Page 15 of Down & Dirty (Holden Cove #1)
CHAPTER 15
SKYLAR
T he questions were rioting in my mind. Rioting . Aggressive, shouty, relentless. I wanted to know what the hell had happened back there, what had gotten Cory that upset. There’d been a desperation in his eyes that I’d never seen before, and whatever had been triggered in him, it felt big and deep and meaningful.
Which is why I felt like I had no right to ask. No right to question the inner workings of a man whom I despised not that long ago. Technically, we were in a business relationship, and whatever had driven that strong reaction was definitely not water-cooler conversation.
It’s just that lately we hadn’t actually been staying inside the lines of our deal. The boundaries outlined in the contract, that I thought were going to keep this whole thing stale and boring, had been shoved into a drawer along with the paperwork. I’d been telling myself it was the nature of what we were trying to do, the way we had to act in public to sell this charade. But after today, it was getting a lot harder to buy that.
My own family hadn’t expressed such distress at my injuries over the years—and there had been plenty of opportunities riding motocross as a kid. As a mother myself, I understood now the urge to keep calm for the sake of your child, but still. I’d broken my arm in two places at school once and my mom had been late to pick me up from the nurse’s office. She’d shown so little urgency, I thought the nurse was going to call family services for a home visit.
Her lack of reaction compared with how enraged Cory had been, especially over what anyone could see were fairly minor scrapes, was all I could think of as I drove home. Sure, my getting hurt might have impacted our arrangement, but it seemed like more than that.
“Whoa, are you okay?” Elle asked, springing from the couch as I walked through the front door. “Jesus Sky, look at you.”
I tossed my bag onto the kitchen table. “I’m fine. Just failed to use my better judgment.” I should have let Kip kick Ronnie’s ass, or vice versa. It was ironic to me now, how clearly Ronnie wasn’t the only one with a protective streak that needed better moderating.
“What does that mean?”
“Where’s Micah?” I asked, looking behind her at the empty room.
“He’s drawing you a picture,” she said, a grin quickly replacing her worry. “Super-secret.”
“Good, let me get out of these clothes before he sees me. And then I’ll fill you in.”
I only meant to fill her in on the fight, but the minute I was alone I could feel my heart racing with the need to talk to someone about what had happened. What was happening . All of it.
Our lack of press attention meant no one outside of the OTM team had seen Cory and I together and Elle knew nothing about our arrangement. I’d managed to keep her from getting suspicious when asking her to watch Micah for a few of our ‘dates,’ playing them off as work engagements. The poor woman was so busy she didn’t have time to excavate my life’s drama. But after today, I really needed someone else to sort this out.
Micah was still in his room, so I grabbed a glass of lemonade and joined Elle on the couch, gingerly propping my leg on the cushions between us.
“That was a lot of blood on your pants, you’re sure you’re okay?”
I wasn’t quick enough to stop the smile that unfurled. “Yeah, I got first aid at the shop.”
Elle leaned back, her eyes narrowing. “What’s that look for?”
The confidentiality clause in the contract played in my head like a booming voiceover. And then I saw Cory’s face when he’d asked me to keep this thing a secret. I knew we needed it to appear real, and for the press to never find out the truth about us. But Elle was my best friend. I could trust her with my life. In fact, I did, regularly—his name was Micah.
“Cory Ellis.”
A lopsided smile spread across Elle’s face, her expression far more curious than the shocked look I anticipated. “Say more.”
“My brother and Kip Waters got into a scuffle after Ronnie acted like Ronnie on the course.”
“Typical.”
“Exactly. And I tried to break it up.”
“Also typical.” She leveled me with a glare when I opened my mouth to argue.
“Fine, whatever. Anyway, I got knocked back onto Ronnie’s bike.”
“Ouch.”
