Here, today, in the sobering light of the hallway, he’s tall and deliciously broad-shouldered, in a faded charcoal t-shirt and dark jeans that look as fantastic on him as the suit did. Maybe even more so because now I can make out the hard lines of his chest, the bulge of those huge biceps and thick forearms, the very arms that held me up last night like I weighed nothing at all.
And then there’s his face. It’s absolutely boyish with that wide, cheeky smile of his, his blue eyes twinkling. My stomach shouldn’t be doing flips at the sight of it and he certainly shouldn’t be smiling given the circumstances, but this is what’s at my doorstep today.
To think I didn’t want to open the door.
“Hey blondie,” he says. “Can I speak to you for a second?” And before I can say anything he looks me up and down. “Rough night?”
“Why are you here?” I manage to say, ignoring his comment. “How did you find me?”
“You really don’t know why I’m here?”
“How did you find me?” I repeat.
“I have ways,” he says, his eyes flitting over my shoulder to Carla. “Hello,” he says to her cordially.
“Hey,” she responds in a voice that tells me she’s trying hard to play it cool.
“So can I come in?” he asks, looking back to me, brows raised, creating lines across his forehead. Somehow it makes him look even more adorable.
I know I have to let him in. That we have to talk about what happened, especially since he went out of his way to find me. But still, I don’t move for a few seconds, the two of us locked in some kind of staring contest.
Finally, Carla clears her throat, breaking the tension. “So, thou shalt not pass or what?”
I give Emmett a slight nod of approval and step out of the way, letting him into our place. As he passes by me I get a whiff of his smell. God, it’s like an instant aphrodisiac, a lightning bolt of lust straight between my legs. Flashbacks from last night crowd behind my eyes.
“So this is where you live,” he says, looking around. He crosses his arms across his chest as he does so, which causes his shirt to rise a little. It draws my eyes like bees to honey and I see out of my peripheral Carla has the same staring problem. Hot damn. He has the stomach you just want to lick right up.
“Cute place,” he adds.
“Yeah, sorry you’re slumming it at the moment,” I tell him sharply.
I can feel Carla giving me a look at that. I’m not sure why I feel the need to take jabs at him.
Except, you know, he’s part of the reason of the current mess we’re in.
“Anyway,” Emmett says, sliding over that with ease and flashing me a reassuring smile. Really wish he would stop doing that. “I’m assuming you know the reason why I’m here.”
“Do tell,” I say, playing dumb.
He doesn’t buy it. “Look, I guess I should have discussed with Will if there were going to be guests at the wedding who wouldn’t be respectful with privacy. I wasn’t thinking, really, that anyone would be there who would want to take and sell pictures of me.”
“It also would have helped if you two didn’t screw each other in public,” Carla says.
Emmett gives her a questioning look, one with a hint of coldness in his eyes.
“Carla,” I admonish her. Then I nod at my bedroom. “Perhaps we should discuss this in my bedroom. And no, it’s not an invitation.”
The coldness in Emmett’s eyes disappears and the grin is back. “Whatever you say.”
With a long exhale, I head toward my door and open it, ushering Emmett inside.
Once I close the door behind me though, I’m starting to rethink this as being a good idea. With him in my room, alone with me, suddenly everything seems very small. Everything but him. His presence is taking over.
I lean back against the door, keeping my distance just in case he starts talking dirty again or I catch another whiff of whatever crazy ass pheromone made me jump his bones last night.
“So…” I say.
“So,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking mildly sheepish for once. “Look…last night…” he pauses, searching for words, “I didn’t think anything of it.”
I give him the evil eye of all evil eyes. “Thanks.”
“What I mean is…I had a lot of fun with you. You kept me on my toes the whole fucking night. I don’t know the last time that happened.”
“Well hurray for me then. Glad I could keep you on your toes and our picture all over the damn internet.”
“Once I find out who took that picture, you know I’ll fucking kill them. You didn’t sign up for any of that and I should have been more…aware of the situation. I guess I just…I don’t know. I’m not used to this, you know? That people give a shit and give a shit about the wrong thing.” He looks off, his eyes absently searching the walls. “I know the last thing you want to hear is the woe is me celebrity thing, I got that from you last night, but the honest truth is I forget that my life has changed and in some ways is no longer my life, no matter how hard I try to keep some things private.”
I can’t help but laugh. “What do you keep private? I don’t even keep up with this pop culture and yet I know that you’ve hooked up with a shitload of girls, that you’re getting in fights, that you’re causing trouble on set. What else could you possibly keep under wraps? If the world feels like they know you and own you, it’s because you let them.”
He stares at me blankly for a few moments as if he didn’t hear what I said. Then he scoffs. “Forget about keeping me on my toes. Sometimes I think you want to knock me right down.”
I shrug. “Just calling it as I see it. As an outsider. Although I guess I’m not really that anymore, am I?”
“No, you’re not.” He looks serious for once. “And that’s why I had to talk to you. You see…I know that this is all new and strange for you and you probably don’t appreciate having your photo splashed across the internet, even though they are very lovely photos, of course. You look fucking fantastic.”
I don’t even bother mentioning the way the sites are humoring the way I look and how different I am from his usual arm candy.
He goes on. “So I can see why this is a shock to you and an invasion of privacy of sorts. But…I don’t think this is the end of the world.”
I frown at him, crossing my arms. “Come again.”
He takes a step toward me, his broad hands raised. “This is going to sound all sorts of crazy but just hear me out, okay?” A beat passes, his mouth quirks up into a half smile. “I have a proposition for you.”
Chapter 6
Emmett
Alyssa is immediately suspicious. I don’t blame her. I mean I just showed up at her apartment when she never told me where she lived and now I have a proposition for her. And I know she’s going to get even more wary once she hears what it is.
Not that I mind. She’s fucking adorable when she’s confused, her cute nose is all scrunched, her mouth is pursed and pouty, all ready to fire some kind of insult or comeback at me.
Fucking hell. I could easily kiss her all over again, get lost in it. And I love how relaxed and messy and real she’s looking right now, totally your girl next door except she’s a girl next door that turned me into a total savage last night.
But whatever vibes she was giving me last night she’s sure not giving them to me today. She’s pissed. At me, at the situation. And I totally get it. No one likes their privacy violated.
Which makes what I’m about to propose to her all that much trickier.
To be fair, it was my publicist’s idea.
I’m still not even sure it will work.
But I got the message loud and clear.
I don’t have much choice.
I rub my lips together as Alyssa stares at me impatiently, waiting for the shoe to drop.
“Autumn, my publicist, thinks that you are just what I need.”
She cocks her head at me, taken aback. “Huh?”
“You see, they say all publicity is good publicity and that’s not exactly true. Good publicity is good publicity and if you have too much of the bad, you need the good to balance it out. Like anything in life, right. So I’ve been pretty fucking bad as of late. Now it’s time to turn it over.”