I’m pretty sure I hear Janie mutter, “I do,” but I ignore that because I’m starting to catch on to Donovan’s plan, and it’s terrible. But it might be the only one we’ve got.
Besides, no one has ever accused me of being shy before, and her judgment stings more than it should. She doesn’t know me. What right does she have to think I’m something I’m not?
Hoping this somehow helps me take some control over the situation, I tug my shirt over my head and set it on the nearest shelf so I can grab the orange shirt from Donovan. I don’t let myself look at her face while I change, in case she doesn’t like what she sees and knocks my ego down a peg or two.
“Huh. I wondered if the muscle was all post-production magic,” Donovan says when I’m halfway into the new shirt. “Guess I was wrong.”
My hand slips in my effort to tug the shirt down, catching on a bowl and sending it shattering on the laminate floor. I scramble to pull the shirt over my torso and free my head, and then both of us look down at the ceramic pieces littered around our feet.
I look up at Chuck, mortified by my reaction to Donovan’s indirect compliment when people have been saying similar things to me for almost two decades. “I’m sorry,” I choke out.
The man is dazed, eyes fixed on me rather than the ruined pottery. “Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles airily.
I’m already prepared to pay for everything in his store, but that bowl is going to haunt me. I wish I could kick the pieces under the shelf and pretend the last ten minutes haven’t happened. But I can’t dwell on the mistake because my full focus is pulled back to the woman in front of me.
Donovan bites her lip, looking ready to laugh as her eyes take in the orange shirt I’m now wearing. Then they drop lower. “Now the pants, City Boy.”
Chapter Four
Donovan
Ishouldn’thavesaidit.
I’m not used to running into celebrities in my small town, and it’s been a while since I felt panicked like I did when I saw the hoard of rabid fans trying to knock down the shop’s door. Even if Derek Riley represents so many things I hate, there is no circumstance in which telling him to take off his clothes is okay.
Who’d have thought my defense mechanism would be trying to knock him off balance? I’ve mostly just made myself look unhinged because my attempt didn’t work. Which I should have expected, given who he is.
While I don’t pretend to keep up with celebrity gossip, I’ve read enough to know this guy is virtually unflappable. No matter what the internet throws at him, he handles it all with that perfect smile of his and rarely makes a misstep. If he wasn’t standing right next to me, looking mildly uncomfortable in Chuck’s cargo shorts and sandals, I’d think the Inscrutable Derek Riley was nothing but a Hollywood myth created by visual effects.
But no. He’s very real. And way more handsome than I was expecting.
He’s pretty on the big screen, but so is everyone else in the movies. It’s the benefit of having a special effects team and millions of dollars to back you up. Somehow, Riley looks even better in person, and I hate him for it.
Not actual hate. Just…frustration. He already has money and job security and a good chunk of the world ready to do his bidding. Adding a pretty face and rock-hard abs on top of it all can only feed an ego that must be the size of Texas as it is.
“It’s not going to work,” Derek says, speaking for the first time since I told him to trade pants with Chuck. His voice is stronger than a second ago, more like what I expected from him. Before this, he sounded like a normal guy, but now he’s using that movie star voice that helped make him famous. “He looks nothing like me.”
Poor Chuck deflates. Literally. I think he was puffing out his chest to try to look bigger.
“Oh come on, you’re not that different,” I lie. Chuck is a sweetheart, the soul of an eighty-year-old woman in the body of a twenty-nine-year-old man. He has never felt the need to pump iron, but he does mountain bike. That’s not nothing.
But it’s not at all comparable to the mountain of a man next to me.
I’ve seen some of Derek’s movies. He’s not a small guy, but standing next to him makesmefeel small, which doesn’t happen often. It’s his six feet and three inches of bulk, yes, but there’s also something in his face. In his dark hair, sexy scruff, impossibly blue eyes. He has a commanding presence.
Or he did before I opened my dumb mouth and accidentally turned him into a dress-up doll.
Might as well keep going. I toss Derek’s blue hat to Chuck, who looks like he might kiss the thing before he gently pulls it over his brown curls.
“I could call the police and ask them to escort us back to the hotel,” the gal next to him says, phone in hand and at the ready.
“Not necessary, Janie.” Derek gives her a sharp look.
Janie frowns. “But—”
“No. I don’t want to make things worse.”
“I think we should wait it out, Derek,” the bodyguard says. “They’ll give up eventually.” But then he looks through a crack in his makeshift t-shirt screen—now taped to the window—and grimaces at the squashed face he finds there. He plants his hand in front of the fan and grunts. “Or maybe not.”
