Pierce
She was going to say no.
Of course, she was.
This was too much too soon.
The plan was to have Kate and Thomas come with me to deliver the pictures I could have easily emailed, to use Thomas’s utter adorableness to convince Artie to come to Disneyland with us. To sugar her up, coax her on a few rides, get her out on a date that she didn’t realize was a date.
But then I’d gotten close.
And I’d not played it cool.
Marie was going to smack me around.
My internal dialogue wasn’t serious, of course, but the words still clued me in, as though a hand had struck my brain. Smack. Me. Around.
Fuck.
I got it.
I knew the story. Everyone in this town did. Artie’s mom and dad, Ben and Tawny Miller, had been B-list celebrities, stars of several failed sitcoms, one successful soap, and had raised Artie in the film world. That wasn’t particularly uncommon in L.A. Neither was the fact that Ben had been abusive to Tawny—and apparently to Artie as well, though that wasn’t common knowledge in any narrative I’d ever heard. The salacious and gossip-inducing part came when Artie’s dad had been caught by the paparazzi, punching and kicking her mom, leaving Tawny bruised and bloodied and surrounded by camera flashes before fleeing in their car.
He’d somehow avoided arrest and made it over the border to Canada.
That was just one shitty piece of the whole horrible scenario, because life had gotten worse for Artie. First, her mom had begun mailing cash to her husband, supplying Ben with enough money to live comfortably north of the border, even at the expense of Artie’s and her own well-being.
Then Tawny had packed up their house, sold their belongings, and followed Artie’s dad to Canada.
Story had it that Ben would have continued to avoid detection if he hadn’t gotten cocky and attempted to attend a fan event for the soap, needing or wanting the attention, and drawing altogether too much of the wrong sort from the Washington State Patrol when he’d been joyriding on his way home.
He’d been picked up, booked, and shipped back to California to face prosecution by the District Attorney.
With Tawny at his side.
Along with Artie being dragged back into the drama.
So, no wonder she was gun shy about possibly pursuing a relationship. She needed to be coaxed, gentled, tugged along.
Not hit over the head with my desire.
Fuck.
She shook her head. “I’m—”
“It’s okay,” I murmured, knowing I needed to employ a tactical retreat, to not push too hard so I could coax on another day. “I understand, sweetheart.” I placed the pretty much useless flash drive on the counter next to the popsicles. “I’ll go—”
Her hand on my arm stopped me.
“No.”
If this had been one of my films, the camera would have focused on her fingers circling my bicep, the slight sheen on her pale pink nails glittering in the overhead lights, the clunky gold ring she wore on her thumb sparkling, then it would have cut to my face, captured my jaw tightening, my eyes widening with hope, the way my breath froze on my lips.
Slowly, it would have panned back to frame us both.
The way my body rotated toward hers, how she drifted closer, that hand sliding up to rest on my shoulder. And I sure as shit would have caught the shudder wracking her frame, the way we subconsciously leaned toward each other.
“You say you know,” she said, chin dropping forward so it rested on her chest. “But how could you possibly?”
I didn’t reply, instinct telling me that my words weren’t needed at that moment.
Hers were the ones that mattered.
She glanced up, and every muscle in my body locked.
“No one—” A shake of her head. “That’s not fair,” she murmured. “Plenty of other people have endured worse abuse than I went through. Perhaps not on such a public scale, but aside from the fact that my pain was tabloid fodder, my story isn’t that unique.”
“It’s yours,” I said. “And your pain isn’t discounted just because someone else might have suffered more. You’re allowed to be hurt. You’re allowed to have whatever feelings about your past that you do, and you don’t have to justify them to me or the world.” I covered her hand with mine. “You answer to yourself, Artie. Not me. Not the press. Not the world.”
She huffed out a breath, dropped her forehead to my shoulder. “Several of my financers would strongly disagree with you.”
I chuckled. “Probably. But you also know that I’m talking emotions, not electronic funds transfers.”
Her lips moved against my shirt. “For some of them, that’s one and the same.”
“True.” My fingers wove into her ponytail, slid gently through the silky strands as we stood there, her barriers not quite down enough for me to feel comfortable yanking her against my chest and slamming my mouth down on hers, caveman style. But the barriers had retracted a hairsbreadth, and so I just stayed in place, stroking her hair, letting her know I was there, I was listening.
“If you know the story,” she murmured, “then you probably know all the gory public versions. The video of the beating circulated widely on news outlets.” Her eyes came up to meet mine. “Did you know someone put it on YouTube right before the premiere of Last Night Out? Lucky me, it got one hundred and sixty million views before YouTube pulled it down.”
Fucking people.
She shook her head. “If one of our trailers had gotten that many, I’d be thrilled.” A sigh. “A video about my painful past? Not ideal.”
