Riding the Line (15 page)

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Authors: Kate Pearce

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: Riding the Line
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‘So what happened?’
‘Me. I didn’t show up on time, I was a total bitch, I didn’t know my lines, I had tantrums about the color of the food . . . You name it and I did it. Every Hollywood cliché about spoilt young stars, I tried it out. Eventually, the studio lost patience and canned the show.’
‘Why didn’t anyone stop you?’
‘By then I was surrounded by people whose best interests lay in keeping me happy so that they got paid. They didn’t care about me, only about what they could get out of me.’
‘What about your mom?’
Robyn shrugged. ‘She was too busy shacking up with her fourth husband to care about me. She’d gotten what she wanted out of me and I was no longer important.’
Dakota stared at her. Despite her calm tone he could tell she wasn’t unaffected by her experiences. How could she be? Abandoned by those who should’ve looked after her and indulged by a group of people out for themselves – it was a wonder she was still functioning. He glanced at her wrists, saw the scars that hadn’t quite disappeared. Coldness settled over his gut.
‘Did you try to kill yourself?’
She shrugged and returned her gaze to the ceiling. ‘A couple of times in my late teens. It wasn’t much fun.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
She turned to stare at him, reached for his hand. ‘God, Dakota, I forgot about your mom. I didn’t mean to make you remember all that shit.’
He swallowed hard. ‘It’s OK, I asked you.’
‘It’s not, but one thing I can promise you is that you don’t have to worry I’ll do that while I’m with you. I realized life was way too valuable to throw away.’
‘How did you do that?’ he whispered. ‘How did you get to that place?’
She held his gaze. ‘Because someone I love showed me how precious life really is and it was enough of a shock to make me reconsider how stupidly I was behaving.’ Her mouth quirked at the corner. ‘And I was always stubborn. I refused to do what everyone expected me to.’
He stared at her with new respect. She’d survived more than he had and come through it. Hell, she deserved to be a bit touchy sometimes. It was probably how she’d dealt with all the crap.
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ Robyn said.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re making me nervous.’
‘You make me nervous all the time; you constantly keep me on my toes.’
‘But that’s because I’m a bitch.’
‘You’re a pussy cat.’ He smiled at her and she scowled back.
‘I like being a bitch.’
‘I noticed.’ He took her hand, brought it to his mouth and kissed her palm.
She sighed and let her hand lie in his. ‘Dakota, you know you’re way too nice to me, don’t you?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He kissed her fingers, drew her thumb into his mouth and slowly sucked it.
Her breath hissed through her teeth. ‘The thing is, I don’t want to hurt you and I know I will.’
‘How the hell can you know that?’
‘Because that’s who I am, that’s what I do.’
He released her hand and sat up. She continued to study him, her eyes half wary, half hopeful.
‘Maybe things will be different this time, honey.’
‘Because you’re so perfect?’
He smiled slowly. ‘You see? I told you you’d see it my way sooner or later. I am perfect. I am a god.’
‘You’re delusional.’
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, banged his knee on an open drawer and cursed. ‘I can’t wait to get out of this horse trailer, that’s for sure. I hate this lack of space.’
‘Where will you park this thing in LA?’
‘At the studio where they’re making the commercial. Jay assured me they had the space.’
‘And you’re going to sleep in it while you work?’
He stood up and stretched, grimaced as his bones cracked. ‘No way. They’ve got me a hotel room.’
‘Oh.’
He turned to look at her. She was pleating the bedcover with her fingers.
‘What’s up?’
‘I’m not sure exactly where I’m staying when we reach LA.’
He sat back on the side of the bed so that he could see her face more clearly. ‘Don’t you have an apartment or something?’
‘I
have
an apartment, but I’m not sure if I’ll be welcome back there.’
He chuckled. ‘What did you do? Set fire to it?’
She didn’t smile back. ‘It’s not what I did, more of who still lives there.’
‘Let me guess, the sleazebag ex who can only get it up once a night.’
‘Yeah.’
He took her hand, felt it trembling. Unaccustomed anger threaded through him. He tried to calm down, to keep his questions casual. ‘Does he own the place?’
‘No, I do. After I reached twenty-one and tried to unravel some of the trusts Mom had supposedly set up for me, I realized I was almost broke. I managed to retrieve enough money to buy myself a place to live and I’ve been there ever since.’
Great, so her mom had stolen all her earning as well
. Mom sounded like the perfect match for Dakota’s birth-father, the notorious Beau Turner, ex-football great and current oil magnate. The pair of them made him want to puke. Awkwardly he patted Robyn’s thigh.
‘You can stay with me until you figure out what to do.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know how long that will take. I’m kind of out of ideas.’
Dakota studied her. Would this be a good time to tell her he’d like to meet the asshole and string him up or would that be coming on too strong? After all, they weren’t even really a couple and his caveman act might scare her away completely.
‘Listen, stay with me, we’ll figure something out.’
He flinched as she flung herself at his chest, wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek.
‘Thank you, Dakota.’ She kissed him again, this time on the mouth. ‘You really are too good to be true.’
He tried to pull away. ‘Don’t say that. I’m just a crappy guy.’
‘But you’re my crappy guy.’
He let her draw him into the kiss, enjoying her softness and the simple pleasure of her in his arms. Was it really possible to be too nice? Did she really see him as her guy or was she just messing with his head? He drew back and cleared his throat.
‘Time to get moving. If we get a wiggle on, we’ll be in California by nightfall.’
She released her grip on his shoulders. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘If you want to get out of this truck, then yeah.’
She shoved the hair out of her eyes and stared at him. ‘I suppose it is, but I’ve kind of enjoyed spending time with you.’
He managed a smile. ‘Driving me nuts, you mean.’
‘You are so easy to tease, Dakota Scott.’
‘Right back at ya.’ He tipped an imaginary hat and headed toward the tiny bathroom. Her laughter followed him inside and he grinned at his reflection in the mirror. Best to keep it light, best not to tell her how he was starting to feel. Every time they got close, she used her wits to back away from him – he understood that now, even enjoyed the challenge. His smile died. But would she ever take him seriously? Did she truly believe she’d destroy him?
Robyn stared at the flimsy bathroom door as Dakota slid it shut behind him. He was way too good to her. She knew it and yet it was hard to resist the temptation to be cherished and looked after. She flopped back down on to the bed, arms spread wide.
She hadn’t intended to tell him about Damien Pardini and the situation with her apartment, she’d intended to handle it herself. Not that Dakota had suggested he would interfere, but she knew him well enough now to recognize what he would consider the right thing to do. She almost wished he would beat the crap out of Damien, but she knew it wouldn’t be right. If there was any justice in the world, Damien would get his, without her or Dakota’s interference.
Dakota was willing to let her stay with him until she was ready to leave. The fact that she wanted to stay frightened her. Had she simply leapt from dependency on one man straight to another? She shook her head. No way. Her relationship with Dakota was different. He liked her, he allowed her to be her bitchy self, and even though he was bigger and stronger, she never felt in the least bit threatened. He just wasn’t the type of guy who would hit a woman; she knew it in her heart.
Idly she wondered how long he would stay in LA. Long enough for them to get to know each other better, she hoped.
‘God, no!’
She clapped a hand over her mouth and hoped Dakota hadn’t heard her over the roar of the shower. How many times did she have to remind herself that she wasn’t in a healthy enough place to have a relationship? Dammit, it had taken her ten years to reach a point in her life where she’d begun to believe her feelings and opinions mattered, only one year for Damien to knock her right back down again.
She sat up and reached for her hairbrush. Combing her hair always soothed her when she was agitated. But had Damien pushed her right back down? No, she hadn’t started taking drugs or abusing alcohol again. She’d gotten out of the situation and walked away from him with her pride intact. That was good, right? She’d learnt to protect herself.
Her fingers began automatically braiding her hair. A small sense of pride settled in her stomach. Finally she’d learnt something. If she chose to stay with Dakota, she also now knew that she had the ability to walk away.
Chapter Twelve
 
