Anywhere You Are (18 page)

She grabbed his leash from the hook near the door and clipped it onto his collar.

“Grace Davingham, you'd better not walk out on me.” Her mom stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the family room, the dead pineapple fixture hanging between them like some bad metaphor. Symbolizing the burned-out husk that was their relationship. Or something.

“Goodbye, Mom.”

She swung the door open, only to have a camera bulb flash in her face.

“Grace! Grace! Over here, Ms. Davingham!” More cameras. More flashes.

She just stood there, frozen. Automatically, her mouth curved into that fake smile—the one she hated seeing on herself in pictures—but she just couldn't help herself. It was as if it were ingrained in her DNA.

“Ms. Davingham,” a woman called out. Grace swiveled her head to follow the sound. It was the perky reporter from the video. “We understand that you supplied the painting of the American bittern to support the campaign to halt the renovations currently underway on the golf course at the Briarwood Golf and Yacht Club. Care to comment about your inspiration behind your work?”

A microphone was shoved in her face.

“I—” She licked her dry lips. This was wrong, so wrong. Her chest was tight. Her cheeks were hotter than they were when she was fighting with her mom.

“Grace?” her mother called from behind. “What's happening? Who are those people?”

“I—”

Big Blue barked and she turned around. The entire crew had followed her mom into the kitchen, crowding into the space, drawn to the drama like moths to a flame. She was trapped, cameras rolling on both sides. No way back, no way forward. She turned back to the reporter, who waggled the microphone in her face.

“Ms. Davingham?”

A sense of impotence washed over her. And of shame. This was her life, this crazy, in-your-face, anything-goes life where she was no longer a person. “I can't do this.”

She stepped back, and to the sound of many surprised voices, pulled Blue inside and slammed the door shut. She was a coward. She could have said something—told them that she had nothing to do with the attack on Briarwood, but she just couldn't make her mouth work. Not with everyone staring at her. She needed space, to think, to breathe, but the walls were closing in around her.

“What on earth is going on?” Her mother walked over and peered out through the small, covered window. “Ooh, reporters.” She turned to Grace, her eyes practically gleaming. “Go talk to them.”

“I don't want to talk to them. I…I need a lawyer,” she croaked.

Carolyn and Jane would know how she could get one. A good one who understood what was at stake for her here. Maybe she could get that picture back.

“What for? This is free publicity. You'd be a fool to throw it away.”

“You don't understand. He thinks I—” She shook her head. “God, this is such a mess.”

There was a loud knock on the door. Banging, really. Someone was using their fist and putting all their weight into it, too.

Grace moved toward the door to tell everyone to buzz off.

“Oh, good. You've come to your senses,” her mother said, obviously thinking she was going to give the reporters something.

The door pounded again and she swung it open. “Get lost before I—” she started before the words died on her lips.

It wasn't the reporters.

It was Marc, wearing a suit, a tie, and a grim expression on his handsome face.

“Hello, Grace,” he said, his eyes glittering dangerously. “We need to talk.”

Grace stood there looking up at him, eyes wide, mouth a little open, and damn if she wasn't gorgeous, even though she looked upset and confused. Though why
she
would look like that, he didn't know. For a moment, he actually felt sympathy for her.

No.
Grace had screwed him over but good. She was the enemy.

“Marc,” she said, her voice husky.
Deceitful.
“I thought you were still in India.”

“I came home early,” he bit out. “Only to find my own welcoming committee.” He waved his hand over his shoulder, as if to encompass all the insanity piled up behind him.

She looked over his shoulder, then met his gaze and swallowed hard. “I can explain.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I'm all ears.”

“You see, I—”

But she never got a chance to talk, because behind Marc, the reporter started speaking rapidly.

“I'm here outside Grace Davingham's house in Eastbridge, Connecticut. As you may know, Ms. Davingham is a reality TV star who has thrown her celebrity behind the campaign to halt the renovations currently being done at the Briarwood Golf and Yacht Club. Mr. Colby is one of the owners of the club. It appears as if they know each other…
intimately.
” The reporter turned to them, breathless with anticipation. “Tell me: are you two an item?”

Marc's eyes met Grace's, and he saw the guardedness. At least on this, they had a meeting of the minds.

“No comment,” they both said in unison, right before he grabbed her, bundled her inside, and slammed the door shut.

He'd no sooner set foot in Grace's kitchen when Big Blue leapt up and started barking like crazy.

“Down, Blue. Sit. Down!” he yelled, reverting to his old ways, but of course the dog didn't respond to his frenzied shouting.

Grace came to the rescue. “Hush, Blue,” she said in a calm voice. “Sit. Good boy.”

Blue immediately did as she asked, and Marc bristled at the ease with which she handled him. With which she seemed to handle everything.

He hated being at a disadvantage, and from the moment he'd seen her picture in the paper, he'd felt like he'd been at one. Her composure only served to irritate him further, so Marc did what he always did when he felt cornered: he went on the offensive.

