Love Me Sweet (A Bell Harbor Novel) (21 page)

“I was going to tell you—”

“When?” He cut her off, twisting back in her direction, face flushed. “When were you going to tell me? Because we’ve been together nonstop for about a week now and it seems like this might have come up somewhere between, oh, I don’t know. Somewhere between
hello
and
I love you
.”

She should have told him sooner. She should have told him sooner. Damn it. She
really
should have told him sooner.

“I know. It’s just . . . it’s complicated.”

Complicated? That sounded pathetic even to her. She was shaking, and cold and clammy, but she had to pull it together. She had to make him understand how this had started with one simple falsehood and yet had somehow exploded into this mushroom cloud of events.

“Complicated,” he growled. “Yeah. I can see how confusing it might get trying to remember your own fucking name.” His voice rose with the last part, and she was almost glad. Glad to finally be getting this out in the open, to expose the wound she’d created so they might begin to move past it and heal. But how, she had no idea. She couldn’t undo anything. She could only try to fix it from this point forward.

“Grant, I’m so sorry. I just—”

He cut her off. “So where do I fit into the general spin of things?”

“The spin?”

“Yeah. Am I the brainless idiot who never recognized you, or the dedicated lover willing to call the cops on his own mother just to keep you entertained?” His eyes glittered with anger, and her heart, the one he’d touched just an hour earlier with the sweetest words, now splintered, cut by his sharp gaze.

“You’re neither. That’s not what happened. Grant, the media spins things in a hundred different ways and it’s hardly ever true. I was trying to protect you from that.”

He looked like he’d been jolted with electricity. “Protect me? Protect me by lying to me about who you are?”

“No, protect you by keeping you out of the media storm. That’s the whole reason I was hiding out. Ever since that awful video surfaced, the paparazzi have been hounding me and I was just trying to get away.”

“Get away. Right. Leaking that video didn’t have anything to do with boosting the ratings for your TV show and making you famous. Oh, and by the way, you didn’t think to mention you had a TV show? I’m a fucking cinematographer,
Delaney
. I know a thing or two about television.”

He said her name like it was a curse, and it stung. Agitation stuck in her throat, making her voice raspy. “Yes, you’re a cinematographer, and everything you hate about television is everything that my show represents. I admit it, Grant, that’s no excuse for me not telling you, but it is the reason I hesitated. But you have to believe I never leaked that video. I didn’t even know it existed until a few weeks ago. I’m not a fame-seeker. I’m the opposite of that, and I just wanted you to get to know the
real
me before you made any judgments.”

His bark of laughter was harsh, without an ounce of humor in it. “Oh, OK. In that case, I’ll just make my judgments based on what you’ve shown me yourself. No cameras, no crew. Just me and
the real
you. Oh, and look. You still lied. Even when it was just the two of us. You had a dozen chances to come clean, and you chose not to.”

They were standing feet apart, facing each other, but it may as well have been an ocean between them. Or a pit of fiery lava. At least if it was lava, Delaney could fling herself into it and have this all be over with. What a hot mess she’d created.

“You’re right. I should have told you sooner. I should have told you right away, but I didn’t know you at first. I didn’t expect you to be in that house and I had no idea if I could trust you. Then, once I did, I couldn’t figure out when or how to explain. I just . . .”

Her voice dwindled away, the excuses and explanations dying on her lips. How could she defend herself when she basically agreed with him?

“This was all just a little elaborate, wasn’t it?” he said, finally moving, stalking to the other side of the room. “The whole running away scam? The hiding out? The bag of money? My mother taking it must have made your day! That’s why you’ve been such a good sport about all this, isn’t it? You couldn’t have scripted a better drama. Did you rent that house from her on purpose just hoping she’d take that money?”

“What? No! Of course not. I didn’t script anything. Listen to me, Grant. I broke my show contract and left Beverly Hills because I wanted to be done with all of it, with all the trappings of celebrity and fame. I’m not interested in the spotlight, and that video humiliated me. I thought if I dropped out of sight for a while this would all just go away. But it hasn’t because we got in that stupid accident and left the car behind and got the police involved.”

“So this is my fault then, for getting us into an accident?”