“Tell me about it.” It wasn’t scary so much as disorienting. One minute I was upright, the next I was in pain, and then the next, I was in Cory’s arms. My skin flushed all over again thinking about the way he’d picked me up, stealing me away from the others. It was sweet, in a protective, caveman way. “I think my knee is going to be purple from the bruise, but the slice across it looks worse.”
“Jesus. Okay, so that all makes sense, in the pattern of Stone family drama. What does Ellis have to do with it?”
“He was the one who patched me up after. ”
“Why him and not someone from OTM? Or Ronnie even?”
My cheeks got hot and Elle’s expression hardened as she caught the first scent of secrecy. “Ronnie was getting his ass handed to him. And, Cory wanted to.”
“Skylar Rae Stone, cut your shit. Why would Cory Ellis—who you have hated since day one—give a crap about you bleeding out all over the course?”
Her take on Cory was harsher than I expected, and I jerked back scowling. “He’s never been that bad.”
A guffaw burst out of her. “You were the one who said he was the most arrogant, self-centered, man-whore you’d ever met. You said he’d be more likely to save his million-dollar watch in a fire than one of his paper-doll girlfriends. Which was kinda awful, since them being made of paper really would have sealed their fate.”
I vaguely recalled saying that one night early on. There might have been some wine.
“I was wrong. He’s not that bad.”
“And how exactly did you come to revise your conclusions?” There was a glimmer in her eye, the spark of energy you only get when you’re about to peel the lid off something really juicy.
This was it. No one else knew besides Cory and me, but things were too complicated now to do this without my best friend.
“We’ve sort of been seeing each other,” her mouth popped open, but I held up a hand and went on in a rush. “It’s not real. It’s business. He needed some help in the PR department and he was willing to pay me to show up as his girlfriend in a few photos.”
Elle was sitting across from me, her mouth agape and her eyes pinging between mine as if she couldn’t believe what I’d just told her. I guessed it was as crazy-sounding as I’d originally thought.
“He’s paying you to be his fake girlfriend?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, the weight of that lifting from me was practically euphoric .
“You’re pretending that you’re in love with Cory Ellis for money?”
I sniffed, scrunching my brow. “I’m pretending to not hate him in public. That’s all.” The denial felt a little hollow, since we’d moved past the hatred part pretty easily after that first dinner.
“ Okaaay ,” she drew out the word, clearly still piecing this together. “And that’s why he took care of you when you got hurt? Cause of this press thing?”
I dropped her gaze, glanced down as I picked at my nails. “That’s just it, it didn’t seem like that. He got upset .” I looked back up at her, feeling the rush of emotion all over again at seeing Cory’s concern. “Like really upset. He was ready to kill the guys, but then he took me back to the infirmary to clean me up and he was shaking.”
My sweet friend’s expression folded with worry. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I promise, it was nothing, it’s his reaction that wasn’t. But when I asked him what was going on, he shut me out. Which I guess makes sense, we’re not really dating, so he has no reason to confide in me. But I’m sure there was something going on. He looked so haunted.” It felt so good to be thinking this out with someone else.
Elle pressed her lips into a line like she was trying to keep from smiling. “He might just really like you, Sky.”
I rolled my eyes. “Stop. I know when a man actually likes me, and he doesn’t. We’re supposed to be cleaning up his image, and he hasn’t even arranged for us to be photographed yet. He might be rethinking the whole thing.”
“The sex tape scandal. I heard about it.”
I’d never really dug into what Cory’s ex had done to put him in this position, but hearing Elle mention a sex tape so casually reminded me the woman worked in PR. She wasn’t fazed by much, whereas the mention of Cory and a sex tape in the same conversation had my stomach churning, even if I knew it wasn’t his .
She went on. “So, you think he’s reluctant to get your relationship out there because he doesn’t like you, but then at the same time you think he was distraught at the sight of you hurt? You do hear how that doesn’t work, right?”
She was laughing and I had to admit, those two things might have lined up better in my head. “I think his reaction was way too extreme for it to have been entirely about me.”
Quelling her laughter a little, she considered that. “If you want to know more, you should ask him.”
