Page 10

Ten

Willow

“Did you make this?” I ask, taking a bite of the steaming food then promptly moaning.

Meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes isn’t a meal I eat often—heck, I can’t think of the last time I’ve had such a stick to my ribs type of meal.

And it’s delicious—the meat is tender and flavorful, the ketchup on top seasoned with something that makes me want to ask for more. The potatoes are buttery and smooth, melting in my mouth, and the green beans, well, they’re green beans, but they’re tasty, even if they are veggie-like.

“No,” he says. “My housekeeper stocks my freezer.” His mouth curves up just the slightest bit. “All I had to do was reheat it. Though,” he mutters, and I notice he’s pushed his veggies to the side, “I can cook things.”

“Like what?” I ask, smiling as he makes a neat little pile of the green stuff instead of actually eating it.

“I can grill a mean steak.”

My mouth tips up.

“What?”

“You can grill a mean steak?” My smile widens. “That’s caveman for Me hunt. Me kill. ”

He cracks up then leans across the table and tugs at a lock of my hair. “I can cook other things.”

“Like what?” I ask again.

He scowls, but his eyes are dancing and I find myself teasing him.

I. Find. Myself. Teasing. Him.

I want to sit in that amazing fact..

But I don’t want to be pulled from this moment, don’t want to lose this light feeling inside me.

It’s been too long.

“I’ll amend,” I say, “can you cook anything that doesn’t involve slapping something on a grill and blasting it with fire?

” I stifle my giggle as I scoop up another bite of mashed potatoes, making sure to get some of that tasty ketchup topping—call me weird, but it’s delicious and I hope I get the chance to ask the housekeeper for the recipe.

Not that I can make it.

Or afford to hire someone to make it for me.

I could…try, I guess.

Try and fail.

Ugh.

“Hey,” he says softly, “where’d you go?”

I exhale. “Nowhere.”

“Liar.” The accusation is quiet. Gentle. “Tell me.” A little firmer, bordering on order.

“I can’t cook,” I whisper. “Can’t hire someone to cook for me.” I feel my throat getting tight. “Can’t even go to the grocery store and buy ingredients to fumble my way through a meal.” I push my plate back, close my eyes. “I just can’t believe that I’ve allowed myself to get to this point.”

“You know, I’ve been in this business a long time.”

His voice isn’t gentle, but I don’t need gentle—don’t want it.

That’ll propel the tears over the edges of my eyes, sending them skating down my cheeks.

I’m so done with crying about my life.

I want to do something.

I suppose that’s why I’m here.

Of course, it would be nice to actually have a plan on how to do that something.

“I’ve seen a lot of things, good and bad,” he goes on, “but the one constant is that shit happens, it happens whether you follow the rules or not, whether you do all the right things or not, whether you’re a good person or not.

Hell, sometimes I think it happens more often to the good people because there’s a line in the sand they’re not willing to cross. ”

I think about all the lines that Dylan crossed.

And I shudder. “I just know that when it all gets out people are going to say Why didn’t she just leave? Or Why would she allow it to get to that point? Or worse.” I sigh, rub at the throb in my temple. I feel mostly normal, albeit tired with the occasional headache.

Though, I don’t think this headache is from my injury and hospital stay.

It’s because?—

“I’ve asked those questions myself,” I say. “Over and over again. I stand here and look back and feel like the weakest person on the planet. Because I don’t have answers that make sense.”

“Princess,” he says, his big hand moving slowly across the table, gently wrapping it around mine. “We don’t have to talk about this.”

I don’t want to talk about it.

And yet part of me needs to.

“You don’t have to listen,” I tell him. “I know you’ve been through your own injury and have your own problems.” I try to slip my hand from his. “You’re already doing enough for me—you don’t need to be my therapist too.”

His grip on my hand tightens, and I feel a sliver of worry slice through my middle.

Yet, even as I’m processing that, he immediately releases me.

Like he sensed that worry.

Like he knew .

I glance up into his golden-green eyes and I know.

He knows.

Deliberately, I shove down that blip of fear, concentrate on the things I do know.

He’s kind.

He won’t hurt me.

That’s not something my heart or brain is telling me.

It’s pure primal instinct.

Somewhere deep inside, my body knows that this man is safe for me.

“I’m a good listener,” he says. “Because I don’t mind doing it.” A beat. “So long as you want to talk.”

I take a breath, let it out.

It’s not that I want to talk.

It’s another need .

“I had an escape plan,” I murmur. “Two years ago. I had money set aside, a plane scheduled to take me away from here. I thought…” I sigh. “I really thought I was going to get out. I was so careful—or I thought I was so careful. Then Dylan found out.”

“How?”

“Our housecleaner. She found one of the bags I’d packed and told him, and then…”

“What happened?” His question is quiet…and full of rage.

But again, I’m not scared of this man.

“He shouted and yelled and”—I close my eyes, my hand convulsing around his—“it was the first time he got physical with me.”

“Dammit,” Hudson growls.

“I lost my allowance then. Couldn’t so much as go out and grab a cup of coffee without him or one of his assistants glued to my side. Since then, I haven’t made a move he hasn’t known about—until you helped get me out of the hospital.”

“Princess,” he murmurs and I see the thread of anger in his eyes.

And the pity.

“Don’t feel bad for me,” I whisper. “I’ve done bad things, even though I had everything from the moment Willow’s World premiered.”

“Those teen shows are ripe with abuse, misbehavior, and vulnerable children.”

Vulnerable.

Yes, I’d been that.

Vulnerable to drugs, to bad influences.

“Yes,” I agree. “My mom was there, so deeply woven into my life I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but they still managed to get to me.

I was harassed by directors, told I would never measure up in any way by producers, given far too much freedom and access by co-stars.

I drank by ten, got high within that same year, and my teen years were a mess.

And the press ate it up.” I rub the throb in my temple again.

“Dylan helped me out of that. I was getting there—tired of using, of the partying, of waking up with people I didn’t know in bed beside me, of looking in the mirror and seeing a facsimile of myself.

He wanted me in his film and he took a chance and…

in a way he saved me because he gave me a way out and kept me away from the bad influences until I was strong enough to handle them. ”

“A good thing.” A beat. “At first.”

“Yes.”

I sigh, staring down at my hands.

“So, I guess the answer to all of the questions I know people are going to ask is that he saved me. And I was so scared of going back to that person I never wanted to be again that I didn’t care how he did it.”