This was it. Red-carpet official.
She would not fall.
A glance at him and his eyes warmed—mostly they were blue, but just around the pupil they turned the color of Dom Pérignon Brut Champagne. They were eyes a girl could get drunk on. He raised his eyebrows as a nearly imperceptible question.
The kiss. They were supposed to do that. Now.
Smile perma-fixed to her lacquered lips, she raised her palm to his cheek and lifted onto her toes so she could press her mouth to his.
As planned, he opened for her, making a good show of it.
That was all this was. A really good show.
Except, at the touch of her lips to his, her insides twisted around themselves. Like the first time she’d set foot at one of her premiers—she’d been twelve and had known instantly that fame was her drug of choice. Right now, she’d trade all of that for more of this. More Tucker. To taste every inch of him. To feel every part.
Damn, she was a good actress. She’d even convinced herself she had feelings for him.
As expected, the paparazzi went bananas.
“Ms. Bennett, when did you and Mr. McKay—”
“How long have you two been to—”
Tucker pulled away. His breath played against her ear. “See, they have no memory of the nightclub.”
One of the click beetles shouted, “Kenzie, is this because you fell in his—”
She turned to Tucker, gave him a they-never-forget look, and mentally checked that her perma-smile remained in place.
“Tucker, will you still be going to Colorado for the holidays?” someone shouted.
Tucker squeezed Kenzie’s hand. “Absolutely.”
“Will Ms. Bennett be going with you?” another shouted.
“We haven’t decided,” Tucker replied.
If there was one thing Kenzie had learned in all her time in front of the cameras—don’t give firm answers. Vague was the name of the game. Unless you wanted reporters to show up somewhere, but she was pretty sure Tucker didn’t want them to descend on his ranch.
Tucker obviously knew the name of the game, too. He squeezed her hip.
She refused to acknowledge the butterflies that flitted around inside at his touch.
They made it to the entry of the theater, the heels of her Louboutins sinking into the plush carpet. The buzz of the other A-listers hummed throughout the room for the party before the screening.
“I’m gonna grab a beer.” Tucker jerked his chin toward the bar set up in one corner. “Get you anything?”
“Club soda?” She’d already shared with him that she didn’t drink in public. Bad things happened when she wasn’t on her game. Bad things, like…well, what had happened two weeks earlier.
“Done.” The thing about Tucker was he didn’t have dimples in the traditional sense. Instead, he had one little dimple just under his left eye, high on his cheek when he smiled. Girls all over the word adored that little patch of skin. Kenzie was no different. And when he sang, and it popped? Sweet angel of Audrey Hepburn, she’d go on a Roman Holiday with him anytime.
Which was why he needed to scoot along and grab her some carbonated water.
He didn’t just remove his palm from the skin of her back, no, he slid it along the line of her dress, leaving a path of goosebumps.
Then he disappeared into the swirling mass of California’s elite.
“Mackenzie.”
