Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,36
knows,” he said with a shake of his head. “But this goes beyond me. Everyone thinks I’m this delinquent, but all I’ve ever done is the right thing. I just do the right thing the wrong way. I stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, and I end up in trouble.”
“The rally?”
His eyes flicked to mine, a smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “I stumbled into it, drunk. Had no idea what it was until I talked to some fucking bigot who ended up getting his skinhead skull cracked. Started a brawl that ended up with all of us in jail.”
“And last night…it had something to do with that girl in the photos, didn’t it?”
Something warmed his face, sparked behind his eyes. Appreciation? Understanding? I wasn’t sure, but it made me feel like saying yes to anything he asked me.
“Yes, it had to do with that girl. The guy was shaking her down after she refused him. I tried to give him cash and put him in a cab. Instead of taking the offer, he made one of his own. With his fist.” He looked back to our hands, shaking his head. “I can’t say I wouldn’t do it again. Maybe Theo’s right. Maybe I’m hopeless.”
I shifted my hand in his so I could grasp it. “I don’t think you’re hopeless, Tommy.”
When he looked up, his eyes were black and bottomless, and in their depths, I saw his hope, his fear, his desire.
“If I marry you, if I write the article and pretend to be your…” I couldn’t say the word. “Pretend to be married…married to you…” I took a breath. “If I do this, it will help you?”
“It will save me.”
I nodded. “So…I would live here with you. We would work on the book, and around that, we’d make appearances together. My privacy will be stripped, my life made public.”
He nodded, his face impossibly sad.
“Will I have to be someone I’m not?”
At that, he brightened. “Not a chance.”
I shook my head, as if it were possible to clear it. “Why not find a model? Someone accustomed to this sort of thing? I…I don’t know if I can be in front of people like that. I don’t know if I can speak or…or…” My cheeks caught fire, my heart thumping painfully. I felt like I might faint. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“No model can save me. I need an angel. I need you.”
The pain and desperation and truth in his voice slipped over me, through me, twisted around my heart and took root. His fate rested in my hands, in my answer. The fate of his mother rested there too, the fate of his career, of the stories he had left to tell.
The truth I found between our clasped hands was infinite.
This was all much bigger than me.
Could I give one year of my life to save a man’s career and family? A man I not only respected, but thought I could truly like and be friends with. I didn’t know how he could sell that he was in love with a girl like me, but I supposed that was more the job of hair and makeup than him and me.
One year.
One year as Thomas Bane’s wife.
So many things could be worse, and my life, at that moment, was lacking a single obstacle to prevent me from agreeing. I had no boyfriend, no prospects, no social life to speak of beyond my friends, who had already begun moving on. More and more, I was alone. My life was something of a blank canvas, and he was handing me a brush.
And he was right. He could help me. Exposure therapy at its most extreme. And the credits of working on his story, coupled with pleasing Janessa with the article she wanted, would be brilliant for my résumé.
In one year, I could have everything I dreamed of.
His eyes whispered, Help me, save me. It can only be you.
So I smiled, squeezed his hands, and said, “I’ll do it.”
His face broke open like sunshine through a thunderhead, and with a whoop, he leaped to his feet, scooping me up like I was nothing.
I squealed, laughing as he spun us, my arms clamped around his neck. He smelled divine, the scent of him clinging to me as tightly as his arms around me. He buried his face in my neck, kissing it gently, absently before setting me on the ground.