Thank you to @thedeadofmidnight for the gorgeous edit! ❤️

Chapter Six

"The studio could sue you." One of the suits who had a bag of frozen peas held next to Kyler's jaw hissed at me. "Do you realise how much his face is insured for?"

That had my eyebrows going way up. "I thought insuring body parts was just a rumour. Do people really do that?"

Kyler didn't meet my eyes and he pulled the bag of peas away from the woman sitting by his side, who was no doubt wishing me a painful and slow death. The man who had come in with them was less dramatic and was more interested in something on his phone but I noticed him glance up once or twice, take in me in all my baggy t-shirt glory and then go back to furiously tapping at the screen.

"Yes, they do and very bad things happen to people who damage the goods." She told me through gritted teeth and I feared she'd attack me with one of her pointy six inch Louboutins. I pegged her to be Kyler's manager or agent or whatever it was they called people like her. The moment I'd landed the first punch to Kyler's face she'd screamed the house down and caused the two bulky men shadowing Kyler to come at me like they wanted to tackle me to the ground. But for some reason Kyler had yelled at them to back off and had instead snapped at the woman, telling her to leave me alone. He had then very politely asked me if he could come inside and talk and despite wanting to kick him right out I'd taken one look at his throbbing jaw and felt bad immediately.

Being a do-gooder was a demon I had never managed to get rid off. So, stricken with guilt I had let Kyler and two other people in. Seeing how they were behaving right now, oh how I wished I hadn't.

"Julie would you shut up for a minute." Kyler glared at her and the petite woman who sported a platinum, pixie cut and a cream pant suit aquissed. I assumed that it would take someone who was probably signing her checks to get Julie to keep quiet and from the little I had learnt about Kyler Blackwell in the past few days, I knew that he wielded a lot of power. Not only was he starring in what was predicted to be the hottest series of films for teenagers in the coming years but he of course was also heir to his father's billion dollar empire, along with his siblings. It explained the mansion and it explained the control and silent authority he possessed. But I hadn't witnessed any of that the night we met. I remembered an intense, mysterious, hot as hell guy who summoned all my secrets out of me and made me feel like I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. Now, knowing the kind of crowd he was surrounded by, I felt stupid for allowing myself to be led on like that.

"Fine, I'll shut up but you need to make this quick. We have a plane to catch and the studio wants this mess cleaned up as soon as possible. Harrison can brief you." Of course by mess she meant me.

"Right, okay here's what we need to do." The middle-aged, good looking man in a grey suit that looked way too warm for summer in Tennessee finally glanced at me directly. "Miss Nichols, as you're aware photos of you and Mr. Blackwell in a compromising position are currently circulating around the internet."

My cheeks heated at the memory and I swore I saw Kyler looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face. It was hard to guess what was going through his head right now but if it inched closer to amusement then I should have punched him harder.Oh well, there was always next time. But it further convinced me that I had massively overthought our time together and that while for me it meant a lot, for Kyler it might just as well have been one of the many times he got a girl in a hot tub.

"Excuse me?!"

"Jesus." I closed my eyes and groaned at my mother's shrill voice.

How long had she been standing there and listening? After she'd dropped the metaphorical bomb on me, I'd sent her to her room to gather herself but that process usually took some time and her going through a series of rituals. But she'd come back sooner than expected and I bet no mother liked hearing the words she'd just heard. Walking briskly towards the group that had collected in the living room, she looked at me as though she would incinerate me with a single look was she capable of it. It was new feeling for me, having never gotten in trouble before and I just felt odd like I'd woken up in someone else's body or like I was wearing clothes that weren't mine.

"Ella Grace Nichols, what is going on?" She pierced me with a look like dared me to try and bullshit my way out of this. Given that lies weren't my speciality and I wasn't very creative with them I chose to tell her the truth. By the time I finished, an awkward silence descended upon the room and Mom hadn't reacted. She stared at me like she had no idea who I was and perhaps that was worse than having her yell at me.

Someone cleared their throat and broke the staring match.

"Mrs. Nichols..." Kyler began and I winced because he opened his mouth with a big fat mistake.

"It's Ms. Nichols." She pierced him with a glare that would've brought a lesser man to his knees. "I would be Mrs. Keaton but my husband is a lying, cheating asshole and my daughter and I prefer not to have his name permanently attached to ours."

Oh My God.

I moved closer and sniffed and sure enough she'd been drinking. It was early enough in the day for it to be unusual and I wasn't sure when she had started but in the time before Kyler had arrived and now, she'd had the opportunity to down what seemed like a couple of glasses of her favourite wine and it had left her stinking of alcohol which was obviously wonderful.

