Untangling The Stars (19 page)

He put his lips to her hair, rubbing his hands solidly against her back. “Shh,” he breathed, tightening his arms around her in a kind of standing cradle. “I’m so sorry, Andie. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

She nodded against his chest, wanting to believe him. More than anything, she wanted to believe him, and wrapped in the safety of his arms it seemed like truth, but right now “okay” seemed like a daydream. For right this second, it was enough to just hear his deep voice humming in her ears and smell his sweet smell all around her. Andie felt Guy’s hands running down her arms and she let her keys fall into his hand. He kept her body pressed against his as he tilted their bodies to reach the door. She heard him slide her key into the lock, heard the bolt hit home and the door swing open. Guy’s grip around her didn’t loosen as he used his foot to push her bag through the doorway. He cupped Andie’s cheeks in his hands, lifting her face up to his. He brushed his thumb on her lip and then kissed her softly.

“You told me to fix it, Andie. I promise you, I
will
fix it. Believe in me.”

Andie blinked away the few tears that still clung, unshed, to her eyelashes. She wanted to protest or tell him that it would be impossible to fix this. Or tell him that it wasn’t worth throwing away his career to fix it, that sometimes things that seemed right just weren’t meant to work out. Look at Romeo and Juliet. That was the best kind of love there could be, and it wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes people were just star-crossed, destined to love each other without the world letting them love each other. It sucked, but it happened. But even with all of that cynical logic poisoning her thoughts, Andie was still entranced by the man holding onto her, a thin pool of cerulean love potion ringing his pupil. Tragic or not, this was a love spell she didn’t even want to fight free of.

“Just kiss me, Guy.”

Guy’s smile made her smile. He brought his lips to hers and kissed her again, this time eagerly, using his arms to scoop her up and carry her over the threshold of her own apartment.

As he stepped through the door with her cradled in his arms, Andie pushed her hand on Guy’s chest and tore her lips from his. “What if someone sees us and this moment is the next one to make it in the headlines?” The question was bittersweet—half-joking, half-serious.

Guy’s eyes darkened but he gave her a crooked, mischievous grin. Holding her securely in his arms, he pulled his phone out from his pocket and shook it in front of her. “How about we make sure it does? Let’s make the next picture to go viral the one we want.”

The idea delighted Andie. Sometimes the solution to the problem was the problem itself. It was suddenly so simple, and she was almost a little embarrassed that she hadn’t thought of it before. After all, she was always telling her creative writing students that if they wanted to tell a story right, then they should tell it themselves and not count on others to tell it for them. That way, they were sure to get it right. Guy and her telling their own story seemed like the only thing that made sense. It would probably backfire, but that was a problem for another day that they could deal with later. For now, it would feel good to get a tiny bit of vindication and prove to the world that she wasn’t some home-wrecking maniac, and that even if nothing else, she and Guy stood united. Two against the world were better odds than just one. And everyone who had given those backhanded compliments that she didn’t place high enough on the scale to catch a guy like Guy Wilder could suck on
that
.

“You wouldn’t.” It was a taunt. She didn’t need to say more—like that it would likely cause more grief for both of them before it was all said and done and the headlines took off after someone else. If anyone knew that without having to hear it said, it would be Guy. Besides, all girls fantasized about their celebrity crush falling for them, and hers was coming true. That was worth a little bad press, right?

“Oh, but my dear Andie Foxglove, I mostly definitely would.” Guy flicked on the phone’s camera and shifted Andie in his arms to capture the perfect selfie. “In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

Looking at their reflection in the phone’s camera, Andie had to admit, they were a damned good-looking couple. Him dark and her light, like two opposing forces brought together in harmony. It was cliché, but they yin-yang-ed the hell out of each other. And, even in the midst of all this drama, the grins on their faces were unaffected and happy. You couldn’t even tell that Guy had been worriedly hammering on her empty apartment door not five minutes before, or that Andie had just had tears spilling down her face and was ready to pull out her hair in frustration.
Now this is something I could get used to
. They smiled at each other in the screen for a second, and then Guy looked at her.

“Now, give us your best pose and pucker up for the camera.”

She did. With her eyes closed and her lips against Guy’s, Andie heard the click of the camera as it snapped their photo. The selfie photo of their kiss put all those stupid paparazzi photos to shame. She watched as Guy captioned the photo on his Instagram account with “Yes, the headlines are true” and a little heart emoticon. She wasn’t sure what made her heart beat faster, the photo of the kiss—her cupped in Guy’s arms with her arm around his neck and their profiles locked together—or Guy’s devilish grin as he looked to her for permission before posting. His thumb hovered over the blue words that said Share. Once it was pushed, the world would know, from Guy’s own lips, that the rumors were true—and that he was damned happy about them.

“You in?”

“I’m in.”

Guy tapped the button without looking, his grin stretching wider when the blue slider bar slid in full across the top of the screen confirming that the picture had been successfully shared with the world. And just like that, they’d told their own version of the story. Rumors be damned. Guy shoved the phone back into his pocket without taking his eyes off Andie. “So, tell me again about your terrible awful day.”

Andie laughed and kicked her feet out in the empty air, loving the sudden feeling of freedom that one simple sentence had given her. “What terrible awful day?” she asked, stroking her fingers alongside the sharp edges of Guy’s cheekbone. “Why don’t we talk about something else, or maybe not talk at all?”

Guy kicked the door shut. “Sounds perfect.”

Guy carried Andie to the bedroom and laid her gently on the bed beneath him. He crawled over her, nuzzling into her neck and running his hands up over her stomach and across her breasts. A strangled sound pushed through his throat and his hands were insistent on Andie’s skin, making her breathless. He’d gone from tender to passionate in seconds. Maybe that photo had freed him, too.

