Among the Heather (The Highlands, #2)

“I’m sensitive.” I leaned over the top of the treadmill, enraged now. “Better to be sensitive than to be so zipped up the back I can’t feel regular emotions.”


Her lips parted in outrage. “Are you saying I’m unfeeling?”

“If the shoe fits, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart.”

“My mistake. Spock.”

“Well, actually, Spock had feelings,” Allegra threw in.

“Very true,” I agreed and turned back to Aria. “Agent Smith.”

She scowled at me. “Agent Smith?”

“The Matrix.”

“You’re a child.”

“That’s exactly what he’d say.”

Aria’s hands clenched into fists at her sides, her knuckles turning white, and I took a perverse pleasure that she couldn’t hide how much I annoyed her.

“I don’t have time for this nonsense.” She gestured to her sister. “Get your butt out of this gym while he’s in here.”

Genuine anger filled me. “I resent the implication, Aria.”

Perhaps it was my use of her name, but she stiffened. “I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t want my sister bothering my guests.”

“Oh, so now I’m a guest?”

She sucked in a breath like I was fraying her patience, and I tried not to smile. Cutting her sister a look, she ordered, “Finish up in here. Now.” And with that, she marched out of the gym without looking back.

Feeling Allegra’s gaze, I turned my eyes from her retreating sister to her. She grinned mischievously at me, and my lips twitched. “What?”

“What the hell did you do to her?”

“Me? Nothing.”

“Well, she’s usually the epitome of professional and cordial with the club members.”

“Her? Cordial?”

Allegra nodded, still grinning like a madwoman. “You pissed her off, didn’t you?”

Jumping off the machine, I decided I was done for the day. “By breathing, sweetheart. I pissed her off merely by breathing.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t look convinced, but I wasn’t about to protest my innocence. “Seriously. What did you do to her?”

Swiping my towel and water bottle from the floor, I strode past her and said, “If you find out, let me know.”

I attempted to brush off the encounter with Aria as I showered and changed back into my regular clothes. Still, her comments played around and around in my head, driving me to distraction. What was it about that bloody woman?

Thankfully, a better distraction came in the form of Harry.

As I walked back to the castle in the cold, my phone rang and my agent’s name appeared on the screen. The urge to answer it was real, but I forced myself to let it ring a few times before I picked up. Thankfully, I didn’t sound desperate when I did.

After we exchanged pleasantries, Harry got down to it. “Here’s the situation: The studio is in contention with Blake and Lisa over you.” Blake Forster, the director, and Lisa Helman who’d written the script. “Lisa wrote this part with you in mind.”

Shock halted me. “I didn’t know that. She never said.”

“Well, she probably wanted to keep your ego in check. But she sold the idea of you as the leading man to Blake when he came on board, and neither of them can see the movie without you in it. But the studio is looking at the response online from the public and thinks you’re a bad investment right now.”

I flinched.

“However, the fact that there’s no movement here is a good thing. I think we need to hang tight a little longer and hope the studio will see that this was just a blip and it’ll all blow over.” He exhaled slowly, as if hesitant to say the next part. “It would help if we could maybe get you on a talk show or do a serious interview with a big media outlet where we get the full story from the horse’s mouth.”

At the thought of sharing that part of my life with the world, a terrifying tightness squeezed my chest. “I’m not ready for that,” I bit out.

“But you’ll think about it?” Harry pressed.

I promised him I would.

But we both knew it was a goddamn lie.





Six


ARIA





As I swung the BMW X7 out onto the main road toward Ardnoch, I waved in my wing mirror to Jamie, the guard on duty at the staff entrance, then focused on the road ahead.

“Look at you driving on the wrong side of the road on the other side of the car,” Allegra teased, her eyes wide with admiration. “Seriously. And in an SUV, no less.”

I grinned at her playfulness. We’d decided to give ourselves a week before we called our parents about the art school situation, and I’d never seen my little sister so happy and relaxed as these last few days. “What do you mean?”

“Back in LA, you drove convertibles.”

“True.” I chuckled. “Convertibles are for LA. SUVs are for the Highlands.”

“Well, you’re a badass. Does it not get confusing driving here? There are a ton of traffic circles.”

“They call them roundabouts. And you get used to them.”

“When you’re scarily adept like you?”

I snorted. “Scarily adept?”

“Your ability to learn something new within minutes is scary, yes.”

Shaking my head at her teasing, I asked, “Are you looking forward to seeing Sloane?”

“Very much.” Allegra nodded as she stared at the passing trees. “So, now that I have you trapped in a car, maybe you can tell me why you acted uncharacteristically immature to North Hunter?”

My back stiffened. I knew it. I’d thought it was weird she hadn’t mentioned the encounter in the gym yesterday. She’d been biding her time for the right opportunity. Sneaky girl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yesterday was the first day of my period, and seeing him flirt with my baby sister ignited my menstrual wrath. The first two days of my period, my cramps were always so bad and I was always so tired, which led to impatience and snippiness. I did my very best to rein it in and not infect people with my bad mood. Sometimes I didn’t succeed, which would lead to self-flagellation of the worst kind.

“You were pretty mean to him.”

“First day of my period,” I explained.

“Okay, that might account for your impatience, but there’s something else going on with you and this guy. The air between you practically crackled. Did you sleep with him?”

“No!” I objected loudly. “With that man-child? Puhlease. He’s just like every other so-called charismatic, charming actor we’ve ever met. It’s all lies and bullshit and you never know what they’re really thinking because they’re so good at pretending.”

Allegra huffed. “Uh, North was none of those things to you.”

“He was at first. Believe me. He tried to be all smoldering and sexy the first time we met, and he was dating Cara Rochdale. She probably didn’t even dump him because of the scandal. I bet she found out he’d cheated on her a million times.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” I threw her a dark look as I pulled my SUV into the parking lot outside the Gloaming.

“I just think you’re making a lot of assumptions about the guy based on … what? Your experience with Preston? Your horrible experience with Lucas? North Hunter isn’t Lucas.”