“Hello, sweets.”
With those two deliciously accented words—show me any woman who doesn’t love a British accent—gone is the exhaustion from working the last ten hours in bright spotlights and the cramped closet we call an editing room.
I want to blame the shiver his words create on the cool breeze that blows across my skin after stepping outside. Too bad I’m not that good of a liar.
My first reaction is to melt, but I ruthlessly fight the instinct. Memories of those and other naughtily whispered words are right there at the forefront and, if I let them, they’ll overwhelm me. The sudden weakness in my knees? Expected. His voice has had the same effect on me since I was a naïve twenty-one-year-old.
But I’m done with the old Claire. I refuse to let Dylan “Grim” Graves affect me.
At the reminder, I lock my knees. How dare he? Six years. It has been six years since I heard him utter those words and over a year since I’ve seen him, and he thinks he can saunter back into my life with his sexy—scratch that—with a voice that should be avoided at all costs? That he can use his nickname for me like he only just used it yesterday? I don’t think so.
In the dwindling light of a long-ass day, I turn to watch as one long leg encased in ripped denim unfolds from the wall as he straightens from the devil-may-care slouch he was rocking. The distressed jeans and worn boots probably cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to ensure the sexy bad-boy look.
But his short-sleeved sea green Henley reeks of the young law student he used to be. The contrast shouldn’t be this intriguing.
He clears his throat, and I keep my gaze moving upward, catching the smirk barely hidden under a light beard. It seems to add to the brightness of his eyes, the color magnified by the layer of scruff.
Still the same Dylan.
“You going to respond or just stare at me? I’m okay with either option.” His voice is banked with humor, like he’s trying hard not to laugh at me.
It’s enough to snap me out of whatever madness this is.
Get it together, Shaffer. Stop staring. He’s not the last brownie at the dessert table. You are stronger than this. He’s nothing to you anymore, remember?
After our demise, I endlessly thought about what I would say to him. I’d even planned on it—despite LA’s size, our industry is small and incestuous, and I wanted to be prepared for when we inevitably bumped into one another. But then one day, the switch flipped.
I no longer cared if I saw him. I stopped obsessing over the perfect tone or words for the man who had ended our relationship so callously. It was time to forget him, to move forward, and I had.
I’d focused on becoming a director, on making a name for myself. On working to finally tell my parents they no longer had to subsidize the meager paycheck I received so I could afford my apartment and my car.
I’d put my career and happiness first.
And I succeeded.
“What are you doing here, Dylan?” The steel in my voice fills me with pride.
There’s nothing between us anymore. I’m barely a footnote in his rise to fame since we dated before he signed his first record contract. Six years later, I’m kicking ass and taking names in this industry. It’s enough for me. Right now, anyway.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” His injured tone makes no sense.
He doesn’t get to be the one hurt.
I can’t help the snort that escapes at his description of our relationship. We were never just friends. The heat between us wasn’t satisfied until we were more—and even then, it was still too much for either of us to handle.
And then we weren’t anything but memories.
Which is how it needs to stay.
“Something tells me friends talk more than once in six years,” I snap.
Moving toward my car, I jolt when his warm fingers wrap around my wrist with an electric sizzle. Damn him for still affecting me like this. His spicy, citrusy cologne teases my nostrils and digs up even more unwelcome memories. Of course he still wears the same cologne.
I slam a mental door closed on memories of whispered confessions about boarding school, about his gran, and everything in between.
“Sweets—”
“Don’t call me that,” I growl and yank my wrist free, then continue across the parking lot toward my car.
I refuse to miss the familiar pressure of his fingers on my wrist, his skin brushing against mine. That’s a thought to explore on the other side of never.
A small part of me triumphs when I nearly clock him with the trunk when I pop it open. Smirking, I toss my larger bag inside and slam the hatchback.
“Claire.”
My name is a plea.
“What?” I face him, and he’s exactly what I reduced him to—a few months of memories trapped in a stranger’s body. I don’t know anything about him now. And I don’t want to. “What do you want, Dylan?”
His eyes widen in surprise, and he takes a step back, hands raised in surrender. But he doesn’t say anything.
“I’m not doing this,” I say, wrapping my disinterest around me like a cloak.
He’s famous now. It’s not like he still thinks about those few months or lets them hold back his life.
He doesn’t get to hold back mine either.
“Wait.” His voice is quiet and lacks his usual confidence. “You.”