“I had this terrible fear that you would never want to see me again,” he managed to murmur between kisses.

She clung to him, her fingers clenched in the leather of jacket, as if she let go she might fall off the edge of the Earth. “I know exactly what you mean.”

He kissed her—hard. He pushed back onto his knees and Andie rose with him, straddling his lap as she kissed him back, refusing to let him go. Guy tore off his jacket, then his shirt, and sat shirtless on his knees as Andie kept on top of him, riding the kiss. His body was a velvet rock against hers, warm and pulsing with life. It was sort of like being wrapped, literally, around a big hunk of forbidden fruit—and it was possibly the best feeling in the world. She kissed out every bit of humiliation, of doubt, of frustration and anger over everything that had happened since the last time his lips were on hers. When they were both gasping for breath, his hands found her face and he held her gaze in his again. They stared at each other as they relearned how to breathe.

“You’re bad for business, you know.” His words brushed against her lips.

“Oh yeah? How so?”

“The last thing Silas Dove needs is a girlfriend. My agent hates it.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Other than knowing the fallout has you caught in the crossfire in the headlines, it’s fantastic.”

His smile softened what otherwise could have pushed on Andie’s already fragile ego. It was good they could at least joke about this, right? Something had to make this bearable when she was facing off against a crowd of naysayers ready to burn her at the stake. She was so outside her comfort zone even a map couldn’t help her find her way back. “You aren’t looking so great on my resume either. My dean is disappointed, my students think I’m insane, and Tandy—don’t even get me started on that whole mess.”

“MMmm.” His words were lost as his mouth nuzzled against her throat. One warm hand slipped around to cradle her neck in his palm. Andie felt her pulse speed up, felt it shuddering against the pressure of his lips on her skin. Her empty hands fidgeted, then ran up through his hair and curled into tight fists.

Guy groaned against her neck and cupped his free hand under her ass. In one deft movement, he propelled them both forward and dropped her flat on her back against the bed. Andie’s breath pushed out between her lips as Guy ran his hand up her leg from foot to thigh, making her skin sizzle and pop in little goose bumps in his wake. He hung above her, a man bathed in shadow with predator eyes shining in the darkness.

“I guess we both have a little bit of a rebellious streak in us then, huh?”

The woman Andie had been just a few days ago—that wizened academic who knew better than to fall under the spell of some disastrously good-looking hot mess paid to be the most mesmerizing thing he could be—was banging on the inside of Andie’s subconscious, reminding her that this was all moving too fast to be normal. Passionate encounters that led to happily ever after’s were the stuff of carefully curated movie scripts, not intended to ever play out in real life the same way they did on the big screen. They were fantasies, not recipes. She should know better than anyone else that these stories never ended well. But even so, even if she was living out some sort of toxic fantasy, she’d take the risk—and deal with the consequences later.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Well, we’ve effectively gone viral,” Guy announced the next morning. His chest rose out of the stark white sheets of Andie’s bed like a mythical merman rising above gleaming water. It almost hurt to look at him; he was so damned perfect.

Andie, who’d been sitting at the edge of the bed brushing out last night’s tangles from her hair, paused. She pointed her brush at him across the expanse of bed between them. “I don’t even want to know about it. Let me just keep pretending you’re a normal guy and our relationship is totally unimportant to any and everybody. Nothing newsworthy here, folks, just some old-fashioned boy meets girl—even if said guy is morbidly gorgeous and rich and famous.”

“‘Morbidly gorgeous’? That may be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.” Guy laughed and leaned forward to stamp a quick kiss on her cheek. “Okay, and we’ll pretend that you aren’t some cynical researcher who doesn’t believe in fairytale romance—and who’s not bothered at all that half the entertainment headlines on the old Interwebs insist you’re shrewdly trying to brainwash me back to reality.”

“First of all, it’s not cynical if it’s true, Mr. Wilder. That’s the beauty of analysis. There is no such thing as fairytale romance, no matter how ‘realistic’ the screenwriters try to make it. And second, if anyone is trying to brainwash anyone, I think the odds might be in your favor, since you’ve got those hypnotic vampire powers and all.”

“Well, well,” he cooed, toppling her over from her cross-legged pose and pulling her body on top of his. “Looks like somebody’s found their fighting spirit again after all.”

Andie laughed and allowed herself to be coaxed into Guy’s lap. It really wasn’t a struggle. She’d been eyeing that spot ever since she sat down to brush her hair. “Maybe I’m letting it all get to me too much. I could have handled yesterday a lot better.”

“At least you didn’t throw a tantrum and stomp off the set, hop the next flight to Denver, and show up on the doorstep of the woman you’d managed to take through the ringer and get every person in the fandom hating for breaking up a fake romance that never existed.”

“You didn’t!” Andie was aghast. He had left that part out of the story last night.

“I did.” Guy almost sounded guilty. “Don’t worry; it’s the second most read article right beyond the ‘Oh My God No He Didn’t Tweet That Photo’ headline. You’re still Number One, my lady.”

Andie groaned. He’d said it lightly, but it really couldn’t be a good thing. “That isn’t going to go over well, Guy. I mean, I’m flattered that you would defend my honor with a bout of set rage, but that headline can’t be making things any better for either one of us.”

Guy fingered a lock of her hair that had tumbled down over her shoulder and fallen into the space between them. His face was blank and unreadable. Andie didn’t like it.

“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing, Guy? The stars seem crossed against us. Maybe we should quit while we’re still ahead.” It almost brought tears to her eyes to say it out loud, but it was a suspicion that had been plaguing her thoughts ever since she lashed out at Tandy yesterday. If she didn’t get it out now, it would fester until it found a way out. She felt manic.