As usual when he was with Veronica, there was plenty for them to talk about, even though he carefully steered the conversation away from the accident. In fact, since he wanted a break as much as he wanted her to have one, he kept it from movie talk completely. Maylee brought their soup and took their order. Then, with fragrant steam like a cloud between them and frequent pauses to eat, they chatted about music and their childhood and favorite vacation spots. It struck him that he was never bored when talking to Veronica—and not just because she was an intelligent and generous conversationalist, but because he was so incredibly interested in her. In what she thought, what she dreamed, what she wanted—who she was.

  By the time they were halfway through generous plates of spicy pad thai, he was more relaxed and at home than he’d been in… years.

  But then a voice cut across the distant buzz of the restaurant behind him and made his blood run cold.

  “I hope you’re full, Curly Top.”

  Veronica looked up, pausing with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth. “Why?”

  “Kim is here.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Veronica’s stomach clenched. She sat up and looked around, but she couldn’t see over the partition on their right. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I heard her voice. And she likes this place as much as I do. Of course, she doesn’t use the back entrance because she likes the attention. We probably have a minute to disappear while she signs autographs. Are you ready?”

  Instead of answering, Veronica stood up. “I was full anyway and just eating because I couldn’t leave any of that behind. Holy divine noodles.”

  Chris laughed and stood up too, though not to his full-height, as if he was trying to keep hidden behind the wall. It was just so sickening and ridiculous that they were having to sneak out like this, but Kim was nothing if not volatile.

  “Where’s Maylee?” Chris murmured, digging his wallet out of his pocket. “She’s just going to have to have a big tip this time and not freak out on me like she usually does.” He dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the table and gestured for her to go ahead of him down the hallway.

  “Chris!”

  Kim’s voice, shrill with surprise, made them both freeze. Veronica turned sharply and tried not to feel like a coward for staying behind Chris’s broad back.

  “Kim, hey.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “My taxes,” he said, the sarcasm in his voice not even subtle. “What do you think?”

  “But this is our place? Why are you coming here without me?”

  “Because we are no longer dating, and I’m not giving up Mama’s pad thai for you or anyone else.”

  Veronica dared a peak around Chris’s shoulder and saw Kim coming toward them like an avenging goddess with a whole retinue of groupies behind her. Well, she wasn’t going to make Chris face a pack of harpies on his own, so she stepped up next to him for moral support.

  But as soon as she did, Kim gasped and jerked to an angry stop. “Her? You brought her? See, I knew you were lying to me the whole time.”

  Veronica watched, appalled, as Kim bent forward with her head in her hands and started sobbing.

  “Look, Kim, let’s talk about this later. We’re going, and you can have dinner in peace.”

  She straightened then and shrieked. “You ate with her at our table? She’s taking everything from me. Everything. You. My career. And now my favorite restaurant.”

  Veronica tried not to laugh, she really did. But it was too ridiculous. It just exploded out of her. Desperately, she pressed her face into Chris’s arms to muffle it, to try to control it. But then she felt Chris shaking with repressed laughter of his own. Apparently, he didn’t do a good enough job, because in a flash, Chris was moving. Veronica looked up, bewildered, and saw that Chris had caught Kim’s wrists. Her fingers were spread in claws with her long acrylic nails ready to attack.

  “Whoa. That’s enough, Kim. Veronica, wait for me in the back.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Let me go,” Kim screamed at him.

  “Not till I’m sure you won’t go after Veronica.”

  By now, a crowd of people had begun to gather at the end of the aisle. The diners at the tables close by were climbing out of their booths to see what was going on, and a dozen people were watching from across the partition. And they all had their phones out to get pictures and videos. The last thing she wanted was for it to look like Chris was the aggressor here. With only that thought in mind, she rushed up to Chris and Kim and pried her way between them. She pulled at Chris’ fingers, noting that he’d been holding her in a surprisingly gentle grip, until he let Kim go. Surprised, Kim backed up a step and stared at her.

  “That’s enough,” Veronica said. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat, and you’re embarrassing all of us. We’re leaving.”

  Veronica saw a flash of hatred in her eyes. A shiver of dread shot down her spine, but she had to get Chris out of here. She put her hands on his chest and pushed him gently backward. “Chris, go.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief when Chris nodded and turned, but her relief was short lived. From behind her, she heard Kim swearing, calling her a slew of unoriginal names, and then something flopped on top of her head.

  Reaching up, she felt a pile of cold, saucy noodles sliding down into her curls. She gasped in shock and pulled at them, trying to get them out of her hair. She turned back to Kim and dropped a handful on noodles on the table while staring the woman down. “You have got to be the most childish, delusional, and pathetic woman I have ever met.”

  Kim smirked and set the now empty plate she held down on the table. “I haven’t even started to make you sorry for what you’ve done to me.”

  Veronica stared up at her, completely unnerved by the psychotic glee shining in Kim’s eyes. This woman was completely unhinged. There would be no reasoning with her, no intimidating her. The only thing she could do was walk away and leave her to ruin her own life if she wanted to.

