Being engaged to one of the sexiest women on the planet—objectively, considering she’d been named in every list from here to Timbuktu for the last three years—just made it that much easier to stay faithful. No one could tempt me away from her, not even the admittedly gorgeous brunette practically sitting in my lap.
She squished her cheek to mine, smiling wide as she snapped a few pictures to post. When she was done, we joked around with her for a while before she disappeared back into the crowd.
“Why’d you say ‘no thanks’ before you even knew about the boyfriend?” I asked, glancing at my friend while I refilled our glasses.
Dave laughed. “Why did you?”
“Uh, I don’t know if you missed it, but I slapped a ring on Angelina’s finger a few months ago? Generally, that means I’m off the proverbial market.”
“Yeah, I know, but why?” There was genuine confusion in his tone.
I’d met the guy my first week in LA and we’d hit it off immediately. When I’d started dating Angelina about two and a half years ago, he’d been the first and only one to question my decision to settle down with her.
All this time later, he was still the only one to question it. Probably because he was one of the only two people in my life who actually knew and cared about me. Jessie, my sister, was the other. She’d accepted my decision, but I couldn’t say she understood it.
I took a gulp of my drink, rolling the smooth liquid around in my mouth while I searched for the answer I was looking for. “Why not? We’ve been together for years, she’s fucking hot, and she wants the exact same things out of life as I do.”
“Which is?” A tiny crease appeared between his eyebrows. “Travel, luxury, wealth, fast cars, and flashy parties?”
“Exactly.” I raised my glass to clink with him, but he left me hanging.
His dark brown eyes were still filled with doubt. “What about love? Kids?”
“Maybe someday down the line we’ll relax and have a couple, but why worry about that now?” I used my glass to gesture at the club around us. “This is the dream, man. Why would I fuck with that?”
“Cracking jokes with strangers, taking pictures with randoms to make their boyfriends jealous, and consistently buying rounds for everyone in here is living the dream?” His brow furrowed even more. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just not feeling it.”
Picking up his glass with my free hand, I put it in his hand and pointedly clashed mine against it. “Have a few more of these and you’ll be feeling a lot more than that.”
Dave was successful in the film industry too. He just hadn’t taken a front and center role like I had. Perhaps it was uncharacteristic for a producer to be in the limelight so often, but that was just the way things had happened for me.
The difference between us was that I liked the attention while he preferred to hang back. I knew he was worried that I was only marrying Angelina for the attention being with a beautiful actress garnered, but that really wasn’t it.
Whenever I so much as pictured my gorgeous fiancée with her pin-straight black hair and her bright blue eyes, tall and statuesque like a goddamn warrior princess, I was at risk of getting hard. The woman was known for being responsible for some of the best spank-bank material out there with the images of all the love scenes she’d done, and I wasn’t immune to that allure.
She had legs that were two miles long and felt fucking incredible wrapped around my waist. But it wasn’t just the sex. Not that I would ever complain about that, but that wasn’t why I’d allowed her to pin me down when so many before her had failed.
Angelina and I got along great, our interests were aligned, and it didn’t hurt that she was the female lead in my show. We’d spent so much time together that now it felt weird to be apart, like we’d just kind of grown into one another.
We were good together, and it’d felt right when I dropped down on one knee for her on that beach in the Maldives.
Dave gulped down the rest of his drink in one go after my glass crashed into his, and I wholeheartedly followed his example before dragging him over to the crowded bar. There was no more of that bullshit talk about deeper issues for the rest of the night. We did shots, took pictures, and I dished out a few more autographs, entered a dance-off with a member of a well-known boy band, and immersed myself in the craziness that was the club scene.
A couple of hours later, Dave and I stumbled outside for some fresh air. We were immediately spotted by paparazzi hanging out on the curb, and they closed in on me like sharks on chum before I could even think about getting an escape plan hatched.
Fuck. How could I have forgotten about them?
Dave rolled his eyes, but he knew this was the price of being my friend. He took a step back while the vultures shouted at me.
I couldn’t hear them at first. My ears were still ringing from the volume of the music inside. Once I started making out their questions, my heart lurched in my chest and my stomach tightened. The questions all jumbled together, but the ones that jumped out at me made no sense.
“When did you find out Angelina was having an affair?”
“How long has it been going on?”
“What did you think when you saw the video?”
“Is the wedding off?”
My head spun. What the fuck are they talking about? Is she cheating on me?
Dizzy, disoriented, and slightly nauseated, I turned to find Dave. He was already making a dash for the curb, yelling at security to clear a path for me while he hailed a cab. We’d gotten dropped off by a car service, but there was no way I was waiting for a car with the intensity of the questions building around me.
My breath felt trapped in my lungs and the ground seemed to come up at me suspiciously fast before Dave got a firm grip on my arm and ushered me into the cab. He pushed me onto the backseat, jumped in after me, and slammed the door.
The tires screeched and I was vaguely aware of us being taken away from the growing crowd, but my alcohol-addled brain was still trying to make sense of things. As we drove away, the need to talk to Angelina clawed at me.
Without caring that the cabbie was about to overhear a conversation that definitely shouldn’t be had in front of anyone not in my inner circle, I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. Eighty-four messages and thirty-one missed calls? In the last four hours What the fuck?
Not even I was that popular.
Frowning as I tapped into my messages, I hit play on the first video I found waiting for me, and suddenly, my world was ripped from its axis. Right there in full color on my screen was Angelina, making out with one of her co-stars in the VIP section of a New York City club.
You have got to be fucking shitting me.
Chapter 2
ANNA
Early morning birdsong woke me up in my sunny, A-frame studio apartment above the Tourism Center where I worked. I smiled as I opened my eyes, stretching my arms out above my head.
My space was small but warm, my walls were painted sunshine yellow, and soft, gauzy curtains fluttered in front of my windows. Potted plants lined my windowsill, the fresh green shoots in them a sure indication that spring was in the air.
I sat up before my alarm went off, pulling my knees to my chest and taking in the wonders of waking up bright and early. Even though I had nothing anyone would consider exciting planned for today, I still tried to appreciate the beauty of every day for what it was.