“It’s none of your business. I don’t want to hear another word.”

  “Are you salty because Brea is pregnant?”

  Cutter whipped a furious glare at him.

  One-Mile merged with traffic around the terminal. “Yeah, I know, just like I know you two are friends, not lovers. She told me everything.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Bryant beat at the dashboard. “It wasn’t enough for you to plow through her virtue and ruin her future. You had to knock her up and break her heart and—”

  “That’s why I’m here. I never meant to hurt her, and now shit is going down. You and I need to talk.”

  The guy pressed his forehead into the heel of his palm, looking somewhere between bitter and exhausted. “You know, it’s been a really long, shitty day. I don’t need you piling on with your problems. You made them; you clean them up.”

  “Something wrong beyond you being shot at?” He glanced down at Cutter’s thigh. “That hurt like a bitch yet?”

  “The local is still working. It’s a surface wound. Just needed a stitch or two.” Bryant waved it away. “But I’ve already had to defuse a threat to Shealyn’s life today by putting a bullet between someone’s eyes, so I’m not in the mood for you.”

  One-Mile downshifted. He’d charged into this conversation with Cutter, guns blazing, knowing only the sensationalized tabloid outline of the events the other guy had endured this morning.

  “That sucks.”

  “Sucks? It scared the shit out of me. Shealyn was seconds away from—”

  Death.

  One-Mile knew why Cutter refused to finish that sentence. When he pictured Brea in that same position, it both terrified and enraged him. He’d be homicidal, too. No wonder Bryant was in a crappy-ass mood. “I’m sorry, man. I can only imagine…”

  “The scene was pandemonium. Bullets flying everywhere. And it was barely past sunrise. So yeah, it’s been a damn long day.”

  “Then you had to deal with the questioning and the paperwork…”

  “The hospital, the doctors, and”—Cutter thumbed behind him in the vague direction of the terminal—“the press.”

  Together, it had created an all-around shit show.

  “I’m surprised you flew home instead of staying with Shealyn. She must have been shaken by all this, too.” If someone had threatened Brea, he wouldn’t have let her out of his arms for days.

  Cutter turned a scathing glare his way. “Don’t play dumb. I know you saw this coming, asshole. Everyone did. It’s over.”

  “What happened?

  “Oh, please… You don’t care.”

  For himself? No. But Brea did. Bryant being happy would make her happy. And since her happiness was his priority, One-Mile swallowed back his snarly reply. “When the press ran with this story about Brea being your pregnant fiancée, did Shealyn really believe that?”

  Bryant clenched his jaw. “Every word. She didn’t even want to hear my side of things.”

  “Fuck. She, of all people, should know the press is full of liars peddling clickbait.”

  “Yeah, but she had a rough childhood. Trust is hard for her, and I knew that. I fucked up. I should have told her about Brea when we started getting personal, but I thought she’d never see me as anything other than a fling. God, if I could go back two days and change everything…” He shook his head, regret tightening his face. “But it’s done. The only bright spot is that I finally figured out who her blackmailer was and made it back to her house before it was too late.”

  “Saving her life didn’t count for anything?”

  He shook his head. “Why should it? I was just doing my job. The reality that I’ll never spend another minute with the woman I love, except watching her on the little screen in my living room, is hitting me. Can we skip this heart-to-heart? Just take me back to my car.”

  “Where is it?” He felt kind of bad that he had to lean on the Boy Scout when he was clearly fighting his way through fire. But with Brea’s safety at stake, he couldn’t afford to back down.

  “Long-term lot on the north side of the airport. Turn here.” Cutter pointed.

  “On it.” One-Mile complied. “So you’re home for good?”

  “Yep. And after the way I fucked up that op, I’ll be shocked if Hunter doesn’t lead the charge to fire me. He’s pissed.”

  He snorted. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve weathered that storm. You’ll be fine.”

  Cutter shrugged like he didn’t care. Not surprising since he obviously felt as if his heart had been ripped out. “Whatever. You didn’t come here to hear my sad-sack problems. So why did you drive all this way?”

