Caught on Camera (42 page)

Vega couldn’t breathe. Something was in this letter that she didn’t want to see. She looked down and read.

Her stomach revolted, and she almost lost her dinner. Covering her mouth, she kept the food down but couldn’t stop the stream of tears. They came fast and hard, and dripped all over the paper before she could move it out of the way.

JP took it from her hand.

“I’m sorry.” She blinked up at him. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Not a problem.” He ripped the paper into pieces and tossed the shreds in a nearby trash can, a muscle ticking at the back of his jaw with his movements. “I learned there was no Santa a couple weeks after I wrote it. I should have tossed it then.”

“JP.” She reached for him, but he pulled away. She deserved that, but she couldn’t stand seeing his young hopes and dreams in this tiny box. “Do you want me to go?” she whispered. She felt like she shouldn’t be seeing these things.

“Go. Stay. Whatever.” He nudged his chin at her lap. “But you haven’t seen the best part yet.”

There was more? Her chest burned at the thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to stand up and walk away. Instead she reached inside and pulled out the only thing remaining. A shiny black piece of wood. She placed it in the palm of her hand and studied it.

Gripping it between two fingers, she held it up in front of her and eyed the misshapen sides, a memory tugging at her, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Finally she looked up at hooded eyes and a face seemingly made of granite. “What is it?”

JP’s jaw tensed before he took the piece from her and tucked it into his pocket. “It fits that gap in the piano.”

He turned and left the room then, and she followed without thought. “That’s it? You’re not going to tell me more than that?”

“I’ve decided you should leave.”

She stopped in the middle of the hall, refusing to budge. “I’m not leaving until you tell me about that piece of wood.”

“Then I’ll carry you out.” He came toward her, and though she didn’t think for a second he’d harm her, the anger emanating from him sent her scurrying backward and straight into his room.

She hurried across the Oriental rug and out the balcony doors. Once there, she pivoted and locked her hands on her hips. “I’m not going anywhere and you can’t make me.”

He laughed out loud. “Are you kidding me?”

With barely two strides, he was on the balcony, had her over his shoulder, and was heading back through his penthouse.

Well, that didn’t work.

Vega bounced off his backside as he stomped through the rooms, then studied their situation from an outsider’s point of view. She’d just stomped her foot like a child, dared him to “make her leave,” and he was now doing just that. Like some Neanderthal. And all because they were both shying away from feeling too much.

He stooped long enough to grab her camera and lighting in one hand. She snagged the strap of her purse at the same time. Then she took a deep breath and said a silent prayer that she was making the right decision.

“I had an affair with a married congressman.”

JP froze. He’d stopped by the couch, and all she could see from her viewpoint were the rings left on the end table where he’d routinely set down a glass, and his wide stance, frozen in midstep. “You what?”

She closed her eyes and repeated herself, then added, “I was twenty, oblivious to the evil ways people could behave. He said he was getting a divorce, and I believed every word he ever told me.” A harsh laugh slipped out. “Until he turned his back on me.”

He didn’t move. “What happened?”

The weight of her head was suddenly too much to bear, and she let it hang free. Her purse dropped to the floor with a thud. “We saw each other when I was on fashion shoots. He would show up, wine and dine me. Basically treat me more special than anyone ever had. The other models snickered behind my back, but I thought they were just jealous. Anyway, it wasn’t like they wanted to spend free time with me, so why would they care if I was spending my time with him. But then, one of them decided to be my friend. Or so I thought. Next thing I knew, there was a sex video online of me and him, a very explicit video, and I found out that my ‘friend’ had been the one to sneak into my hotel room to plant the camera. She sold it to the highest bidder, then Ted played it off like I was the one framing him.”

Her head began to hurt from hanging upside down, but fear of him depositing her on the other side of the door kept her quiet.

“Are you talking about Ted Pritchard?”

God, he remembered.
“Yes. I modeled under the name Reveka.”

“From what little I remember, didn’t others come forward to speak out against you? Saying…” He shook his head one time. “What was it? Something about you willing to do anything to marry a politician?”

“Yes.”

He shifted her weight on his shoulder and dumped her equipment on the couch. His free hand came up to hold her at the back of her thigh, then he stooped and set her on her feet. She straightened to face him.

“Are you saying what they said is true, or not?” he asked.

“She was supposed to be my friend, JP. The only one who ever pretended to like me. After her tabloid windfall, I guess she decided that wasn’t enough. The next thing I knew, practically everyone I worked with took payoffs from Ted to run me in the ground. He was all about trying save his career and marriage, and didn’t have a concern in the world for what it was doing to me.”

JP’s forehead crinkled from deep thought. “It didn’t work, though, right? Didn’t the jerk step down a short time later?”

She nodded. “Three weeks. And his wife ended up taking him for everything he had. But I lost everything too.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the floor. “I thought I loved him. We had even talked about a future together. When this came out, he not only laughed at my pleas to stick beside me, he did everything he could to soil my reputation. I was done at that point. I could have posed in
Playboy
, probably could have gotten a joke of a reality show, but I was a laughingstock. All serious opportunities quit coming my way, and there was no way I’d ever get the chance to report on anything that mattered to people.

“Everywhere I went…” she continued, then cringed as the memories replayed inside. “It was horrible. All I wanted was to make a name for myself and be able to support my mother, and suddenly I was such an embarrassment she didn’t even want me to come home. She eventually went back to Mexico because of the shame of walking down the street I grew up on. I changed my looks, making sure to never wear makeup or enhance my appearance in the slightest, and went to photojournalism school.” She lifted her shoulders and let out a soft sigh as they settled back into place. “It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was the closest I could get.”

