This was just so juicy. After everything that had happened between Elliott and me, it pissed off my father as a special added bonus. What a treat.
“You’re never going to see him again,” Dad continued, ranting and raving and sounding like a crazy man. “Do you hear me? You’re never going to see him again.”
“Right, right.” I nodded, barely listening as he continued his ranting. “I need to go. I have to pack to get back to LA, okay?”
“We’re going to talk about this when you get home,” he warned me, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I hated when he talked to me like I was still some kind of naughty teenager.
“Fine,” I snapped before hanging the phone up. I grinned and reached down to dial Elliott’s number. I had to talk to him. I had to see if he knew.
After a few rings, he answered the phone and sounded excited to be talking to me so soon.
“Aria?”
“Elliott,” I greeted him urgently, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Claude wasn’t hovering to report back to my father, as he must have done with our date last night. “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay,” he said, and I could hear him panting slightly as he caught his breath from his run.
“You know who I am, right?”
“Yeah, I do,” he finally admitted. “I Googled you after what happened last night.”
“Okay, well, it turns out my father knows who you are as well,” I went on. “And more importantly, he knows who your father is.”
“And?” He sounded confused.
“I just got a call from my dad about us going out last night,” I explained as quickly as I could, shooting a look over my shoulder again to check that Claude hadn’t materialized in the doorway in the time I’d been on the phone. “He’s mad. Really mad. He seems to have some kind of problem with your father from way back in the day.”
“Oh, really?” Elliott said, “I wonder what that’s all about.” I could hear the smile curling his lips at the revelation. “So I suppose that means we probably shouldn’t see each other anymore, then?”
“I guess that’s what it means…” I agreed, and then paused. “Although…”
“Although it would be a really easy way to piss them off if we were to keep seeing each other,” he reasoned mildly, as though the thought had just popped into his head. I grinned broadly.
“Yeah, I guess it would be,” I said, playing innocent. “So, I guess we shouldn’t do that?”
“We totally shouldn’t,” he agreed, and then paused again. “So, when am I going to visit you in LA?”
“I’ll call you as soon as I get home,” I promised and hung up the phone. I tossed it into my bag and glanced down the beach. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Not only was he gorgeous, sexy, and charming as hell, but his very existence in my life would be enough to send my father into fits of rage.
And maybe, just maybe, Daddy would keep his nose out of my business for a while.
Chapter Nine
Elliott
As soon as I arrived in LA, something in me relaxed, something that hadn’t been able to unwind since we’d parted ways the week before.
Even though I stayed at Sand Dollar Beach, I found myself checked out, not caring much about anything but exchanging flirty texts with Aria and ignoring the other women Tucker tried to toss in my direction.
I should’ve been doing a better job of being his wingman, but I couldn’t find it in me to do it. My mind was elsewhere.
With Aria.
I loved that our minds had both jumped to the same place as soon as we found out the situation between our families. And I wondered how bad things were for her in their hoity-toity Hollywood home if she’d been so willing to toss it all away just to go out with me.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t come up during the first trip I made down to see her. I rented a sleek Mercedes and drove from Sand Dollar to Los Angeles, enjoying the romantic notion of seeing her again.
Once I made it to LA, I picked her up a few blocks from her house early in the morning so her bodyguard wouldn’t follow us. I still couldn’t believe I was dating a girl with a bodyguard. Fuck, I couldn’t believe I was dating a girl with a fanbase, an agent and a face that popped up on billboards all the time.
Now that I knew who she was, I felt stupid for thinking she could ever have been anything other than famous and adored. I should’ve known just by looking at her. It was written all over her, the way she looked, the way she moved, the way she carried herself. She was a celebrity. But I also understood why she didn’t want me to know.
“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” Aria giggled as she tumbled into the seat next to mine. She caught my face in her hands and leaned over to plant a kiss on my lips.
“Me neither.” I grinned back, looking her up and down. She looked good, and her energy and presence made me feel complete.
I needed the whole girl in front of me. I felt bad for the people who only got to see her on camera. They had no idea what they were missing out on. But then, I was glad because it meant I got to keep her all to myself.
“So, what are we doing now that I’m here?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. Part of me wanted her to invite me into her house so we could spend the whole day in bed, but I figured that wasn’t likely.
“I want to show you around Los Angeles,” she exclaimed excitedly. The thrill in her voice was infectious.
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot planned for me,” I remarked, and she nodded, pulling out her phone.
“I made a map,” she explained, shoving it beneath my nose. “I want to show you everything you would have missed if you came down here without me as your tour guide.”
“A little presumptuous,” I teased.
“You’ll thank me later,” she assured me. “Now come on, let’s get out of here.”
We spent the day driving around LA, hopping out to explore the little corners of LA she was so eager to show me. We avoided the more crowded spots, so we didn’t have to deal with a paparazzi situation again. She showed me little hole-in-the-wall restaurants where we grabbed lunch and dinner, as well as parks and a nature walk that led us high above everything and let us look down at the city below. So far removed from the real world, I could almost forget there was anything in the way of us being together.
She linked her fingers through mine and looked at me, and something swelled in my chest, something I didn’t recognize. Instantly, though, I knew I wanted more of it. And then, the moment receded. I wanted to reach out and touch my fingers to her face, but before I could even move, she turned and skipped back toward the car, all giddy with excitement and glee at being so far away from her bodyguard and her father and her fans for a change. She seemed so much more relaxed now that I knew the truth, as though something had been lifted from her.
We couldn’t spend much more time together before either her bodyguard made a serious attempt to come find her or the streets started thronging with enough people who would recognize her and swallow us up in a frenzy of fandom. She pressed her forehead to the window of the car as the city lights whipped by us.
“Are you all right?” I asked. She nodded, putting a smile on as soon as she realized I was paying attention to her.