  “For Brea. I’m flying to Mexico tonight. I need your help to keep her safe.” He explained the situation with Montilla, along with his plan.

  Bryant swore under his breath. “Are you crazy? That’s a suicide mission.”

  He’d put the best spin possible on his scheme for Brea, but he couldn’t bullshit Cutter. “Probably. I maybe have a one-in-ten chance of walking out of this alive.”

  “Then why do it?”

  “Because there’s no damn life I want to live anymore without her and our baby in the center of it. Either I make us whole and safe or I’m out of the picture and she goes on.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Cutter was offering to risk his life? Yeah, probably for Brea’s sake. But it still shocked One-Mile. “Thanks, but I need you to watch over her. Keep pretending you’re engaged to her. Pretend the baby is yours. And if I don’t make it back, do what you’ve done all her life and take care of her.”

  “By marrying her?”

  He tried not to seize up. “I know it’s not your first choice. It’s definitely not mine. But if you have to…”

  “You hate me and yet you’re trusting me?”

  He shrugged. “You hate me, too. But I know you love her like you’d love a sister. You’ll keep her out of harm’s way. I rewrote my will and life insurance policies this morning. Logan has all the paperwork. Everything I own goes to her. So even if she doesn’t have me, she’ll have money. Just protect her from Montilla. If you can, keep the town from ripping her to shreds. And don’t let her fall apart.”

  Thankfully, Bryant didn’t hesitate. “I’ll always do everything I can to protect her.”

  “Her dad probably knows by now that she’s pregnant.”

  “Fuck. He’ll know it’s not mine.”

  Worry twisted One-Mile’s guts. “Is there any chance he’ll disown her? She didn’t seem to think so, but…”

  “She’s been worried about it, but no. He loves her too much.”

  He let out a sigh of relief. “Good. If Brea has both of you, she should be set, no matter what.”

  “And maybe this is a good thing. She’s needed to stand her ground with her daddy for a long time. Now that she has a reason to, I’m hoping she will.” Cutter grimaced at the bright sunlight slanting in through the windshield as the car veered slightly west, toward the setting sun. “What’s next?”

  “I’m catching a private flight to Mexico City in a couple of hours. From there, I’ll put out feelers to locate Montilla. I’ve got some cash to throw around and a few favors I can call in. That should help.”

  “Exit here. I’m parked in the lot on the right.”

  One-Mile followed his directions and quickly pulled up beside Cutter’s truck. “Here you go.”

  Bryant climbed out of his Jeep and grabbed his duffel from the back. “It’s no secret I don’t like you and that I don’t like what you’ve done to Brea. But I respect the hell out of what you’re doing to keep her safe. I’ll do my part, no worries. For her sake, I’ll hope you come back. Good luck, man.”

  Then Cutter was gone.

  One-Mile watched the guy start his vehicle and head out of the lot before he steered back to the airport for the most important—and dangerous—mission of his life.

  Brea barely slept that night. By now, Pierce would be in Mexico. Since he’d left his phone behind to make sure no one could track it, she couldn’t call or text him one last time. In fact, he’d told her to go on, live her life, and be happy.

  She didn’t know how she would without him, but he had made her promise, so she had to try. Besides, if she wanted to keep herself and the baby safe, she had to act as if her heart belonged to Cutter.

  And to maintain her sanity today, she’d had to turn off her cell. Until she’d done that, it hadn’t stopped ringing with requests for comment and infuriating gotcha questions.

  With a tired sigh, she emerged from her house. Her white compact was surrounded by a small crowd of strangers with cameras and portable microphones.

  She marched to her car, glad for the chill that made wearing a big, concealing poncho necessary. “No comment.”

  “What do you think about your fiancé cheating with one of the hottest stars in Hollywood?” one man barked at her.

  “Rumor has it you and Cutter are continuing with your wedding plans. Because you’re pregnant? Or because Shealyn West dumped him?”

