Luxe Glamour (The Glamour Series Book 5) (19 page)

“I’m just saying after last night and your exit at Big Daddy’s with Trick, aka Angie’s baby brother, I’m pretty sure you’re not on Angie’s good list.”

“Like you said, we’re adults. Why would Angie be angry at me?”

“Doll, do you not know the story? The whole story? About Trick’s addictions and the accident, and why they all came out here to Pawtown in the first place?”

“I know about the accident and I assumed he had a drug problem when it happened.”

“Plus the women.”

My throat choked and an oily sick feeling closed around my gut.

“The women?”

“Mmhmm.” Choo looked at his phone and started reading. He mumbled out his words, his mind focused on the message on his phone. “Trick was a sex addict, Baby. Preferably models. Supermodels. With dark hair.”

Bile climbed up the back of my throat. My nostrils flared and my stomach turned. I felt sick. I pulled the brush from my thick black hair and stared at my reflection in the mirror. So I was a type?  I was a falling-off-the-wagon-oops-I-made-a-huge-mistake type?

“Girl, you just went green. You need to eat some breakfast.” Choo unfolded his legs and stood. He slipped his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “Let’s roll. Just got a text from Slam and they’ll all be here by ten. He wants a meeting and then we start filming.” Choo looked up from his phone. “You okay?”

“Sure. I’m good.” I dropped my brush into my makeup bag. I’d gotten what I’d wanted from Trick and he must have gotten what he needed from me. No problems there. I was all good. Now it was time to film a reality show, get my Q score back up, and get the hell away from Pawtown.

Trick

“Where is the dog she almost killed?”

I cringed with Charlie’s words. The room was filled with Pawtown staff and Charlie’s crew for the show. Every pair of eyes landed on Sophia, who sat at a table. Her lips thinned. I’d tried to catch her eye for a while now, ever since Charlie began the meeting nearly two hours before. He’d run through what our days would be like with him and his crew at Pawtown. I scrubbed my hands over my head. Was he nearly done? Damn, this was worse than I thought. Charlie Slam seemed to love the sound of his own voice.

Angie addressed the question. “Drummond’s cast comes off today and he has a potential forever home family coming to see him this weekend. He’s in the rehab kennel.” Angie then lifted her coffee cup and took a long drink. She looked like I felt. Bored and unimpressed. The rest of the staff seemed excited by the idea of being in the Pawtown reality series. Well, everyone but Luis. He stood in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest glowering at anyone who looked his way.

“Great! Thanks, Angie. That’s our first location. Our first shot. We want to see Sophia reunited with Drummond.” Charlie’s head turned toward Sophia. “If you can try to appear repentant it will help not only you, but also the storyline for the show. Am I clear?”

Sophia nodded, but she didn’t smile. No, this didn’t look like a happy match. Charlie Slam ordering Sophia around in a place where she was still very much afraid of the inhabitants? Kerosene and a book of lit matches couldn’t be any more dangerous. 

“Okay then. Guys, go set up the shot at the vet clinic. Sophia, Trick, Angie, meet us there in an hour. Doc, you can remove the cast then, right?”

“Uh, sure.” Doc said. “I need to get another x-ray, but probably, yes.”

“Fine,” Charlie said. He suddenly appeared irritated that there was a possibility that Drummond wouldn’t get his cast removed today. A woman with a long blonde ponytail approached Charlie and handed him a clipboard. She said something into his ear.

“No problem,” Charlie said.

“Okay then. Angie, Trick, Sophia, vet clinic in one hour. Got it?”

I glanced at the clock over the doorway. “Got it.”

Angie nodded and turned her chair to escape the room before the mass exodus of all the Pawtown staff and Charlie Slam’s crew. I hung back and waited for Sophia. She wouldn’t look my way or meet my eyes. Instead she hung close to Choo, who had filmed a chunk of the meeting. He’d also been posting pics online. There was one this very morning of the very barebones women’s bathroom in the volunteer bungalow.

“No walk of shame for you two this morning.” Choo lifted an eyebrow. His voice was low so that none of the crew of Pawtown staff could hear him. I glanced around. Choo was a good guy, and I knew from all of Dillon’s antics before he met his wife that Choo knew how to be discreet, but I didn’t like anyone knowing about what happened between Sophia and me.

