I lost my breath. No, he’d knocked it out of me.
This was the problem with fighting Dante. I got in my jabs, loudly and often, but it only took one good hit from him and I was stripped of my defenses. A few sentences out of his gorgeous, manipulative mouth and I lost the whole fucking round.
K.O. Done.
He needed to leave now.
I opened my mouth to tell him so, but just then there was a soft knock at my bedroom door.
“Scar dear, your boyfriend is here,” Demi’s concerned voice called.
My eyes were still on Dante’s, so I saw the moment when the warmth left them, watched unblinking as all tenderness was sucked out and replaced by something else.
Something cold and dark and all too familiar.
I told myself I was relieved at the change. I almost believed it.
“Boyfriend?” he uttered softly, his voice rumbling and low, a distant clap of thunder, the way it got when he was on the edge of losing his temper.
Oh yes, he had a famous temper like me, though his was harder to provoke.
My own temper was quick to ignite and could be indiscriminately destructive but his was just as terrible of a thing to behold when things went south.
A small but powerful thrill moved through me.
Our eyes were still locked as I called back to Demi, “I’ll be out in just a second, hun.”
“Boyfriend?” he repeated quietly, punching it out in a dangerous clip, the thunder closer to the surface now, eyes going black as he began in earnest to lose the battle with the storm inside of himself.
I firmed my jaw and squared off against him. It was almost easy for me to deal with him angry. Familiar, safe ground. Enjoyable, even. A much needed distraction. “You should go, Dante.”
“Does he know I fucked you last night?” He did not say this quietly. He said it loud enough to be heard, and not just by me.
I felt my nipples tighten, a slow, familiar throb starting up between my thighs.
I was a perverse creature and his jealous rages had always turned me on.
My mouth twisted in something not quite a smile.
Predictably, it set him off. “Does your boyfriend know I rode you bareback last night?” He said this even less quietly, voice pitched to be heard across the large apartment.
It was an effort to keep from showing any reaction to his increasing hostility. “Your jealousy is showing,” I pointed out evenly.
He shook his head, lip curling as he spoke, “It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Does he know what happened between us last night?”
“Does it matter?”
A shudder moved through his big, agitated body.
I tried not to shudder at the sight of it. I was in a state.
“I can’t believe you,” he gritted out.
“Can’t you?” I countered, voice steady, pulse not so much.
He stood abruptly. “I’m leaving. As I said before, I’ll email you the details of your travel arrangements.”
He hadn’t had to do that, arrange it all for me, but I couldn’t bring myself to thank him. “When do I leave?”
“The day after tomorrow. Early.”
“Fine.”
His lip curled. “Fine,” he clipped back and strode from the room.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
“When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad I’m better.”
~Mae West
PAST
Gram was old but that didn’t make her any less glamorous.
I’d never seen her without a face full of perfect makeup, expertly coiffed hair, and a flattering designer dress wrapped around her still trim figure.
She lived in a nowhere town now, and it was the town she’d been raised it, but she hadn’t always lived here and it showed in every sophisticated flick of her wrist.
In her heyday, as she’d say, she’d been an actress on the silver screen. For nearly a decade, she’d reigned supreme as the undisputed Queen of Hollywood.
She’d lived a life that people had written books about. Many, many books.
I read every one I could get my hands on. Every time I’d finish one, I’d start badgering her about what was true and what wasn’t.
It tickled her when I did this. She was a passionate storyteller, and she loved to reminisce about the good old days.
The books never got it right. There were always some important pieces of her many escapades that they left out, and the way they portrayed her was always off. They liked to make her into either a ruthless femme fatale or a clueless starlet, a caricature of a woman, when she was not that. Gram was complex, her personality rich in delightful contradictions.
I worshipped her.
I’d just finished the latest biography on her glory years, and I had a million questions for her.
This one had been much different from the others I’d read. Instead of focusing on her movie career or the set dramas she’d been involved in, this one was all about her love life.
We were in one of the sitting rooms in her fancy mansion of a house. She was serving me tea, a habit she said she’d picked up when she was shooting a film in England decades ago because it added structure to her day.
I studied her. I’d read a lot of things, but I hadn’t quite believed them and it was an embarrassing subject to bring up, so I’d never asked. “You had boyfriends before you met Grandpa?” I asked it as if he had been my grandfather. I’d taken to doing this because Gram seemed to expect it of me, but I only did it with Gram and Dante. The rest of their family was much less welcoming.
She threw back her head and laughed.
I smiled with her. She had one of those of laughs, it was a tinkling, delightful thing, and it brought joy to a room.
“Oh yes, dear girl, I had boyfriends before I met Grandpa.”
My eyes widened. I hadn’t quite believed it when I’d read it. “H-how many boyfriends did you have?”
She laughed some more. “I was a wicked, wicked woman,” she drawled.
“Gram!” Dante protested.
She nudged me playfully and nodded her head toward her grandson. I glanced at him. He was across the room, sprawled out on a couch, eyes closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. He was listening to us, and occasionally he’d add something into the conversation.