Anxiety punched me in the gut. “I’m not so sure I should to go there.” I paused, watching Elle’s face fall with confusion as I tried to explain it. “I’ll admit my impression of him has changed. I might even say I like the guy, fine. But this is supposed to be a six-month business relationship. And we’ve already stretched the boundaries more than we should. If this is all temporary, it’s stupid of me to get invested in who he is, and why he is the way he is. You know? I should just let it drop.”
That would be the smart thing. And I wanted my very intelligent friend to agree with me, encourage me to keep my head on straight. Collect the paychecks and get on with my life. That was why I’d told her all this, so she could help me see past the emotions that were starting to leak in, to the cold truth of the matter.
“Are you serious right now?” she asked, absolutely baffled. “Who cares how this thing started? If he has real feelings for you, don’t you want to explore it and see where it could lead?”
That was just it; I wasn’t sure. Cory was clearly more complicated than I’d planned for, and my life wasn’t exactly without its own issues. Did I really want to open myself up to something that was almost certainly doomed?
“Momma!” Micah called, exploding from his room. The curls on the top of his head bounced as he bounded toward me, and I opened my arms for us to collide, careful to keep my knee away from him. I kissed the top of his head, inhaling the soft scent of his shampoo. The peace I got from holding my son was the perfect antidote to my anxiety about this thing with Cory. Micah would always be my focus; I couldn’t forget that.
“Hey kiddo, how was your day?”
He pulled back to look at me, smears of peanut butter and jelly on his round cheeks. “I got to go down the big slide on my belly!” He cackled at himself, and I had to laugh at the image.
“Head first?” I asked, glancing over at Elle who just shrugged. Micah was definitely my son, all rough and tumble. And fearless. But she was great at keeping him from actual harm while he tested the world.
“No, silly,” he said, turning for his juice on the table. “No one likes to eat dirt.”
There was no doubt in my mind that was a direct quote from Elle, and one look at her wide, proud grin confirmed it.
“No one does, bud, that’s the truth.”
“Let me get your present.” He bolted for his room, his heavy footfalls echoing in his wake.
Elle pushed up off the couch. “I’m not sure exactly what is going on with you and,” she glanced back at Micah’s room, “your friend. But you should just see what happens, Sky. It wouldn’t hurt to have some fun.”
Her encouragement was sweet and well meaning. But I knew myself. I didn’t date for a reason. My idea of ‘fun’ didn’t involve superficial and short-lived connections. It never had, but with Micah, there was even more reason to keep things from getting messy and complicated. And at the moment, Cory Ellis had the potential to be both.
But not if I didn’t let him.
“I’m just going to do my job and pay my bills,” I told her.
Elle’s expression darkened. “This is because of the Tommy thing, isn’t it?” The day I told her about the change in our arrangement, I thought she was going to storm over to his tent and rip his head off herself. She worked hard to stay civil with him for Micah’s sake and mine, but she had no problem letting me know exactly what she thought of him when no one else was around. And I loved her for that.
“It’s not just that. Cory’s paying me enough that I don’t have to worry about taking money out of my college fund to make ends meet. I can’t fuck this thing up by thinking something is there when it isn’t. So I should just keep it professional.”
“If you say so. But with temptation like that man, I have five dollars you don’t last a month.”
“You’re not seriously betting on this?”
“With no one but you and me, you’re damn right I am.”
A shiver of worry raced over my skin as I walked toward the door. “You promise you won’t say anything.”
“Not a soul,” she reassured me with a wink. “But I better get more updates. This is the best entertainment I’ve had in years.”
“My life is not for your entertainment.”
She laughed as she stepped out onto the landing. “Babe, you’re selling yourself short if your life isn’t your own entertainment. Live a little, Sky. It’ll be good for you.”
She disappeared around the corner before I could respond, but I closed the door with a sigh. I somehow felt both lighter and heavier at the same time. Complicated . Exactly what I didn’t need.