  Chris’s strong, warm hands clasped her arms as he pulled her back against his chest. “Let me be very clear, Kim,” he said. “If I find that you have so much as tweeted about Veronica in a way I dislike, you will hear from me.”

  Then, not giving Kim a chance to respond, he led Veronica down the back hallways. Maylee waited nearby, shock and remorse written large across her face.

  “I am so sorry, Chris. Let me help.” She began pulling noodles out of Veronica’s hair, but they were sticky and tangled in with her curls, so it was going to take forever.

  “Thank you, but I’ll just get it out later,” she told Maylee.

  “Yeah, we need to get out of here,” Chris said, already holding the back door open. “The press could show up any minute if word of this has already gotten out.”

  That was enough to send Veronica rushing out the door. With his long stride, Chris beat her to his car easily and opened the passenger door for her. Shut into the small enclosed space of the car, the smell from the noodles that had once been so appetizing was now overwhelming. It made her sick to her stomach, so as soon as Chris got in, she said, “Roll down the window, please. I need air.”

  “Me too,” he said, turning on the engine so they could be lowered. “I can’t believe she did that.”

  “Can’t you? I can’t believe I was dumb enough to turn my back on her. She hates me. I wish she would just figure out that I didn’t take anything from her.”

  Chris cast her a long look as he backed out of the parking spot. “Well, not intentionally.”

  Veronica glared at him. “It is not my fault she wrecked her relationship with you, and it’s certainly not my fault that she’s a one-note actress who has no self-discipline.”

  “Not at all,” he agreed, more cheerfully than was warranted.

  Away from the immediate situation, anger swept through her at what Kim had done. Causing all that drama, exposing them to even more scandal, and then dumping food on her head like they were in grade school. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that pictures of her with noodles dripping down her hair would be all over social media and every fake news site in a matter of minutes. By morning, it would be everywhere. And now Chris was acting way too nonchalant about it.

  “Don’t you dare act like this is funny.”

  “Me? Hey, I’m not the one who laughed at Psycho back there and got her even more riled up.”

  “You laughed at her too.”

  “Not till you did.”

  “It was just too juvenile that she was throwing a fit about losing her restaurant. How in the world did you ever hook up with someone like that?”

  Chris shook his head. “I sure didn’t know what she was really like, I can tell you that. I just saw this beautiful celebrity who wanted me and wanted to take me places. It was only later that I discovered the whirlpool of…issues…hidden beneath her surface. I feel sorry for her, I really do. But I couldn’t let her drag me down the rest of my life. And I swear I’m not going to let her drag you down either.”

  Even smelling like garlic and peanut sauce, she was glad that if she had to go through something like this, at least it was with Chris. He had been more than protective back there, and it meant a lot to know he had her back. It was enough to forgive him for bringing it all her way in the first place. Maybe because, an honest voice within her whispered, she’d take a whole lot worse than this just be near him.

  The shock of the realization made her give a sharp gasp.

  “What is it?” Chris asked, his hands clenching on the wheel. His concerned eyes swept over her.

  Fighting to slow her quickened breath and swallow the knot of panic in her throat, she said, “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Just get me back to the hotel please.”

  He looked as if he wanted to press her, but didn’t. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. And it’s a good thing too. I don’t think I’ll ever get the smell out of this car as it is.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “I hope not, cuz I’m not sure I’ll ever get it out of my hair.”

  To Veronica’s surprise, Chris insisted on coming up to her room with her. “There’s no way you can get that all out on your own. Let me help. It’s the least I can do.”

  And really, it was. So she let him.

  With a small trashcan up on the bathroom counter, Veronica and Chris picked out the noodles, carrots, onions, and bean sprouts in her hair piece by piece. At one point, when she could no longer reach any of it and just had to wait for Chris to finish the job, she watched him in the mirror. Her eyes lingered on his strong features, on the way his brows were drawn together in concentration. Usually, this created the effect of a glare, but with every day that passed, she was able to see the nuances in his expression—the subtleties that showed the change in his thoughts and emotions. It was an intimate moment, stripped bare of pretense and celebrity and expectations. It was just the two of them alone, and he was focused on nothing but helping her.

  “I think that’s it,” he said, pulling one last fleck from her hair. “Time for you to shampoo. It might take a while.”

  “Okay, thanks for all your help.”

  “Hey, I’m not leaving yet. I want to make sure you don’t need any more help before I go.”

  She bit her lip to keep her smile under control. She should not, could not, feel like this. But she couldn’t bring herself to repulse his offer. “Okay, but it might take me a while. And a lot of shampoo.”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  He didn’t. They both needed to be up early in the morning. No doubt with the shooting schedule delayed by the accident, they would be getting started earlier than usual.

  As she got in the shower and stood under the spray, she wondered for the first time if she’d have to get back in that harness again. Would she be able to? Or would she be too freaked out to do it? She tried to imagine what it would be like to get up there again, to hang suspended over the floor with nothing securing her but a system of wires that could break. Her body tensed. Mentally brushing the whole thing from her mind to worry about later, she focused on the hot water cascading over her. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but the smell of the sauce still in her hair was too distracting.