“Look at the power you have over him, Scarlett,” said Gram conspiratorially, but loud enough for him to hear. “He’s heard all of my stories a hundred times, but he’ll listen to them all again if it means being in the same room with you. Not even fourteen and you’ve already brought him to heel.”
“Gram! Gram!” We both protested.
“And look at her, dear boy,” she called out to him. “Here is a girl that will adore you the way you deserve to be adored,” she told him. “Treat that like the precious thing it is.”
She looked back and forth between our blushing faces. “Don’t fight it, my lovely children. It’s a beautiful thing. Love will make your life worthwhile. It’s the most powerful force on earth. Let it rule you and you won’t be sorry.”
Dante was sitting up now, eyes open and trained on his wicked grandmother.
She smiled at him fondly. “Your grandfather’s love saved my soul. All I want is for you to love and be loved in the way you deserve, and I’m green with envy that you found it so early in your life.”
“What happened to Grandfather?” I asked her, changing the subject, but I was curious. I’d never been told how he’d died. I’d always wondered but they never talked about it.
“Cancer, dear. Dreadful thing. I didn’t have enough time with him, but then a lifetime wouldn’t have been enough, I think.”
She looked sad for a long moment, heart-wrenchingly so, but then seemed to shake it off. “You should try acting, my dear. Your face was made to be onscreen.
“Really? You think so?” I was highly flattered. The way Gram talked about acting, in reverent loving tones, I could tell it was a sacred thing to her. That she thought I
was worthy was everything to me.
“Oh yes. You have a face that doesn’t come along often. Once in a generation, if that. So expressive but so lovely.”
I eyed her doubtfully. I didn’t spend a ton of time looking in the mirror, and the only family I had was my grandma (and to say she was homely was putting it kindly), so I’d never had any reason to think I might be pretty, let alone beautiful. If I had to come up with one word to describe my looks, I’d have picked wild, or messy.
She smiled at me, then sent a meaningful look toward Dante, who’d taken to lying down and listening to us again. “You don’t believe me, but you will. You don’t favor your grandmother, obviously, but your mother was a stunning girl. Breathtaking. Like you. But if you really have your doubts, if somehow you don’t see your beauty when you look in the mirror, just try to notice how other people react to you, how they stare. Don’t you ever wonder why they stare?”
“Because I’m the trashcan girl,” I said simply. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dante shoot up again, and I knew I’d agitated him. He hated when anyone called me that. Even me.
“No, my dear. The people who call you that are being cruel and jealous. It says more about them than you, and it’s much easier to hate someone that they envy.”
I was still more than a little skeptical, but she shrugged and went on. “And you’d enjoy the escape of stepping into someone else’s shoes, I’ll bet. Life hasn’t been easy on you, but when you act, you can live any life you want. There’s nothing like it. Please at least consider giving it a try. If for no other reason than to humor me, okay?”
I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll definitely try it, Gram. I’ll give it my best. For you.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell."
~Joan Crawford
PRESENT
I took my shaking self to the bathroom the instant Dante had left my room. I gripped the counter and told myself to breathe, my trembling limbs barely holding me up.
I told myself that the shaking was relief at his absence.
When it passed, I went into the living room. I smiled in spite of myself when I caught sight of the mystery man.
Ah. Anton. I should’ve guessed.
“Hopefully Demi didn’t get you punched in the moneymaker with her little stunt back there,” I said in greeting.
The tall man that lounged comfortably on our oversized sectional rose at my entrance, his rueful grin a familiar, endearing sight. “It was a close thing, I think, but despite her best efforts, I seem to be unharmed.
I hugged him briefly, air-kissing both of his cheeks while he bent down far enough to real-kiss mine.
“So that was the guy, huh?” he said, his trained actor’s voice steady, his knowing eyes something else.
I shrugged dismally. I hated to give Dante that much credit, whether he’d earned it or not. “He was a guy, one I prefer not to talk about.”
I fingered his beard. He was growing it out for a role as a scruffy biker, complete with long brown hair that he kept tied back in a neat little bun. I’d hated the change in his look when he’d first gotten the part, but lately it was really growing on me.
Anton was Hollywood good-looking, versatile, and ever changing but polished to gleaming, with perfect teeth, handsome features, and total control over every muscle in his face.
We’d met two years ago shooting a doomed pilot. The show had never made it on air, but at least I’d gotten Anton out of the deal.
We were so much alike that it scared me sometimes. He was basically a male version of me.
We’d dated for about five minutes, and I’d even been about one drink from sleeping with him, but then I’d realized that I actually liked him, so friends it was.
He grinned. “You’re starting to like this biker vibe I have going, aren’t you?”
“Fat chance, beardo,” I told him, making a face at him as I moved to take a barstool at the counter.
“Dante has a temper,” Demi pointed out from the kitchen, where she was staring at the cupcakes forlornly.
