Page 32 of Princes of Hollywood

I swallow. “Oh.”

Maybe they’ll tell me to leave before I even sign anything. I haven’t been here twenty-four hours yet. They haven’t run a background check or anything on me. Not that anything bad should come up. But maybe I shouldn’t get comfortable.

With new homes, I never know how long one is going to last. Some have personal reasons to move me on. Others thought I did something I didn’t. I don’t like to think about my time in the foster system, but between that and my mother’s drug addiction, my childhood was less than ideal.

Roarke steals the menu from Wyatt, but I don’t flinch at his sudden movement. I just absorb this beautiful place, because I could lose it all again tomorrow. I can’t get attached to anything here. Not the shower, not the beautiful room, not the outside, not these guys. It’s all temporary, and I need to make sure I remember that.

When I lift my gaze, Mason watches me like a hawk. I quickly bottle everything back up and give him a practiced smile.

“I’m not sure what I’d like,” I confess.

Roarke leans toward me. “Personally, I’d prefer a burger, but there’s this one item that’s pretty good.”

When I turn to look, Aiden’s eyes catch mine. He’s worried about something. I give him a slightly softened smile to reassure him. Right now, I’ve got nowhere to go, but as soon as I start getting paid, I’m squirreling away as much as possible.

I’m going to need money to find a place when they decide I’m not a good fit after all.

Chapter 9

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

WYATT

Once our order is in, Roarke takes over the conversation like he always does. There’s been a subtle shift in Greer’s mood. She’s still smiling and laughing along at Roarke’s story about the time his costume got stuck on an extra’s and he had to walk around with this person attached to him for hours before they could untangle them.

Something about the fashion being vintage and irreplaceable.

She laughs in all the right spots. That smile never fades from her lips, but there’s something in her soft brown eyes that looks a lot like fear.

I rerun the conversation to see where it might have happened, but not knowing her backstory makes it impossible to figure out the trigger. We don’t know much about our new assistant, to be honest. That should probably worry me more than it does.

I like digging into new people’s thoughts and dreams and histories. Frankly, Greer’s mind fascinates me almost as much as I want to fuck her.

But even though I’m as interested in her as the others, maybe we should dig a little deeper. We basically invited a stranger into our home and gave her a room before all the background checks could be run.

“Mase.”

He meets my gaze and I give him a jerk of my head. He nods and we both move outside. He grabs the wooden box off the end table, which signals to Aiden and Roarke that we’re going out for a cigar.

We don’t smoke often, and we probably won’t actually smoke the cigars if we light them. It gives us a chance to talk alone. Both of us grew up with the smell of cigars thick in the air. So it’s more a nostalgia thing than a habit.

We go to the far corner of the garden and sit on the chairs overlooking the dark ocean. Mason sets the box on the table but doesn’t open it.

“You talked to the lawyers?” I glance back over my shoulder. The house is lit up from within. I can see through the openings the three of them at the table. Their laughter carries on the breeze.

“They’ll have the documents for her to sign in the morning.” He leans back and releases a breath.

“You think we moved too quickly?” I don’t know what all went down between the others while I was giving her the tour. “She’s unknown. It’s not like someone we know recommended her.”

“I called in a favor.”

Mason and his favors. Fuck, he’s like the Godfather out here. His mentor gave him the hookup and Mason ran with it. He spent years being whatever people needed him to be until he got his big break. Meanwhile, the guys worked hard on their careers while I sat in our rented house and worked on my writing credits.

We were all determined to make it, and now here we are. Made.

Finally able to greenlight our own project. My script, Mason’s directing, Aiden and Roarke’s acting.

“What did you ask for?” I tap my finger on the arm of the wooden chair, wishing I had a cigar in my hand for something to do.

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