“Tell me why your picture of the American bittern is being waved in my face by angry environmentalists as they stage a protest to boycott my golf club!” he demanded.

She licked her lips. “About that,” she said. “I—”

“You waited until I left to plan your attack with George Arbor, didn't you.” He narrowed his eyes and glared at her. “It all makes sense now. You must have been in cahoots with him the whole time.”

“Cahoots? Now, just hold on a minute,” she said, her voice rising. “I would never—”

“Well, you did, and now your picture is everywhere. Tell me, Grace,” he said. “Were you deliberately trying to screw me over by aligning yourself with the environmentalists?”

“Would you please just—”

“Or was it just for fun?”

Two spots of red colored her cheeks. Good. He wanted her to feel as off-kilter as he did. He let her take a deep breath before he pounced again.

“If you'll just give me a chance to—”

“You sure didn't give
me
one,” Marc snapped, cutting her off again. “You just hung me out to dry.”

“Marc, please—”

“Why'd you give them the picture, Grace?” he said, his jaw clenched so tightly he felt a muscle tic in it.

“If you had asked me instead of coming in here and accusing me,” she said, her tone icy, “I would have told you that I
didn't
give it to them.”

“So that wasn't your bird picture being waved in front of my face?” he said in disbelief.

“It was, but I didn't give it to them. I
sold
it to George Arbor.”

Marc blinked. “Why?”

“It's called being an artist,” she said, sarcasm creeping into her voice. “It's what I do. I paint the picture. People buy the picture.”

“You could have given me a heads-up.”

“And tell you what? That a man who's been really generous with me, has commissioned a bunch of pictures from me, and has supported my work wanted to buy one of my paintings?” She put a hand on her hip, challenging him. “Besides,” she continued. “If there's an endangered bird on your property, right where you want to do construction, why wouldn't you want to know about it?”

“That construction is going to save Briarwood,” he said, not sure why he was trying to justify it to her.

“And stopping it might save our environment.”

“I have people's livelihoods on the line here.”

“A rare bird is on the line, too,” she countered.

“You don't understand. That would kill my schedule.”

“I understand perfectly. If there
is
an American bittern on your property and you're going to disturb it by doing those renovations, then maybe you should rethink your priorities. Because honestly, Marc, don't you think preserving our natural resources is more important than letting a bunch of rich people play golf?”

God, she was magnificent, her head thrown back, her chin up, her eyes sparkling like emeralds. She was fire and fighting be damned, he was drawn to her flame.

“Anyway,” she continued, “as you would know if you had
any
understanding of copyright law whatsoever, which you should, because I'm sure you deal with this kind of thing all the time, once I sell my paintings, they don't belong to me anymore. I can't control what the new owners do with them. What I
can
do is control the way my name is being used, and truth be told, before you came in here like gangbusters, I was actually considering hiring a lawyer to figure out my rights in this whole debacle, but I'm not so sure about that anymore given the assumptions you seem so fond of making!” she finished, breathless.

“What about the picture?”

“Keep up, Marc,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “We've just been arguing about that for the last five minutes.”

“I'm not talking about the bird picture,” he said. “I'm talking about the one in the
Post.
The one with you in some other guy's arms.”

She looked annoyed now, though why he wasn't sure, given that
he
wasn't the one who'd been caught out.

“Seriously? You're upset because of that picture with Zig?”

He winced at the guy's name. “I thought we'd shared something real,” he told her.

“It is real.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don't do this. I can't do this.” Because no matter how passionate or wild or free she made him feel, he couldn't deal with the cheating. Not again. “You've been playing me from the moment we met, haven't you?”

The spots of color were back on her cheeks, and he could tell the second before she blew that it was going to be big. “You…you…pompous
ass,
” she spluttered. “You think that because you're wearing a suit and a tie you know everything. That I'm the dumb reality show star without a brain in my head who's only out for fame.” She was yelling now, and Big Blue, excited by all the noise, started barking again. This time, Grace didn't stop him. “Welcome to my crazy life,” she said. “You know who I am, so why are you surprised that people want to take pictures of me in compromising positions? Anything to make a buck, right?

“The real truth is that I ran into my ex at my dad's party—the party my parents begged me to come to that I wasn't even interested in attending. We talked, I said goodbye, and then someone pushed me into his arms, probably to snap an incriminating shot like that. I don't want him back. I never did.

“And fine, maybe I
was
playing you a little when we first met, but that wasn't because I was trying to mess with you. It was because all I wanted—all I ever wanted—was for you to treat me like a normal woman. But you're as bad as everyone else, aren't you?” She was breathing heavily now, her chest rising and falling. “Judging me, thinking you know me. I know exactly how it feels to be betrayed by someone I loved, and I would
never
do that to anyone else. And if you think that I would try to screw you over after everything we shared, then you really don't know me at all.”