“Yes,” I said succinctly.
“But he’s not what I was expecting,” she added.
My lip curled. “He can be charming—”
“It’s not that. I figured he’d be charming.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. I knew you hated him, and I guess I just figured he hated you back. But he definitely doesn’t hate you.”
I waved my hand in the air as though warding off the notion. “It’s complicated. He’s as hostile as I am, he just hides it better, but don’t let him fool you—he's a fucking beast when it comes to breaking hearts.
She nodded, her eyes so solemn that I had to look away. “That I gathered. I’m sorry I said Anton was your boyfriend. I thought I was helping, but I made things worse, didn’t I?”
“On the contrary,” I assured her. “Your interruption couldn’t have come at a better time, so thank you.”
She smiled cheekily, shrugging, “Anytime.”
“What was he doing here?” Anton asked from the sofa.
I looked down at my hands, bracing myself for the pain of saying it aloud. “Gram died.”
They both gasped.
“Oh no,” Demi uttered softly.
“Not Gram,” Anton muttered, followed by a steady and vehement string of cursing.
Just like anyone important in my life invariably knew at least something about Dante, they also knew about Gram. She was the only person I considered family and talked about as such.
“What happened?”
“A fatal stroke. That’s why he was chasing me around. I guess he didn’t want to tell me over the phone.”
“But he didn’t tell you last night?” Demi asked.
Anton coughed and I glared at him.
“He didn’t.” I knew they’d heard what he’d said back in my room, or at least enough to suspect, but I had no intention of hashing it out.
“What can I do?” Demi asked, sounding so sincere and concerned that I could hardly stand to hear it.
I nodded at the open bottle of scotch I’d left in the kitchen earlier. “Hand me that, will you?”
There was only one thing to be done. Because crying in my room alone held no appeal, and crying in front of other people was even worse—I was throwing one hell of a drunk.
I was hoping this one was more successful than the last attempt.
Or, at the very least, less disastrous.
Demi and Anton didn’t hesitate to join me.
I stopped drinking out of the bottle (because we had company now) and made myself an oversized tumbler of scotch.
Anton and Demi did the same. Demi despised scotch, so I knew she was just being a good sport.
“I hope you can stomach this stuff,” I told Anton as he took a long swallow. “It was way too low class for Dante the Bastard.”
“I think it’s fantastic,” he told me, toasting the air.
“You don’t have to drink scotch for me, Demi,” I told her.
She shrugged and toasted at me. “It’s for your gram,” she said and took a long, painful-looking swallow.
We got good stinking drunk and watched reruns of our favorite reality show, Kink and Ink.
I nodded at the screen at some point after drink number three. “I’d go lesbian for a day for her,” I told an extremely drunk Demi and a fascinated Anton.
“I’d suffer through some pretty terrible things to see that happen,” Anton said.
Demi shook her head. “She’s pretty and I like her, but uh uh. Only boys for me.”
“What about this? There are only three people left in the world. You,” I nodded at Demi, “Frankie,” I nodded at the hot lesbian tattoo artist on TV, “and Justin Bieber. You have five seconds to pick.”
She didn’t hesitate, blurting out “Frankie!” before I’d even finished talking.
 
; We couldn’t stop laughing after that, giggling our asses off.
“I vote that when we sober up we drive to Vegas to get tattoos at her shop,” Demi said at some point.
“It’s only a five-hour drive,” Anton pointed out. “Four if I’m driving. What kind of a tattoo do you want, Demi?”
She flushed when he said her name, and it was only in my drunken state that I realized for the first time that sweet Demi had a huge crush on jaded Anton.
Oh no.
I wanted to tell her to run in the other direction. He was too much like me. He’d had his heart ravaged by some sadist years ago and what was left of him ate little girls like Demi for breakfast.
I made a note to tell her such when I’d sobered up enough to be taken seriously.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I’d have to brainstorm about it on the drive. Something pretty. With color.”
“What about you, Scar?” he asked me.
I nodded at the TV where someone was currently getting a heart with initials in the middle of their back. “I’d get the opposite of that. There are too many love tattoos. I’d get an anti-love one.”
Anton’s rueful grin came out to play. When I was in this state, it was really hard to remember why I’d never slept with him. He was way too good-looking for his own good, beardo, man-bun, and all. “Yes, yes, we know, Scarlett. You don’t believe in love. You’ve said it many times.”
For some reason, that set me off. I blame the scotch.
“I never said I don’t believe in love,” I said heatedly. “Trust me, I believe in it. I know love. It lives in me still. Like a cancer, it thrives under my skin, metabolizes in spite of all of my attempts to eradicate it.” I had to take a few breaths I was talking so quickly and passionately. “What I said was that if you feel yourself falling, you should run like hell. Avoid it. If it tries to set its hooks in you, rip them out. If it tries to shackle you, break the chain.” I was waving my hands around to illustrate my point. “Love is never satisfied with half-measures. It won’t take parts of you. It will own all of you, every single, longing piece.