"Mom" I gently touched her arm and avoided looking at our audience especially Kyler whose eyes it felt like were always on me. "Why don't you lie down for a bit? You look a little exhausted."

She spun her neck towards me so fast that I flinched at the pain she must have experience. "No, no, no Ella. There is no way I'm leaving you alone with these people who seem to be making crazy accusations against my daughter." She pointed at Harrison who looked a little scared. "Never trust a man who wears expensive shoes, never." She waved her finger in front of me and I wanted to crawl into a whole in the ground. Not only did Kyler know part of my tragic life story, he was witnessing it first hand. It was bad enough that I'd been the idiot who'd fallen all over him the other night when he'd been clearly entertained by my cluelessness but this was whole other level of humiliation.

"They're just leaving," I glared at Kyler. "there's nothing to worry about." She didn't look convinced and walked right up to Harrison who seemed to be squirming in his chair. "If you hurt my daughter," She jabbed a finger in his beefy chest, "or make her sad, there will be consequences. Understand?"

The three of them nodded in unison and it was almost comical how a woman who was five foot nothing and wore ridiculously oversized glasses in order to see what was right in front of her could intimidate anyone.

"And I might be drunk," she confessed, "but even I know that she's a minor so you're not going to make her sign anything without my permission." She looked my way, " Ells,don't sign anything they give you. I don't like the look of that woman." Julie scowled at this and Kyler looked like he was barely suppressing a laugh.

My head ached and I wondered when this bizarre nightmare would end but sadly it continued. "And you," She now confront Kyler directly. "I don't know who you and what you want from my daughter but let me tell you something about Ella."

Oh God, no please let this end before she became emotional and started sobbing because that was definitely the stage she progressed to before passing out. I hurried to stop her but she had something to say to Kyler and wouldn't be stopped before she was done.

"My Ella is the sweetest, kindest,the most big-hearted person you'll ever meet." Her eyes were already watering and I detected a hiccup. "Mom, stop." I tried to intervene but she went on. "She'd give someone the clothes off of her own back if they needed them and she goes out of her way, every single day to make someone to lighten up someone's day." She hiccuped, "I could go on but there aren't enough hours in the day to tell you everything about how wonderful she is. So before you do anything at all to hurt her, you better know the kind of person you're messing around with. She's forgiving and she'll let go of a lot of things but you'll have it on your conscience forever, you got that?" She shook her finger at him and Kyler actually nodded, as though he'd taken every word of her drunken spiel seriously. In fact it looked like he'd been shaken to the core by her words if the look on his face was anything to go by. His eyes immediately flew to mine and I saw something in them that had deceived me earlier. He looked like he cared and that he wanted to protect me from everything that could possibly hurt me but that itself was pretty ironic.

***

It took some convincing but I put Mom to bed for a nap after making sure she'd taken some Advil. Then,taking the moment to quickly change out of the oversized t-shirt I had on the entire time, I slipped into my jeans and a less stained and slightly more fitted shirt. My guests were still patiently waiting but Julie had taken to pacing the floor.

"Thank god! We don't have the entire day to hang out here believe it or not." She sniped

"Great, feel free to leave right now. I don't want you to miss your flight or wait, don't you own like a private jet or something?" I pointed that rhetorical question to Kyler and he visibly flinched. "Ella," I was immediately assaulted by memories of him saying my name and now with his full attention directed towards me I couldn't help but remember the kiss.

That damned kiss that had caused me to become the subject of witch hunts but wow, it was also one I wouldn't be forgetting anytime soon. Still, I hated that I'd fallen for his charms so easily, had let him trick me into believing that he found me fascinating and that I'd allowed my hormones to take charge so easily.

"What?" I barked at him, the familiar anger was much easier to handle than all my other emotions.

"We won't take much of your time." His voice was low and apologetic and on the whole he looked like he could use a good few days of sleep. Of course it didn't help that he sported a brand new bruise on his face but he still didn't look anything but utterly heartbreakingly gorgeous. However, the rumpled clothes, the bloodshot eyes and hair that looked like someone had been running their hands through it continuously told me that he was tired. I hadn't forgotten that his mom was in the hospital and that in itself was enough to completely drain one's spirit so I softened my expression just a little.

"I'm sorry for all of this. We did everything to make sure there wouldn't be any cameras around but," his expression hardened, "they always fucking find a way in."

