“She’s in that car,” a deep voice says. I turn and see Clarence Oldman, Evergreene’s keyboard player. He’s smoking a thin cigar and uses it to point at a black saloon limo parked two vehicles down. “I’d hurry if I were you.”
I don’t waste time questioning his intuition, instead, I rush to the Chrysler he was pointing at and open the rear passenger door.
“What the…” Cassie twists in her seat, her face full of shock with a single tear smudging the blue mascara of her left eye. “Pia.”
“You ran away from me,” I say as I climb in and close the door with a slam.
Her jaw drops. “You have been avoiding me for over a month!”
“True. But I don’t like it when someone runs away from me.”
“And I don’t like being ignored!” she shouts, loudly.
I take her in. She’s rigid, facing straight ahead, fists balled at her side. Her chest rises and falls quickly, like she’s out of breath.
I feel whatever smugness I felt earlier melt away, and in its place … something else unfurls. Something ugly and awkward and very, very uncomfortable.
“It’s not just this last week,” Cassie says, chest still heaving but her voice quieter. “It’s not just about skipping all the press. It’s every day since … we were together. It’s the way you were completely fine to tell me to fuck off with that Polaroid and to not look back.”
I suck in a shallow breath. “You told me to fuck off with a Polaroid too.”
Very slowly, she turns to me. “You thought I was telling you to fuck off with that photo?”
“Weren’t you?”
“Wereyou?”
I sink back in the chair and fold my arms. For the first time since I sat my arse down in this seat, I peer through the glass divider in front of us. “Where’s your driver?”
“Getting tacos,” Cassie says, and she’s turned her face away from me again, this time staring out of the tinted windows.
“Good on him.”
“Her,” she says poignantly. “My driver’s name is Heather.”
“Well, good forHeather,” I say, and when I can’t follow it up with something else, it echoes pathetically in my ears. I know I should leave, but I don’t. I stay exactly where I am.
“What do you want, Pia?” Cassie finally asks, and she sounds as exhausted as I suddenly feel.
When I don’t reply, she turns my way again. As soon as I see her face, I have my answer.
“You,” I say, feeling everything inside me tighten. “Right now, I really want you.”
“But youhateme,” she says, but there’s softness in her voice and her pupils are growing.
“Isn’t that one of the things we have in common?” I ask, inching closer to her. I heard her on Levi Frasier’s show earlier. I’ve heard and read every press junket she’s done this week.
“Maybe,” she sighs, and then her eyes drop to my mouth as I slide towards her, close enough that my knee touches her thigh. “Because sometimes I really think I do hate you.”
“That’s okay,” I say, and now I’m staring at her mouth because why would I look anywhere else, ever. “Sometimes I think I hate you, too.”
“Show me,” she says as she brings a hand up and tucks my hair behind my ear.
“What?” I ask, because that simple touch has made me lose track of the conversation.
“Show me how much you hate me,” she says, a little louder and a lot clearer.
It’s all the invitation I need. I jump up and straddle her. Cassie’s hands fall on my thighs as soon as I settle. My skin fires up in every single place she’s touching me. And I welcome it. I want her to burn me, mark me, scar me.