“Artie.”
Her fingers squeezed lightly on my shoulder. “Just let me finish, okay?”
I clenched my jaw, shut the fuck up, and nodded.
“I didn’t change my name because my face was out there, because I knew I couldn’t hide from my past, that it would always creep in and find me.” She swallowed. “I had already been in some film and television roles while my parents were working, and after my dad went to jail, I had to keep taking them. Mostly because my mom was all but blacklisted and if I hadn’t taken them, her job at the department store wouldn’t have been enough for us to live on.” She shook her head. “But those producers and directors didn’t want me. They wanted the sad, beautiful little girl to help propel their story or show into the news.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“It’s the business,” she said. “It’s my life. It’s why I can be successful and still have tabloid articles written about my parents. It’s why my mom committing suicide was a top news story, why those clips are constantly put up on YouTube. It’s painful and horrible and . . . it’s my life.”
From my limited experience as a white male director, I understood how vicious this life could be, but I guess what I didn’t understand was why she didn’t just leave it all behind.
Her free hand covered mine at the back of her head, loosening it from the strands as she put some distance between us.
Distance I really fucking hated.
“I’ve seen that look before,” she murmured. “You’re wondering why I didn’t just sell anything of value and get the fuck out of Hollywood when I turned eighteen.” Her thumb brushed across my knuckles. “It’s all I know, Pierce. But more than that, it’s what I love.”
I sucked in a breath, released it slowly. “And you’re really good at it.”
Artie’s smile hit me right in the gut. “Of course, I am.”
“And modest, too,” I teased.
“Yup,” she agreed, before her smile faded. “You need to know that I did leave the life for a few years, right after my mom died. My dad had just gotten out of prison, my mom was gone. I couldn’t take a reality where she wasn’t around, but he was.”
“Doesn’t it make you mad that she—” I cut myself off, realizing that wasn’t a fair question to ask when Artie clearly cared about her mother.
“That she killed herself? Or that she uprooted my life to stay with my abusive father?” Her thumb continued its tracing. “Ask your questions, Pierce. God knows, I’ve been in this city long enough to have been asked everything. Yes, I was furious that she killed herself and left me alone with my father. Yes, I thought she was weak for a long time—both for that and for staying with my dad.”
Her eyes filled with tears that she blinked back. “But you can’t judge another person on your standards. Did I want her to hit him back? To turn him into the police? To take us both back home and make a new life for us that was something we could be proud of? Of course, I did.” Her lips flattened out for a long moment. “But she couldn’t be what I needed. She was a lot of very wonderful things as a mother, but she couldn’t be strong or assertive or protect me from the monsters in my life.”
Fuck it.
I couldn’t stand there and see Artie in pain and not touch her, not comfort her. Gently, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against me. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” I murmured, stroking my hand down her spine.
She didn’t reply.
But she also didn’t push out of my hold, just stayed there and let me keep her near. Eventually, though, she leaned back enough to ask, “Now, do you understand why this between us isn’t a good idea?”
I’d been patient.
I’d been understanding.
I’d been thoughtful and caring.
But now, I was infuriated.
“No,” I snapped. “Fucking no, I don’t understand why this isn’t a good idea. Because yes, your childhood was shit, but fuck, Artie, that wasn’t on you. Your parents aren’t you. You’re not the same as your mother. You're sure as shit not your father. This isn’t about them, it’s about us.” I blew out a breath, trying to calm my tone, but how she could so calmly shoulder the burden of her past, one she had no bearing on creating, was way beyond my pay grade. “This is bullshit.”
Okay, so not much calmer.
Her eyes filled with fire and she pulled out of my hold. “It’s not—”
“I let you talk,” I said firmly, taking a step closer. “Now, it’s my turn. This—us—isn’t about whatever fucked up shit your parents had going on. This isn’t about how my parents have had a rock-steady relationship. Because what is between us is about us and how we feel and how we make each other feel. Anything else is just background noise.”
“That’s naïve,” she said, pacing away.
I didn’t miss the fact that she’d deliberately put the kitchen island between us.
Barriers.
Not just because she was locked down, but also because there was some part of her that was still scared of what a man could do to her.
That sobered me more than anything else could.
“The outside world factors in,” she said. “We don’t live in a bubble. The past, the present, your family, our colleagues all play a part.”
I forced myself to lean against the counter instead of going to her. “I’m not saying that we live in a vacuum, but the first and the most important thing in a relationship is what two people have between each other.” I gentled my voice. “And what we have is special. It’s worth not just throwing that away.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fairy tales don’t exist, Pierce.”
“Maybe not, but happily ever afters do.”
And with those famous last words, I succeeded in driving Artie from the room.
Who said romance was dead?