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"Anything."
Her watery gaze flits across my face, her expression hesitant. "I want you to spend Christmas with me." Her teeth sink into her bottom lip. "Please? It's my favorite time of year, and my parents are on a cruise this year."
The holiday is a few weeks away, but her house is already covered in Christmas shit. I don't even own a stocking. I haven't celebrated Christmas in…shit, not since my dad passed away fifteen years ago. When you're alone, there isn't much to celebrate. Since the accident, there's been even less than that. Truthfully, the whole holiday tends to remind me of how things used to be, which pisses me off. There is no magic in the world. At least there never has been for me.
"Please," she whispers.
Fuck. I can't tell her no. Not with those big, hopeful green eyes on me.
"Yeah," I mutter gruffly. "I'll spend Christmas with you."
Her eyes light up with happiness, stealing my breath.
Christ. If there is magic in the world, I'm pretty sure it's here in my arms. This little star is my magic. She's my Christmas wish.
For the first time since the accident, I pray.
Please, God, let me be strong enough to deserve her. Teach me to be gentle enough to love her. Help me be good enough to keep her.
Four
LAURA
"Have you seen the news?" Roni shouts as soon as I step into her office.
I grimace and rub my ears. Jeez. She's loud. "Um, no?"
"It's everywhere!" she cries, her curly red hair bouncing in frustration as she bends her head over her keyboard and starts clicking away. "Celebrity Teatimewas the first to run it, but everyone has it now. They're making a huge deal about it. My phone has been ringing all morning. I finally turned the damn thing off."
Oh no.
My stomach sinks, dismay filling me. They found out about Kaiden.
He's going to flip out. We've spent every waking moment together for the last few weeks, but we haven't told anyone we're together. I want to shout it from the rooftops. I'm not sure how he feels about it, though.
He's already been through so much. He almost died as a little boy and spent his childhood watching the world pass him by. And then finally got to live his dream only to have it rippedaway. The day he told me what really happened to him, I cried. He carried the truth in silence to protect his friend from jail. Only for people in this town to then treat him as if he's somehow less than because of the scars he carries. They have no idea how selfless he truly is or how amazing. He's been through hell and back. They could never understand the sacrifices he's made or the kind of man he is because they will never be that genuinelygood.
I don't want to put him through a public spectacle…and once people find out we're together, there will be no way of stopping that. People pay way too much attention to who dates who in Hollywood. I worry that the fact that he's been out of the limelight for so long will only add fuel to the fire.
Apparently, it already has.
I don't want to hide him, however. I'm so in love with him. I think I fell our very first night together. He's the best man I've ever met. He may be gruff and grumpy, but beneath that, he's kind, gentle, loving, and so damngoodto me. No one has ever treated me like he does. When he touches me, I feel like I'm a priceless work of art, someone worthy of devotion. When he kisses me, the entire world disappears. And when he's inside me, I breathe for him.
I want the world to know how I feel about him. I want them to know that he's the man I chose. But I don't thinkhewants them to know. Not because he's ashamed of me. But because he thinks I'm too good for him. It kills me that he feels that way. But after everything he's endured, I can't ask him to give up his privacy. It wouldn't be fair of me when my life is so public.
Except I may not have a choice now. Somehow, someone found out about us.
"How bad is it?" I whisper, dropping heavily into a chair across from my publicist. My stomach churns, and nausea climbs up my throat. All morning, my stomach has beenunsettled. Maybe my body just knew something terrible was coming.
"Hollywood's shining star, Laura Groves, is MIA. Could it be because she's got a secret?" Roni reads from whatever website she's pulled up on her screen. "Rumor has it that our favorite curvy darling isn't as happy with her body as we've all been told. Sources close to the young starlet say she's vanished from the scene because she's recovering from an unspecified weight-related procedure. It looks like someone will be debuting a brand-new body just in time for the New Year!"
"What?" I shout, immediately jumping to my feet. My face blanches, white-hot anger rushing through me. "That isn't true!"
"Of course it isn't," Roni scoffs, a look of disgust crossing her face. "I doubt they even have a source. It's a slow news day, so they're just fabricating a story out of the fact that you've missed a few holiday parties and charity events."
"I've been busy," I mutter.
"Bullshit. You're in love."
