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She looks uncertain again, and for the first time since Arthur Weggers made me read that goddamned letter aloud, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. If you’d asked me that day if anything mattered besides making sure that Hanna kept her business, I would have said no. But right now, the idea of causing Ivy pain or discomfort, of forcing her into this spotlight she really doesn’t want feels all wrong.
“You don’t have to do this.”
The words come out in a rush. I have no right to say it to her because Hanna should be my first priority. My only priority. But I’m not thinking right now. I’m just trying to put a smile back on Ivy’s face.
She looks away, her eyes sweeping over the facade of the Western-style hotel, up the main street.
Then she looks back, biting her lower lip. The lower lip that a moment ago was soft as silk under my tongue.
“Nah,” she says. “I figure the only way out at this point is forward.” She waves a hand.
“You sure?”
“Yup.”
And thank fuck because I almost lost control of the situation right there. I almost let that kiss scramble my brains and make me think that?—
I’m not even sure what. But it almost made me throw away something that isn’t mine to throw away.
I need to get a grip.
“We should probably…” I gesture in the direction of the car, and she makes a sound of assent.
We head back there, and it isn’t until after I’ve dropped her off, my lips still tingling and my cock still heavy, that I wonder how I’m going to survive this thing I’ve done to myself.
20
Shane
“So how long are you back for?” my dad asks over a business lunch at Deliciosa. The restaurant is all windows and white walls, red leatherette chairs, and white café tables.
“Just long enough to take care of some odds and ends.”
I came to LA to do business, but if I’m being completely honest with myself, I was glad to get the hell out of Rush Creek. I needed to catch my breath and figure some things out.
Some things like, What the fuck was that kiss? And when can I do that again?
Except that’s not the way this is supposed to go.
I more or less promised Ivy that there would be no shenanigans.
The answer to When can I do that again? is Never.
So I ran like hell away from temptation and threw myself into work.
But it’s tough to get away from Ivy. Like right now I’m eating a Buddha bowl and drinking a green smoothie and thinking about her Hollywood-food snark. She isn’t wrong.
“Rumor has it John Allison loves you for the role.”
There’s no rumor involved here. My dad got on the horn with Allison three seconds after I walked out of his office, and both of us know it.
Today was the meeting my dad set up with Allison and the meeting I set up with Tim Ernst. And things pretty much turned out the way I thought they would. I loved Ernst’s vision, and he and I hit it off.
I liked Allison, too—neither of us made it as far as we’ve come by being hard to get along with—but I just didn’t feel the same connection to either the man or the movie as I did with Ernst and his project.
“Yeah. Allison seemed enthusiastic.”
I’m pretty sure my own lack of enthusiasm is obvious in my voice, but my dad’s too buoyant to catch it. “He adores your work,” he says. “He’s ready to go ahead with you. Shane, this is huge.”