‘God, I hate LA.’
Dakota frowned as he tried to change lanes on the freeway and was met with a barrage of horns and shouted insults. The only good thing was that with the size of his rig, no one was too keen to get in his way. He maneuvered the truck into the inside lane and abruptly came to a dead stop. Luckily, the brakes were working fine now. The traffic never seemed to get above five miles an hour and there seemed to be no reason for it either.
‘That’s the exit you want.’ Robyn jabbed at the map and then pointed to the right.
‘Yeah, I got that.’ He clicked on his turn signal. ‘Hang on, honey, big guy coming through.’
He managed to turn down the ramp and slowly drew clear of the tangled traffic on to another wide five-lane road.
‘Jay wrote down the instructions to get to the Just Enough Productions film lot. They’re in with the map. Can you read his scrawl?’
Robyn found the directions and started to read as Dakota slowly approached the next set of lights. He glanced at her again, noticed her brow furrowing.
‘Can you make it out? I need some help here.’
She smiled at him. ‘It’s OK. I know where they are. They’re quite close to Universal Studios.’
‘And that is where?’
She looked up and surveyed the street. ‘Not that far. Just keep going straight for another five blocks.’ She folded up the bigger map and set the written notes on top of it. ‘Haven’t you ever been to Universal?’
‘Why should I? I’m not an actor, I’m just a country boy at heart.’
‘I meant to the amusement park, dummy.’
He adjusted his sun visor against the glare coming off the road. ‘I might’ve when I was younger, but not in the last twenty years.’
‘I had a job there once.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah, in the lost years, as I call them. I needed money to feed my addictions, so I used to work as a character actress at the big theme parks when they needed someone to step in.’
‘It sounds like hell, being nice to kids all day.’
‘It wasn’t that bad. I kind of liked being a princess for a day.’ She shrugged. ‘It helped me forget about myself. Some of the other costumes, the ones you had to zip yourself into, sucked. I almost passed out from the heat once right on top of some poor little kid.’
‘I bet you made a beautiful princess.’
She looked over the top of her sunglasses at him. ‘What have I told you about being a suck-up?’
‘That it’s not necessary because you already think I’m perfect. Have I gotten that right?’
She snorted and hunched her shoulder at him.
He made a satisfied sound. ‘See? Now you’re speechless with awe. I like that in a woman.’
He flinched as she whacked his arm.
‘Hey, no hitting the driver! That’s not fair.’
‘I’m not continuing this conversation, Dakota, because you are an idiot. I
am
going to tell you to change lanes because you need to turn right at the next corner.’
He grinned and checked his mirrors before moving to the right. He loved it when she got all cool and haughty on him. The light changed and he turned the wheel into a slightly narrower street shadowed by tall industrial-sized buildings.
‘Hey, Robyn, I’ve just realized how you can earn your keep.’

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