Busted

“Sorry . . . ?” he asked. “For what?”

She waved a hand. “This. That . . . this woman you’re dating. Whoever she is. What she’s done. We never really met, but it’s awful what she did to you. I can’t imagine how you feel.”

“Hmm.”

Her gaze skipped to his, then away.

“Yeah, I bet you can’t.” He folded his arms over his chest, chewed on the inside of his lip for a second. There was an odd look in her eyes. It wasn’t guilt—not exactly. But it was something.

Going with his gut, he asked, “How long were you listening to us the other night?”

Blood rushed to her face. “I was—” A nervous laugh escaped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You.”

Ressa’s voice came from the top of the steps.

Nadine jerked her head around, her jaw dropping at the sight of Ressa there, descending slowly.

“What . . . Trey, why is she here?” Nadine demanded.

He didn’t even have a chance to respond before Ressa came between them and none too subtly pushed him back. “Not what you need to be worrying about,” Ressa said, her voice sharp enough to cut. “Worry about me.”

Nadine backed up a step.

“Ressa, hold up a min—”

She whirled on him, her hair flying around her shoulders. “Oh, no. I don’t think so. You remember that little chat upstairs? You’re not letting me fight this all on my own because it involves you? Well, guess what? She did this because she’s jealous. I’m with you and she’s not. So that means it’s every bit as much about me as it is about you.”

Trey studied her and then slowly, backed away. He tucked his hands into his pockets and settled back against the door.

“Trey.” His name was a tremulous plea on Nadine’s lips. It scraped over his nerves like steel wool on an open wound. “You can’t think I had anything to do with this. All the interviews say it was her . . . they talked about her and her blog and everything. She could be doing this for publicity. It makes sense.”

“In what world?” Ressa snapped. “This is not the kind of publicity I want. Ever.”

Nadine’s green gaze bounced away, not co

“I know,” Trey said. He shoved away from the door. He laid a hand on Ressa’s shoulder. “This isn’t the kind of thing she’d do—she cares about me too much.”

Ressa felt some of the knots inside her dissolve. It was like he’d never even had any doubts.

Nadine’s porcelain skin went even whiter, though, and her mouth drew tighter. “But there’s proof—”

“I wonder how the proof will hold up if Trey decides to pursue any kind of legal action,” Travis asked, jogging down the stairs. “Ressa, I’m good on computers. You willing to let me access your laptop? We can clear that up right here. Seeing as how you’ve been with either your aunt or here with Trey—and us—for the past thirty-six hours, shouldn’t take much to figure out if you really did do that interview—since naturally, it was requested that everything be done via e-mail.”

He smiled thinly at Nadine. “Might have been harder to pull off if you’d done a live interview, I’m thinking.” Planting himself at Trey’s side, Travis glanced over at Ressa. “So . . . laptop?”

Ressa frowned. “I didn’t bring my laptop. It’s back at my house.”

“Hmmm. Okay. That simplifies it.” Travis shrugged. “Trey, that means if she did that online interview, it was from here. They said it was an exclusive online interview, obtained early yesterday . . . although, damn . . .”

Travis tsked. “You and your aunt were on the road, right? Were you typing and driving or what? Those are some hellaciously long interview questions.”

“Trav.” Trey bared his teeth. “Please feel free to check my computers. Ressa, would you let him check your phone?”

“That doesn’t prove—” Nadine stopped, sucked in a breath.

“Come off it,” Ressa suggested. “We all know. Thanks for almost costing me my job, by the way. I really appreciate that.”

Nadine shot a look to the left, then the right, before looking at Trey. “You really think I could do this?” she whispered.

“I didn’t want to. But the answer is pretty clear. What I don’t know is why?”

Nadine sniffed and moved to the door. “I can’t believe you think I’d . . .” Abruptly, she froze and her voice went tight. Slowly, she turned and the uncertain, nervous female just . . . faded. “I did it because I waited. All this time. I waited for you to see me and you never did.”

Then she spun back around and jerked the door open, half falling out in her determination to leave.

Travis sighed and shook his head. “I’ll make sure she gets home okay.”

“Behave,” Trey warned.

“I always do.” He shot them a wicked grin. “But for your sake, I’ll behave nicely.”

He slid out the door.

Trey went to shut it and the rush of voices caught his attention. Wincing, he glanced outside and saw that in the past few minutes, the two vans had multiplied to five.

“And here I was thinking I would be the one catching their attention,” Sebastian said from the living room, glancing around the arched doorway.

“Shut up or I’ll drag your scrawny ass out there.” Sighing, Trey reached down and caught Ressa’s hand. “You trust me?”

Her eyes flew wide.

“You aren’t serious.”

“I’m just going to address it, real quick,” he said. “They won’t go away until I give them something.”

She winced, look down at herself. “I’m a mess. I don’t have makeup on. My hair is probably a wreck. I’m wearing your shirt . . . I don’t have makeup on. I barely remembered to put a bra on!”

“You didn’t have to do that on my account,” Sebastian offered.

“I’m killing you when I’m done,” Trey warned. Then he reached up, smoothed her hair down. “They aren’t going to focus on any of that. You look beautiful.”

He pressed a kiss to her lips, remained there. “Trust me?”

“I might kill you for this,” she whispered against his mouth. “Fine.”

*   *   *

Ressa gulped at the sudden flash of cameras, the rush of questions. There were only a few people, she’d thought. Now it seemed like dozens.

Stu

“Mr. Barnes! Mr. Barnes! Is it true that you’re also writing erotic sexy stories under another name? What does your family think about this?”

“They are romance books,” he said. How could he sound so calm. “And knowing my mom? She’s probably going to be mad I didn’t let her know already so she could read them. She loves romance.”

There was a faint pause and then the next rush of questions, most of them ru

One finally distinguished itself from another. “Is this Ressa Bliss? Your former girlfriend? Why do you think she gave that interview?”

“Does she look like a former girlfriend?” He laughed. “This is Ms. Bliss but let me make it clear. We are still dating. I can’t explain what happened with that interview but the interviewer didn’t bother to verify their source. Ressa didn’t give the interview. She’s spent the past few days with me or traveling with family. She hasn’t had time to give an interview.”

Now there was another flurry, but when Trey opened his mouth to answer, Ressa squeezed his hand and answered herself. “No, we are not claiming that I didn’t give the interview,” she said, her voice like ice. “We are stating that. Whoever did that interview wasn’t talking to me.”

The reporters paused, but it was so brief, it couldn’t even be measured by breaths.

“Are things serious between you two?”

Instead of answering that, Trey turned to Ressa and cupped her face in his hands. She stood there as he closed his mouth over hers, but slowly, she relaxed against him, her hands gripping his waist.