"So obviously you should've been on your guard." The always helpful Julie added. She'd taken to wandering around my home and making obvious judgements about the decor, most of which was from Target or T. J. Maxx.

"Not now Julie, not now." He pressed the bridge of his nose and his stress literally radiated off of him. "We're trying to get the photos taken down. Carter told you that much right?"

"He did but since then I've received about five hundred direct messages of girls describing very vividly what they would do to my corpse if they ever got a hold of it so I'm assuming they're still up?"

His eyes darkened, "Can you deactivate your social media accounts?"

"I'm not afraid of your fangirls Kyler. I've made my accounts private but that's all I'm going to do."

He let out a frustrated breath. "Some of these fans are actually dangerous Ella. I don't want them finding out where you live and harassing you."

"It's too late for that." I muttered underneath my breath, thinking of the girls who had walked in yesterday. Briefly, I was worried that they'd share the photos they'd taken of me yesterday along with details of where I worked but then thought better of it. No one would sink that low, would they?

"What was that?" He watched me carefully, "Did something happen?"

"Nothing."

"Carter told me about what happened at work yesterday. Are those girls still bothering you?"

"Mr. Blackwell, if I may interrupt," Harrison spoke up, "if fans are already aware of where Miss Nichols works then it won't be long before the paparazzi find her there. It's best if she takes a few days off while we figure this out."

"Absolutely not!" I thought about earlier today and it all came crashing down on me again, the fact that we were about to lose the house. "I'm not going to stop working."

"Ella, we're only doing this for your safety. If people know where to find you then who knows what they'll do."

"They're pre-teens, what's the worst they could do? Start a nasty hashtag?" I scoffed, "Besides you need to tell everyone that it was your fault and that I had no idea about your girlfriend or whatever movie you're starring in. It's that simple and I'll no longer have anything to do with it."

Silence, I was met with complete silence and here I'd thought my plan was genius.

"What? You're going to do that right? Tell everyone the truth?"

Someone snorted, it was probably Julie and I decided that there were some people in the world you just couldn't help but hate. "If he does it'll end his career before it even started."

"Excuse me?"

Kyler got up from the couch and came up to me, forcing me to walk backwards and far, far away from him. While my brain had received the memo that Kyler Blackwell didn't deserve to be trusted, my body was taking its own sweet time. I was attracted to him, of course I was and had kept a considerable distance between us the entire time he'd been here. I kept my eyes locked on the darkening bruise on his face to remind myself that he'd purposely thrown my under the bus and was now not even going to rectify his mistake.

"What are you doing?" I asked as he kept walking towards me.

"Trying to talk to you." He held up his hands, "Just talk I promise."

"Isn't that what we're doing? What's with the physical proximity?" His mouth twitched in response and he tried to hide it.

"Can we talk privately?"

"What's wrong with these two?" His minions exchanged a look between them that worried me.

"Kyler, I think all conversations about this issue should take place with your manager and publicist in the same room." Julie looked slightly panicked and Harrison, who I assumed would be the publicist seconded her.

"And I think Julie that you need to let me handle this without breathing down my neck all the time."

"If you were capable of being left on your own we wouldn't be here right now."

Damn, the woman knew how to deliver some good comebacks. I needed to learn from her a little.

He glowered at her, "I need to talk to Ella alone. Call Mason, tell him I won't be back before tomorrow and make sure Dad knows. Push all my meetings to tomorrow afternoon and reschedule what you have to."

She opened her mouth, then closed it and if I looked hard enough maybe I'd see the steam coming out of her ears. "I do not get paid enough to deal with this." Then I watched as she miraculously transformed my living room into her workstation. Pulling out laptops and large amounts of paperworks, she set down not one, not two but four different cell phones on the table while Harrison hurried to set up his own little corner. They'd literally taken over my house in less than a minute and then Kyler was tugging me towards him, his hand on my arm and his head tilted towards the hallway. "Let's talk?"

I wanted to punch him again and tell him no way in hell but the reminder that people all over the country had a great crotch shot of me made me act otherwise. All I had to do was to get him to announce publicly that I had nothing to do with him, his career or his girlfriend and then my life could go back to normal. It'd be easy right?

I wished.

***

I took him outside to the yard where which was nowhere near as luxurious as his and embarrassingly in need of landscaping. I knew now why Mom kept putting off my ideas to renovate the house and a pang of longing shot through me, stupid as it seemed because I already felt homesick and I hadn't even left the house yet. It wasn't the time to get nostalgic though, not with Kyler's eyes boring a hole in my face.

