Page 15 of Until the Sea Runs Dry

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Logan gunned the car all the way home.

He felt like a jerk for leaving her, though he really didn’t have much choice.

As soon as he was recognized, as soon as those phone cameras were pointed his way, he knew he’d had to get out of there, or the place would turn into a zoo. Paparazzi would have descended upon the hospital, trying to sneak pictures of her for the tabloids. She wouldn’t have gotten a moment’s peace.

Given everything that had already happened, it was the last thing she needed.

While his motivation for leaving was to protect her, he also could have done without the added complication their story would bring.

It was only that very morning when his team of managers, agents, lawyers, and publicists had drummed in their message in a three-hour emergency meeting that had almost caused his head to explode.

One more strike.

Just one more scandal.

And he would lose the only job they had managed to secure for him in the past year. He would lose all of his properties. The investors for Steel Pictures, his fledgling film company — the one he’d created in order to give himself better material than the mindless action movies that came his way — would pull out. And he could forget the fleet of luxury cars that sat in his garage: he’d be lucky if he could afford regular Ubers.

He would be dumped by his agency, and likely his long-suffering manager, Trevor, too, even though the two had clawed through the trenches together until they had reached their starry heights of fame. Trevor was the only real friend he had in the industry, yet even their relationship was getting strained from all the recent crap he’d had to deal with.

When the crash had come, it was stunning how quickly it had happened.

After slogging his way through weekly acting classes only to be told that his kind of talent was best suited to non-speaking roles, Logan had plowed on with determination, eager to prove his teachers — all bitter actors, themselves — wrong.

He had guest-appeared on one bad soap after another, and cheap commercials that were only shown in budget stores, until he’d finally had the kind of break that every wannabe actor dreamed of.

It was due in no small part to Pinnacle Studios CEO, Mack “Stonewall” Rockefeller, taking a chance to hire the cocky unknown who blew the other actors out of the water with his stunning audition.

Protect and Serve became Logan’s first film. He played a hardworking cop and a single dad, fighting to stay clean when all around him, others were playing dirty. The movie became an instant international hit, propelling him into the stratosphere of movie stardom.

Following that, Logan was offered the lead in a new action-movie franchise, which went on to break box office numbers. While the films were not exactly high art, they were entertaining, and their success afforded him the kind of luxury he had always dreamed of.

The only thing that was missing from the perfect picture was his love life.

Logan couldn’t move without a woman throwing herself at him, and while it had been fun at first, to change bed mates faster than he’d changed clothes, the cheapness of it all soon grew old.

It didn’t help that this was the one area of his life where the media scrutinized him relentlessly. It was as if they were more interested in who he was sleeping with, rather than his work.

When he met Ellie Godwin, it had seemed a no-brainer to get involved. She was the most successful television actress in the country, with a popular long-running sitcom that had turned her into the nation’s sweetheart. And, with the kind of killer curves that made men sit up and take note, and a sweet, wholesome personality, Logan had fallen into his first real relationship since he’d become a big star.

The world went insane for their coupling. However famous they each had been on their own, once the two became an item, they couldn’t breathe without having it splashed across the tabloids.

Things had been good at the start.

Ellie was fun to be with, and they were the guests everyone wanted, but it soon became clear that Ellie wasn’t the nice girl she projected into the world.

In reality, she was scheming and spiteful and completely self-absorbed. That girl-next-door persona that had made her so successful had been created by her team, polished until only those unlucky few who really got to know her, discovered the truth.

And by then, it was usually too late.

His phone rang. CAA calling flashed onto the screen in the car. He ignored the call, not wanting to deal with his agents right now.

He wondered if the news had gotten out already.

Had he been linked to the woman he’d helped?

An image of her face came into his mind, flooding it with her startling beauty that had made his breath catch. There was something so fragile about her that, despite his best intentions, his protective instincts had kicked in.

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