Page 20 of Blurred Lines

“Is there anything slightly more legal?”

“Wine? I need more wine.”

Another glance.

“I know a place,” Kane offered. “Want to go get drunk? And when I said you looked terrible, I meant your expression, not, you know…”—he waved a hand—“the rest of you. Did you lose weight?”

Brax gave me a squeeze. “Take Hakeem for the day. He’ll make sure you get home.”

Kane and Brax might have been assholes in their own way, but Theo was in a whole other league. At least they cared. I managed a tearful nod, and Kane tucked a few stray hairs behind my ear.

“We’ll wait here while you change,” he said. “Brax, can you get Lauren another phone? Vi’s gonna lose her mind if she can’t get in touch. I’ll find Tylenol and a glass of water.”

“Consider it done.” Brax kissed me on the forehead. “Does Theo have a key to this place?”

I nodded miserably.

“Then I’ll arrange for new locks to be installed. Forget Theo, my darling. He didn’t deserve you. The right man is out there waiting, and he’ll come into your life when fate dictates it.”

An image of Cristian popped into my head, his expression ferocious as he stared Mario down via a photo. I thought… I thought that maybe the right man had already made an appearance.

And that possibility scared me more than ever.

CHAPTER 8

LAUREN

With several dozen photographers and ten million Twitter users as my witnesses, I was never going to a party with Kane Sanders again.

The “place” he knew turned out to be a yacht. I never worked out whose birthday it was, but they certainly hadn’t skimped on the alcohol budget or the guest list. Sometime around midnight, I’d ended up jumping into the on-board swimming pool fully clothed with Kane and Connor Lowes, another Hollywood heartthrob and reformed bad boy. He was married now, and his wife was lovely, from the little I remembered. She’d passed me a towel after several strangers hauled me out of the water.

Now the pictures were all over the internet. Real-life romance for Kane Sanders and Lauren Rossi? Has a novelist finally tamed the wayward star of Hidden Intent? They certainly looked cosy last night. If I recalled correctly, the “cosy” picture had been taken when I dropped a potato chip down my top, and he was trying to shield me from view while I fished it out of my bra. Of course, he’d offered to do it for me, but we’d both known I’d never take him up on that.

True to his word, Brax had let me keep Hakeem all evening, and the driver-slash-bodyguard had carried me to bed in the early hours, then checked every nook and cranny of the house before he set the security system and departed. He’d even left a glass of water and a bottle of acetaminophen on the nightstand. The man deserved a raise.

My phone buzzed.

Violet

Saw the pics! Glad you’re feeling better :)

Me

I’m not. Head hurts.

Violet

Have you taken painkillers? There’s a bottle in my bathroom cabinet if you’ve run out.

Dwight Eisenhower

Bet you can’t wait for this.

Mario had sent a picture of himself reclining on a leather couch, holding his mushroom. He couldn’t even be bothered to trim his pubes. They sprouted everywhere like a tiny tangled forest, no doubt full of poison ivy. There was probably a lost species living in there. Some kind of crab, possibly.

Me

Go fuck yourself. No woman’s ever gonna help with the job.

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