For the first time ever, he was stunned into silence. He'd been wrong.

“Camera B, you getting all this?” someone whispered. Grace froze, and Marc jerked his attention away from her to focus on what was going on around them.

They weren't alone. In fact, there was a veritable crowd in her kitchen—men and women, some with video cameras pointed directly at them. Him. On display, at one of his lowest moments. Being recorded for others to watch.

All at once, his fury returned tenfold.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded. “Who are all these people?”

“My family and their reality show crew,” she said, her voice tight. “They're trying to stage an intervention.”

She clearly didn't want them there, and neither did he. “Kick them out.”

“Believe me, I tried.”

Everyone took the break in the action as the opportunity to press their own agendas.

“You,” a woman in an ugly striped shirt said, pointing at Marc. “Whoever you are, we'll need your signature on the waiver,” she informed him, following up that proclamation by scribbling something on a clipboard, completely dismissing him, as if he were a hired actor for a scripted role. From her lack of gear and the way she gave orders, he guessed she was a director of some kind. “Get him from his left side,” she told a cameraman. “He's got great bone structure.”

“Sweet suit,” said a young man, the spitting image of Jer Davingham, one of Grace's brothers no doubt.

“Hell yeah,” said another young man. “Gotta try that look.” The other brother.

“Grace,” a tall, willowy woman instructed. “Get closer to him.”

Grace shrank back from the woman's demands, and he realized that must be her mother, the model, as stunning in real life as she was in her photographs. She was amazingly beautiful, with sharp cheekbones and incredible green eyes, just like Grace's, except she was clearly treating Grace like some prop in a play. His fury flashed—that someone would do that to her.

The volume in the kitchen was getting louder and louder. Her mother was still talking to Grace about where her arms should go and so was Striped Shirt, and now an older man—Good Lord, Jer Davingham himself—said something about letting them alone. The whole crew joined in, shuffling around their gear, closing in on the two of them, and the sound was only amplified by Big Blue letting loose with a series of earth-shattering barks. The group grew closer and Grace edged toward him.
For protection.
And he was doing a piss-poor job of it.

“The two of them have amazing chemistry,” somebody shouted.

“Closer, Grace!” her mother insisted. “Look like you're into it.”

Vibrant, full-of-life Grace had a blank look on her face and that expression just wrecked him. Obviously, she'd been dealing with this long before he'd come on the scene, and he could tell she was tired, given that she seemed to be shutting down fast. He stepped in front of her, shielding her from the chaos with his body.

“Get the waiver,” Striped Shirt said again.

“OMG, isn't he the one who's killing the birds at that golf course?”

A hard flash of anger took his breath away. So Marc did what he should have done the moment he saw those cameras. “Enough!” he thundered, loud enough to make the burned-out pineapple shake.

Everyone stopped moving—her parents, her brothers, Striped Shirt, the crew—even Big Blue, who stopped barking, went still by Grace's side. A younger woman—a makeup artist, maybe?—simply gaped, and it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop in the kitchen.

“Get out of here,” Marc rasped.
“Now.”

Everyone stared at him. Marc stared back, unblinking.

“But, we—” Striped Shirt started. Marc turned and leveled his gaze at her. She wisely shut her mouth.

Then, just like that, the camera guys began packing up their gear. It took a matter of moments to get it stowed away, during which time Marc stood there in silence, arms folded over his chest as he glared at everyone, Grace standing silently behind him.

One by one, they filed out of the room—the cameramen, the makeup artist, and the hair stylist and everyone else crowding them. Striped Shirt reluctantly followed, shooting daggers with her eyes at Marc for spoiling her shoot, and then Grace's brothers, until all that was left were her, Marc, her mom and dad, and of course, Big Blue.

Her mom tossed her gorgeous head and crossed the room. “I don't think we've met,” she said. “I'm Sophie.” She held out her hand for a shake.

Marc didn't take it. “You too,” he said quietly but firmly.

Sophie looked incredulous. “I'm sorry. You want
me
to leave?” Clearly, no one asked Sophie Whalley to leave a room. Ever.

Marc refused to simper or shake or worship, but simply regarded her with a steely gaze. “Yes.”

“Do you know who I
am
?” Sophie's voice had gone up a pitch, her beautiful cheeks suffusing with red.

Marc didn't back down. “I assure you, madam, that I do.”

“Madam?”
She was fairly shrieking now, and behind him, he felt Grace shift.

“Come on, love,” Jer said, taking his stunned wife's arm and tugging her toward the door. “Let's let the two of them work it out. 'Bye Gracie. See you later.” And to Sophie: “I don't know about you, but I rather like the bloke.”

Jer opened the door, and the noise from outside impinged on Marc's brain, but only for a moment as he pulled a still-sputtering Sophie out. There was shouting and cries from the reporters.