“What?!” He did not just say that.
I’m done with this conversation, done with him.
It’s time I left both in the parking lot.
“Wait. Fuck.” His unyielding fingers grasp my wrist again when I try to walk toward the driver’s side door. “I want you to direct my next video.”
I shouldn’t be surprised—I know I’m the reason his latest video, “Heartbreak,” kicked ass. But the prick of disappointment is still there, no matter how much I try to will it away. Pushing that feeling down, I snuff out the sensation of his skin against mine—because I’m not attracted to him.
We. Are. Over.
We never really began.
Sitting around the cabin with my family at Christmas last month, I’d decided it was time for me to move forward with my personal life. I’ve been focused on school and work for so long that I don’t know the rules of the dating game anymore.
Not a problem though. I’ll learn. One-night stands no longer hold interest for me, so it’s time to figure out how relationships work. Surely, with almost four million people in LA, I can find a man who isn’t taken, crazy, or gay, right?
Figures. As soon as I decide to date again, I get body checked with my past and all the baggage that comes with him.
“What do you say? Will you?”
I have to think for a second to remember what he asked me. Direct his next video, right. “No.”
“No?” His grip on my wrist loosens, and I snatch my arm back, stepping away to put ample distance between us.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Why? You directed ‘Heartbreak’ for me.”
That was over a year ago.
“I didn’t know it was you when Garrett offered me the job,” I admit.
I’d been so excited for the opportunity to direct that I hadn’t asked questions. I haven’t repeated that mistake since. Now I always have a full dossier on any project I’m working.
“Bollocks. You knew. You had to have known.” His eyes flare with his assumptions.
“Not until the day of the shoot,” I counter.
“So why didn’t you walk away then?” His voice drops as he steps closer, invading my personal space again.
“Hello? Contract. I didn’t feel like getting the crap sued out of me.”
Not that Garrett would have, but I needed “Heartbreak” to start building my professional reputation. After nearly eight years in college, I was behind the curve, an unfortunate side effect of changing majors in my last semester of college. And that’s not acceptable.
“But you captured it perfectly.”
I ignore the pride that swells at his compliment. I know exactly what I had done. My job.
And if seeing him again last year had brought up some residual emotions? I’d dealt with those.
“It was over a year ago. Why now?” As soon as I ask, I want to snatch the question back. This isn’t a debate. Nothing he says will convince me to go anywhere near his brand of madness again.
“I didn’t have anything new until now.”
“No.”
“No?” he parrots, brows drawn in confusion.
“I’m not doing it.”
“But swee—Claire, I want you to direct. What you did before? It was exactly what I needed.”
“I’m busy,” I argue.
“You’re a shit liar,” he says, stepping even closer.
My nipples pebble at his nearness. Thank god for industrial-strength padded bras.
“Find someone else.” I shift sideways, but still don’t get very far with how close he is.
“I want you.” The look on his face tells me he knows exactly what he’s saying and the double meaning was intentional.
Ass. Hat. Motherfucker.
“That’s why you introduced yourself to me like we’d never met?”
There I go again, blurting shit out I shouldn’t.
Still, I want to know.
It had confused me at first. The way he’d looked at me, the glowing violet of his eyes coupled with the introduction. I’d wanted to talk to him about it. To tell him I was proud of what he’d accomplished. To maybe be his friend now that we were both older and more mature. But by the time I’d finished my work for the day, he’d been long gone. Even after he’d asked to speak to me.
After.
The way the word had sounded like a promise made me feel like an idiot.
“Is that what’s bothering you?” he asks. “That we didn’t talk that day?”
I want to punch the smirk off his face so badly my fingers fist at my sides.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I bluff.
“Lying doesn’t become you, sweets.” Heat radiates from his body, sparking fires along my skin. His eyes lock on mine, seeing way too much, and his smirk morphs into a smile.
Like a strobe light, my mind flashes danger. I need to get out of here.
Now.
“Don’t call me that.” Swallowing, I step back and attempt to put some space between us again. My retreat is foiled by the solid presence of my car.
His calloused hand reaches out to trace the line of my finger where it’s clenched in a forgotten fist next to me. The brush of skin against skin releases my muscles, and his quiet words scatter my anger.
“I wanted to talk to you that day,” he admits, and a part of me wants to believe him. “I wanted to stay.”
“Why didn’t you?” That question has hovered on my tongue for a year.