  Another woman thrust a mic in her face. “How awful do you feel knowing that your fiancé took a more beautiful woman to bed?”

  Ouch. Still, Brea refused to rise to the bait.

  “I said no comment. Now please move.” She nudged the annoying reporters aside and slid into her car, then drove off with a sigh.

  But matters were hardly better at the salon.

  When she arrived, she slipped in through the back, only to find twenty people crammed into the salon’s little waiting area at the front, some familiar, most not.

  Rayleigh met her with wide eyes and a long-suffering sigh. “I’m glad you’re here, honey, but are you sure you want to be?”

  “Do you need me to leave?” The reporters would disappear if she did.

  “No,” the salon owner assured. “Just pointing out today might be tough.”

  “I’m not letting rabble like them mess with my life. I’ve got a full day of clients, and I intend to keep my appointments.” She hesitated. “Unless they’ve cancelled.”

  “No one has. If anything, strangers have called asking if you have any availability this week.” Her boss dropped her voice to a whisper. “And last Friday, your mysterious man friend made an appointment with you for tonight.”

  Brea had seen that. Pierce had probably intended to confront her before he’d gotten impatient and hunted her down at Cutter’s.

  When she’d seen his appointment on the books, she’d been somewhere between annoyed and worried as hell. Now, it was all she could do not to cry at the thought Pierce wouldn’t be coming through those doors tonight. He might never come around again.

  “You can cancel that. He’s gone. If there’s someone on the waiting list, maybe Joy could call whoever’s first to see if they want that six o’clock?”

  Rayleigh frowned in concern and hustled her firmly behind the partition dividing them from the foyer. “What do you mean gone?”

  Brea didn’t dare answer honestly. For all she knew, Rayleigh was the reason the world knew she was expecting. She didn’t want to think her own boss would sell her out…but it wasn’t impossible.

  “Absent. No longer here. Not someone I’ll be seeing today.”

  “Honey, that man loves you. He—”

  “He hates Cutter, whom I’m still marrying. I won’t be in the middle of their vendetta anymore.” It wasn’t a total lie…but it was definitely misdirection. “I’m putting him out of my head, the same way I’m sure he’s put me out of his.”

  At least she hoped he was focused on Montilla and not spending any of his energy worrying about her.

  “All right.” Rayleigh didn’t look like she believed a word, but she didn’t argue anymore. “I’ll have Joy call the first person on the list. Your ten a.m. isn’t here yet. Do you want to take this time to make a statement to the press? If you do, it’s possible these folks will leave.”

  Brea didn’t want to…but she understood Rayleigh’s point. “I’ll make a brief one.”

  With that, Brea stopped into the back room, tucked her purse away, applied a tinted lip balm, then took a deep breath. She had to be convincing. Her life—and her baby’s—might depend on it.

  The moment she walked around the partition, she saw the crowd had grown in the last few minutes. Rayleigh was trying to shoo and wrangle them out the door. Most simply ignored her and shouted questions.

  Brea grabbed the step stool Joy kept behind the counter so that all five-feet-nothing of her could reach the top shelf of the products they sold, climbed on the top rung, and cleared her throat.

  Instantly, the room fell silent. “I’m Brea Bell and I’ll be making this one and only statement. I won’t be taking any questions afterward, so please listen carefully. As you know, Cutter Bryant is my fiancé. We’ve already discussed his recent time in California protecting Shealyn West. I know the story beyond the salacious gossip and I’m satisfied with his explanation. We will be pressing forward with our wedding. We hope you understand our desire for privacy as we look forward to our future. That’s all.”

  En masse, the reporters started shouting questions—all prying, indelicate, and as titillatingly phrased as possible. Brea ignored them when her first appointment of the day squeezed through the door with a confused frown. “What’s going on here?”

  Brea glared at the tabloid press with disdain. “Nothing important, Marcie. Go on back and we’ll talk about what you’d like to do with your hair.”

