When she came clean about our breakup.
The drugs.
Everything.
She didn’t owe them shit.
She didn’t owe me either.
And yet she was giving us everything.
My heart of stone began to beat in those few minutes when I fought with the desire to catch every last one of those tears with my lips and promise they’d never happen again even though I had no business making promises like that.
And when Jay still didn’t end the scene.
When I’d seen enough.
When she’d given enough to these monsters.
She started stripping.
I sucked in a shocked breath as her shirt went flying over her head, her bra, her tangled jeans and thong.
I closed my eyes only to keep myself from doing something rash like beating the shit out of every single person who was watching this blessed moment — this raw — powerful moment that not one of us should be allowed to witness.
I opened my eyes.
The perfect curve of her back faced the camera.
The small spot just near the right side of her hip that I had once worshiped and kissed until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
The matching tattoo that ran down the side of her thigh.
The same one I’d gotten on the inside of my finger so that when I played my guitar I could see it and know she was with me.
My heart warred with my brain, with logic, with the damn facts that she’d broken us, that she’d chosen herself over us, chosen drugs, chosen him.
When all I’d ever wanted.
Was her.
Angelica’s body flailed in the ocean.
“Enough!” I barked.
Jay leaned back in his chair, completely ignoring me, the bastard didn’t even take off his head set.
I stomped over to him and jerked it off and grabbed him by the shirt. “That’s enough.”
“Not yet.” He said in a calm voice, not even pissed that I’d grabbed him.
I waited, my hands still digging into his shirt.
Another wave crashed over her.
She could die.
Hypothermia happened all the time in Seaside.
“Jay!” I roared.
I didn’t think.
Couldn’t think past the need to save her.
To do what I should have done years ago.
To be her hero even when she told me to go to hell which is exactly what she’d done when I’d found her the first time snorting coke with Andrew.
“What are you going to do about it?” Jaymeson asked in that same calm voice as all eyes fell to us.
“I—”
He grinned.
“I hate you,” I spat.
Then I ran like hell toward the ocean, kicking off my shoes in the process. The waves overtook my body like an angry tumultuous storm — they matched my emotions, the same battle within.
I grabbed Ang’s arm, then one of her legs, dragging her body back against mine, she was frozen, and her breathing was shallow.
“Will?” Her blue lips pressed together, yet somehow still trembled with cold. “What…what’s h-happening? Is the s-s-scene over? Do I have to redo it?”
I was too angry to speak.
Too irrationally enraged to do anything else, I peeled my wet shirt off and put it on her naked body then picked her up in my arms and carried her back onto the beach.
I didn’t realize the cameras were still rolling until Jay yelled out, “Cut.”
I was still a mess of emotions when one of the PAs handed me two towels and two robes.
I rubbed down Angelica’s arms with the towel. She must be half dead and delirious with the way she clung to me with her shaking hands. Or maybe it was just because I’d been in the frigid ocean for mere seconds when she’d nearly drowned in it.
People were staring.
And I was done with it.
I picked Ang up again, swept past a smirking Jaymeson, and stomped all the way to Angelica’s trailer.
When I opened the door.
There was nothing there but a couch, a coffee maker, a table, and a TV. The walls were painted white, and from what I could see there wasn’t even bottled water or snacks. Hell, I’d seen trailers for extras that were nicer. Lincoln didn’t even like his bottled water labels facing the wrong way or so people claimed.
This? This was how she lived on set?
I shook my head and deposited her on the couch.
Angelica closed her eyes and shook beneath the towel, completely dwarfed by the material, I’d never seen her look so… beautiful.
I reminded myself she was an actress.
A damn good one.
And that last scene.
That was acting.
It wasn’t real.
It wasn’t.
I gave my head a shake and blurted. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Her head jerked up, cat eyes burned holes through my body as she stammered out. “Wh-what?”
“You could have died!”
Saying it out loud made the fear real.
Coaxed the fire surrounding me, burning me, making me want a girl that no longer existed, a girl who looked at the camera the way she used to look at me.