Undone, Volume 1 (4 page)

My phone rang. Joel
again. I’d already ducked three of his calls.

“Hey, man.” I
tucked myself into a corner, trying for inconspicuous. A couple more
people walked into the coffee shop, joining the girls in line,
staring over at me.

“I almost got you on
Good Morning America
.”

“Cool.” I didn’t
really mean it. I hated morning shows and all the smarminess that
went along with them. But I knew if I wanted to hold onto all this,
keep the Ash Black brand on top of the world, I needed to do it. I
needed to hang my head and show America I wasn’t such a bad guy
after all. But the strange thing about all this crisis was the part
of me—a growing part of me—asking why exactly should I give a
shit about any of this? Why did it matter so much for me to stay so
famous? Why did I have to care if I did
Good
Morning America
or not? What was the point?

“I said almost, Ash.
They booked Mandy instead.”

“Huh.” Out of the
corner of my eye I saw a crowd gathering, the line becoming more of a
swirl, the doors of the coffee shop now forced open due to incoming
gawkers. Someone had tagged me, released my location, and now the
hounds were on the hunt.

“Have you found her
yet?”

“Listen, man, this
isn’t really a good time.” I knew he was trying to reference our
conversation from last night, keep after me about some idea he’d
had, but right now the crowd gathering behind me was starting to feel
like an angry mob.

“Don’t you tell me
it’s not a good time to talk, Ash. You need serious image rehab.
America likes bad boys, but not like this. You need to clean this
up.”

A giant, hulking slab
of beef lumbered over to me, baseball cap on backwards. “What, do
you think you’re cool, bro?” he asked me, his face round and pale
like a rising full moon on a cold, clear winter’s night. “You
think you’re a big shot?”

A few girls flanked
him, angry heat in their eyes. A growing, vengeful army started to
form behind them. The linebacker was clearly trying to score some
points by sticking it to the guy who’d dumped America’s
sweetheart. Not that he cared a flying fuck about Mandy Monroe, I
could guarantee that, but he definitely cared about impressing the
girls behind him.

Side entrance. I ducked
out quick, pushing my way through a throng forming on the sidewalk. I
could imagine the barista tweeting right now, letting everyone know
how I’d skipped out without paying for my coffee. Add it to the
list of my sins. Brim down, I hustled along the sidewalk, but then it
happened. The blinding flash of a professional camera. They’d found
me, the paparazzi. Never far away, like a biblical plague of locusts
raining down on my head from above. This guy seemed to be perched up
on the rooftop of a storefront across the street. You wouldn’t
believe what those guys would do for a shot. One time a guy had
lowered himself down in a harness wearing full-on climbing gear to
get some shots into my hotel room in London. Sexy pics he got, too. I
bet they made him a bundle.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS
GOING ON!” Joel’s voice blasted through the phone I was still
clutching. I forgot I was still on the call.

“Right, just heading
out of a coffee shop.”

“Listen, I’m
serious about what we talked about yesterday.”

“Yup.” With a
slight turn of my head, I checked out the scene behind me. At least
ten people were heading out of the coffee shop on my tail. Quickly, I
ducked into an alleyway which, thank God, wasn’t a dead end. Who
knew celebrity stardom would involve such cloak-and-dagger shit?

“Have you thought
about it?”

“What?” Tucking
around the side of a large dumpster, I hunched down in its shadow.
Such glamour in my rock-n-roll lifestyle.

“The kindergarten
teacher. The nurse.”

“Right, right.”
He’d pitched me something yesterday, an idea he and Lola had come
up with. Probably Lola, my main point-person from the PR firm
representing me. She was a schemer, that one.

“We’re working on a
few leads, but it’s better if it’s someone you know. From your
circles.”

“My circles?” I
peeked my head around the corner. No sign of the angry mob, but you
never knew with these types of things. One minute, nothing. The next
minute pitchforks, torches and your head’s on a spike.

“You must know some
wholesome girl, some goody-two-shoes who’d play along for a month.
Then dump you in public.”

That was what they’d
come up with, taking Mandy’s idea right out from under her. I
needed to get my heart stomped, publically, by some young sweet
thing. Because what could humanize a demon? Seeing him get his
come-uppance.

