*
I’ve lived in California my whole life, except for graduate school in New Orleans. I’ve taken the tours of the homes of Hollywood stars. Impressive real estate isn’t hard to find, but nothing prepared me for the house we park in front of. If Martha Stewart designed a military base, this is what it would look like—a first-class bunker.
To my surprise, there’s no press out front. I’m not happy about the way things went down this morning, but it appears Geoffrey got me out of there just in time. We haven’t had any paparazzi following us.
A large iron gate greets us. A huge wall covered in greenery and vines surrounds the property. I’m surprised you don’t need a retinal scan to get into the place, but a simple code is all the driver uses. The driveway could put the yellow brick road to shame, but the main house looks like it belongs in Cape Cod. I can’t count the number of windows, all flanked by dark green shutters, with a shingled roof adoring the top. Beautiful flowers hang from the trellis. The garage looks like it can hold at least six cars, but the SUV pulls right in front of the house.
Geoffrey gets my door. My sock-covered feet hit the stone driveway, and I look up at the massive house before me. It’s beautiful, but no amount of beauty is going to improve my mood. I’m pissed, scared, confused. And I feel lost without my phone. This baby was enough of a surprise, I certainly didn’t need to add this kidnapping or being a tabloid darling to the mix.
Geoffrey leads me inside. I see several security cameras along the way, completing the house arrest vibe. The marble foyer connects to a huge den. The entire back wall is glass, with a vast view of the ocean, but other than that, the room is empty. But it doesn’t matter because nothing can distract me from the righteous anger boiling in my stomach. And I know just who to take it out on.
Ryder is standing by the windows wearing jeans and a simple white t-shirt. When his blue eyes land on me, I notice how tired he looks, and my fury softens. No! The only feeling I want to have for him is anger. Like I said, he basically kidnapped me. I’ve never hit anyone in my life, but my palm is twitching as I march toward him. A hard slap across his face would serve him right.
Instead, his smile surprises me, his words halting my impending attack.
“Welcome home.”
CHAPTER SIX
Said the words I knew you wanted to hear
We went too far—way too far
Ryder
The slap across the face I was expecting didn’t come. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman slapped me, but it looks like I’ve avoided another blow for now. Instead, her pink, pouty lips have fallen open, her blue eyes are bigger than usual, and she’s tugging at her blonde hair.
Apparently unable to find her voice, she blinks a few times, then turns on her heel and heads right for the front door. Geoffrey looks at me, wondering if he should stop her. I shake my head at him, motioning him to please wait outside. His job is to protect, not control.
This is my job.
Suddenly, she turns around, her finger pointed right in my face. “You!”
She says it like she’s calling me the worst cuss word in the book. It’s adorable, but I do my best not to let her know. It’s never a good idea to smile at a woman when she’s angry, only pisses them off more. I know she’s mad, but damn, I just want to grab her and kiss her.
“You orchestrated this. When you were giving that interview, you knew exactly what you were doing.” She huffs around, clearly searching for the right name to call me. “You. You. You asshole.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Liar! You’ve been doing interviews forever. You could do it in your sleep, you baited them.”
“No, I was tired and distracted, and I slipped up. It happens,” I say.
“Oh, yeah, when’s the last time you slipped up in an interview?”
“Kailey?”
“If you think I’m going to move in here with you, you are even . . .”
“I don’t live here,” I say, which renders her speechless again. “This house is for you.” I reach out toward her belly. “For both of you.”
She steps back, shaking her head with the most disgusted look on her face. “I don’t want this house,” she says. “I don’t want anything from you. I told you that.”
“You can’t continue to live in your sister’s backyard.”
“Why not?”
“Everyone knows who you are now. Soon enough, they’ll know you’re having my baby. You’ll be followed everywhere you go. Chased on the street. You’ll have no privacy. It’s not safe for you to be alone. This house is very secure, and Geoffrey will be assigned to you full-time, and . . .”
She looks out toward the window, the ocean. I can see her thinking, wheels spinning in her head, the full magnitude of how her life is going to change hitting her. Her voice determined, she says, “No.”
“I know you’re mad at me. You have every right to be, but you wanted me to know about the baby. It’s my job as a father to protect both you and my child.”
“So kidnapping me and locking me away in a fortress is your version of protection?” she demands.
“You can’t go to your sister’s,” I say.
“Geoffrey could just as easily babysit me there.”
“You’re trying to negotiate with me?”
“I don’t negotiate the terms of my life,” she says, glaring at me. “I’m not living here.”
“Then you’ll live with me,” I say, my voice growing sharper than I intended.
“Will you be there the next morning when I wake up?” she snaps. “Because if you’re going to disappear again, then maybe . . .”
“This is the exact reason why I left,” I say, throwing my hands up. “That picture.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That picture of us,” I explain. “My publicist got wind that a news outlet had that picture of us. She came by my hotel room early in the morning after we . . . You were still asleep. Apparently, some fan had sold it to a tabloid site. I knew if it got out, it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out who you were. I wanted to protect you from all this chaos. We’d only just met. I was hoping we’d have more time before the press found out. More time to prepare you.”
“You expect me to believe you left me alone in bed because you were protecting me?”
“It’s the truth. As soon as I found out about the picture, I paid the tabloid for it, and they promised not to reveal anything.”
“If you paid them, and everything was fine, why leave?” she asks.
Fuck, she’s smart. “That picture, the threat of having you exposed. It was a reminder of how crazy things can get. I didn’t want to drag you into that.”
“So you gave up on me that easily?” she asks.
“It wasn’t easy,” I say, softly. “But I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“So then how did the picture end up with your interviewer the other day?” she asks.
“That was . . .”
“I did that,” Maggie says, walking into the room, the sound of her heels clicking on the floor. Kailey looks at me then back to Maggie. “Ryder had no idea until after the fact,” Maggie says.