Dirk gave him a wave.
Maddy said, “Dirk. Sergei. Walk the perimeter, or whatever. Just find something to do outside for an hour.”
The bodyguards didn’t look happy, but a few seconds later, they were out the door.
Maddy turned a too-bright smile on him. “So. How ’bout a beer?”
He pulled her close again and gazed steadily into those aquamarine eyes. “What’s going on?”
She scraped her pretty teeth along her lower lip. “Let’s at least go in the great room and sit down.”
His general uneasiness growing once more, he followed her in there and dropped down on the couch beside her. “Okay. What?”
“The paparazzi showed up again today—out on the beach. And I know how this goes. Today, there were six of them. Tomorrow there will be more.” She looked so worried. He didn’t really get why a few eager-beaver reporters alarmed her. At the same time, he needed to protect her, to know that she felt safe. Thus, he wanted to break a few expensive cameras just on principle.
“Hey.” Sliding a hand under the silky fall of her hair, he tugged her close and brushed a kiss between her brows. He kept his voice gentle when he asked, “Did they harass you?”
“Other than the general annoyance of knowing they were out there lurking, waiting for a chance to get the perfect shot of me doing something sexy, illegal or outrageous, no. I stayed in the house where they couldn’t use their telephoto lenses on me. They aren’t allowed on private property, so they never left the beach—until Sergei and Dirk arrived to scare them away.”
“If you were that freaked about it, I wish you had called me.”
“I wasn’t freaked. I know how this works, that’s all. I was lucky, really, to get a whole month here before they found me.”
“So, we’ll have Dirk and Sergei in the spare rooms from now on?” It didn’t sound great, but if she needed them to feel safe, she should have them.
“Sten.”
Leaning close again, he pressed his forehead to hers and breathed in the spicy-sweet scent of her skin. “You look so down. Why?”
She pulled back. Reluctantly, he released her. “It’s time for me to go back to LA.”
Every nerve in his body rebelled at that. And suddenly there was a weird ache in the center of his chest. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. They still had time. “What are you talking about? You have the cottage for two more weeks.”
“I know. But I can’t stay.”
“Yes, you—”
She silenced him with two soft fingertips against his lips. “I know you don’t understand. You live in this beautiful place and nobody bothers you. Well, as of now, you will be bothered if I stay here. They’ll descend in force and they’ll not only be looking for pictures, they will want the story, to knowwhyI suddenly decided to go incognito for a month in some tiny town in Oregon. It’ll just be a circus and I’m not up for that. I’ve called my family and let them know I’m leaving. They weren’t any happier about it than I am, but at least we connected. I have some time yet, before my next movie. Harper and Hailey might be able to make it for a visit to LA.”
He couldn’t sit still. He jumped up, went to the window and stood staring blindly out. “I guess I’m just not ready for you to go.” He faced her then.
She was on her feet, so beautiful, with those eyes he would never get enough of staring into, that mouth he couldn’t wait to kiss. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
He went to her, took her by her slim shoulders. “This is just crazy. Come on, you don’t have to go.”
Her soft lips were trembling. “Oh, Sten. Are you...?”
“What?”
She scanned his face as though seeking the answer to some major question. “I mean, well, it would be different. We could take a different approach to this problem, if we were in it for, um, more.” What she said wasn’t clear.
But he understood her anyway. He let his hands drop to his sides. “More.”
She tipped her chin higher. “I think I told you, I have two upcoming projects I can’t get out of. That could add up to a year, possibly longer, of work I’m committed to. There will be media, PR stuff I have to do after that, promotion for both projects, awards seasons, all that. If we were together, we would essentially find a way to come out as a couple. Maybe a magazine interview, maybe a press conference, whatever. You would have to deal with the media, at least to a degree. For a while, I mean. But give me the next two or three years, and I’m done. I’m not doing another film. It won’t be that long before I’m old news. We could make a plan to settle here, in Valentine Bay.”
It sounded sopossiblewhen she put it like that. He really needed to watch it, keep both feet firmly on solid ground or she’d have him convinced that it was all going to magically work out and they could wander off into the sunset together. “Come on. You don’t really mean that. You won’t really like the quiet life. You’re Madison Delaney, damn it.”
She drew herself up. “I’ve been telling you since I got here what I’m going to do and I’ve meant it every time I’ve said it. I’ve loved my career and I know I’ve been spectacularly fortunate. I’ve had all the breaks. It’s been great, but I’m so done. I want areallife now, to walk down the street and have nobody care. To be with my family, to have friends I can count on who can count on me back, to...learn to lay tile. To open a kids’ party business with my sisters. I want to get married—toyou, Sten. I want us to have kids. I want to yell too loud at our little girl’s soccer games and cry with love and pride when our son has a solo in the school Christmas show. I want an ordinary, everyday life—with you, I hope. But one way or another, I am making big changes, making a new kind of life for myself, I truly am.”
