Dirty Letters(33)

Hearing her say that was more of a disappointment than her no sex declaration. She’d only been in my home for a few hours, but I was pretty sure I was already more attached to her than some of my appendages. “Why don’t we go relax a bit? I have more than one guest room when you’re ready to get some sleep. I don’t know about you, but I’m nowhere near ready to stop talking to you.”

She smiled. “Yeah. That would be perfect.”

In the living room, I lit the fireplace and filled our abandoned wineglasses from earlier. Luca pulled her feet up and tucked them under her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.” I sipped my wine.

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I guess I liked us being just us. I was afraid things would change if you found out the truth.”

“Did someone you trusted do that to you? Change because of your fame?”

I wasn’t surprised she’d hit it on the head. Luca could read me better than anyone, without us ever having met. Now that she sat in front of me, I didn’t even need to say the answer aloud. She saw my face and spoke again before I did.

“I’m sorry they did that to you. That sucks.”

Since we had limited time together, I didn’t want to focus on all the negative shit that had gone down in my life, so I gave the abbreviated version. “Friends who I thought were friends turned out not to be. And women . . . well, they want to be with me because I’m Cole Archer, not for who I really am. If that makes sense.”

She nodded. “It does. You know, the funny thing is—your being famous is probably the worst attribute in a man for me. I don’t do crowds and busy places, and from the limited stuff I saw on the internet today, your life is one giant crowd and busy place.”

“I guess . . . sometimes anyway. But the last few weeks, I’ve mostly been recording in the studio, so it’s been pretty low-key. Honestly, I love the music but the crowds and the fame got old pretty quickly. I never appreciated anonymity until I didn’t have it anymore. Things can get insane in this business.”

“Like what? Tell me the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you.”

I thought about it. I had enough stories to write a dozen books, but one in particular stuck out. “I once came home to a woman cooking me dinner in the buff in my kitchen.”

Luca’s brows knitted together. “I would think a man would be happy to find his date cooking in the nude, not think it’s crazy.”

“She wasn’t my date. I’d never met the woman before in my life. She broke in and acted like she knew me, calling me honey and stuff. It was like something out of The Twilight Zone. She had my name tattooed over her heart and had legally changed her last name to Archer. In her mind, we were married.”

Luca’s eyes bulged. “Oh my God. That’s terrifying. Did she go to jail?”

I shook my head. “No. I agreed to drop the charges as long as she went for psychiatric counseling. She obviously wasn’t right. But after that, I hired the security guard team that sits at the front gate twenty-four seven. I needed it anyway. A week after Miss Archer was arrested, one of those celebrity tour buses added me as a stop on their map, and now there are always people trying to get on the property.”

“How can they do that? What about your privacy?”

I shrugged. “I traded my privacy for fame, Luca.”

“That’s crap. I can understand people wanting autographs and trying to take your picture when you’re out and about. But your home—that should be your sanctuary.”

“Yeah. People sort of forget I’m a real person.”

Her shoulders slumped. “And here I just did the same thing to you, didn’t I? I showed up in an RV without being invited. In fact, you specifically told me you didn’t even want to exchange photos.”

“That’s different. I’m glad you took this leap for us, Luca. I really am. It needed to be done. Though I hope you can understand why I was hesitant at first. People don’t show up to see Griffin. They show up to see Cole.”

“But I didn’t even know you were Cole when I made this trip.”

“I know that now. And I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”

“I’m sorry I pushed you outside your comfort zone. God knows I hate being outside of mine.”

My eyes roamed her face. “Thank you for coming all this way. I know it couldn’t have been easy.”

She nodded.

Luca went quiet for a long time after that. She stared down at her wine, seemingly lost in thought. After a minute, I slipped my finger under her chin and lifted. “If we only have a day and a half, you’re going to have to tell me what’s on your mind. While I’d love to get inside that head of yours and try to make sense of how it works, I’m afraid we don’t have that luxury.”

She nodded. “I was just thinking that . . . you must have a lot of women throwing themselves at you all the time.”

There was no point in lying. All she had to do was Google and she’d find women flashing me their tits from the front row of almost any of my shows. And I’d indulged my fair share when everything first hit. The paparazzi had captured more walks of shame leaving my dressing room than I wanted to remember. I wasn’t proud of the man I’d been in the beginning, but I’d learned my lesson. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m a virgin, but those women, they aren’t throwing themselves at Griffin Marchese. They’re throwing themselves at Cole Archer—a man who doesn’t even really exist.”