“You know damn well you have a natural sex appeal, Sweets. I don’t like the man, but that was an easy sell with you. I think you would have gotten those roles eventually regardless of the hair or the clothes.”
She placed both hands over her heart with an exaggerated smile. “Do you really mean that?”
I leaned forward and she met me halfway. I kissed her lips a few times before pulling back.
“Hell yeah.”
She giggled and began placing the pictures back into the trunk along with the letters.
“You don’t want to read what’s in those letters?” I asked.
She looked back at the trunk, then back at me, and shook her head.
“I’ll save them for the ride back home.”
I helped her put the rest of the items away just as “Slow Jam” by Usher and Monica came through the speaker. I stood and held my hand out to her.
“Dance with me, Sweets.”
She smiled so wide she couldn’t contain it, all teeth and gums. I pulled her to her feet, stepped us away from the couch and into the open space in the center of the room, then drew her into my chest. We two-stepped to the beat while she laid her head against me, one arm around my waist and her other hand in mine. I pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead and we moved slowly around the living room like we had nowhere else to be and nothing else to think about.
I lifted her arm and spun her. She took the invitation fully, winding her hips before stepping back into my chest. I dipped her, kissed her, then pulled her back upright as the song drifted into the next one.
“I love you, Sweets.”
“I love you too, sir,” she said, then kissed me once more.
I lifted her and she wrapped her legs around my waist without hesitation. She raised her arms and I pulled her graphic tee over her head, tossing it somewhere behind me as I walked us down the hall toward the back room of the bungalow.
I had every intention of bringing a little Rose Haven to California tonight.
TWO DAYS LATER…
I sat in the back of the SUV with Solana as we made our way to a talk show studio in Burbank. The day after everything with her house, Henderson called talking about how he felt it best that she go on some woman named Simone's talk show. In his words, it would be the smoothest way to address Solana's disappearance from the public eye.
I kept my thoughts to myself. I knew Sweets wanted to get in front of an audience and say her piece. But I didn't think ol' boy was on the same page she was on. All he cared about was getting her back in front of a camera.
I would have been all for it if Sweets wanted to keep acting, but nothing she had said to me in Rose Haven or since we had been here gave me that impression. Still, if I was wrong, I didn't want to say anything that would pull her in a direction she hadn't chosen for herself. I moved when she wanted me to when it came to all of this. This was her world.
"You ready?" I asked.
She glanced over her shoulder from the window.
"I don't have a choice but to be."
I beckoned her over with two fingers and she slid across the back seat, then laid against my chest. I placed those same two fingers beneath her chin and tipped her head back until her eyes locked on mine.
"Nah, you have a choice. I'll burn all of this down behind you. If you don't want to be here, you won't be."
I held her gaze. I didn't want her to think any part of what I said was for show. I didn't give a damn about any of these people. I was here for her, and if she was uncomfortable we wouldn't be here a second longer.
Her smile came slow as she reached up and wrapped her hand around the back of my neck.
"I'm always nervous when it comes to things like this. But I'll be fine. If I want to live the life I choose, this is the first and last step toward that."
"I hear you. But I need to make sure you understand me," I replied.
She nodded.