But he can’t protect me from the twisted truths tabloid readers are so quick to welcome.
I can feel him start to speak—that quick intake of breath. But then he lets it out slowly, his handmaking a slow figure eight on my back.
And all of a sudden, I’m crying. Again.
I sound like a six-year-old sniffling hard so I won’t make even more of a mess of his clean shirt. He doesn’t seem to care, pressing my head closer to his heart with his free hand.
How can he be so stinking sweet and expect me to hold it together? That’s just not fair.
But the longer he holds me, the more I’m sure I’m morphing from a raccoon into a full-on honey badger. Not exactly the date-night look I was hoping for when he called this morning.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into his sternum. “You don’t need this right before a game. You should probably go home and get some rest.”
“Are you alone? Is your Nan here?”
“She’s playing Bingo with some friends at the Catholic church.”
“Did she leave you like—”
I shake my head hard. If Nan knew what Cyndi had done . . . Well, she’d start an avalanche that wouldn’t end until my agent was seated solidly on the outskirts of Hollywood.
Not that anyone would know it had started with all five-foot-nothing of my white-haired Nan. But the womanisthe widow of a billionaire—mother of another. And before she married my grandfather, she was something of a muse among the directors of the silver screen.
She’d never admit it to anyone who didn’t already know, but the name Agatha Peebles still holds sway among the Beverly Hills elite.
And she’d never use her influence for self-gain. Not even for mine.
I may have asked her once—when I was sixteen and stupid—if she’d put in a good word for me with a producer.
“No.”
Simple as that. There had been no explanation. No real need for one either.
I knew in that moment that I was going to have to earn this career, this job I had wanted so badly. And I did.
Nan had never pulled strings for me. And she wouldn’t start now.
Neither would she abandon me when I need her most. Which is exactly what Cyndi has done.
Just thinking about how much Nan has done for me makes my eyes burn again, and I hiccup on an unexpected sob. Grant tenses around me, his movements jerky and uncertain for a split second. Suddenly, he lifts me off my feet, just long enough to shut the door and swing me over to the tiny sofa in front of three big windows. Before he can deposit me there, he spins so that I fall into his lap.
I press my face into his neck and breathe deeply. He smells clean. Fresh. Like soap and some sort of cologne. It’s far from overpowering, just a touch of musk that reminds me of him. As I wiggle a little closer, I realize too that he’s recently shaved. His jaw and neck are sleek and smooth, and my fingers find the fresh skin, curling into it.
“Zo . . .” He places a firm hand on my back, his fingers splayed from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. And I hear something in his voice. Part longing. Part warning. Like he wants to skip dinner and make out on my grandma’s couch.
Me, too, man. Me, too.
But also like he wants me to unload everything that’s brought me right up to this moment.
While I’d much rather enjoy the former, the latter is pressing against my lungs, begging for release. And Grant is my safe place.
“What happened? Is it something new with the tabloids.”
I shake my head slowly. “Not new. Same drama, different day.”
“All right then.” He scoots back putting just enough space between us so that he can look directly into my eyes. “Lay it on me.”
He probably wants me to laugh at that. But I can’t even crack a smile as I blink eyelids that feel like sandpaper. “I’m not going to get the role. I’m not even going to get an audition.”