Page 33 of Behind the Scenes

Residual anger kept him from responding to her apology, but out of the corner of his eye he saw her looking at him and waiting for him to say something. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound like he was scolding her, though.

Staring out at the parking lot in front of him, he asked, “How was the burger? I’ve had better. That’s for sure.”

“It’s something. I think I used up all my energy when all that happened with those guys. I was pretty much running on a sugar high from the fudge anyway. If I didn’t get something in my stomach, I was going to be sick in the back seat.”

Her reference to what happened at the beach made him turn and look at her, and he saw she had a dab of ketchup on her upper lip. Unable to stop himself from smiling, he handed her a napkin.

“Wipe your mouth. You have ketchup on your lip.”

She snatched the napkin from his hold and turned away to clean her face. A few seconds later, she glanced over at him again with a worried look.

“Is it gone?”

He studied her face for a moment and couldn’t help but be struck by how beautiful she was. Even with that brown wig, she was gorgeous. He didn’t know if it was her perfectly formed mouth or the straight nose that fit her face just right or the sculpted cheekbones. Or maybe it was a combination of all those and her deep brown eyes that made her such a knockout.

Whatever it was, he had a feeling he knew at that moment what Gideon and Xavier and all her fans saw when they looked at her.

“You’re good.”

They ate the rest of their food in silence. When he opened the door to throw the garbage away, Alexis gently touched his arm, stopping him dead. He looked down at where her pale pink fingernails sat against the tan skin of his arm and then up at her face as she stared at him with wide eyes and felt his heart skip a beat.

“I am sorry, Hunter.”

He still didn’t know what to say, so he fell back on what he’d been assigned to do. “I’m not around to control you or make your life miserable, but I can’t protect you if I’m not around you, Alexis.”

She hung her head and quietly said, “I know. I never meant to do anything to disrespect you or anyone else. I just wanted to go to the beach and be out of the house for a day.”

Seeing her looking so sad bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He’d never felt trapped a day in his life. No matter how bad being a cop got, never once did he feel like he had no way out. He couldn’t imagine how much she wanted to break free from so much of her life.

To everyone else, she looked like she held the world in the palm of her hand. The truth was much less glamorous. All her success meant the world controlled her instead of the other way around.

Reaching out, he pushed her hair off her shoulder. “Next time, just let me know. I’m not here to stop you from living your life. My job is to find out who’s stalking you, but it’s also to protect you. That doesn’t mean keeping you locked up in your house, though.”

She lifted her head and her smile lit up her face. “Okay. Thank you for understanding.”

He didn’t understand. He knew that. But he wanted to. He wanted to help her break free of this stalker and everyone else who thought it was their job to keep her under their control.

When he got back into the car after throwing away the garbage, he turned to face her and said what he should have said earlier that morning. “Thanks for what you did with my room. It was a really nice thing for you to do.”

The smile he received in response for just those few words made him forget all the anger he felt toward her for so much of the day. She had a way of lighting up a space with her happiness that made him want to be around her.

“I’m so happy you like it, Hunter. I didn’t want you to have to suffer on that couch. From one bad sleeper to another, you know? At least if you’re going to be up half the night, you can be comfortable in a bed. And now you have somewhere to put your things, although I have to admit I haven’t seen that you have much. You changed clothes, though, so you must have things, right?”

He turned the ignition and chuckled. “I’m pretty low maintenance, so I don’t require much. Just a few change of clothes and a few pairs of shoes. I travel light, as a rule.”

Alexis narrowed her eyes like what he said sounded completely foreign to her. He started to explain that he was like most men, but she said, “I bet you think I’m very high maintenance, right?”

Until just a few minutes before, he would have responded with a resounding yes. Any woman who acted the way she did with her bodyguards, forcing them to move rooms full of furniture on a whim and then sneaking away so everyone around her nearly lost their minds trying to find her, would definitely be classified as high maintenance.

Very high.

But now he saw her differently. True, she still came with a lot of maintenance required, but he understood why a little better. Plus, when you got past all the Hollywood diva stuff, Alexis Marchand wasn’t that different from anyone else he’d met in this world.

“No more than any other woman, I’d guess,” he said with a smile.

He began to drive again as she said, “Oh, really? So you’re one of those kinds of men who like only low maintenance women. I bet you like the kind who doesn’t expect anything from anyone and looks great even when she doesn’t wear makeup.”

“No. I don’t like that kind of woman. I’m not a fan of doormats, even if they do look good first thing in the morning,” he answered honestly.

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