  She glanced down at the tile floor of the shower and saw that the water going down the drain was faintly tinted orange with occasional chunks flowing with it. Ugh. She reached for her shampoo and filled her palm with it. As she worked it through her hair, the scent of coconut filled the shower, heightened by the steam. At last, she began to relax.

  Three shampoos and two conditioning treatments later, she got out of the shower. She wrapped a towel around her hair and dried off quickly. As she stepped out into her bedroom, she felt a sharp awareness of Chris’s presence on the other side of the door. Thank goodness he would attribute her flushed skin to the heat of her shower.

  Dressed in leggings and an oversized T-shirt, she stepped out into the living room. She found Chris on the couch, his legs stretched out in front of him and his eyes focused on his phone. He looked up immediately, however, and the smile he sent her way would have melted a much less-vulnerable heart than hers.

  “Better?” he asked simply.

  “Yes.” She was afraid to say anything more—afraid of what might come out.

  Moving across the room, she sat at the other end of the couch and bent forward to unwind the towel from around her hair. Keeping her head tilted sideways, she combed through her tangled curls with her fingers. Cleaning her hair was just the first step to fixing the mess Kim had made, though Kim probably had no idea of that, not with her board-straight hair.

  “It’s your shampoo,” Chris said.

  His words didn’t make sense too her, but a very primal part of her responded immediately to the rough edge in his voice.

  “Hmm?”

  “You always smell like coconut.”

  “Yeah. It reminds me of home. I grew up on the beach—”

  He was leaning closer. When had he shifted closer to her?

  “In Florida,” she continued. Trying desperately to keep track of what she was saying.

  “I like it.” His voice was incredibly soft. So were his fingers as they threaded through her curls.

  With her heart pounding and her breath ragged, she tried to collect her common sense. No. As much as she wanted this, wanted his kiss, wanted to just sink into this feeling that engulfed her, she couldn’t. Couldn’t…

  She couldn’t…stop. Her lips were so close to his that she could already feel their warmth.

  “Tell me the truth.”

  She paused, her thoughts scattered like dandelion seeds. “About what?”

  “Keith.”

  Keith. The lie she’d created to stop this from happening. To stop her from making a mistake.

  With a gasp, she stood up and crossed her arms in front of her, a protective gesture, though the only thing she needed saving from was her own weakness. “I’m sorry, Chris. But I think you’d better leave now.”

  “Okay.” He stood up, but before he moved away, he tipped her chin up with a gentle hand. “You’re wiser than I am. Unfortunately. Good night, Curly Top.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Chris’s alarm went off at four in the morning, he turned over and groped for his phone on his bedside table. The only thing that motivated him to open his eyes, however, was wanting to know what was going around the internet about the scene at the restaurant last night. His brain had been so clouded by the memory of coconut and rosy, warm skin and perfect lips close to his that he hadn’t thought to check last night when he got home. He’d just wanted the oblivion of sleep and nothing else. But now, he needed to know how it was going to affect Veronica.

  It didn’t take long for him to see that the gist of the gossip was focused on the fact that Kim had gone berserk in a jealous rage. Pictures of her lunging at Veronica with claws out, glaring at him and even a video of her dumping the plate of food over Veronica’s head painted a surprisingly accurate picture. For once. And sympathies seemed to be siding against Kim. Fans were definitely shifting their allegiances.

  Kim was no doubt going to have another meltdown about it. He just hoped she’d do it in private and without landing herself in rehab.

  Relieved on that point, Chris got himself up and out the door. Luckily the traffic was light this time of morning, so he got to the studio before six. He swung by Veronica’s trailer on his way to his own, but for once, he’d arrived before she had.

  As he made his way through the process of wardrobe and makeup, he waited for the script to be delivered. He felt unsettled not knowing what the schedule was for the day, especially since he knew things would have shifted since production was shut down early after the accident.

  There was a short knock on the door before Alan, the assistant director came into the makeup trailer just as he was getting ready to leave. Alan handed him the script but offered it with a surprising glare accompanying it. “Sam wants you on set in thirty minutes.”

  Chris watched him, trying to puzzle out the man’s bad humor. “Sure. Everything okay, man?”

  “What do you think?” And with that sharp but unanswerable question, the man left, slamming the door behind him.

  Chris whistled. So things were already tense, huh? Well, it was to be expected.

  He moved into the kitchen area of his trailer and made himself a cup of coffee with the Keurig he kept there. He had a feeling he’d need copious amounts of coffee before the morning was over.

  Another knock came just as he was sitting in his big armchair to wait to go to set. This time, it was Sam that came in.

  “How are things going?” he asked, hoping his cheerful voice would help ease the strain written so clearly on her face.

  “As bad as they can be.”

  “Why?”

  “The whole production is in trouble.”

  Chris set his mug down on a nearby table. “How so? We just missed a few hours of shooting yesterday.”

  Sam sat on the couch. Her serious expression made him tense. Something was definitely wrong.