Page 411 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

LUKE

I wasn’t sure if coming to Theo James at work was my smartest move.

Okay, it was really fucking stupid. I made a lot of dumb ones lately, so what was one more?

I felt like an idiot sitting on the exam table waiting for him.

I gave a fake name to the receptionist, but she recognized me.

Gave me a wink when she left me in here to wait.

The paper under my ass crinkled as I turned when the exam room door opened. Fucking finally.

Yeah, based on the look on his face, this might not go well.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, glaring. He had on khakis, button-up shirt, and his white doctor coat. A stethoscope slung around his neck. It was pretty much what I wore on set, but he was the real deal.

I was a fucking fraud.

“Just because we did yoga together doesn’t make us best friends,” he said.

“This was the only way I could think of seeing you,” I admitted.

“By being my patient? Is there anything wrong with you besides being an asshole?”

“Aspen’s blocked my calls. Mrs. Waddle gave me a glare when I went up the front walk and shooed me away with a broom.”

“I’ll give you a lollipop and you can leave here, too.”

“She won’t respond to me. I need to know she’s okay. I figured Mallory would have heard from her.”

He nodded.

I sighed in relief, imagining her in a fucking ditch somewhere. “Thank fuck. Look, you need to help Aspen,” I told him.

“Because of your mess.”

“Because if she gives the money I gave her to her ex, she’ll be arrested for collusion or being an accomplice to money laundering and a few other federal offenses.”

He blinked. “What the fuck are you talking about? The money you paid her to be your fake girlfriend?”

I nodded. “The money I gave her to pay off her ex. She wouldn’t take it as a gift so I had to think of some way for her to accept it.”

He grunted and circled his finger in the air for me to continue.

“Her mother and Aspen’s ex have been laundering campaign funds or using them for something shady.

Other stuff I don’t understand or really give a shit about.

But the ex came after the ring because he needs cash.

If Aspen gives it to him and he uses it for shady shit with her mother, it’ll lead back to Aspen. The FBI will make it a family affair.”

“She hates her mother.”

“I know. Look, she can’t give him that money. If she won’t listen to me, then I need you to help her. Make sure she doesn’t do it.”

He moved, leaned a hip against the counter where there was a sink and pamphlets about birth control, STDs, and the shingles vaccine.

“You knew about this and let her get sucked in?”

“Hell, no.” I hopped off the table and began to pace, trying to steer clear of Theo as much as possible, which was hard in the small room. “I found out about it the other night. I need to make sure she’s safe. Protected from her mother. From being put in jail.”

I held out a scrap of paper with Mark’s name and number on it. Theo took it, stared at it. “Who’s this?”

“The guy at the FBI who’s running the case on Senator Bergstrom. Have her call him.”

He sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

So I did. I told him about Mark. How he’d showed up on my vacation. Asked me to be his wingman at the bar to approach Aspen. That I saw her and wanted her as my own. And everything that followed. That I fell in love with her.

“You love her?” Theo asked, surprised.

“Yes. Crazy, I know.”

I stared at him as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Did you know Aspen is actually a famous ballerina?” he asked.

“Infamous actually. A soloist at nineteen. A prodigy, she was called. The best of her generation. Then she mysteriously walked away and disappeared. It’s because she got pregnant with Sierra.

Her parents cut her off entirely and she moved here. Legally changed her last name to Lane.”

“Why are you telling me this? I know her parents are assholes. I’ve met them and saw how they treat her firsthand.”

“I don’t give a shit about them,” he snapped. “If you love Aspen, it needs to be about her, not you.”

“What are you talking about? She didn’t want a relationship, so I said we could be fake. I offered her money to pay off her ex, but she wouldn’t take it. So I made it part of the fake relationship.”

Slowly, he shook his head. “It was all about you. You saw her. You wanted her. You needed her for your stupid tabloid bullshit and when she said no, you dangled a carrot in front of her. A big one you knew she needed. How could she refuse?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“It was exactly like that. You have fame. Money. The film deal. You have everything. All the power.”

I swiped my hand through the air. “No. That’s not true. She has me by the balls.”

“Yeah, balls. Not heart. Why didn’t you tell her about the FBI guy?”

“I told him she wasn’t involved and figured that was the end of it.”