“No, that’s not what I meant, but once the police filed a report and the news media got ahold of it, well, it became impossible to contain. That’s why I told you I had to go home sooner than expected. I have to go back to Beverly Hills and deal with all of this, and I didn’t want you to have to be any part of that. Grant, I didn’t want to lie to you. I hated it, and I swear I was going to tell you everything just as soon as you came back with the coffee.”

“Sure you were. Forgive me if I have a little trouble believing that since you have been lying to me, every single day from the first second we met.”

“That’s not true.”

But it was. She had been lying all that time. Maybe Boyd had started her off on this hit-and-run journey, but she’d taken things further than she’d ever intended. The body count was piling up.

“Not true? That’s a great phrase coming from you. You’re the queen of
not true
, aren’t you? Tell me, did you get any of this on camera for your show?” he rasped. “I hope so. I hope you got that part from last night when I said I was in love with you. You’d better save that footage,
Delaney
, because you’ll sure never hear me say that again.”

Her heart turned to ash. She could practically taste it in her mouth. She stepped toward him but he moved back fast, as if her touch was toxic. He was out of reach, just like the truth had been since the very start. The fight left her. The guilt swooped in to pick away what was left.

“I’m so sorry, Grant. I never meant for any of this to happen,” she whispered.

“Yeah, me neither. So let’s go get your money, and then we can both pretend it never did.”

Chapter 22

THE TAXI RIDE TO GRANT’S
aunt Tina’s house was silent, but inside Delaney’s head were a dozen different voices yelling and screaming. She was desperate for her wallet and phone and cash. She’d relied on Grant for everything over the last few days, and now that he was not there to support her, she was determined to prop herself back up. Once she had her belongings, she’d have some options. Then she could figure out what to do and how to make this right. Because she had to make this right.

That’s what one voice was yelling about, but another voice was mostly just moaning and wailing. How could she have ever anticipated things would get to this? How could she have known that her money would go off on a joyride and she’d have to chase it, and that she’d fall in love with Grant in the process? And she had fallen in love. Of this whole insane mess, that was the only thing she was certain of.

So many of the circumstances since she’d left home had been beyond her control, and her reasoning had seemed justifiable, but as she peeked over at Grant’s rigid profile, she knew she’d taken a lousy situation and made it exponentially worse. Whatever came next, she was done avoiding the blame for her choices. No matter who did what to whom, the only thing that mattered now was what she did about it here and now.

The driver dropped them off in front of a one-story redbrick ranch that had definitely seen better days. The mailbox dangled from the post, and the bushes in front were scraggly and sad. A fitting ambiance to match the mood between them. Delaney got out on her side, slamming the door behind her. Grant got out on his side, said something to the driver, and then handed him some money.

Cab fare. She’d add that to the list of what she owed Grant Connelly. She could pay him back for the food he’d bought for her, the gas that had filled the tank of that yellow Volkswagen, and even the Elvis pajamas. But what was his time worth? How did she pay him back for that? And his heart? What was his heart worth?

Tina met them at the door wearing faded jeans and a yellow University of Tennessee sweatshirt. She was a brown-haired version of Donna, petite and blue eyed. Delaney recognized her from Tyler’s wedding, only she appeared to be significantly more reserved today than she’d been after ten rum and Cokes at the reception.

Tina reached out and clasped Grant’s forearm as they entered the house. “Grant, how are you? I’m so sorry about all this. I honestly had no idea what your mother was up to, but we’ve had a long, serious talk. She’s overwrought.” She let him in and turned to Delaney. “Oh, my dear girl. What a fiasco for you. Please, come on in.”

She led them into a paneled family room, not much different from the one Grant’s mother lived in back in Bell Harbor. Everything was a little messy, a little frayed around the edges, kind of like how Delaney felt. Broken down. Used up. Irreparable.

“Please sit down. Can I get anyone some coffee?”

“Where’s my mom, Aunt Tina? Delaney doesn’t have much time to waste.”

Delaney looked at him and wondered where that had come from. Sure, she wanted this over with, but at this point, what was the rush?

Tina looked confused too. “I’m sorry.
Delaney
?
”

Delaney looked at Grant, wondering if he wanted to go into the full explanation about her name.

“Elaine,” he said tersely, while still looking at his aunt.

