The Princess and the Porn Star (23 page)

“Then this is long overdue.” He pulled the bottle out of the ice and, with a grin, turned the label toward me. “I hope you like apple cider?”

“Apple—” I looked at the label.

Nonalcoholic sparkling cider.

I laughed. “You really did think of everything, didn’t you?”

“Hopefully I did.” He poured us each a glass and then raised his. “To four very well-deserved nominations.”

I just smiled and clinked my glass against his. “Thank you.”

Dinner was spectacular. This place had earned every one of its five stars, from the flawlessly prepared steaks to the exquisite slice of cheesecake Lee and I shared.

When the plates were empty, I reached across the table and squeezed Lee’s hand. “Thank you again for this. It was…”

“Well worth it,” he said.

My smile faltered a bit, and I sighed. “I just wish we didn’t have to go to these lengths just to spend an evening out.”

“I know.” He raised our hands and kissed the backs of my fingers. “But if that’s what we have to do to see each other…” He shrugged as he trailed off.

I wasn’t sure what to say. Before I could think of anything, though, a middle-aged blonde woman approached the table.

“Oh, hey.” Lee stood and gestured at her. “Rachel, this is Jackie. She and her husband own the place.”

As we shook hands, I realized Jackie’s dress was similar to mine. Strikingly similar. Right down to the color, the cut, everything. We even had on the same shoes.

I glanced at Lee, eyebrow raised, and he just winked.

“Well, it was lovely to meet you, Rachel,” Jackie said.

“You too.” I smiled. “And thank you. For”—I gestured around the empty restaurant—“all of this.”

“My pleasure.” She turned to Lee. “You two enjoy your evening. My ride is waiting.”

They exchanged grins, and then she headed toward the foyer.

Lee gestured for me to come with him. Puzzled, I followed him to the second dining room off to the side, and from there we had a view of the driveway where Quinn had dropped me off earlier.

Through the safety of heavily tinted glass, I watched Jackie hurry down the steps to a waiting car. She kept her jacket over her head, hiding her face, and the valet helped her quickly get into the car. Into…
my car
? The door had barely shut before the tires chirped on the pavement, and Quinn took off out of the restaurant’s driveway.

Without missing a beat, the paparazzi followed him.

Lee slipped his arm around my waist. “And with that, we have the rest of the evening to ourselves.”

I faced him and gestured toward the empty driveway. “You know the press is going to have something to say about that, right?”

“Of course they will.” He drew me closer and kissed me gently. “Let them talk. Tonight is ours.”

“So it is.”

“And you know, it’s a beautiful night for a walk on the beach.”

Chapter Fourteen

Lee

On our way through the dining room, Rachel paused and did a double take.

“Something wrong?” I followed her gaze, not sure what had caught her eye.

“No.” She nodded toward the glossy black baby grand in the middle of the room. “But I just realized I have the exact same piano at home.”

I gestured at the piano. “So, you play?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “Why else would I have one?”

“Hey, I know a lot of people who have them as decorations.”

Rachel laughed. “Not me.”

“Would it be weird for me to ask you to play something?”

“Weird? No, not weird.” She looked around. “Do you think they’ll mind?”

“As long as you don’t set it on fire or smash it, I think you’ll be fine.”

Rachel laughed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem. As long as no one minds…”

I gestured at the bench.

She took a breath, then eased herself onto the bench. Her hands moved slowly, almost reverently as she lifted the cover off the keys.

She ran her fingertips along the keys. Not pressing them, barely touching them, reminding me a little of Marta’s hands skating over my skin just before she started a massage. Like she needed to center herself and make some sort of connection with the instrument beneath her fingers.

Another breath. A roll of the shoulders. And then, as soon as the first note came from the piano, Rachel changed. She was concentration personified: eyes unfocused, sometimes even closed. Deep crevices between her eyebrows. Her lips formed silent lyrics. The way her shoulders and her torso subtly swayed as her hands moved on the keys, I swore she was dancing.

For all everyone claimed she and every pop artist out there were talentless hacks, Rachel had talent, and she had it in spades. The nominations we’d come here to celebrate didn’t even begin to do justice to this.

And I couldn’t pretend it was only her musical talent that had me mesmerized. On stage, she was fiery and wild, belting out the kinds of songs that brought entire stadiums to their feet, but here? Here, she was something else. As she moved with the music, the restaurant’s soft light played over her smooth features, creating gentle highlights and subtle shadows as if every bulb had been placed with a cinematographer’s expertise to highlight Rachel and no one else.

The piece concluded on a soft, reverberating note, and as that note faded, she released a breath. She slowly opened her eyes and returned to earth a few seconds before she turned her head toward me.

“Wow,” I said. “That was…just
wow
.”

She smiled, lowering her gaze as she brushed a few strands of dark hair out of her face again. “Thanks.”

“How many pieces do you have memorized like that?”

She laughed, then tapped her ear. “I play by ear.”

“You…really?”

Rachel nodded. “I mean, I can read music, but I think I play better by ear.”

“So you can, what? Hear a song, and then play it? That easily?”

“Well, maybe not perfectly, but I can hold my own.” She paused. “You have any music on your iPhone?”

“Of course.”

“Pick a song. Something you don’t think I’ve heard.”

“Hmm. Okay.” I pulled out my phone and turned it to my playlists. I scrolled to a really obscure indie album that maybe three people on the planet had ever heard of. “All right. Try this one.” I turned up the volume and pushed play.

