Locked (PresLocke Series Book 2) (31 page)

“Dylan,” I said, and I saw his nostrils flare, at least showing some indication that he had heard me. When he didn’t raise his head or respond, though, I lifted an arm to touch his elbow, and that had him moving—away from me.

“Don’t,” he said, finally lifting his eyes to meet my gaze head-on.

Refusing to believe he meant that the way it sounded, I took a step forward, but when Dylan moved one back, I stopped and asked him the words I was having trouble comprehending. “Don’t what?”
 

Dylan licked his lips and then said with a detachment I’d never heard from him before, “Don’t touch me.”

And Christ, that packed as much of a punch as I imagined a bullet straight through the fucking heart would. I wanted to demand why, but judging from the way he was holding himself, braced for a fight, I figured I should listen.

“Okay, I won’t,” I said, trying to temper my own heightened emotions. “I just want to talk to you.”

“About what?” he snapped, and the arctic bite to his words made a crack of doubt splinter in what I’d always considered a rock-solid foundation between the two of us. “How my mother just went on the biggest entertainment news show and told the world she’s spent time in jail for doing drugs and selling sex? Or the fact that she just announced that you’re dating a gold-digging whore?”

“Dylan,” I said, wanting to reassure him I didn’t care about any of that, but he wasn’t done. It was like the pin had been removed from the grenade he’d been holding, making an explosion imminent.

“Well?” he asked, his eyebrows flying up so high they almost hit his hairline. “What’ll it be, Ace? Which one of those two would you like to discuss first? Because both seem equally entertaining to me.”

“Hey, it’s all going to be okay. We can—”

“Okay?” he asked, and the sound that followed was ugly and distorted. A strangled laugh. “How is this going to be okay?”
 

I was ready to explain the hundreds of ideas, spins, and scenarios that had run through my mind during the segment. But when he took the two steps required to bring him back toe to toe with me and his eyes creased, I lost my words.
 

“You know what I hate?” he said, and the fact that he didn’t wait for an answer let me know he hadn’t really thrown that out there as a question, more a statement of fact. “I hate that I’m the one ruining your life.”

“Dylan—”

“What?” he said. “Don’t try and deny it. Ever since we walked out of Syn, your career has taken hit after hit. Your life has become the circus you always told me you hated, and now this. Now everyone thinks you’re sleeping with some crack whore’s son and secretly wondering just how far my ‘charms’ extend…into the bedroom, maybe? Who knows what Brenda will tell people? At some point you have to stop and ask yourself, what are you doing with me?
Why
are you with me? Hardly seems worth it for you from where I’m standing.”

I hated hearing Dylan talk about himself and us that way, but I could tell the words were being fueled by frustration and the inability to do anything about what had just happened. I’d been there many times over, and the best thing I could do for him was let him process this the way he needed to.

That didn’t stop me, however, from reaching for his elbow now that he was close enough to touch, and Dylan shook his head and cursed.

“I need some space,” he said, backing up.
 

I let him go and wanted to plead with him not to leave. But if he wanted to, I wasn’t going to stand in his way. He turned and headed for the hallway, his shoulders now sagging, likely from the weight that had just been heaped upon them, and just before he disappeared, he glanced back at me and said, “I’ll be upstairs. Just…think about what I said.”

As Dylan vanished from sight, I knew I would think of nothing but. However, I was also aware that nothing was going to make me change my mind about the man who’d just walked upstairs to take some alone time in
our
bedroom.

27

SOME KIND OF MAGIC

I DIDN’T KNOW how long I’d lain there in Ace’s bed, but as the daylight was swallowed by darkness, the night crept inside the large windows and chased the sun into the shadows. Some time ago, I’d kicked off my shoes and rolled to my side, hugging the pillow under my cheek as though it was an anchor to reality, because what had happened today—that had to be some kind of horrible nightmare.
Right?

Several times over I’d tried to shut my eyes and fall into the oblivion of sleep, but each time I did my brain rewound the interview from earlier, and replayed it on the inside of my eyelids. Then it followed up with a quick recap on me telling Ace to dump my pathetic ass before it was all too late, and the memory I had of his face as those words had tumbled from my mouth made me want to fade away all over again. It was hard to believe all of that had happened when just last night we’d been celebrating, but I knew from the dull ache in my chest that it had.
 

