“Right. Come this way, ladies.” He moved his hand to the small of my back and I stiffened.
No one, and I mean no one, touched me like that without my consent. It’s one thing to have a douche-canoe throw his arm on my shoulder like a drunken idiot at a kegger, but it’s another thing to have the same person move toward more intimate locations on my body.
I turned and faced the loser. “Do you mind removing your hands from my body. And no, that wasn’t a question.”
He coughed as I caught him off guard. Keaghan stepped back and held up his hands. “I never realized Hollywood types were so sensitive. It’s not like we didn’t know each other back when we were young.”
Then he did something that had me biting the inside of my cheek so hard I could taste blood. He winked at his assistant, a woman about my age named Sophie, right after he spoke. As if we were an item in school.
“I think I made a mistake coming here.” I stopped in the doorway. “Sorry, Cara, I know you worked hard setting this meeting up, but I’ve had meetings with notorious leeches in Hollywood that felt less creepy than this.”
As I turned, a hand reached out to grab my arm. I thought it was Keaghan’s and was about to pull out an old kung-fu move my trainer taught me, but it was Cara.
“Stop. Iona, can I speak with you for a minute?”
I sighed but nodded. We moved to the corner of the waiting area, away from the mayor’s office.
“It wasn’t easy setting up this meeting. The reason it took me so long to fly out here from the West Coast was because I was doing a lot of damage control.”
That was a surprise. I knew the movie shut down, and I was one of the reasons for that, but I’d been doing everything according to Babette’s plan. Hell, I was even having sex with my fake-fiancé/roommate/first love. The only lie in this whole thing was we weren’t going to get married at the end. I was doing everything right for once.
And since we started having sex on a regular basis like any sane people who were crazy attracted to each other should, it had been mind-blowingly perfect. I never realized that having sex with the same person for this long—almost two weeks straight—could be amazing.
The sex had actually gotten better since we first did it on the picnic table a month ago.
If love was a real thing, I might be in danger of falling for Tyler. But, it’s fake, just like our engagement.
“It’s that bad? But I figured the engagement to my first love would win over the public.”
That was the idea behind Babette’s plan. Who didn’t fall for a rekindled first love story?
“That’s the problem. Somehow word got out about your fiancé.” Her eyes lowered as she bit her lip. That wasn’t a good sign. I was witnessing Cara’s worried face.
“Of course, word got out that I had a fiancé. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Tyler was perfect social media bait—he was handsome and a small-town vet. The man was every woman’s wet dream and I had him.
Suck it, ladies, he’s mine!
Whoa. Where did that come from? Doesn’t matter, the Internet should be eating it up.
“No, what he did. Making you get an abortion.” Cara pointed to my stomach.
“He didn’t make me get an abortion?” I said a little too loud and heard a gasp from Sophie behind us.
We both huddled closer together. “I had a miscarriage. Tyler never even knew I was pregnant until several weeks ago when I told him.”
“I know that. Babette knows that. Tyler knows that. But no one else does.”
“That’s true.”
The damn reporters. Who was spreading these lies?
“About this meeting with the mayor, maybe you’re right—”
“Everything all right, ladies?” The mayor stepped forward, cutting off Cara.
“Fine, Mayor.” Still couldn’t say his name. Too afraid I’d bring forth the four riders of the apocalypse if I did.