Her guilt doubled, as if that was possible. Because of her, he was lying to them. Maybe not in the purest sense of a lie, but he certainly wasn’t telling them the truth. It was a slippery slope that she was very familiar with, but not one she wanted to send him down.

Tina nodded. “Elaine. Won’t you please sit down?” she asked again. Delaney sank onto the sofa and Grant crossed the floor to sit on the edge of a chair near the fireplace, as far as he could get from her and still be in the same room. She could still feel the anger emanating from him and it scraped at her soul. This wound would be a long time in the healing. For both of them.

“So, no coffee then?” Grant’s aunt seemed to be stalling.

“No coffee, Aunt Tina. Thanks, but could you just get my mother out here and give . . . Elaine her bag back?”

Tina sank down next to Delaney. “There’s a little situation, and I wanted to tell you myself. Maybe I should make Donna do it, but she’s so upset, I know it’ll be easier if I just do it.”

“Situation?” His word landed like a brick on cement.

Tina nodded and looked down at her folded hands. “It seems your mother spent more than she previously admitted.”

Grant visibly blanched and Delaney wondered how much worse this would all get before it finally started to get better. If it would get better.

“How much more?” Grant ground out.

“She told me this morning she spent closer to five hundred.”

Delaney exhaled. That was nothing in the scheme of things, but Grant’s jaw flexed in reaction.

“Fine,” he said. “Now would you get my mother please?”

His aunt looked over at him, twisting her fingers in her lap. “Don’t be too hard on her, Grant. She’s terribly ashamed. She knows what she did was wrong and caused all sorts of people all sorts of pain.”

Tina was talking about his mother, but those words could have been directed at Delaney too. She winced at the irony.

Grant’s voice was stilted as he spoke, as if he had to push the words out through his frustration. “I don’t even want to get into that right now, Aunt Tina. All I want is that bag so that
she
can get back home to . . . wherever the hell it is that she lives.” He tilted his head toward Delaney and said
she
as if he couldn’t make himself say her name. Either name. Like the taste of it was so foul on his tongue he couldn’t bear it.

“Here I am,” Donna said softly from the doorway. Her face was splotchy with recently shed tears, and she had her arms wrapped about the backpack as if it were a life preserver. Delaney felt moisture springing to her own eyes. Tears of relief, and sorrow—because Donna Beckett was a sad little woman with a great big problem.

Grant stood up quickly, but Delaney couldn’t. Her legs had turned to Jell-O—warm, jiggly Jell-O—and didn’t seem to function.

Tina wiped her hands down the front of her Tennessee sweatshirt, just like Delaney had seen Donna do a dozen times.

“I’ll do my best to pay you back,” Donna whispered, staring at a spot just next to Delaney, as if she couldn’t quite make eye contact.

“Yes, you will,” Grant said, but his voice wasn’t sharp any longer, or harsh. Just . . . efficient, pragmatic, emotionless. He reached over and took the bag from her, then looked at his aunt.

“Aunt Tina, is there somewhere I could talk to . . . Elaine for a minute. In private?” he asked.

“Uh, of course. There’s the guestroom just down there.”

Tina pointed to a narrow, paneled hallway and Grant stepped toward it. He ignored his mother and looked back at Delaney, his face still Mount Rushmore stony. His expression hadn’t changed since they’d left the hotel. “Come on,” he said to her.

The other women exchanged glances but said nothing.

Delaney stood up and followed him reluctantly down the hall on those wobbly Jell-O legs. They went into a small, square bedroom full of old pine furniture and a threadbare lavender bedspread dotted with faded flowers. Grant slammed the door behind them, and she jumped at the boom of it. Then he chucked the backpack onto the bed.

“Dump it out.” His voice remained flat and detached, but still, his words surprised her.

“What?”

“Dump it out on the bed. Make sure all your stuff is there.” He crossed his arms and stared at the lavender bedspread rather than at her.

She looked at him a minute, watching for any signs of softening, but there were none. She unbuckled the bag and turned it over above the mattress. Her hands quivered, not from the motion of emptying the bag, but from the collateral damage of this whole situation. Stack upon stack of banded bills bounced on the purple-flowered coverlet, along with several loose twenties. She jiggled the bag again, and out came her wallet and her phone. Then she unzipped the side pocket to see that her laptop was right where it was supposed to be.