"You're mad at me."

I didn't look at him because if I did, I'd do something ridiculously stupid like hitting him once again and getting sued for it or you know, kissing him.

"As opposed to what? Ridiculously overjoyed that you failed to warn me that my face would be everywhere on the internet when you shoved your tongue down my throat?"

He coughed, then sounded like he was choking on air. I glanced in his direction to see him turning red and looking a little embarrassed. "I distinctly remember you kissing me back."

The molten eyes and the hoarse voice would've worked on me another time but not today and I willed my body to not get goosebumps.

"Great, this is funny to you. It's one big joke but can it end already?" I crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm not the girl they're painting me out to be and if my mother didn't make it obvious enough, I don't take well to being called a cheating, lying whore." I air quoted those words from an article I'd made the mistake of reading. They were ugly and made Kyler flinch but it made me so angry that every article or tweet or message I read made me out to be the villain, never him. I failed to understand how even in this day and age, people could find it in themselves to place all of the blame on the woman. Because of course, I must have seduced poor little Kyler Blackwell who had just been missing his girlfriend and I couldn't resist taking advantage of how drunk he'd been. It was gross and sickening and not just about me.

"I'm sorry Ella. I'm so sorry." He moved closer, "If I had any idea that they'd still be able to get those photos I would never even have talked to you, let alone..."

"So the problem is that you got caught? Are we not even going to discuss the fact that you cheated on your girlfriend? Wow, I just...I don't have words."

It was as if a shutter fell over his eyes at the mention of his girlfriend and I physically felt him grow distant. Clearing his throat, he looked away from and into the far distance. "Alyssa and I have an understanding. She's got nothing to do with this. I wish I could explain things better but..."

"Whoa buddy," I held my hands up, "there's no need. I won't pretend to understand the world you come from and honestly please don't tell me what kind of arrangement you have with your girlfriend. I just want my life to go back to normal."

A frustrated breath left him and I watched his body coil in tension.He was so different from the guy I'd met the other night, the one that had been playful and flirting, an open smile never leaving his face. He'd weakened my resolve and made me think of sunshines and rainbows, all the possibilities I hadn't really given much thought to before. Before I'd gone to work yesterday and before the photos had come out, I'd actually thought about getting his number from Carter and just texting Kyler to ask him how his mom was doing. I hated admitting it to myself but the fantasy had clearly been there and a part of me mourned the loss of what could've been.

This version of Kyler was all business and quiet, brooding intensity. Although he'd been watching me constantly since he'd stepped through my door he hadn't made any move to touch me. Even now with just the two of us, I felt him withdraw and realised quickly that I had to whack any romantic notions out of my head immediately. He was an actor, about to be propelled into stardom and had some kind of weird open relationship with Hollywood's sweetheart. I had no place being in his life, the most amazing kisser I'd ever known or not.

He blew out a breath, "That's what I wanted to talk to you about." His eyebrows drew together, "Julie and Harrison will only look out for my interests because that's what they get paid for. Their strategy will only involve thinking about how I can come out of all this looking squeaky clean. They won't even think about you or your reputation and if they had it their way, they'd make it all sound like it was your fault."

He must have seen me gaping at him because he rushed to reassure me, closing in on me for the first time today. "Don't worry, I'd never let them do that. I won't let them make the situation worse for you Ella. I fucked up and I'm going to take care of it." He gripped my arm and I immediately felt the sparks as the tingled up and down arm. His hand was warm and as he squeezed my forearm reassuringly, I swore the skin where he touched me was scorching hot.

Stupid, stupid Ella.

Kyler looked earnestly into my eyes as he promised me this, his head ducking down to meet my eyes. "We're going to go back inside but don't agree to anything Julie says. She's going to have a plan and she'll make it sound like it's the only solution to the problem but just trust me on this, don't give in to her. Okay?"

"Do you have a better idea?" I cleared my throat, hating how shaky my voice was. "Why should I ever trust you again?"

He pulled back looking a little hurt and dropped his hand. "I deserved that and I deserved the hit too." His lips lifted at the corners. "That was quite the punch by the way, I think my masculinity got knocked down a few pegs. Who taught you?"

I shrugged, "It was the only lesson my dad ever taught me that I choose to retain. You didn't answer my question, why should I trust you?" I looked him square in the eyes.

He bit his lips and I wrestled with my body to not react to that small movement.

He was the enemy!

"Because Ella Grace," He pinned me with his eyes and walked towards me until just an inch of space remained, "it's the only choice you've got."

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