I took a deep breath. I'd been hoping we'd lose our connection so that I wouldn't have to tell her, but apparently this wasn't my lucky day. Again.
"Mom, there's something I need to tell you. I… sort of got into trouble last night. I got drunk and there was… there were… some pictures… and now I'm in trouble with my agent. And my director." I couldn't bear to tell her it was a video and that I might be fired.
"What?" she shrieked. "You got drunk? What on earth?"
"Lucas told me I needed to go on a diet. I freaked. And then I drank too much," I admitted.
"That's it," my mother snapped, going into full-on fixing mode. "I am sending my trainer over to you, and my chef. You are going on a juice cleanse, young lady. And you're going to start running hills. You have got to get control of this. We need this role. Everyone who works with Lucas Dresden gets nominated for a Golden Globe. It's your turn, darling."
I rolled my eyes. We need this role. My mother never failed to include herself in my career. With no current husband to focus on, she made my successes and failures her own.
She rattled off a list of things I should stop eating, and who she was going to hire to help me, and how where there was a will, there was a way. The only person who wanted my success as much as me, or maybe more, was my mother.
She was like the cheerleader from hell.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. "Mom, you're breaking up!" I yelled for effect. "I'm hanging up. Don't send anyone over here! Shirley's all over this, and so am I. I'm taking care of everything—I promise to hit the gym every day—I love you!"
I leaned against my front door, shaking and completely drained. I loved her, but my mother often had that effect on me.
Just then, the doorbell rang, and I jumped about a foot. I looked through the window pane beside the door; he must be the escort. He was young, maybe in his mid-twenties, and tall, dark, and handsome. He had thickly muscled arms and a hulking chest.
He turned toward me, his eyes catching mine, and I stared at his face. His handsome, familiar face. It was as though I recognized him… but I couldn't have recognized him. He was a male escort, for fuck's sake.
I kept staring, and he slowly smiled—a large, shit-eating grin. Then it hit me. Who he was.
I recognized his face within his face.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I yelled and ducked under the window. I pressed myself against the door, my chest heaving. No no no no.
It couldn't be. I must be hallucinating. Because my worst nightmare was standing in broad daylight right out in front of my house. I turned around and peered through the peephole, barely breathing. It was him. It couldn't be him, but it was him.
Kyle Richards was on my doorstep, looking amused, muscular, and very sexy.
Kyle. Fucking. Richards.
I'd always known I would pay for every bad thing I ever did, and here, on my doorstep, was living proof of that.
"Open the door, Lo," he called. "I think there's a photographer out here in the bushes. You don't want to leave me out here. I could tell him some good stories—about you. Before you were hot." I heard the shit-eating grin in his voice.
I stood, opened the door, and angrily motioned him in, my face flaming. "What're you doing here, Kyle?" I struggled to keep my voice even. "You looking for someone to suck money off of, besides your dad?"
"Ha ha," he said, grinning widely. He proceeded to look me up and down. "You know, I would say you haven't changed, but… you sure have, uh, matured nicely."
He gave me a wide, predatory smile as he pushed past me into the house, his eyes still raking up and down my body hungrily. I closed the door then crossed my arms over my chest. Then I crossed my legs, just for good measure.
Heat was rushing through me. Heat from embarrassment and disbelief. Heat caused by examining the thick, ropy muscles that covered Kyle Richard's arms and legs and the
width of his massive, powerful chest.
I couldn't believe he looked so good. But of course he did. This was just another life lesson—that in no way, shape, or form was life fair.
I watched helplessly as he flopped onto the bench in my front hall, looking far too much at ease for my liking. He settled his thick frame down comfortably, as if he belonged in my house. As if he were staying.
No. No fucking way.
"What're you doing here, Kyle?" I asked again, panic mounting inside me.
"You sent for me." Now he looked as smug as an alligator that had just swallowed a baby hippo. A sexy alligator.