I had no idea where Ace was. All I knew was that he’d done what I’d asked and given me space. And now that the anger, embarrassment, and pain had combined to numb my body, I could think of only one person that could shock me back to life.

I rolled to my back and scooted to the end of the bed, intending to get up and track down the man whose room I had commandeered. But I stopped short of standing when I made out Ace’s silhouette in the white wingback chair that usually sat in the corner of his large room. He’d moved the seat so it was situated at the end of the bed, dead center, and I wondered how long he’d been sitting there brooding.

“Hey,” he said as I shifted so my legs were hanging over the edge of the mattress. I ran my palms along my thighs and tried to blink him into focus, but the room was too dark and Ace had chosen his position with care.

“How long you been sitting there?” I asked.

“Two hours.”

Damn.

“I told you. I like to watch you sleep.”

Yes, he had told me that, hadn’t he? When was that?
This week, last?
It felt like years ago now as we sat there with all this weird distance between us. Distance I’d put there.

“Ace, I—”

“No. Don’t. It’s my turn, don’t you think?”

I clamped my mouth shut and glanced over at the windows, trying to swallow back the emotions that were threatening to pour out of me and make me drop to my knees and tell him how sorry I was. But before I could get down to the ground, he was talking again in a voice that demanded I face him and pay attention. So I did just that.

“I’ve been sitting here trying to think of the best way to explain to you how I feel about everything that you said to me downstairs today. But the more time that passed by and the longer I waited for you to come find me, my reasons for
why
I’m with you changed.”

Oh God.
That didn’t sound promising. He sounded like a man who’d been sure one minute and then changed his mind the next. And considering I knew he loved me with all of his heart the night before, that didn’t bode well for me now. But…I was determined to hear him out. After all, I was the idiot who’d issued the stupid demand that he think over all the reasons he was with me, so it wasn’t like I could ask him to forget about it now. Could I?

“Here’s the thing, Dylan. If I could change the world, if I could wrap you up in my arms and make sure nothing bad ever happened to you again, you need to know that I would do that in a heartbeat.”

“Ace—”

“No,” he barked, and this time got to his feet. “It’s my turn.”

I nodded in the dark, where I remained perched at the end of his bed, watching him close the distance.

“You asked me two very important questions earlier, and you’re damn well going to listen to my answers.”

When he held his hand out to me, palm up, I slipped mine into his, and when he drew me to my feet, I went. Toe to toe and eye to eye, I could see him clearly now through the shadows playing off the walls and curtains of the room. His eyebrows were drawn together and his lips were pulled tight in a stern line, and while he looked as though he wanted to throttle me, I could also see compassion and worry etched in the lines of his face.

“The first thing you asked me is what I’m doing here with you.” Entwining our fingers, Ace took a deep inhale, and when he let it out, it was as if it were the first full breath he’d taken since he’d last touched me. Then he whispered, “I’m living.”

I could feel tears welling in my eyes, and when I shut them to stave them off, I heard him say, “Look at me, Dylan.”

And when I blinked and refocused on him, I was shocked to see his own eyes were glistening. “The second was why.
Why
am I with you…” As Ace’s voice trailed off, he brought his other hand to my cheek and asked, “Where else would I be?”

My mouth parted, but before I could get a word out, he swooped in and took my swollen lips in a kiss that was sweet and full of promise and had me placing my hands on his chest for purchase as I swayed into him. When he rested his forehead against mine, he said against my mouth, “I love you. Where you are, I want to be, and I realized that as I paced the length of this house for three hours straight. It didn’t matter that you were up here and I was down there—you chose to stay even when you needed space. And that means everything to me.”

I was
such
an idiot. But instead of saying that, I leaned in and kissed him all over again. Conveying without words that I felt the same and was sorry for saying what I had downstairs when anger and frustration had been riding me.
 

