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The flash of cameras was blinding. Standing next to Kenzie in a coffee shop with plate glass windows as the only barrier between the paparazzi and us was intimidating as hell. That they were all as curious about me as they were about her was even worse. This situation was Kenzie’s publicist’s idea of hitting the rumors on the nose. All publicity was good publicity when your career was still aimed at the sky.
“Couldn’t we have gone somewhere that didn’t feel like we were in a damn zoo habitat?” I asked, slipping into a couch at the back of the shop, mostly hidden from the street view.
Kenzie laughed, sitting opposite me with a slight flourish. “Babe, you’re beautiful, and you are on the arm of one of the most lusted after men around. Anywhere you go, it’s going to be a three-ring circus. Women want to be you, men want to fuck you, and the media wants a chunk of that cute little butt, so feed them what you want them to have. Don’t make them go digging.”
Digging definitely wasn’t something I wanted them to do.
Kenzie reached out to me and curled her fingers in request. I dropped my phone into her open palm like it was on fire. She unlocked the screen, not needing the code because she’d known me long enough to figure that out without a second’s hesitation.
A few swipes of her finger and she had it to her ear, listening to the message.
Eric’s message.
I’d listened to it at least four times since we’d arrived back at Noah’s, and I’d excused myself to the bathroom to listen to it in privacy. Noah knew about Eric. He hadn’t precisely liked it but, considering the circumstances, he hadn’t complained either. He’d been more than exercising his open relationship rights as a famous and sought-after star.
I watched as Kenzie’s face reacted to the words she heard, and I replayed them verbatim in my mind like I was listening, too.
Amber,it’s… it’s me. Eric.
I’ve had a couple of reporters stop by and ask me questions about you.
None seem to have a tone that they have any idea of our connection, but I hope you understand just how detrimental it could be should they discover the truth. Please, call me when you get this message to discuss how to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“He’s just pissedbecause he can’t play with whatever student he’s currently fucking.”
“Kenzie.”
“What?” she asked with a grin. “You said it yourself, Ambie: he takes a student under his wing and enjoys her for the four years she’s at the school.”
“I speculated. I know Eric had at least one other girl while I was there.”
“And you thought I was weird being okay with my husband’s side ass.”
“I already apologized for that.”
Grinning, Kenzie handed me back my phone. “Calm your tits. I’m messing with you.”
I gestured to my phone. “What do I do?”
“Call him.”
“And say what?”
“Tell him that unless he has a paper trail, there’s no way in hell anyone will ever know about what went on between the two of you. Fucking hell, you don’t even have pictures of the two of you together. How could anyone ever tie you to him in anything other than a professor and student relationship?”
I hadn’t spoken much about my relationship with Eric to anyone while it had been happening. It was one of his requirements while we’d been seeing one another. If someone so much as hinted that there could be something there, it would have been over. I’d spent four years hiding the relationship, not talking about it, not daring to utter his full name, so trying to do it now felt difficult.
“He taped us a couple of times.” I finally admitted in one breath.
Kenzie sat forward, almost knocking over her coffee. “He what?”
“Don’t make me repeat it.”
“You made a sex tape?”
“Or four.”
Kenzie’s mouth fell open as though on a hinge. “Why would you agree to that?”