  The forty-something woman nodded, then inched through the throng before finally making her way behind the partition to the empty salon.

  Satisfied that her client was no worse for the wear, she addressed the press again. “If you don’t have an appointment today, you’ll need to wait outside. If anyone is unwilling to do that, we’ll be forced to call the sheriff.”

  Then Brea stepped off the stool, folded it up, propped it back in the corner, and disappeared behind the partition.

  Thankfully, most of the rest of the day was far less dramatic. After the press camped outside, clients came and went, most offering her a smile, a sympathetic ear, or an encouraging pep talk. They expressed excitement that she and Cutter were finally getting married and having a baby. Some even asked if they could help.

  Today had proven folks in Sunset had bigger hearts than she’d thought, and she felt almost sheepish that she’d imagined differently.

  At least until five o’clock. Then Theresa Wood arrived, all scrutinizing green eyes and gray roots concealed by an updo that showed off her faux platinum ends. Brea sighed. She’d always suspected the woman didn’t like her. Why the divorcée continued to make appointments with her, given their mutually unspoken enmity, was anyone’s guess.

  “How are you today, Mrs. Wood?”

  The fiftyish woman leaned around the partition to stare out the plate-glass windows at the reporters clogging the sidewalk, then turned back to her with a judgmental smirk. “A damn sight better than you, I’d say.”

  Brea pasted on a smile like she didn’t have a care in the world as she dismantled the woman’s updo. No way would she let Mrs. Wood dig those artificial claws into her hide. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. Your roots definitely need attention. Let’s head on over to the shampoo bowl. I think you need a good clarifying shampoo before we get started.”

  The older woman made her way to an empty chair and plopped down. “How are you coping with this mess, girl? I know you’re not used to being quite so…popular. And now to hear that your man has been cheating? You poor thing.”

  Maybe Mrs. Wood was being genuine…but her tone didn’t sound that way.

  Brea tried not to grit her teeth as she wet the woman’s wiry hair and lathered it up. “Not at all. Cutter and I are closer than ever. Wedding plans are chugging along. I’ll be having this baby next year. Life couldn’t be grander.”

  “I told those silly reporters as much when they accosted me outside of Jasmine’s after my grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon, asking a million questions about y’all.”

  “Oh?” Brea rinsed the suds from the woman’s hair and tried not to lose her cool.

  “Yeah, they seemed all kinds of interested in how happy you were, how close you were. I was surprised they didn’t ask me a thing about the baby.” She raised a platinum brow, her smile just shy of superior. “So I made sure they knew about it.”

  This old viper had speculated to the press about her pregnancy? Blabbed it without any proof, then preached it like gospel?

  Rayleigh whirled around from her nearby station and pinned the older woman with a glare. “Why would you have done that, Theresa? You didn’t know for certain Brea was pregnant.”

  The woman scoffed. “Of course I did. When I was in here six weeks ago for my last touch-up, the poor girl looked positively green. She all but ran to the bathroom. I had to use the facilities after her, and given the stench it seemed fairly obvious she’d been vomiting. I just put two and two together.”

  “She might have been sick, too. You didn’t know,” Rayleigh fumed. “And yet you spread rumors to internet gossip rags?”

  Mrs. Wood shrugged a bony shoulder. “I was right, so I don’t know why you’re all bent out of shape. Far as I can tell, she’s still Sunset’s sweetheart and no worse for the wear.”

  Brea shut off the water and wrapped a towel around the woman’s head so tightly Mrs. Wood winced. “My private life is being bandied about by all of Hollywood and half the country. I’m on internet gossip sites and trashy tabloid TV. They’ve made me into an object of pity and ridicule. My name and my child will forever be attached to a scandal I had nothing to do with. And you have the right to say I’m no worse for the wear?”

  “Goodness, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Mrs. Wood bristled.

  “Let’s not pretend you thought of me at all,” Brea blurted, then realized Pierce was rubbing off on her.

  Saying what was on her mind really was ridiculously freeing.