Page 15 of Nothing to No One

Wait? While she searched…

Pushing the door closer to its frame without closing it, she breathed for a second. What the hell was going on? Had she woken up or was this a dream? Maybe she was hungover. Yeah, she was still recovering from the previous night’s intoxication. That was it. Brain fog explained. As to the cause, the alcohol or the man, the jury was still out.

Ignoring the ringing, she quickly went to her laptop and booted it up. She opened the internet to type and grabbed the phone to shut the damn thing up.

“Hello?”

“Miss Bambi Bennett?”

“What?” Line after line of search results listed the scandal. Scandal! “Oh my God.”

The voice came again, but she slammed the phone down fast. Ears ringing, her hand went to her mouth. The first thing that loaded was a still image of a video. Stacked mattresses, open bathroom door, this was her life! The spread blankets. Them beneath…

Her jaw sank.

Security footage of the storeroom. They were on tape! There were cameras? Darkness, the red light, the damn convergence of sucky fate and a bunch of unforeseeable incidents, and boom, their secret interlude was available to a vast audience, playing on a screen near you.

She didn’t press the space bar to let the film roll, couldn’t press it. The headlines beneath were horrific. One story after another supposed the truth, without citing their words were speculation.

The phone rang again, driving her to her feet. This wouldn’t do, this… one thing at a time. Rushing across the room, she pulled the phone wire from the socket then dashed into the bedroom. This wasn’t her wheelhouse. Hollywood scandal? Not even close. She needed help, direction. Roman would know what to do.

As she dressed, her stress level rose. They hadn’t planned to see each other again. Would it be awkward? This internet interest was a huge responsibility. Anything she said to the press could cost Roman his career, right when he was trying to put his history of womanizing and partying behind him. Well done, Bambi, she’d screwed everything up, not just in her life, but his too.

The last thing she wanted was for him to lose his job or for his reputation to be impacted because of one impulsive decision. Because of her and goddamn gummy bears. Yeah, ‘cause the bears were the guilty party.

Grabbing her biggest jacket and her purse, she went for the door and found Mr. Anders on the other side with the other two men.

“I’m sorry for this inconvenience, Miss Bennett,” he said. “We will take good care of you… I’d advise you to put your hood up.”

Her hood? Was the rain still falling? Gales—the reason slammed into her when the communal door opened. Dozens of reporters swarmed the street, cameras, aloft smartphones, flashing, waving, people called, shouted, her name was an erratic chorus on the crowd’s unpredictable tide. Magnus kept a guiding arm around her while she held her hood over her face. The other two guys acted as security and did their best to keep a perimeter around her.

When she almost lost her footing, Magnus held her up to bundle them into the back of a car and then they were on the move.

She intended to sit up, but Magnus put a hand on her head and pushed it down. “Stay low a minute.”

The flashes were still going. When his hand finally relaxed, giving her a chance to sit up, they were five blocks from her apartment.

“This is insane,” she breathed out, watching the city go by.

“You’ll get used to it, Miss Bennett,” Magnus said, retrieving his phone from his inside pocket. “Roman’s at the house. He’ll be awake by the time we get there. This is his area of expertise. He’ll help you understand how to deal with it.”

“I don’t want to deal with it.”

Magnus was doing something on his phone and didn’t react.

A second later, he raised the device to his ear. “Hey, it’s me. You wake him up yet? What have we got?”

For the rest of the car trip, Magnus stayed on the phone. The clips of one-sided conversations didn’t give her much clue what was going on. She got the gist they were fielding a lot of press requests, and that Roman wasn’t up yet, so was oblivious to what was going on.

Lucky him.

A wrought iron gate opened as they turned off the street. They drove up a curved driveway to a two-story house, slightly taller wings flanked each side of the modest central building.

The car stopped and the door was opened by a driver, who waited for her to get out. Right, okay, ‘cause why would she have gotten in the car if she didn’t intend to get out when they arrived? Oh, butterflies, her throat dried. With more than usual effort, she climbed out and followed Magnus up the half dozen stone stairs to the covered entryway.

Inside, a double-height lobby with a grand central staircase awed her. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Magnus agreed, putting an arm around her to guide her into a huge living room.

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