An insane one.
“Crab Shack,” she muttered. “Let’s eat and then I’ll try to fix this mess.”
“I already did.” I reached behind her head and tugged the rubber band away, letting her brown hair bounce loose around her shoulders. “Let’s think about this logically.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, now you want to be logical.”
I pressed my finger to her lips. “Logically, does it work? Movie star falls in love and marries his pet project while filming in New York. Most interesting couple allows media to view parts of their relationship while he finishes up filming. Oh, look, a picture of the couple by the lake. Oh, what? There they are kissing by the hot dog stand.”
“Nobody kisses by the hot dog stand.”
“Wasn’t finished.” I shushed her. “Riding bikes down the trail! A picnic at sunset!”
“We aren’t in Anne of Green Gables. There will be no picnics.”
“Just . . .” I braced her shoulders. “Does the marriage angle work?”
Her eyes fluttered closed and then opened. A sliver of hope raced through me at her defeated look. “It can work.”
“Yes!”
“But—” She held up her hand. “But the story won’t be about taming anymore. You’ve made it bigger than that—”
“So what’s it going to be about?”
“Love and seduction,” she whispered. “Seduce me, and you seduce them.”
“Them?”
“The audience.” Jordan frowned. “You’ll be seducing me and making me believe you want something permanent, but they’ll be experiencing it with me, living it with me, which means that in the end . . .”
“What?” What end? Things were ending? A choking panic seized my lungs as I tried to digest what she’d just said.
“In the end,” she repeated, “I’ll have to be the bad guy. It will have to be me that ends things with you. So I guess we come full circle. You’ll seduce the shrew, and the shrew will decide in the end that she doesn’t want to change. That’s how the story ends. That’s how this ends.”
“You’re depressing the shit out of me, Jordan, you know that, right?” Talking about ending things when it seemed like something was just starting between us was making my mood worse.
She shrugged.
“Hell, he must have done a number on you.”
“What?” She flinched and tucked her wild hair behind her ear. “What are you talking about?”
“Casey. You guys date?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t.” The car pulled to a stop in front of the restaurant. She reached for the handle, but I put my hand over hers and stopped her.
“Try me.”
I inhaled her perfume as I waited for her response. Her breathing picked up as she glanced down at our joined hands and closed her eyes.
“Casey and I were best friends. He was one of my first clients.”
“So when you quit today—”
“I lost my friend, but to be fair, I lost him years ago. I lost him to the money, the fame . . .”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“That won’t happen,” I felt the need to add. “To me, to us.”
Jordan shrugged. “We have to be best friends in order for that to happen, and I’m pretty sure Max staked that claim on you long ago.”
I rolled my eyes. “Max thinks he’s everyone’s best friend.”
Her frown turned into a small smile. “I wonder why?”
“Never wonder where he’s concerned. Should we eat?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Good idea.”
The conversation was forced throughout dinner, so forced that I had our waiter box up our food. Maybe Jordan needed to go back to the apartment and think. She’d had a day from hell and I’d made it even worse.
Gold star for Reid.
As distressed as she was, I knew I couldn’t help her. I never said I was good at comforting women. I almost offered to get her drunk when we got back to the apartment, but I knew that wasn’t going to work.
Because Max was sitting on our couch, arms crossed, a scowl marring his features. Becca sat on the other couch, pity etched on hers.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered.
He smiled.
I hated that smile. Because damn it to hell, I’d just played into his greedy little hands. Get married first? Me? Yeah, I’d said that. He’d officially won, and I’d been too ass hurt to realize it.
On second thought, the girl who called sounded familiar too.
He wouldn’t.
Becca looked at her hands guiltily.
He would.
“You bastard!” I charged toward him, fist flying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JORDAN
Max jumped onto the couch and held up his hands. “Before you do this, remember, our mother has a Jesus sticker on her car. What would she say?”
“Must you bring her into EVERYTHING?” Reid roared, stopping in front of the couch, chest heaving.
Max shrugged. “It’s not my fault I’m her favorite son.”
“Says who?”
“Mom. This morning.”
“Was this before or after you added vodka to her coffee and slipped her a pill?”