Cougar by Elise Faber

Author:Elise Faber [Faber, Elise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781946140579
Publisher: Elise Faber
Published: 2020-04-04T18:30:00+00:00

Twelve

Pierce

She was going to say no.

Of course, she was.

This was too much too soon.

The plan was to have Kate and Thomas come with me to deliver the pictures I could have easily emailed, to use Thomas’s utter adorableness to convince Artie to come to Disneyland with us. To sugar her up, coax her on a few rides, get her out on a date that she didn’t realize was a date.

But then I’d gotten close.

And I’d not played it cool.

Marie was going to smack me around.

My internal dialogue wasn’t serious, of course, but the words still clued me in, as though a hand had struck my brain. Smack. Me. Around.

Fuck.

I got it.

I knew the story. Everyone in this town did. Artie’s mom and dad, Ben and Tawny Miller, had been B-list celebrities, stars of several failed sitcoms, one successful soap, and had raised Artie in the film world. That wasn’t particularly uncommon in L.A. Neither was the fact that Ben had been abusive to Tawny—and apparently to Artie as well, though that wasn’t common knowledge in any narrative I’d ever heard. The salacious and gossip-inducing part came when Artie’s dad had been caught by the paparazzi, punching and kicking her mom, leaving Tawny bruised and bloodied and surrounded by camera flashes before fleeing in their car.

He’d somehow avoided arrest and made it over the border to Canada.

That was just one shitty piece of the whole horrible scenario, because life had gotten worse for Artie. First, her mom had begun mailing cash to her husband, supplying Ben with enough money to live comfortably north of the border, even at the expense of Artie’s and her own well-being.

Then Tawny had packed up their house, sold their belongings, and followed Artie’s dad to Canada.

Story had it that Ben would have continued to avoid detection if he hadn’t gotten cocky and attempted to attend a fan event for the soap, needing or wanting the attention, and drawing altogether too much of the wrong sort from the Washington State Patrol when he’d been joyriding on his way home.

He’d been picked up, booked, and shipped back to California to face prosecution by the District Attorney.

With Tawny at his side.

Along with Artie being dragged back into the drama.

So, no wonder she was gun shy about possibly pursuing a relationship. She needed to be coaxed, gentled, tugged along.

Not hit over the head with my desire.

Fuck.

She shook her head. “I’m—”

“It’s okay,” I murmured, knowing I needed to employ a tactical retreat, to not push too hard so I could coax on another day. “I understand, sweetheart.” I placed the pretty much useless flash drive on the counter next to the popsicles. “I’ll go—”

Her hand on my arm stopped me.

“No.”

If this had been one of my films, the camera would have focused on her fingers circling my bicep, the slight sheen on her pale pink nails glittering in the overhead lights, the clunky gold ring she wore on her thumb sparkling, then it would have cut to my face, captured my jaw tightening, my eyes widening with hope, the way my breath froze on my lips.

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