Was I embarrassed? Was I ashamed? Sleeping with Sophia didn’t feel like a relapse. No, sleeping with Sophia felt like something that could be real. But, damn, I think I’d prefer the relapse. That would be cheap and easy because this … a thing with Sophia had nowhere to go but to heartache hell. Choo passed me and headed toward Charlie. As the brother of the producer of the show, and the publicist for the star, Choo had some serious leverage. Most likely Choo wanted to make sure Slam wasn’t up to something that would embarrass Sophia.

“You ready for this?” I asked Sophia. She lifted her shoulder. Her eyes were flat. Nonchalant. As though there was nothing between us. As though I hadn’t fucked her for hours the night before. “Come with me.” I said. I grasped her elbow and pulled her through the back door and into the sunshine outside. I turned the corner and scooted her into a supply room that was open.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked. Her voice was low and her brow creased.

“Cold shoulder? A dirty look and some serious ice princess attitude? That’s what I deserve?” 

Again with the lifted nonchalant shoulder. She might as well shoot me a middle finger. “What? I’m sure I meant nothing to you, right? I mean I fit a type, for you. With your
thing
.”

“My thing?” I stepped closer to her. Yes, there was the heat. The pulsing that throbbed through every part of my body. For fuck sake, how the hell could we keep this attraction hidden? I could barely stand to be in the same room as her, to look at her, to be near her without putting my hands on her. “Do you mean my addiction to cocaine and sex and my recovery?” I pressed close to her. “What are you trying to say? Are you trying to ask me if you’re a relapse? A throw away? An easy lay?” My words grew harsher, my tone darker.

Was I irritated with her, or was I angry with myself? Angry that she wasn’t a relapse. Angry that I had feelings brewing for her. Angry that there was this attraction, this wild attraction that made my pulse climb and my body react in ways that I didn’t like and could barely control. I stepped forward and backed her against the wall.

Her nipples were tight and pressed against her shirt and against me. Her tongue flicked over her bottom lip and she looked up at me through those thick lashes.

“Well, am I?”

That smart mouth. My lips were on hers. My body thrummed with a liquid heat. Her sweet full lips parted and my tongue slipped into her mouth. A little moan came from her throat and heat throbbed between my legs and up my spine. I pressed my hand along her tight T-shirt and cupped her breast. My thumb stroked over her tight bud of a nipple. Another tiny moan. Damn, she felt good. I pulled my mouth from hers.

“You’re none of those things,” I said. My gaze locked onto those big brown eyes. “You’re an entirely different kind of trouble for me.”

Her mouth curved into a smile. She leaned forward and this time, this time, she pressed her lips to mine.

*

Disheveled was the only word to describe our appearance when we got to the vet clinic. I arrived first. Alone. Sophia arrived soon after. A flush decorated her neck and that beautiful face that I’d spent the last hour kissing.

We’d made out like teenagers. Teenagers hiding from our parents.

And it had been awesome.

I stood beside the wall of cages in the vet clinic with my arms over my chest. Tessa and Angie went over a chart trying to decide if one of our lifers, an elderly dog with some serious behavioral issues, could withstand a surgery, or if palliative care was the best way to go. Charlie Slam’s crew and sound and camera people took up nearly every inch of space.

Sophia entered and Angie looked up. Big sis’s face changed from serious to downright somber. Her eyes roamed from Sophia’s toes to the top of her head. I thought Sophia looked good, damn good. But she looked a little bothered. Her thick black hair that ten minutes before I’d been running my hands through was a little messier than usual. Her lips a tiny bit chafed. She pulled at the bottom edge of her T-shirt and met Angie’s gaze full on. She didn’t flinch under Angie’s stare. Angie’s gaze slid from Sophia to me, and in her look I saw “are you kidding me?” Judgment and distaste and when it came right down to it, fear. Angie was afraid. Big time. Well, so the hell was I.

Sophia ticked all my trigger boxes. Off the wagon I would go and soon I’d have my face neck deep in blow with two hookers on the side.

Not really.

But maybe.

That was Angie’s fear. And I shared it. That damn fear. An addict never
recovered,
they were simply
in recovery
. The addiction, whatever flavor you had; pills, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling just waited in the wings and did push-ups on the side. That fucker got stronger and stronger waiting for you to get cocky or self-satisfied, or for you to believe you had enough time without your drug of choice to be
recovered
. Then the fucker struck. Fast and hard. Three times. Three times in rehab. Four car accidents. Six arrests. It took me a long time to figure that shit out and I had to remember. I could never forget.

