Hollywood Dirt (Hollywood Dirt, #1)(98)
I giggled, and he smiled, taking one more kiss before he grabbed the handle. “Let’s go raise some hell.” I grabbed my handle and cracked the door, a stranger before me wearing a Lakers hat, his black shirt a poor choice in this heat, a camera in his hand one that probably cost more than my truck. I smiled politely and he lifted his camera in response. We met at the front of the truck, Cole’s hand reaching out for me. When I grabbed it, he pulled me all the way in, his arms supporting me as he dipped me low, my shriek in response captured by every camera present. He smiled down at me, and I scowled. Then he kissed me long enough that I blushed.
“Enough,” I murmured. “I think they got it.”
Cole pulled me up with a smirk. “Not yet.” He kept his hand on my lower back, and we stepped toward the house, the curtain moving in the front window, and I wondered what on Earth Mama was thinking of this. On the front steps, Cole turned, hugging me to his side and facing the group, seven or eight bodies scattered across the lawn without any concern over my planting. I glared at the closest one, and he moved away from my butterfly garden, his hands raising in apology.
“I’m assuming, since you’ve squatted yourself on this personal property, that you know this beautiful woman beside me. But what you don’t know is that she is mine. You f*ck with her, you f*ck with my team and—more importantly—you f*ck with me. If I ever convince her to marry me, you all are invited to our wedding. We’ll be serving crème brulee, be sure to eat up.” I smacked his stomach hard enough to make him wince, and he pulled me against him, his head dropping for another kiss. “Just a joke, babe. Except for the marriage part. Too early?” He pulled off, his eyes on mine, a cautious smile on his features.
“Too early,” I said sternly. “Especially since, Mr. Masten, you’re still a married man.”
“Ouch.” He winced. “And you know better than to call me that.”
“Mr. Masten?” I said playfully and wheeled out of his arms, reaching for the door handle, his hand too slow when it tried to catch me.
“Damn woman.” He hooked a finger in the back tie of my sundress, pulling me back before I could twist the knob. “Have I told you that I love you?”
I didn’t respond to him, I just smiled, and then the door opened and Momma was there, and her smile was stretched bigger than I’d ever seen it.
CHAPTER 107
TWO DAYS LATER
The bang on the trailer’s front door was so hard that the walls shook. I rolled over and poked, with one lazy finger, Cole’s side. He groaned. “I can’t move, woman. You’ve destroyed me.”
I laughed, my own muscles too weak to move, much less to stand, dress, and get to the door. “I thought we had two hours before the next shoot,” I whispered to him. It couldn’t have been two hours; there was no way. It’d been… I looked for the clock, but it was in the trailer’s main room and that was a good eight feet away. I laid my head against Cole’s chest instead. The person at the door pounded again, a series of raps that showed no patience or timidity whatsoever.
“Just pretend we aren’t here,” Cole stage-whispered, his hand tightening around me when I started to get up.
Our view on the bed afforded a door’s width glimpse into the living room of the trailer. Enough of a glimpse that, when the front door was kicked in, we saw the edge of it swing, the man stomping up the steps appearing in our doorway a second later. I gripped the sheet to my chest and tried to place the man… Cole’s attorney. DeRico or something like that. Here. With Cole’s trailer door now lying on its side, cockeyed on the floor.
“Shit,” Cole grumbled and pulled the sheet higher on me, his legs swinging off the bed, and he grabbed a pillow, covering himself as he glowered at the man. “What the f*ck, DeLuca. Your phone doesn’t work?”
“Don’t bitch at me about communication. Not when you two go and play that stunt on national television without calling me first. Nadia is pissed. Beyond pissed. I had to listen to that bitch personally; she left me an eight-minute voicemail explaining her detailed plans for your castration.”
Cole shrugged. “Want to give Summer some respect and get the f*ck out of this room?”
The man glanced at me, then nodded. “I’m sorry.” He made eye contact with the apology, and I shrugged my forgiveness. He turned his back to me and hovered at the door, looking to Cole.
“I’m coming,” Cole barked. “Give me a minute.”
DeLuca closed the bedroom’s door, and Cole was on the bed and above me in a second. “Sorry babe.” He kissed my neck and hopped off the bed, grabbing a pair of jeans off the floor and pulling them on.
“Will everything be okay? With Nadia?” We had conveniently forgotten her in this whirlwind of change, Cole solidly on the Obsessed with Me bus, oblivious to any of the side effects that seemed to plague Don and Casey’s view of our new union.
He shrugged into a shirt. “We already came to an agreement. We’re good. She’s just pissed. It’s normal.” He squeezed my foot, the closest thing to him, and winked at me. “I’ll be back.”
CHAPTER 108
The chair, a leather straight back that sat by the door, was in serious danger of joining Cole’s door on its trip to the set dumpster. DeLuca leaned on the back of it with both hands, his knuckles white, his face dark.