“How did you…?” He sank down onto the couch like his legs might have been about to give out. He flipped the first page over.
“Your sister came to visit me,” Olivia said. “With Maddy.”
He sharply turned his head to look up at her. Worry bloomed over his face at the same time he went rigid with guilt.
“It’s okay, Chuck. I know the tabloid photos were not what they looked like. They told me everything about what happened—without violating the NDA, don’t worry. Mansi happened to be there for the whole thing, coincidentally. Turns out just becauseyoucan’t talk about any of this doesn’t mean thatIcan’t. So that’s what this is: the truth. Presented without any legal infractions.”
His lips twitched at her word choice, and hope spread over his face.
“It wasn’t fair to you, what Richard did. I got Maddy’s consent to tell the story, of course, and the legal team atMixis ready to talk with Richard Sykes’s people about a statement, soall we really need is your buy-in.” She bit her lip and looked at him with a mix of hope and nerves. “Everyone thinks it’s a great piece, but I won’t publish it if you say no. It’s up to you.”
He swallowed hard and gazed back down at the pages. “Liv…”
She saw him start reading again and stepped aside to give him space. She’d nearly memorized the words, she’d read it so many times. It had to be perfect. For him.
The Chuck Walsh You Don’t Know
You probably know Chuck Walsh for the wrong reasons. The up-and-comer whose career derailed when he got fired midshoot from Richard Sykes’s blockbusterSafe Gamble. Or the guy from the viral breakup video seen arguing with his ex on the sidewalk who then ended up filming an episode ofName Your Price. What you don’t know is the truth behind Chuck’s reputation and the reasons why Hollywood wants to keep it that way…
She wandered over to the windows and lifted the blinds to let in more light. The street moved with life ten stories below: pedestrians, cars, dogs on leashes. The sense of being removed from it all, high up on a cloud with only Chuck where no one could reach them, made her suddenly dizzy.
While he kept reading, she moved into his kitchen and set about cleaning it up. On any other day, the stack of dirty dishes would have made her scream, but she loaded them into the dishwasher and turned it on. And then she wiped down the counters and watered the succulent she’d bought at a farmer’s market for him. The plump little spears stuck up from thegreen pot in a star shape. She was organizing a stack of mail on his granite island when she heard him clear his throat from behind her.
She turned with her heart stuttering, worried he might rip her piece in half and tell her to mind her own business, but she found him filling the kitchen doorway with the pages in one hand and a half smile on his face.
He bit his lip before he spoke. “Everyone is right: it’s a great piece.” His voice came out thick and gravelly. She noted a sheen to his eyes and felt something tight unfurl inside her chest.
“Yeah?” she asked, hopeful.
He joined her in the kitchen and set the pages on the island. Standing so close, she could smell his shampoo and the fresh, clean water still clinging to his skin like someone had bottled dewdrops on a spring day. He nodded. “Yeah. Thank you.”
The warmth in her chest continued to unfurl. It shot out into her limbs and lifted her head into the clouds. She moved toward him, involuntarily, but her body around Chuck had a mind of its own. He was a magnet, and she couldn’t resist.
He inched closer as well, and she felt the barriers they’d built between themselves tremble and threaten to fall. She felt his eyes outlining her lips as her pulse leapt in her neck, her wrists, between her legs. They had resisted for so long, and an uncertain future waited outside the door, but for now, they were together, just the two of them, above the clouds and existing in a moment that was, Olivia knew, inevitable.
“Chuck,” she whispered on an exhale. It was a plea, a warning. An admission that she wanted him badly enough that the consequences didn’t matter.
“Olivia,” he said in the same breathy, desperate, aching tone, and that was all it took.
With a final step, the walls came tumbling down.
He reached out and gripped the nape of her neck and tangled his fingers in her hair. Their mouths were together in an instant. Olivia could already hardly breathe.
“I missed you so fucking much,” he slurred against her lips as he swept his hands down to the backs of her thighs and scooped her off the floor.
“I missed you too.” She threw her arms around his neck and linked her legs behind his back. He carried her—without looking because she refused to stop kissing him—to his bedroom. Her heart beat in a familiar rhythm, one that bruised her insides, and she gasped for air. She grabbed at him all over, taking handfuls of his back, his hair, his arms flexed and holding her greedy body against his. It was all so good, she equally wanted to speed to the end and make it last forever.
He stopped at the foot of his bed and pried his lips loose long enough to speak. “I still haven’t been with anyone since you.”
She smiled against his next kiss. “There will always only be you.”
He dropped her onto the bed with a bounce and tore off his shirt. Finally, she could lookandtouch. With him no longer off-limits, she took advantage of smoothing her palms over the tight panel of his stomach. The hard muscles rippled under her hands, and touching them made them both suck in a sharp breath. Like she was painting a fantasy into real life, she traced her fingertips along the angled grooves pointing from his hip bones down into his jeans. Then she clawed at the button andyanked down the zipper. Because of the force with which she pulled down his pants, he nearly fell over on top of her.
“Someone’s eager,” he teased with a dark laugh, and caught himself as he kicked off his pants.
She softly bit the tanned swell of his shoulder when it landed in front of her face. The smell of his shower lingered on his skin in a fresh, breezy scent and drove her absolutely wild. She trailed kisses across his chest until she found the water droplets still clinging to his collarbone and licked them off. He shivered at the feel of her tongue in a way that made her tingle. When she slid her palm down his flat abdomen and slipped her hand into his underwear, he full-on shuddered.
“Yes, eagerness seems to be contagious,” she purred, and wrapped her hand around the already hard length of him.