a lifetime and created one of the most important relationships in India’s life. But, in the beginning – despite what everyone else had thought at the time – they really had been nothing but best friends. For a few months. Until the night of her very first movie premiere when they’d crossed a line that had taken their friendship to another level. Friends with benefits. Sex whenever they wanted or needed it but with no strings attached and no commitments. And it had worked. Even after their brief spur-of-the-moment and extremely short marriage had ended, running to each other for a dose of nothing but no-hassle sex had always been a regular thing. It had never gone away – that need. Not really. It had caused problems over the years, of course it had, when that line between friends and lovers had sometimes become blurred. But the need to know they were always there for each other had never gone away. Although India had never thought of Kenny in that way for a long time now.
‘Benefits,’ he whispered, moving his face closer to hers, and she didn’t move. Didn’t make any attempt to pull away from him.
She smiled, reaching out to touch his cheek, stroking it gently, looking into those deep, dark eyes of his. ‘No, Kenny. I mean, sex it… it always gets in the way, doesn’t it? Messes things up, blurs those lines, so… I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not anymore.’
Not anymore. He felt a brief stab of disappointment followed by the rational part of his brain telling him she was right. Maybe those days were over now. Maybe it was finally time to draw a line under everything they’d used to do that had only succeeded in complicating everything ten-fold. Maybe it was finally time to grow up and handle these things like adults instead of hiding behind sex as a way of coping with the crap the world sometimes flung at you.
‘I don’t want anything to ruin things between me and you, Kenny. I really don’t want that to happen because I love you, okay? I love you so much, you’re so important to me, you have no idea, but… my head’s all over the place right now. And all I really need is my best friend. I really need you.’
He smiled, wrapping his fingers around hers, squeezing her hand tight. ‘And you’ve got me, baby. You’ve always got me; I’ll always be there for you, no matter what. You know that.’
She reached out to stroke his cheek again, leaning forward to kiss him quickly. She really did love this man. She loved him in a way she’d never really loved anyone else before. And in the past this situation would probably have turned into one of those times when she would have quite happily slept with him just to get back at someone else who’d hurt her, after all, she owed Dominic nothing. Not after what he’d done. But not this time. Not anymore. She could handle this without acting like some petulant teenager. She just wanted to forget. She wanted to forget everything she’d ever started to feel for Dominic because thinking about him hurt too much, and she really didn’t want to go there right now. But things were different, times had changed. The past was the past and it wasn’t fair on Kenny, using him as a way for her to get some sort of ridiculous revenge on another man who’d lied to her, even if Kenny always did know the score. It still wasn’t fair. She had to grow up, start acting like an adult and deal with this new dose of crap that life had dealt her, instead of burying her head in the sand and trying to forget it had ever happened. Because it wasn’t going to go away.
‘I meant it when I said I wanted to get away from here for a while, Kenny. My head’s a mess, and when the media get a hold of this… I’m just not ready to deal with it. Not yet.’
‘You’ll have to at some point, India.’
‘Yeah, I know. But I don’t have to do it right now, do I?’ She sat up, crossing her legs up underneath her, looking at Kenny. ‘Let’s go back to L.A. Just me and you. Let’s get out of here, just for a couple of days. Let’s go back to Malibu, hang out at the beach house.’