So far, we’d been recreating the day we met.
“Excellent choice,” I said. “ She won the Nobel prize for literature.” I kept my eyes down on the book, avoiding Dalton’s hypnotic green eyes.
“This is a great store,” he said.
“How did that book about kegel exercises work out for you, by the way?”
“Not the way I expected.”
I looked up into his eyes, too curious to avoid him any longer. His famous face looked the way I’d left it—perfect, from his defined jaw and cheekbones to those expressive, dark-lashed eyes. His black hair was damp and shiny from the rain. The planes of his face caught the store’s light as though it had been set up exclusively for him.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I have to be somewhere, and I need a break from LA.”
“I’m sorry to hear about… everything.” I really was sorry that reporters had discovered his past, but even more sorry he’d been denied a normal childhood. One of the stories I’d read about him revealed that when he was four years old, he’d woken in the night and wandered out of his room to find a film crew and an orgy in his living room. The actress who spoke to the reporter said it used to happen all the time, and she felt sorry for the kid, but they had to shoot when and wherever they could. She’d hoped the money his parents were making would eventually build a better life for the kid, and everything would be worth it. But then he ran away from home as a teen, changed his name, and made his own life, without them.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Is that all?” Dalton replied.
“What else is there? Congratulations on buying the cabin. How’s that going?”
“I thought you might actually apologize for what you did,” he said.
My pulse started to hammer in my ears. The way he was looking at me—it wasn’t his usual flirty expression.
“You’re scaring me,” I whispered, because he was.
“You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone. You promised me.”
I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t go down.
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Are you saying the video of the curvy blonde at the tattoo shop isn’t you? Because it sure looks like you. I only watched it once, but the video’s up to a couple million views.”
My mouth dropped open.
Thunder rumbled outside, the rain picking up fury.
A lightning bolt punctuated my sudden realization.
The person who revealed Dalton Deangelo’s secret past was me. I’d been worried about this. It must have happened during the night I couldn’t remember clearly. My friend Mitchell wouldn’t have betrayed me, so it must have been one of the model guys we were out with who’d recorded me on his phone. Then again, maybe Mitchell had betrayed me. People did that. After all, I had betrayed Dalton.
“I didn’t know,” I said, looking down at my shoes, away from his cold expression. “This is the first I’ve… oh, Dalton. I’m so sorry. I could literally die right here from how sorry I am. I never meant to hurt you.”
“You haven’t seen the video?”
“No! I didn’t want to read all those terrible things people were saying about you. All those horrible people on the internet. I mean, I looked once, but just for a few minutes.”
He sighed, and his tone softened a bit. “To be fair, you didn’t say everything, but you dropped some huge hints, and that reporter, Brooke Summer, put the clues together and figured out where to look.”
“This is all Brooke’s fault.” I still couldn’t look up at him. Please let him agree it’s Brooke’s fault.
“Peaches, look at me.”
“I can’t. I’m too ashamed.”
“Brooke Summers didn’t sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but you did.”
My mouth went dry. “You’re going to sue me?” I glanced up, meeting his gaze. To my surprise, he looked amused, like he was making fun of me. My guilt morphed quickly into anger. “Good luck suing me, especially since I don’t have anything. Not compared to you.”
“You didn’t read the NDA before you signed it, did you?”
“Why?” I crossed my arms.
Dalton pulled out his wallet, put some bills on the counter, and tucked the book under his arm. “I should get on my way. It’s getting stormy out there.”
He turned and walked toward the door, but slowly, like he wanted to be stopped.
I called out, “What do you want from me?”
He stopped at the door, his back to me. “Dinner on Wednesday?”
“I might have plans.”
He grinned. “Bulldoodle.”