“I got a phone call from Bash.”
“Bash?”
Sebastian—Bash—his younger brother.
“Gran’s solicitor summoned me home.”
His words cause another memory to surface. The video shoot had been scheduled a few weeks before we actually shot. But at the last minute, we’d needed to reschedule because the artist had a death in the family. Dylan. If he was called home by his grandmother’s attorney—
“No.” Grief swamps me when all the dots connect.
His nod is slow, mired in his own grief. “I’m sorry, sweets. I’d had every intention of talking to you that day, but after that call, all I could think about was getting back. I didn’t remember until I was already on the plane.”
I ignore the use of the nickname and awkwardly stutter, “Dylan, I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” His voice is thick, the words nearly lost in the sounds around us. “She loved you, you know. Hated that we weren’t together anymore.”
I nod. “I loved her too.”
My throat is raspy with tears.
“I spent six months arguing with my parents over Gran’s will. Six months trying to settle her estate. Six months home. It was the longest I’d been in England in five and a half years.”
“You’re finished now?” I ask curiously.
Knowing how close he and his grandmother were, I want to wrap my arms around him. To soothe his sadness. I stand my ground though. Doing that wouldn’t help either of us.
He nods. “With Bash’s help, I finally convinced my dad that my career is not a massive ‘fuck you’ to him and Mum. By the time I got that settled, Cornerstone was furious. So, I cut ties. Signed on with a new label.”
“With Arrhythmic?” I ask.
His eyes widen in surprise. “How did you know?”
“I heard about it a few months ago.” I shrug, pretending like the news of him signing with a label so closely linked to Arabesque, the production company I work for, hadn’t caused a few minutes of anxiety for me.
Yeah, sure, our industry is small, but he had made it even smaller.
“And you didn’t think to reach out?” he asks.
I scoff. “Why would I? What could I possibly have to say to you? I don’t even understand why you’re here right now.”
“I have a song that needs a video.” His explanation sounds so simple when, really, it’s anything but.
“There are a million other directors in LA,” I argue.
Maybe not that many, but when you’re starting out, it definitely feels that way.
“They’re not you.”
I raise a hand when he attempts to step forward again. He bumps against my fingers, and the beat of his heart vibrates under my palm. “Dylan.”
“Won’t you even consider it? Please?”
In another life, that one word would have worked. Hell, I’d dropped everything to be with him for less.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Dylan—”
“Come for a drink with me. Let me convince you.”
“Dylan. No.”
“One drink.”
“I have a date,” I lie.
A muscle in his jaw ticks at my words, but he doesn’t say anything for several breaths.
“Reschedule,” he tells me. Ah, here’s the man I remember. The one who thought it was so easy to change my life for him. “We could have a drink to honor Gran.”
“Low blow, Dylan,” I chastise. His mischievous grin reminds me of a rambunctious little boy. “What would your grandmother say about using her to encourage me to go for a drink with you?”
“Good boy,” he answers with a wink.
I sink my teeth into my lip. I will not give him the benefit of a smile, no matter that he’s probably right.
“Still no.” I push lightly at his chest and hope he steps back, unsurprised when he doesn’t.
“We’re not done with this conversation.” His promise sends a shiver down my spine.
“We are.” My promise is just as strong as his.
He moves his hand to my face, one finger tracing along my jaw, but I don’t pull back. I refuse to flinch.
“Not yet,” he whispers.
Leaning closer, he grazes my cheek with featherlight lips, gone as quickly as they land. With one last look, he turns and heads for a car I hadn’t noticed until now.
“Where’s your bike?” The question pops out before I think better of it.
He spins and keeps walking backward, his mouth kicked up in a crooked grin. “What bike?”
Rolling my eyes, I smile at the look of contrived innocence on his face. “You and I both know you have a motorcycle. Especially with the way you were dressed last time.”
He stops and, even from the distance between us, I still notice the way his eyes heat. “You remember what I wore last time you saw me?”
“I remember,” I mutter. My words are quiet but, based on the way his smile stretches, he heard them.
“I didn’t bring it today, sweets. But now that I know you’re so interested, I’ll ride it next time.”
“Don’t call me that,” I shout. “There isn’t going to be a next time.”
He turns back toward his car again but waves a hand.
I’ve already told him no.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember until I’m already home how much he loves a challenge.
And I’ve just laid one at his feet.
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