I lost myself in that kiss as we reconnected there in the intimate embrace of night, but when I thought he would maybe lower me to the bed and pull me into his body to sleep this horrible evening away, Ace once again did the unexpected. He pulled away from me and said softly, “I don’t want you to worry anymore. I already called Logan so we can sit down and hash out what legal recourse the two of us have in this kind of situation, and…”
 

I was relieved to hear we would be able to chat with a lawyer regarding the whole Brenda situation, but there was something else going on here too. I cocked my head to the side and took in the wry grin I could see curving Ace’s lips.

“And?” I finally said, letting him know I was more than fine so far with how this conversation was going.
 

When he nodded and took in another deep breath, he said, “I called Roger and Martina, and told them to get Carly Wilde on the phone and set up that interview she’s been after.”

When my mouth fell open, Ace put his pointer finger under my chin to help me close it.

“Why are you so shocked, Daydream? I think it’s time that ‘Ace and his camp’ were a little more vocal about the mysterious new man in my love life. Don’t you?”

“But…but…I know how much you don’t want to—”

“I changed my mind,” he said with a huge grin now that had me chuckling.

“Just like that?”

“Just. Like. That,” Ace said, and punctuated each of his words with a kiss before taking my hand and leading me to the bedroom door. “Come on—we have some phone calls to make and some meetings to schedule, and then you and I are going to come up here and sleep in
our
bedroom.”

As we headed downstairs, I couldn’t help but wonder over the magic Ace held, because even on the worst of days he had the innate ability to make everything seem as though it would all be okay.

28

TIME TO GET WILDE

“MR LOCKE?”
 

A hesitant female voice followed two light raps on the door of the dressing room that Ace and I had been ushered into around ten minutes ago. He’d just finished up with makeup and had slipped into his tailored Armani suit jacket, which matched his fitted black pants. “Yes. Come in,” he said from where he was standing in front of the mirror adjusting the cuffs of his black shirt.
 

I was seated over on the plush two-seater couch that was pushed up against one of the walls, watching him get ready for his exclusive “Ace Locke with Carly Wilde” interview that was about to take place in—

“We’ll be ready for you in ten minutes,” Kelly, the assistant who had been helping us out today, said. “I’m here to take you down to the green room. Mr. Prescott can watch the segment from in there.”

Ten minutes.
Oh man.
Ten minutes suddenly seemed so very close.

“Sounds great. I think this is as good as it’s going to get,” Ace said as he turned around to look my way.
 

I got to my feet and rubbed my clammy palms over my grey dress slacks, and then trailed my eyes up his long legs to his handsome face. When I noticed the slightly tense set of Ace’s shoulders, I was clued in enough to the man I was looking at to sense the underlying nerves behind the smile. I walked over to stop in front of him and brought my right pointer finger to my lips, tapping it there in contemplation. “You look like this famous guy I know,” I said, and then snapped my fingers before pointing at him. “Yes…big action star. Takes no prisoners. Sexy, too,” I said, reaching up to smooth my hands over his shoulders. “
Very
sexy.”

Ace’s eyes shifted to the woman beyond my shoulder, and then he grinned. “Well, since his is the only opinion I worry about, I say we’re ready.”

“Very good,” she said as I turned to head her way, and when I took a step, I felt Ace’s hand take mine. I glanced over my shoulder at him, and when he took a deep breath I tightened my hold on his fingers as we headed for the door of the dressing room.
 

Today was huge. What Ace was about to do was monumental, life changing, and I couldn’t believe he’d agreed to it, much less appeared genuinely excited, minus this small case of nerves.
 

It had been a little over two weeks since the night of Brenda’s disparaging interview, and since then we’d had several conversations with Ace’s friend and attorney, Logan Mitchell, who’d advised no contact with her, and no comments
about
her. The best way to fight this for the moment was with silence, and though Ace had adamantly told Logan he wished he could do a whole lot more than bite his tongue, Logan had advised him,
“For once, listen to me, Locke. That’s what you pay me very handsomely for. Although I have been told that my mouth alone could be worth millions.”
And, after much grumbling, we’d agreed with the bossy lawyer and followed instructions.