metallica t-shirt, and a ball cap–but I felt pretty confident this whole thing was a set up.
How she knew we were here, I couldn’t say. Maybe they followed us from his house. Maybe she knew he stopped here often. It didn’t matter. She was getting her opportunity to do… something. Poking at me was it. Most likely to make Luke react.
To get him to behave angrily or irrationally so it could be perceived he was on drugs or mean to her.