“Is everything in your wallet?” he said.

She zipped the laptop pocket back up and set the backpack on the bed. She picked up her red leather wallet and unsnapped it. It seemed the same, filled with her license, various debit and credit cards. “It doesn’t look like anything is missing.” She slid it back into the bag and started to scoop up the money.

“Count it.” He ground out those words like a cigarette butt under his heel.

“Excuse me?” Her hands paused in their stuffing of the sack.

“Count it. Make sure your money is all there.”

He was doing this just to aggravate her. She could tell. “Your mother said she only spent five hundred dollars. I believe her.”

“Well, I don’t. She’s as much of a liar as you are. Count the fucking money.” Now he sounded pissed. And it pissed her off in return. Something deep inside snapped.

“Fuck you, Grant. I’m not going to count the money. I don’t care about it. I don’t care if she spent five hundred or five thousand or all of it. This whole trip was never about getting my money back. It was about me keeping my
privacy
. I know you think I did all this as some sort of publicity stunt, but nothing could be farther from the truth. I have no idea why Boyd released that awful video, but that’s what I’ve been running from. Not to create ratings. Not to make myself famous. And certainly not to make a fool of anyone. The only fool here is me. I should have stayed put in Beverly Hills and taken my hits instead of running away and dragging anyone else into this mess.”

A car honked from the driveway.

He paused for a moment, still staring at the bed and not her, but then he gave an abrupt tilt of his head toward the door. “That’s your cab. I told him you’d need a ride back to the hotel in fifteen minutes. Looks like our time is up.”

Our time is up. No subtle innuendo there. She knew exactly what he meant. They were done.

“That’s it? You think I’m just going to leave with so much unresolved here? Grant—”

His gaze snapped to her, like a slap to her skin. “What’s to resolve? We came down here to get your bag. There it is. You have it. My mother will have to figure out a way to pay you back that five hundred dollars, and the six months of rent. Frankly, that’s not my problem. You can work that out with her.”

She took a step closer. “Could we talk about this, please? I know you’re angry and you have every right to be, but I wish you’d give me a chance to explain things better.”

He scoffed at that. “I think I’m pretty clear on the chain of events, and I think I’ve been more than accommodating,
Miss Masterson
. Maybe you’re used to people coddling you on your TV show, but I’m not a groupie, and I’ve done my time. You’re on your own now. I’ll be riding back to Michigan with my mother.”

God, he was angry, so angry, but those sweet, loving moments they’d shared had been real, and somehow she had to make him see that. Remember that. She had to make him listen through his frustration and cynicism. She had to make him hear
her
.

“Grant, do you want to know why I didn’t tell you sooner? Why I couldn’t?”

He looked down and crossed his arms. His chest rose and fell in a shallow breath and Delaney’s heart split in two. His anger was easier to take than this sense of him being wounded.

He shook his head and kept his voice low. “It doesn’t matter.”

Maybe it didn’t matter to him, but it mattered to her, and she knew unequivocally if she held anything back now she would regret it, always.

“I didn’t tell you sooner because I loved the way you looked at me. You looked at me as if I was sweet, like I was somebody
worth
caring for, somebody easy to love. Not because you wanted something from me, or from my family. And yes, I lied about the details of my life, but what you’ve seen in the last few days is everything about me that’s real. I wasn’t playing. I fell in love with you for a dozen different reasons, but most of all because of how I felt,
how I feel
, when I’m with you. And the truth is, no matter how much this hurts right now, I’m never going to regret this time together because this has been the best week of my life. No one ever saw me the way you did, and no one else ever will.”

The muscles in his jaw clenched and she could see him working through his thoughts, and she hoped against hope he’d forgive her, but the taxi honked again, and he shook off the trance.

He walked over to the bedroom door and opened it. “Your cab is waiting.”

She stood in place. “I didn’t lie about falling in love with you.”

He finally looked at her then, his beautiful eyes meeting hers, and regret shackled to her heart.

“I don’t care.” His voice was a whisper but may as well have been a whip for the way it sliced. “Your cab is here.
Delaney.
”