“Doing?”
“Uh…” Shit. She kept forgetting that friends, the real ones, liked the details. “Going through stock, getting the shop ready for Halloween, stuff like that.”
“Oh,” Becca said. “Because Callie and I thought maybe you were busy doing something else.” She paused meaningfully. “Like, say…someone else.”
Olivia went still. “Um.” Her brain started racing. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Because we both saw Cole leave your place earlier. He was whistling, by the way.”
“He was fixing my…” What? “Stuff,” she said, then grimaced. Lame.
“Yeah?” Becca asked, sounding amused. “Is that what put that smile on his face? Fixing your stuff?”
Olivia closed her eyes and thunked her head to the front countertop. It did not knock any sense into her.
“Because in my humble opinion,” Becca went on, not sounding all that humble actually, “a smile like the one Cole was wearing screams ‘just got lucky.’”
In Olivia’s ear came the welcome beep telling her she had another call. “I gotta go.”
“I bet.”
“No, really. I’ve got another call.”
“Uh-huh,” Becca said drily. “Later.”
Olivia disconnected and eyed the screen to see who was calling her.
BEST LOVER YOU’VE EVER HAD—ANSWER.
She stared at it for a moment and then burst out laughing. She had no idea when Cole had managed to get ahold of her phone and program himself in, but she had to give him creativity points. She connected. “Someone a little full of themselves this morning?”
“And yet you don’t deny the Best Lover Ever claim,” he noted, voice low and playful.
Damn, she was cheesing from ear to ear. She tried to curtail the stupid grin but couldn’t. “Why are you calling?” she asked, walking around and adjusting some of the Halloween decorations that she’d put up earlier in the week. She was thinking she could use some more. One could never have enough Halloween decorations. “Didn’t I just see you?”
“Ouch. And yes. I need a favor. I’ve got this thing I’ve got to attend Friday night. Was hoping you’d come with.”
Friday was three nights away, and Halloween. “Define thing,” she said warily. A date? Yes, they’d slept together, but that hadn’t exactly been a planned thing. A date would take them to yet another level, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that.
“Suspicious much?” he asked, sounding amused. “I can see the wheels turning from here. Just say yes, Olivia.”
“I don’t think—”
“It’s a Halloween gig. Costume required.”Excitement trumped reluctance. She loved to wear costumes. Loved. And he knew it. She eyed the rack of costumes she had displayed, already imagining at least three she wanted for herself. “You know,” she said casually, “that whole bossy thing you’ve got going was fun in bed, but it’s not as much fun in real life.”
“Okay,” he said. “Say yes, please.”
She let out a short laugh. He was a quick learner.
“I promise you a good time,” he said in that low, sexy voice, the one that had coaxed her right out of her shell last night and had her doing whatever he’d wanted.
And loving it.
Shaking her head, she walked through the shop to her office and flipped on a few more lights. The one over her desk actually went on and stayed on as it had all week now and she had to smile. “Fine,” she said. “Yes.”
“Was it me, or the fact that you get to wear a costume?”
“Do you really want to know?”
He laughed softly, so damn sure of himself. “I know it was me.”
She told herself she didn’t have time for this, or him. Her voice mail was filled with calls from the TV Land producer, her mom, her sister…All wanting their piece of her. A little bit of her after-sex glow eroded. She needed to stand firm. Because if she didn’t, if she caved and did this for them, they’d take what they needed and they’d leave her.
Again.
Which, actually, was a good reminder. This happiness in Lucky Harbor was tenuous, and it all depended on the facade that she’d built remaining in place.
Here she wasn’t the child star.
She was just herself. A sole proprietor. A simple woman with simple needs.
The minute she became Sharlyn again, everything would change. This happy life would vanish. Everything good would go away. Her friends. Maybe her business. Cole.
And if that wasn’t a sobering thought, there was the realization that this too, this life she’d made for herself in Lucky Harbor, was temporary.
God. God, she hated that. But the truth was, this life was nothing more than another show, another illusion.
Or delusion, as it were…
“Olivia? You still with me?” Cole asked.
Yeah. She was. The question was, how long would he be with her? “Yes.”
He paused, and this time the good humor was gone from his voice when he spoke. “Gotta say, it was unexpected waking up alone.”
She cleared her throat. “The whole night was unexpected. I didn’t plan on sleeping with you, Cole.”
“And I didn’t plan on you being gone in the morning.”
So honest. So up front. Again, no games, no hidden agendas, just…Cole.