“You’re charismatic, attractive. You have that stupid hair.” He pointed at it and frowned as if it was a bad thing. “Women fawn all over your ass. You didn’t have to work hard with her. I assume she fell right into your bed.”

I glared at him, not liking the way he was talking about Aspen. He made what we did that night in my hotel room sound cheap.

“I’m here, aren’t I? I could be on a plane to India right now. I turned down the film to make this right.”

His eyes widened making it clear he wasn’t expecting that.

“You think I’m an asshole, fine.” I didn’t give a shit what Theo thought of me.

“But I’m here because I don’t want her to go to jail for something I knew from the second I saw her she had no part in.

Somehow, in some fucked-up sense of fate or karma or whatever, we ran into her parents the other night.

Aspen thought I used her to get to her mother because of the ‘in’ she has with the producer. Not true.”

“The last guy she really dated did the same thing. And he was going to marry her for it.”

I’d wanted to think myself better than that douche canoe Duncan, but I hadn’t. Not at all.

“Look, I had access to Chris Conroy, the producer, without the senator. That’s why I was at the party in the first place.

Hell, I had no idea Senator Bergstrom would even be there.

Sure, I needed that bullshit tabloid mess cleaned up, yeah.

But my agent was going to hire someone to be my girlfriend and that would’ve taken care of it. ”

I took a deep breath, pushed on.

“I wanted to be with Aspen. Needed to be with her. I couldn’t walk away from her, so I brought her to LA with me. If she wanted to name what we had as fake, I’d call it that even though it was… no, is real for me. I hoped to make her see that, too.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Why do you think she’s so upset?”

“Because I fucked up and thinks I’m just like every other person who’s used her for her mother.”

He shook his head. “No, like every other person who was supposed to care for her and used love as a tool for their own gain.”

I swallowed hard. “Fuck.” I ran a hand over my face. He was right.

“You’ve only known each other for a short time. Days. I can see how you won’t know everything about the woman.”

“She didn’t tell me she danced. I saw her one morning on my deck and it was incredible, but I can see now why she keeps her past on lockdown. The only thing she told me about her parents was that they were estranged and that her mother was powerful.”

“You have to see why she’s so wary, so jaded. When she found out the whole thing was planned, you were just like the others.”

“It wasn’t planned! Especially my instant reaction to her. But I never, not once, used her for access to her mother. I didn’t even know who she was. I want to kill Mark for making this all fucked up, but I guess I owe him a favor because I never would have met her otherwise.”

“I think Aspen would rather kill him. And you.”

“Don’t say shit about a woodchipper,” I muttered.

“She’s upset because she’s in love with you, too.”

My eyes widened and hope filled the spot in my chest where my heart was ripped out. “She said that?”

“Didn’t have to. You hurt her and I have a feeling she doesn’t let herself get hurt very often anymore. That means she let you in, she trusted you and you let her down.”

I groaned. “Fuck, this is a nightmare.”

“Did you tell her you loved her?”

I thought of the time I told her I’d fallen for her, but she’d been asleep. I’d said the words, but she didn’t know. I shook my head.

“She’s in love with Luke,” Theo added. “Not Derek Dashwood or Shep whatever on the show.”

“I never lied to her. Not once. And when she asked me if meeting her in the bar had been planned, I told her the truth, even though it’s not what she thinks.”

“You didn’t tell her about the FBI guy. That’s lying by omission.”

I looked up at the ceiling. Groaned again. “Fine, but not about who I was. Never. She didn’t even know I was a TV star when we met.”

“But you used her like you were Derek Dashwood. For your career. Be Luke. Only Luke. That’s the man she wants.”

“No one cares about Luke,” I admitted. “No one even knows Luke.” I flung up my arms. “Everyone is crazy for Derek. For Shep Barnes. Luke isn’t anything special.” I swallowed thickly, my mouth so fucking dry. “What if she doesn’t like him? What if he’s… what if I’m not enough?”

“You’ll never find out until you strip all those roles, all those characters you play, ditch all the people who want something from you and just be yourself. You said it, she didn’t know you were famous. She wants you. Until then, steer fucking clear of Aspen, or I will get that woodchipper.”

He went to the exam room door, opened it and left. “Verna, what’s the charge code for gonorrhea? I need to add it to this patient’s chart.”