It was the holiday
season, the time when everyone wanted to cozy up fireside with a
loved one. What better time for me to launch a highly publicized
romance? They wanted me to pull out all the stops with staged visits
to a tree-lighting, ice skating at Rockefeller Center, a snowball
fight in Central Park. They even wanted me to declare my love and
propose to this lucky girl at my New Year’s Eve concert. It would
play out like every woman’s dream of a whirlwind romance. And then
she’d dump me even more heartlessly than Ash Black. On camera.

It was a good idea, I’d
give them that. The problem was the woman. She had to be legit, no
actress pretending. Celebrity hounds would be on that in a second and
it would all turn on me, the asshole who’d hired someone to make
him look better than he really was. No, we had to find someone real.
She had to be pretty in that wholesome, classic Ivory soap girl kind
of a way. She had to be sweet and kind and giving and adorable with
not a single black mark to her name. And she had to be willing to be
my fake girlfriend for a month, then dump me heartlessly and
preferably on live TV.

“A nurse would be
good.” Joel was still talking, brainstorming.

Hmm. I’d played
naughty nurse with some girl a few weeks ago. But I think she’d
been a stripper.

“Naughty nurse won’t
cut it.” It was like Joel could read my mind. He knew me too well.

“I could adopt a
puppy?” And hire someone to actually raise it. “That could be
good for a few photo ops, right?” Maybe a golden retriever puppy,
and we could put a big, fat red bow on it.

“You’d need to
adopt every puppy in the country. And you’d still fuck that up. Did
you know Mandy’s writing a song about you now?”

I pressed the palm of
my hand into my eye socket. Yes, I did know.

“She’s posting
about it. It’s called ‘Ride.’”

I nodded. “As in, you
took me for a—”

“Ride, yeah,” Joel
confirmed.

Just then a couple of
celebrity rats came swarming around the corner, cameras in hand. On
the hunt, somehow they could smell my blood.

“Gotta go,” I
whispered into the phone and took off down the alleyway. I needed
better cover, somewhere they wouldn’t think to look for me.

“Find her,” Joel
demanded. I ended the call and shoved the phone into my pocket. Where
the hell was a guy like me going to find a nice girl, sweet and
pretty with nothing sketchy in her past, yet still willing to enter
into this circus for a whole month? It wasn’t going to happen.

Footsteps, I could hear
them behind me. Turning right once I hit the street, I broke into a
run, weaving between a couple people, crossing onto the other side. I
made it around the corner, quick, and saw it: lions, gargoyles, the
building had once been grand but now looked dusty, old and in
desperate need of repair. A public library. Perfect. I couldn’t
remember the last time I’d set foot in one. Had I ever? Time to
give it a try.

Bounding up the stairs
two at a time, I yanked open the huge front doors and dashed behind
the first thing I could find: a large, wooden desk. Huddled there, I
realized I wasn’t alone. Next to me were a pair of long, sexy legs
in black tights laced into a pair of boots with just enough heel to
suggest saucy. My gaze kept traveling on up to a simple black dress
that ended mid-thigh. Up and up I caught a glimpse of soft, rounded
breasts and long, shiny light brown hair I wanted to stroke and
touch, maybe knot in my fist.

“Excuse me?” Huffy,
indignant, the woman looked down at me full-on stern librarian. With
sweet, full parted lips perfect to taste, lick, and bite. At her
neck, her dress had a rounded white Peter Pan collar, fussy and prim.
Why did I suddenly have a raging hard-on picturing undoing that dress
and easing her on out of it?

“What are you doing?”
She knelt down slightly and I caught a scent of her, light and
vanilla.

“Hey,” I spoke in a
hushed whisper. “I’m trying to hide out for a sec.”

Her eyes widened as she
looked at me and realized. “You’re Ash Black.”

Before I had a chance
to work my magic, take that intro and make it all happen, the library
door opened with a cacophony of voices. They’d found me.

“May I help you?”
My mystery woman rose up to her full height, not so large or tall but
still, she commanded an impressively haughty tone. With her boot, she
nudged me slightly and I eased myself further under the desk. She
planted both feet directly at my side, helping to hide my spot.

