His head dipped low, silky black strands of hair falling into his eyes. “If you’re uncomfortable, I can create a distraction, and you can run.”
“No. It’s fine.”
His hand fisted on the wall next to her head, and her breathing grew deeper, to match his. With the way his body was positioned, it probably did look like they were just a couple kissing or intimately embracing. Only they knew they weren’t touching at all.
Except for where their breath intermingled. He smelled so good. Expensive and woodsy. Like a fancy forest.
The cage grew warm, and so did she.
She moved slightly. Not to force a touch! That would be wrong. As wrong as the little tingles that raced over herskin. They stood there like that for a few seconds, or maybe minutes, she didn’t know, until Dev risked a glance to the side. “I think they’re gone.”
Who?“Oh. Good.”
His breath puffed against her skin. “Do you have a ride home?”
“Yes.” She looked up at him. “He’ll pick me up on Almont. What about you?”
“I’ll call a car. I don’t care if I get photographed by myself.”
She nodded, unable to think clearly. He smelled so good, expensive and soothing. “Okay.” Her phone vibrated. Gerald. “My ride’s here.”
He looked around more carefully, his dark eyebrows meeting over his eyes. Big and protective. Like a sexy bodyguard.
No! Her body wasn’t being anything-ed by this famous virtual stranger, let alone guarded. “Coast seems clear.”
He took a large step back, and she immediately had to bury the yearning she felt for his warmth. They stared at each other for a moment. It wasn’t often that she felt shy. “Okay. Goodbye.” That’s right. It was a goodbye, not a see you later.
He nodded, but didn’t say the word back to her. “I wish there was something I could do to make this all up to you.”
“I don’t think there is.” Which was too bad.
His lips turned down. “Please let me know if you change your mind.”
Jia turned on her heel and walked away, the back of her neck hot. She tried to resist glancing over her shoulder, shereally did. But when she reached the road where Gerald had pulled up, she couldn’t restrain herself.
Dev stood right where she’d left him. He raised a hand, and she did the same, then got into her car. The door closing was a metaphor for his exit from her life.
That’s what she’d tell herself.
“Is everything okay?” Gerald asked.
“Yup.” Her voice sounded higher than normal, though. Everything was cool. She’d been catfished as some kind of family prank, and the man whose face they’d used had tried to buy her silence and then she’d smelled him and it had made her tummy drop. A totally normal night.
She covered her hot face with her hands.Should have taken the check.Then she might have gotten something out of this whole debacle.
Chapter Eight
JIA SIPPEDher latte and pretended not to stare at the girl dancing on the other side of the pool. She knew of her, Harley, a teenager who had moved into an apartment in the building a few months ago. Jia tried not to be the fuddy-duddy grandma who wondered where the kid’s parents were, but seriously, the girl was definitely under eighteen, where were her parents?
Off enjoying the girl’s money, most likely, in their new Hollywood Hills home. Word on the street was that Harley gained about a hundred thousand followers a day on her platform of choice and easily made five or six figures on a fifteen-second post.
Don’t be bitter. You cannot compare success.
Jia returned to the legal pad she’d balanced on her knees, filled with scribbled ideas for new content. She couldn’t dance, she was shit at lip-synching, and her expertise was in long-form original videos, not fifteen-second clips borrowing someone else’s music. She doodled a heart in the corner. Maybe at twenty-nine, she was a grandma.
Harley finished her dance and downed a water bottlebefore packing up her ring light and tripod. Their eyes met across the pool, and Jia tried to pretend she was still working and not spying on the girl.
It must not have worked, because the lithe brunette crossed the distance, her gear in tow. Her face was flushed. “Hey!”
