It was crushing being shown the man I had fallen in love with was seeing another woman behind my back. I couldn’t defend against the physical evidence she showed me, and it made it extremely easy to run from Kynan. I cleanly broke things off, choosing not to confront him on his treachery. After a simple phone call to him, I merely ran off with my mom to Hollywood where I could start my career in earnest, without the distraction of young love.
“Do you have a manager? Publicist?” Kynan asks, and I jolt back to the present, ignoring the nauseated feeling produced by thinking about the comprehensive investigative report my mom gave me about Kynan. She’d hired someone to check him out. To tail him and make sure he was good enough for her daughter.
Turns out… he wasn’t.
Strangely, twelve years later, I find myself without anger because I don’t have room for it. I guess the passage of time makes it so I just don’t care anymore about why Kynan would do that to me. Besides… I chose to leave without asking him those questions. It would serve no purpose now. On top of that, I’m terrified I’ll be killed by some stalker and Kynan is my sole means of hope I’ll get through this. I can’t waste my energies on wondering about my past with him. I have to worry about my future and staying alive now.
I finally respond to his original question. “I have a manager and a publicist. You want them both there?”
“Yes,” he replies, drumming his fingers on the table. “I want to discuss the best way to reveal us as a couple to the media. I’m thinking an engagement will do the most to piss your stalker off, but we’ll have to massage a cover story since this is coming out of the blue. I suggest we stick as close to the truth as possible… that we’ve known each other for years and have reconnected. Sound okay?”
The thickness in my throat prevents me from answering right away. It got clogged with emotion when he said “engagement” since I’d once dreamed about having that with Kynan. I thought we’d be together forever, which meant getting married and having babies one day.
Now I’m stuck in this weird alternate universe. Someone is hunting me, and I have to pull off a fake relationship with the man I used to love and who broke my heart because I clearly wasn’t enough for him.
I give a cough to clear my throat. “That’s fine. I’ll put calls in now.”
“Good,” he says, then he checks his watch. “You can hang out in here. I’m interviewing someone for a position at Jameson. They’ll be here soon. Then we’ll go check into a hotel for the evening.”
“How long do you think this is going to last?” I ask.
“You mean before this guy will make a move on you?”
When I nod, Kynan’s eyes turn hard. “Hopefully not long. I know it’s not a comfortable situation for either of us.”
“Agreed,” I say softly. “But I do appreciate you doing this for me. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Thank me when we bring the guy down,” he mutters before pushing up from his chair. “If you can, work on setting up that meeting for the day after tomorrow. My meeting shouldn’t last more than half an hour.”
“Got it,” I reply, then pull my phone out of my purse.
I’m completely at Kynan’s mercy. I can only hope this plan of his—while dangerous and scary—produces results quickly. It’s just far too painful being near him and being reminded at the same time he was once the love of my life.CHAPTER 5KynanI leave Joslyn in the conference room to make my way back down to the first-floor entrance door. As expected, Cruce Britton is waiting there for me. I had given him the alarm code to the parking deck gate, which randomly changes every twenty minutes, but I wasn’t going to give him full access to the building until I’d officially hired him. He still needed to pass personal muster with me, which was the reason for this meeting.
“Glad you could come,” is how I greet him after I unlock the steel door and pull it wide. I offer my hand, and he gives it a crushing shake.
Cruce Britton is a big guy. He stands at six-foot-six. While I’ll never admit it to him, he’s my number-one recruit to join this new branch of Jameson.
“Got a real fixer-upper here,” he says as he steps into the warehouse and looks around.
“You’re not the first to say that.” I laugh, thinking of Joslyn’s words just a few minutes ago. “But not all is as it seems.”
I take Cruce the same route I had just taken Joslyn, up through the freight elevator to the second floor. He whistles low through his teeth in appreciation as we step onto the second floor.