“Yeah, we’re
looking for—”

“A book?” she
offered. She was a librarian, I realized. That’s why she sounded
and looked like one.

“Is he here?”
another voice asked.

“I swore I saw him
come in here,” another declared.

“He could be down the
other side. I’ll go check.”

“This is a library,”
my heroine declared. “I’m happy to help you find a book. But if
you’re looking for something else—”

“You seen Ash Black,
sweetheart?” one of them asked. I didn’t like him calling her
sweetheart.

“Why would you come
in here looking for him? That’s ridiculous.” Man, she needed a
pair of dark-framed glasses with that tone of voice. So stern. She
had a great pair of legs. Her boots ended at her calves, and then her
legs just kept going and going, long and lean.

More hustle and bustle,
more gusts of cold wind blasting in from the outside. I could tell a
small crowd was forming. I didn’t want a crowd. I wanted some time
alone, just me and this prim little librarian.

“He’s around here
somewhere,” a deep, guttural voice insisted.

“Librarians only
behind the reference desk!” She stopped them in their tracks. I
liked this one. I couldn’t help it, I’d never been able to stop
myself from unwrapping a present right in front of me. I brought a
hand up to her leg and stroked her lightly around the start of her
thigh, right above her knee. Nothing too naughty, just my thumb
grazing the inside of her leg.

She cleared her throat,
loudly, took a step away and clamped her feet firmly together. It
made me smile. I couldn’t remember the last time a girl had denied
me access.

“C’mon, some guy
saw him head into a store down the street.” I could hear them start
to retreat.

“If you’re from the
press, I have a story for you here,” she called after them.

“What’s that now,
hon?” I could tell from the tone of his voice, the guy answering
already wasn’t interested.

“This library branch
may have to close due to lack of funds. Why don’t you do a story on
that?”

“Some other time.”
I heard the sounds of the door opening and their footsteps leaving.

“If you cared half as
much about children learning to love books as you did about stupid
celebrities the world would be a much better place!” she called
after them.

Yeah, you tell them.
Except, wait, did she say stupid celebrities? The door closed behind
them.

“Vultures,” she
muttered. That was better.

“Is everything OK,
Miss Ana?” a child asked.

“Of course,” she
offered reassurance. “You go sit tight and I’ll be over in a
minute.” She turned her pretty face back to me, entirely
displeased.

“The next time you
pick a place to hide,” she hissed, “please don’t choose my
library. That was very disruptive.”

My face broke into a
wide grin. “Are you a librarian?”

“Yes, I’m a
children’s librarian.” She looked so proud of it, eyes flashing
with indignation.

My grin got even wider.
“Are you married?”

“No.” She flushed
and turned slightly from me, then murmured, “That’s a strange
question.”

A single,
goody-two-shoes librarian. Pretty as a picture with a goddamn Peter
Pan collar on her dress. Had I told my agent that I didn’t know any
good girls? Hold the phone. She was fucking perfect.

Flashing her my most
devastatingly sexy Ash Black smile, I set Operation Image Rehab into
play. I gave her my trademark smoldering gaze and whispered, “Hello,
gorgeous.”

She rolled her eyes and
started straightening papers on her desk. Yeah, I liked this one. I
liked her a lot. Now I just needed to get her to like me back.

I wound a hand around
her calf, brushing her slender leg with my fingers. She frowned at me
and stomped her foot like I was a fly she was trying to shoo away. I
smiled up at her, all wicked sin and temptation. I got a blush.

She looked good when
she blushed. I wanted to see it on her again. One month together,
that’s what my agent had suggested. Now I liked the idea a whole
lot.

“Is the coast clear
for me to come out?” I asked. “Or would you rather come down and
hide under here with me?” I caught her eye and gave her a naughty
wink. There was that blush again.

This was going to be
one fun month.

Ana

Ash Black. Ash Black.
His name kept pulsing in my head with each heartbeat. What was he
doing in my library? Under my desk? Touching my leg?

“Who were those men?”
My supervisor, Lillian, poked her head around the corner. No, she
couldn’t come over! I had a rock star between my legs. Wait, that
didn’t sound right.