Rachel’s eyes lost focus as the song started. After about a minute, I stopped the recording, and she put her hands on the keys. Her eyes were still unfocused, her head nodding in time with an unheard beat.

Then her fingers moved.

And she nailed it. My jaw dropped. Indie grunge rock translated only so well to the piano, but the melody was there and the tempo was perfect.

When she reached the point where I’d cut off the recording, she stopped.

“Wow,” I said. “I have no idea how you do that.”

Rachel laughed shyly. “Kind of a fun party trick, I guess.”

“Hardly a party trick. That’s some incredible talent.”

“Thank you.” She gently closed the lid over the keys. “It’s, um, kind of a rush playing for other people too.”

I rested my elbow on top of the piano. “Is that right?”

Some extra color highlighted her cheeks. “That’s why I love concerts so much. It’s just…” Eyes losing focus, she shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. There’s just nothing quite like singing your heart out in front of a crowd.” She shivered.

“Which do you like better?” I asked. “The smaller shows or the big stadiums?”

“I like them all.” She ran her finger along the lid over the keys. “The smaller crowds are more intimate. The bigger ones… I mean, you can literally have the population of a medium-sized town in the stands, and they’re all listening to you.” Eyes still unfocused, she smiled and whispered, “It’s amazing.”

“I can only imagine.”

She looked up at me and grinned. “Even makes all of the label’s bullshit worthwhile.”

“Really?”

“Well, their crap gets old. And fame is…” She scowled. “It’s a double-edged sword. But the performances? Makes it totally worthwhile.”

“At least there’s a tradeoff.” I managed a laugh, but her comment burrowed under my skin. This wasn’t just a record deal on the line. This was Rachel’s passion. Something no one had any right to take from her. Including me.

“So.” She smiled as she pushed back the bench and rose. “About that walk on the beach.”

I pushed my unsettling thoughts aside, grinned and offered my elbow. She slid her hand over it.

I took her through the kitchen and out the back door. The restaurant was completely isolated, the paparazzi were off on a wild-goose chase, and the beach below it was deserted. Nothing but waves rolling lazily over smooth sand for as far as the eye could see in either direction.

Rachel grinned at me. “So you’re one of those guys who likes candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach?”

I chuckled. “Come on, who doesn’t?”

“That’s true.” She glanced at me again, and we both laughed. “Really, what isn’t to like?”

“Besides the occasional fish carcass on the sand?”

“Or broken bottle?”

“Or that horrendous smell at low tide sometimes?”

We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

As we continued walking, she laced her fingers loosely between mine.

“I’m curious about something,” she said after a while.

“Hmm?”

She looked out at the beach ahead of us. “I know when you came to Hollywood, this wasn’t the career you had in mind, and you’ve said you’re happy with how things turned out.” After a long pause, she turned her head toward me. “But do you regret anything?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “I think if you don’t regret a few things, you didn’t take enough risks in life.”

“Interesting way to look at it.” She looked ahead of us again. “So what do you regret? Or just, I don’t know, things that you wish had turned out differently?”

I thought for a moment, watching my feet sink into the sand with every slow, leisurely step I took. “Well, I definitely shouldn’t have taken that role in Sultry Sluts IV.” Sighing dramatically, I shook my head. “No one’s taken my acting abilities seriously since then.”

Rachel laughed. “Come on, seriously,” she said, still grinning enough to weaken my knees.

I exhaled. Running my thumb back and forth along the side of her hand, I said, “I really did want to act. Like,
really
act. And I guess it’s always been a little bittersweet to have to accept I didn’t have the chops for it.” I glanced at her. “What about you?”

Rachel lowered her gaze to the sand. “I guess sometimes I feel like I sold out. I was so desperate to succeed as a musician, I was willing to do whatever the record label told me to do.” She sighed, oblivious to what the setting sun was doing with the highlights in her hair and color of her skin, and somehow I managed to stay on my feet. “I mean, when I’m on stage, it’s worth it. A hundred percent. Every time I wonder why I put up with their crap, all I have to do is walk out onstage, and I remember why.” She turned her head, the early evening light glittering in her eyes. “I question it sometimes, how much I sold out versus how much I stuck to being the musician I am, but…I don’t regret much. Besides how my career tanked the first time, anyway.”

“At least that’s behind you now.”

“True.”

“Here’s a question,” I said. “If you could go into the record label owner’s office tomorrow and demand they do things your way, what would you change?”

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she took a deep breath. “Well, I’d probably want more creative input on my music videos, and I’d want them to quit fucking with my image and keep their hands out of my personal life.” Again she fell silent. “Besides that? To be honest, I don’t think I
would
change anything.”

“Really?”

Rachel nodded. “The music is fun. I write my own lyrics. The fans love it. The concerts are a blast.” She smiled again and looked at me. “I really wouldn’t change anything about the music itself. Just the marketing, I guess.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m glad you’re happy with it. Even if they throw plenty of bullshit at you.”

“Everything has a price,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug. “Record deals come with strings. Musical careers come with fame, which isn’t my favorite thing in the world.”

And dating me comes with a stigma you’ll never be able to shake.

I cleared my throat. “Fame does blow sometimes.”

“It does.”

We walked in silence for a few more minutes, and then she broke the silence with a whispered, “Thank you again, Lee. For tonight.”

“You’re welcome.” I let go of her hand and slid my arm around her waist. “And congratulations again. For the nominations.”

“Thanks.” She rested her head against my shoulder. This close together, we had to slow down to a lazy stroll so we wouldn’t trip over each other’s feet, but I didn’t mind.