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As they rounded the corner of the main hallway she made sure to keep her face in what she and her mom had coined as positive neutral in case some paps snapped her picture through the glass. She couldn’t look like she was happy or upset. But if she tried to keep her expression blank, they usually filled in those blanks with miserable, or unhappy, on the edge, angry or a plethora of other adjectives that she wasn’t. So they’d developed the positive neutral, an expression that was blank with the corner of her lips turned up slightly.
Dax stepped in front of her as they approached the glass door and opened it for her. The second she stepped out of it the noise levels raised several decibels and the cameras were rapid firing. Before she’d even had a chance to get a lay of the land, Derek had her in his arms and was kissing her. Her first instinct had been to push him off of her, she lifted her hands to his shoulders to do just that, but he tightened his hold and she realized that was the last thing she needed to do. This was a big enough mess. When he finally let her come up for air. She made sure to keep her face in positive neutral and she leaned into him and whispered, “Inside. Now!”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Okay, guys, we’re gonna head inside where we can warm up.” He emphasized the word warm to insinuate there would be more going on than there was.
It actually made her feel a little better because it was a good indicator that he hadn’t gone off book. They’d always be seen kissing or together, neither would admit to any relationship but he would always throw out double entendres to keep the frenzy building. And it worked. The media had eaten it up.
Derek wrapped his arm around her waist and Dax followed behind them. As they stepped inside and started down the hallway she could feel the heat of Dax’s tension radiating off of him like a furnace. She knew that it was wrong of her to hope and pray that jealously was the coal that was fueling that fire, but she couldn’t help it.
The second that the door shut to the front area at Chase’s studio Derek’s arm fell away from her and he introduced himself to Dax. She watched the two men’s exchange intently, hoping to see if she could pick up on any jealousy on Dax’s part. Unfortunately, he was the pinnacle of professionalism.
She did notice, for the first time, the difference between pretty boy, leading-man handsome and real-life-hero handsome. Real-life hero took it hands down. Derek might arguably be as good-looking as Dax, but there was something so sexy about a man that had fought in a war, that could build houses, or at least renovate houses. A man that protected people. Then again, she might be biased since she was in love with the real-life hero in question.
Dealing with one crisis at a time, she barely waited for the introductions to be made before she demanded, “What are you doing here?”
Derek turned towards her with sincerity shining through his voice and his eyes. “I didn’t want you dealing with all of this alone. I know you wanted to come clean and you only waited for us to break up because of my movie. My reputation is shit anyway, I don’t care what they write about me. But you don’t deserve this. I figured if I came out here, at least it would give them something else to write about until we decided together how to move forward.”
“What does your team want to do?” she asked.
“Fuck my team. They’re the ones that got us into this mess. What do you want to do?”
“I just don’t want to lie anymore,” she answered honestly.
“Okay,” Derek easily agreed. “So does that mean you want to come clean with everything, release the statement we’d planned, or just let it die out its natural death?”
That was a good question. One she wasn’t sure she had the answer to. She didn’t want to come out with the whole story. And she really didn’t want to put out a statement that was all lies. She kind of just wanted to let it die its natural death, but she wasn’t sure if she was just trying to take the easy way out.
She looked up at Dax. “What do you think?”
His opinion meant more to her than anyone else, including her mom.
He looked at her with all the confidence in the world and said, “Trust your gut.”
That’s when she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no matter what she said he would support her. She also knew that when that support was gone, it would be the biggest loss she’d ever felt in her life.
She looked back at Derek. “Let it die its natural death.”
And as she said the words she hoped that she wasn’t foretelling what was going to happen between her and Dax when she went home.
