fool. It still seemed inconceivable that she’d allowed him to get into her head like that. Such things never happened to her. She was strong and independent, and she certainly didn’t lose her mind over movie stars, no matter how handsome they were. Yet her guts churned like an industrial washing machine.
The front door swung open before Wyntir even reached for the doorbell, Rylan’s face lighting up in welcome.
“Good morning,” she said. She gave Wyntir a quizzical look as she ushered her into the kitchen, where a rumpled Thrett leaned against the counter holding a steaming mug of what smelled like vanilla coffee.
He grunted a sleepy greeting as if he saw her every day, which of course he did. Then Blaise and Trystin tore into the room and ran a squealing circle around Wyntir before running out just as quickly. She gasped at their antics, but Thrett just chuckled.
“Babe,” Rylan said to him with a sweet smile, “would you mind getting Blaise ready to go? Make sure he packed everything.”
“You got it,” he said and then turned his attention to Wyntir. “See you at the office today?”
“No, I’ll be on set all day again.”
“Lucky you,” he snorted and headed out of the kitchen.
As soon as they were alone in the kitchen, Rylan whirled on Wyntir. “You got kissed!”
Wyntir’s heart nearly stopped dead. How the hell did she know? Wyntir had continuously scoured the gossip sites during her mostly sleepless night and no photographic evidence of their moment in the shadows had surfaced. Rylan clearly had some killer Google-fu.
“I-uh-I…” she stammered as she willed the heat in her face to go away.
“And now you’re being coy,” Rylan mused, watching her carefully. “Interesting.”
“No. Not Interesting. And I’m not being coy. I just…don’t want to talk about it.”
“Of course, you don’t. Now spill.”
“First off, which site did you see it on? TMZ? Perez?”
Rylan frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The picture! Of Stark kissing me. Where did you see it? Because I haven’t seen it yet.”
And I want about a thousand copies of it, she thought but didn’t say.
“I didn’t see a photo,” Rylan said with a satisfied smirk. “I can just tell.”
Okay, so that wasn’t embarrassing or anything. But Wyntir couldn’t help smiling because it didn’t matter how old you were, being kissed by a cute boy always made a girl feel good. At least for a few seconds.
“There’s not much to tell,” she finally admitted. “We’d been putting on a show for the tabloids at dinner, and then we went on a walk and he spotted a pap lurking nearby. I guess he wanted to continue the show, so…he kissed me. That’s it, no big deal. Just a PR stunt.”
Her heart ached a little too fiercely over the truth of the statement.
“Riiiiiight. So, you don’t find Stark Bradford the least bit attractive, huh?”
“No! I mean, you know, he’s, um… I mean…” Wyntir shook her head and found some words that didn’t make her sound like a complete idiot. “Whether I find him hot isn’t pertinent. We have a purely professional relationship.”
Rylan smirked. “I didn’t say anything about hot. But since you find him hot, I have to tell you that I’ve had a few hot co-workers in my day, and I’ve seen how easily the line between professional and decidedly unprofessional can get blurred.”
Wyntir so badly wanted to shout, “Right?” but instead adopted a blank expression. “It was just part of a PR stunt. I can assure you, it was only an act.”
“Uh huh,” Rylan said, entirely unconvinced. “If that’s the case, you might want to set up some boundaries for your, um, fake PDA. Don’t want Stark’s heart to get broken down the line.”
Wyntir thought she caught a flash of pity in Rylan’s expression, but she ignored it, playing along. “Good idea.”
To her eternal relief, Blaise bounced into the kitchen, a big, bright smile on his face, and flung his arms around her waist with all the familiarity of a real family. Wyntir was taken aback for a moment but then leaned in and tousled the kid’s soft, rusty hair.
“You ready to head home?” she asked.
“Sure!” He took her hand and a twinge of maternal affection washed over her. Oh god. What about the Bradford Boys made her so weak?
After twenty more minutes of the boys saying goodbye to each other, they finally headed out. Blaise’s eyes lit up as he clocked Wyntir’s light blue Porsche sitting pretty at the mouth of the driveway.
“Damn!” he swore, the word sounding foreign in