Then, again, I had Angie and her chair to keep me honest.

I jerked my chin towards Angie to let her know I knew. I knew she was afraid and I understood her fear. I shared it. I wasn’t cocky. I wasn’t sure. I did know I would always be an addict and this thing with Sophia didn’t feel like it was feeding my addiction. Sophia wasn’t nameless and faceless. I couldn’t kick her to the curb, or give her a wrong phone number, or tell her “sure baby, I’ll call” and never come through.  That was the kind of bullshit I’d pulled for years when I was a star in L.A., but not anymore.

Sophia flipped her hair over her shoulder. My heart lurched. Nope this didn’t feel like that kind of sex. What kind of sex was it? Fuck if I knew. Sophia was the first woman I’d had since the model I banged in the bathroom at the HBO after-party just before I tried to drive Angie and me home. That was five years ago, after one rehab, a stint in jail, and our move to Pawtown. A lifetime. My gaze landed on the black wheels that moved Angie around. Black wheels that would forever move Angie around. Because of my fuckup. My addiction. My selfish acts.

Yeah, I needed to be more certain about what the hell I was doing with Sophia. We both did.

“People, are we ready?” Charlie walked into the vet clinic. He had a giant grin on his face, as though he was a cat who’d just plucked and deep-fried a canary. “Where is our little wounded pup?” Charlie’s eyes went to the cages behind my head.

“Here,” Luis called from the back door. Two camera guys and a boom guy obstructed Luis and Drummond’s path. Sophia cringed. She pressed her back against the wall.

“How you want to do this, Charlie?” I jumped in. I wasn’t going to sit here and let Sophia drown in her fear. No one deserved that. “Why don’t we go ahead and put Drummond on the exam table and let Doc begin to work on him? Maybe have Sophia stand beside Doc?”

Angie nodded. While big sis might be worried about me and the choices I was currently making, she definitely didn’t want Sophia to be humiliated on camera. Angie wasn’t that type of person. “Good idea. Why don’t you start your shot from there?” Angie asked. 

Charlie’s smile grew wider. “Good suggestions all, but I have a different idea of what I want for the shot. Sophia, darling, I’d like you to go over and take Drummond’s lead from Luis and walk him to the exam table and then bend down and lift our adorable four-legged friend onto the table. Concern is what we’re going for here. Concern and penance.” Charlie moved to the monitor. “You are contrite. You are sympathetic. You feel bad that this gorgeous little boy got harmed at your hand.”

The color drained from Sophia’s face. She pulled her bottom lip under her top teeth. Charlie knew. He knew that Sophia was terrified of dogs, but he also knew what would make good reality TV.

“She can’t lift him,” I said. “He’s too big. She’ll need help lifting him.”

Charlie’s eyebrow ticked upward. The smile twitched. He was assessing. He was thinking. “Fine then. Sophia go take the lead from Luis, bring Drummond to the exam table and then you, Trick, will lift him up for Tessa.” Charlie’s eyes went from me to Angie. “We won’t need you in this shot, Angela. Will you come back here with me?”

“Nice.” Angie mouthed to me and rolled toward Charlie. She was pleased that I’d managed to save Sophia a little pain. We wouldn’t be able to keep Charlie from preying upon Sophia’s fears, but we might be able to give her a little more time to acclimate to the pups at Pawtown.

Sophia walked toward Luis. He wore a gentle smile on his face. Everyone at Pawtown knew how hard this work was for Sophia, and while her motives might not be the purest, everyone respected her for not whining. She kept going. You didn’t work with animals and not have empathy, patience, and perseverance—even for humans. 

Luis handed her the leather braided lead. “He’s a good boy,” Luis said. “Gentle and kind. Wouldn’t hurt a soul.” Luis leaned in toward Sophia. “And I promise he doesn’t remember you.”

A tiny smile decorated Sophia’s face with Luis’s comment. “Thank goodness,” Sophia said. Drummond
was
a good boy. An American Staffordshire Terrier mix, he was thick and strong and full of muscles. He looked up toward Sophia and wagged his tail. The natural response would be for Sophia to pet Drummond. His look, his tail, his demeanor was an invitation by him to connect with her. Did she see the signs? Could she read them? Or was she still so phobic of dogs to even know that Drummond was asking her to be friends.