Twisted Arrangement 4 (11 page)

Josh shuddered as remembered pleasure twisted down his spine. The desperate energy had left him as he’d gazed down at the dim form of Emma spread beneath him, and the sex that had followed had been...
life-changing
.

The question remained,
how
had it changed his life?

He’d been willing to give Emma a chance to prove she wasn’t as untrustworthy as he’d thought. But was he willing to give her more?

They were lovers now, Josh supposed. If two nights qualified. Though, given the nights in question, he figured it did. Maybe they were friends, too. At least on the verge of friendship. If she was telling the truth and she’d been herself with him from the beginning – and Josh wasn’t sure he could buy what she was selling there – then he thought they may well have been friends already.

But more?

The mere thought made his heart dive-bomb his shoes. Josh had thought he was in love once, a long time ago. He’d met a girl who’d made him laugh, who looked at him with pride and encouraged him when he’d decided to start working out so he wouldn’t be so scrawny. She’d convinced him he could do anything. She’d thought he was great, even though back then he’d still been an awkward, shy nerd who liked to talk his friends into filming their weekend LARPs so he could show them on campus.

He’d thought she was it. The One. That their love was epic Han and Leia type stuff.

Only, in the end, it had turned out he was Luke, not Han. He hadn’t gotten the girl.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, Josh knew that that hadn’t been love. Not the capital L kind, anyway. He’d loved Crissy, for sure. She was an amazing friend. And had been a pretty great girlfriend too. But they weren’t right for each other.

Still, he’d been more than a little heartbroken at the time. And his initial unwillingness to get involved with someone again for fear of heartache had actually only grown worse when he realized that what he’d felt for his college girlfriend wasn’t even the epic emotion he’d thought it was back then.

Because if the big L kind of love was more painful than what he’d gone through before? Well, that thought was extremely terrifying. And the thought of going there with Emma?

Crissy hadn’t purposefully misled him. She hadn’t even realized herself where her real feelings laid until the end. But it had still hurt. How could he even take a chance with Emma, who had willfully misled him almost from their first meeting?

He couldn’t. He couldn’t risk it.

Josh could be her colleague, no problem. Her lover, happily. Her friend, maybe. But beyond that, he simply wasn’t willing to go. No matter what his half-sleeping mind might think. With his wits about him, Josh knew otherwise.

He slid the second omelet onto a plate and popped it in the warmer.

“Is there coffee?” Emma asked softly from the archway. Her voice, hesitant and still a little raspy with sleep, skittered up Josh’s spine. He cleared his throat and motioned toward the carafe with a jerk of his chin.

“Mocha. Though I don’t think I have the knack for it. It’s not as good as yours.”

She crossed to the counter and poured out a mug without meeting his gaze. She seemed just as on edge as he was this morning. “I make the cocoa with heavy cream, and then use two parts cocoa to one part coffee. The coffee is really only for flavor.”

She flashed him a quick grin, there and gone. He held out a plate to her. She jumped, as if she’d been expecting him to grab her. Pink stained her cheeks as she glanced down and saw the omelet.

“Nothing fancy, but I made it myself.”

“Thank you.” She took the plate and headed into the dining room, where the fruit, home fries, and bacon were. Tina had taken care of all of that before he’d come down, bless her.

Josh poured himself a mug of mocha – he’d used milk, not heavy cream, and mixed equal parts coffee and cocoa, so it wasn’t as rich and sweet as when Emma made it – and carried it and his plate in to join her.

Emma didn’t look up when he came in. She cut her omelet into small, precise squares. Josh slid into his chair.

“Emma...”

Her lashes lifted, the glimmer of green eyes flashing to his face. She held a bite of omelet poised less than an inch from her moist lips. Josh yanked his gaze away from her mouth and the soft flush that glowed in her cheeks. His courage failed him, the words he’d meant to say sticking his throat. He coughed, cheeks heating. “What’s on the schedule for today?”

He saw the knowledge of what he hadn’t said in her eyes; knew that last night was their elephant in the room, but she chewed her bite of food slowly. “We have the DGA dinner tonight.” Her voice was flat. Josh winced. He’d forgotten all about the Director’s Guild banquet in honor of one his oldest and closest friends in Hollywood, Christine DeGroot.

Josh had worked with Christine several times, but their friendship had remained strong even when they were off working on other projects. She was a well-respected and critically acclaimed director and there was no way he would miss her award ceremony. Not even to avoid awkwardness with Emma. He’d known they would have to appear in public during this charade. He’d looked forward to it, in fact.

Now, he wasn’t sure how he felt.

“Right. We’ll have to take the jet.” The dinner was in LA. “Martin can call Hamid and have him get it ready for us.”

Emma sipped her orange juice. “Josh, I...” She flicked some home fries with her fork, not meeting his eye. Josh tensed. Was she about to bring up last night? His stomach twisted around his breakfast. He didn’t know if he wanted her to or not.

He hadn’t been able to find the words to ask her what last night meant to her. Or to assure her it changed nothing between them. He was afraid it did. When she raised her eyes to his face, their gazes locked and heat bloomed beneath his breastbone.