JP’s hands slid up her arms to cup her shoulders. “Ted Pritchard was a bastard.”

“It doesn’t matter. He took me down with him, and all I ever asked from him was…” She brushed off his hands and walked away.

“Was what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Was what, Vega? Don’t stop now. What did he take from you?”

Tears once again filled her eyes and edged over her lashes. She touched the back of her hand to her cheeks and kept her back to him. “I just wanted to be special. Have him love me. I was discovered and talked into modeling at sixteen, two months after my father died.”

JP’s body heat touched her from behind, but he didn’t lay a hand on her. She closed her eyes and fought the urge to lean back and let his strength support her.

She sniffled. “I missed Dad so much. He and I used to do everything together. By the time the agent approached me, Mom and I were having such a hard time financially. We were having a hard time period. She missed Dad, I missed Dad. We couldn’t figure out how to be there for each other. So I went into modeling to help pay the bills.” A shiver racked her body. “I lived all over the world, alone, no friends, and all I wanted was someone to love me. Like my father used to.”

She faced him, knowing she was a puffy-eyed mess. “Instead, I not only lost out on love, I lost who I was. I’m so tired of hiding, JP.” She sniffled. “So very tired.”

He held out his arms and she went willingly into them. They closed around her, and for the first time in years, everything felt right.

JP held Vega until her tears dried, stroking her back and generally doing anything he could think to soothe her. She’d been through a lot in her life, and he suddenly felt petty about his own troubles.

So what if his mother wasn’t happy with him unless he was the perfect politician? He knew that deep down, she did love him. Probably. Plus, he had Cat, Becca, and Tyler. Even Beverly.

And Vega had no one. Not even her mother was close enough to be there when she needed her.

He couldn’t figure out what to do about her. He peered down at the top of her head and wondered which way her breakdown would send her. It could make her run even faster, or it could shed some light on what they could have.

She mumbled into his chest, but he couldn’t make out her words.

“What?” He pulled back and tilted her tear-soaked face to his. He stroked his fingers across her cheeks to brush aside the tears, then touched a soft kiss to the tip of her nose, savoring the salty taste. She’d needed to go through that. “What did you say?”

“That I love you.”

The words were spoken almost as resignation, but they put a smile on his face he wouldn’t have thought possible. “You love me?”

She frowned. “I said I did, didn’t I?”

He squeezed her tight to his chest. “Damn, lady. If I’d know my hauling your ass out of here would spur your love, I’d have tried that much sooner.”

She smacked at him and pushed back, but he didn’t let her escape.

Fear shone bright from her waterlogged eyes. “So what do we do now? You see why it can’t work?” She dropped her head to his chest, resting her cheek against his pounding heart. “I can’t put you in the position of having a politician-hungry, husband-
stealing woman by your side. And…” Her shoulders sagged. “And honestly, I don’t want to go through the public scrutiny again either. I just want to do something that makes me happy and go on about my business.”

Panic exploded inside him. “And what about love? Don’t you want that in your life?”

“I wrote love out of my life years ago.”

“Yet it found you anyway.”

His throat hurt as he watched her slim frame seem to shrink before his eyes. He dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out the chunk of piano she’d pulled from his box. He held it up between them. “When I was ten, my mother bought me that piano over there. Gran had been teaching me to play on an old upright by showing me videos of other people playing. I watched their fingers and could easily duplicate their actions. I also played at school. It took away some of the sting of knowing that with everything else, I wasn’t as good as all the other kids.

“One day, the teacher sent home a note expressing how musically inclined I was. Beverly took the note to my mother, and she was thrilled. She’d heard me play at home, but I guess the teacher validated my talent.”

“So she bought you a piano? That shows she cared, right?”

“And she bought stacks of sheet music. She and Dad wanted me to perform for an upcoming dinner they were throwing. She wanted me to play the music she’d picked out.”

He could tell she saw where this was heading.

“Right. I couldn’t read the music. It didn’t make sense to me, and Gran didn’t play herself. I suggested taking real lessons, but both Mom and Dad were against it. I guess they were worried someone would learn I wasn’t perfect.”

Vega pressed her palm over his heart. “What happened?”

He wrapped a hand over hers, and replayed it in his head. “The night of the party came, and I still couldn’t play the music. I begged Mom to let me play the other songs I knew, but that wasn’t what Dad wanted. She said my father had people coming from his alma mater, and these were the songs they wanted to hear. She walked out of the room after telling me to just forget about it, and I swear it hurt worse than what felt like her desertion when I was initially diagnosed.”

“You’d gotten your hopes up that you could please her with this, hadn’t you?” Vega spoke softly.

He focused on her, thankful to have her in his life. “You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

“Nah,” she shook her head. “I can just see it in your eyes.”

He gave her a wry smile, then tucked her back against his chest. He kissed the top of her head. “Yeah, I’d gotten my hopes up.” He pulled in a deep breath. “I had convinced myself if I could do this one thing, she would be proud of me again. When she walked out, I went a little crazy. I found my brother’s baseball bat and started waling on the piano. I busted one leg and took that chunk out before Cat stopped me. She and I sat on the floor of that room for what seemed like hours, both of us crying because I wasn’t good enough, and she didn’t know how to help. She even offered to take piano lessons herself and come home to teach me.” He chuckled. “But it was too late. I didn’t want to take lessons anymore, and I didn’t care if I ever pleased my mom again or not.”