Flashback Read online

  She and Blake had been kept together as they’d gone into the child care protective services, where they’d landed in a total of three foster homes, each as kind and as warm as they could possibly be, and for that she was more than grateful, she was also lucky—but she’d never really settled into any of them. She didn’t tend to settle, didn’t tend to get comfortable; it was what had made her so certain Aidan was the one.

  Look how that had blown up in her face.

  When she’d gone off to Los Angeles and begun acting, she’d found heaven. Pretending to live someone else’s life, already all scripted out? Perfect. She’d loved it. Still loved it.

  But a small part of her knew that she couldn’t always rely on a script. That at some point she would have to wing it. She’d eventually need a life, a real one, and she’d always figured that life would somehow be entwined with her brother’s, maybe even right here in Santa Rey….

  But now there was nothing for her here, nothing except proving Blake’s innocence.

  Aidan caught her arm as she stepped outside. She yanked free and he put up his hands, letting her step away from him as they walked outside. He leaned a hip against a tree, looking big and tall and attitude-ridden as he eyed her like she was a lit fuse.

  His hair had been finger-combed at best. She could smell soap and man, and the potent mix of testosterone and pheromones boggled her mind. If she lived to be two hundred years old, she’d never understand her attraction to him. Back in her L.A. world, she had access to dozens of gorgeous men. Hundreds.

  But while some had been nice dalliances, none of them had ever really gotten anywhere. Probably because a good number of the men she met were like her.

  Pretend.

  Not Aidan. He lived life with his eyes wide open, no script needed. His job demanded a lot of him, and he was tough because of it, but he hadn’t ever shied away from something just because it was hard. Except for her.

  “Thanks for bailing me out,” she conceded.

  “Need a ride to your car? Or are you going to manage that on your own, too?”

  The sun was warm and bright, and she stood still in it for a moment, tilting her head up to it, inhaling deeply. Then she turned to the man who had once been her everything. Whether she liked it or not—and for the record, she didn’t—he could still stop her heart, make her pulse race, and worst of all, make her hormones stand up and shimmy. “Yeah. A ride would be great, if you don’t mind.”

  He let out a sound that told her what he thought of that, and took her to his truck.

  “About that ride…” She slowed, dragging her feet. “Everything’s still booked. Maybe there’s something—”

  “You know where there’s something.” He turned on the engine and pulled out of the lot. “At my place.”

  “Yeah.” She shook her head. “No.”

  “Yeah no?”

  She sighed. “It’s just that staying with you seems like a whole lot of trouble I don’t want to face.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to lead you on.”

  “I thought you enjoyed exacting your revenge on my body.”

  With more than a slight twinge of regret and, dammit, guilt, she avoided his gaze.

  “Come on, Kenz, be honest. You’re not afraid of hurting me. You’re afraid you’ll get hurt.”

  Wasn’t that the plain ugly truth.

  “You made sure I understood that you’d changed,” he said softly, looking over at her for a beat before returning his attention to the road. “Now you have to understand something. I’ve changed as well.”

  Yes. Yes, he had.

  “Look, you wanted to know what happened all those years ago?” he asked. “I got scared, that’s what the hell happened. I’d always lived my life without letting people inside my heart, where they could hurt me. But you got in, and, yeah, that terrified me. You’re doing it again, by the way, getting in, and I’m not any more thrilled about it now than I was then.”

  Something warm slid through her at his words, and the low, rough tone in which they were spoken. Warm, and dangerously seductive.

  He pulled into his driveway and shut off the engine, turning in his seat to face her. “You’ll have to make do without the five-star rating.” He paused a beat. “Although there are certain five-star services I do offer.”

  When she met his gaze she saw the sparkle of pure wicked trouble in his eyes. Oh, boy. “Aidan—”

  “I’m talking about my breakfasts, which you happened to miss out on. And then there’s my massage specialty.” He didn’t add any obvious eyebrow waggle or other suggestive gesture, but his eyes crinkled and she knew he was thinking suggestively.

  Yup. Dangerously seductive. She already knew how erotic his touch could be, just how earthy, how naughty, and she wasn’t ready to go back there. Not if she intended to be the one to walk away this time.

  And there would be walking away when this was over…

  Even while she was thinking it, he took her hand and led her to his door. Her instinct was to make a smartass comment to piss him off, chase him away, and yet she didn’t do anything but allow him to open the door for her. Once she started to step inside, he stopped her. When she met his gaze, he asked, “You planning anything else I should know about?”

  “Like?”

  “Shit. Anything. It could be anything.”

  The sun was bright. The surf behind them loud and choppy. She loved the scent of the ocean. She’d missed that, working long, long days on set in the middle of Los Angeles. Now that she’d been cancelled, she could see taking a laptop out on the beach and just writing to her heart’s content if she wanted. “My immediate plans involve a shower.”

  “That’s all?” he asked so warily that she smiled.

  “Yeah. That’s all.”

  He touched the corner of her smiling mouth. “That’s a good look for you.”

  “What are you talking about, I smile all the time.”

  “On TV, maybe. But I haven’t seen much of it here.”

  “Well, maybe that’s because I was in a fire, then facing the fact that my brother’s dead, and then…” And then she’d been in his bed, naked, panting, sobbing his name, holding onto his head as his mouth and then his body had taken her to heaven—

  “That look,” he said, pointing at her. “I want to know what you were thinking just then to put that look on your face.”

  She crossed her arms over her suddenly aching breasts. “Nothing.”

  “You are such a liar,” he chided softly.

  He gestured her inside his place, and she took a better look around than she had when she’d been fresh out of the hospital, and then fresh out of his bed. She saw the pretty windows, the wood floors he’d done himself, and felt another ache, this one in her chest.

  She knew that growing up, Aidan hadn’t had much of a stable home life, either. He’d been shuffled around as much as she had. Going into the fire academy had changed his life, given him a team, but more than that, his first real friendships. The kind of friendships that would last, the kind of friend that had his back no matter what. He still hadn’t had any real understanding of what that meant when she’d gone off to Los Angeles, but she could tell it had come to him in the years since. There was an easy confidence about him, an air that said he’d been well liked, well taken care of…

  Well loved.

  Her heart did a little flop at that because she hadn’t given herself the same. Oh, sure, she was liked. She’d been taken care of. But loved by someone other than Blake?

  No.

  And if she took away the fame, leaving just small-town girl Kenzie Stafford, what would actually be left?

  The answer was as unsettling as the thought, especially given that now she really was without that fancy job. “Aidan?”

  He’d headed for the kitchen, but stopped and turned to her. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “For?”

  “For bailing me out. For waiting to make sure