Awkward silence stretched out for several long moments. Josh bundled up all the tangled feelings she caused in him, all the uncertainty and tenacious hope and desire, even the flare of affection he felt in their easy moments, and tucked it away deep in the back of his mind. He refused to let any of it show on his face.

Emma’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Not the sexy librarian pout, but a hard, white, bloodless slit. Color flared in her cheeks and then drained away. Josh was torn between wanting to know what was going on in her head, and terrified of finding out.

Finally, she spoke, her voice stilted, the words rushing too fast from between her parted lips. “I was thinking perhaps we should end this charade early. It’s... you’ve gotten what you wanted.” Her fingers tightened around her silverware until her knuckles were white.

Josh gritted his teeth, trying to hold back the lash of hurt and anger that flared at her words. “Hardly. You agreed to four months, Emma. It’s barely been one. Ransler could still walk away and tank my film.”

“He wouldn’t do that! Besides, you’ve got a legally binding contract with him now. He has to finish.”

“And if he breaks his contract? It happens all the time in Hollywood. Even if I seek penalties against him, I’ve got an unfinished film and no star. You gave me your word, Emma.” Why was he so surprised? Why did this make his lungs squeeze in his chest? He’d maintained that she was untrustworthy from the very beginning.

“I know. But... things have changed.” Her lashes lowered. She poked at her half-eaten omelet with her fork tines.

Josh shoved his plate away, no longer hungry. His stomach churned. “What things, Emma? Last night...” Emma flinched at the words. Josh’s breath caught, but he continued. “Last night you swore that you wouldn’t lie to me again. So tell me. What’s changed?”

Her lush lips parted, closed. Her gaze flicked to his and then darted away. She swallowed. Josh’s body was tense as a bowstring. If he didn’t know himself better, he’d think he was trying to force Emma to talk about what had happened between them last night. That would be ridiculous. He’d already decided that he wasn’t willing to risk anything more with her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally. “I... You’re right; I did give you my word. And I did promise that from now on everything I told you would be true. So.” She lifted her gaze back to his face. “I’ll see this through, if that’s what you want. I just thought... I thought it might be easier if we ended things now.”

‘
If that’s what you want
’, she said. Had she thought
he’d
want to call things off because they’d slept together again last night? If so, she didn’t realize how important it was to him to see this through. Because of the film.

“Easier for who, Emma?”

One thin, dark brow rose and the corner of her mouth twitched. “Both of us.”

Well, he’d asked for the truth. And maybe she was right, maybe this was a dangerous situation for both of them. But there was no way he was giving up now. What he wanted, needed, was almost within reach. He broke their locked gazes and cut another section of omelet.

“You promised me four months. That’s what I expect. Unless you were lying?”

Her only response was a long sigh. They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence.

***

Emma tried desperately to ignore the ball of ice in her belly as she listened to yet another screenwriter – did everyone in Hollywood have a script they were shopping? – prattle about their opus in depressingly minute detail. That this particular ‘screenwriter’ was an 18-year-old barista and Arnold Purefoy’s latest arm candy made the situation all the more unbearable. Arnold was the head of a major studio, and currently Josh’s partner in the Higginson film.

She wanted to tell the girl (‘just Kimber, it’s not short for Kimberly or anything’) to bugger off with her romantic comedy about how ‘the Jonas Brothers are all fighting over what they think is the same girl, but it turns out it’s really triplet sisters and wouldn’t that be hilarious?’ But she didn’t want to offend Arnold’s date, and therefore, perhaps Arnold.

Josh stood a few feet away, on her right, sipping a Scotch and speaking with Arnold and a few other industry cronies. Once the cocktail hour was over, Christine DeGroot would get her award and then dinner would be served, but for now they were mingling. Josh looked relaxed, in control, and devilishly handsome in a charcoal grey suit.

The DGA dinner was only semi-formal, so no tux, but that didn’t diminish his gorgeousness in the least. Emma wanted to glare, both because of his ease and his effortless sex appeal, but she kept her attention on Kimber-Not-Short-For-Kimberly. They were in public, that meant she had her blushing bride mask on.

Is it really a mask? You were blushing an awful lot this morning.

Emma swiftly muzzled that insidious inner voice. She didn’t want to think about this morning. Breakfast had been hellishly awkward, neither one of them able to broach the subject of last night’s intimacy. As incredibly satisfying as the sex had been, it had completely destroyed the tentative peace they had carved out with their little talk beforehand.

Was it the sex? Or was it the fact that it felt like
more
than just sex?

Damn unreliable mental gags. She was going to... Josh’s lips, warm and silky, touched her temple, and whatever thought had been forming in her mind drifted away like smoke.

“Sorry about Kimber,” he whispered into her hair, for her ears alone. Emma’s lips quirked upward involuntarily at the genuine regret in his tone. Their actual relationship – or whatever it was – might be full of awkward silences and time bombs waiting to explode. But in public, when they were playing besotted newlyweds, they were incredibly easy with each other.

It made no sense. As tense and stilted as they’d been around each other all day, they should have been even less comfortable with the closeness they were being forced into for their audience. But from almost the minute they’d walked into the banquet, when Josh had presented her to Arnold and said ‘You remember my wife, Emma’, the tension lingering between them had vanished.