CHAPTER 107
TWO DAYS LATER
The bang on the trailer’s front door was so hard that the walls shook. I rolled over and poked, with one lazy finger, Cole’s side. He groaned. “I can’t move, woman. You’ve destroyed me.”
I laughed, my own muscles too weak to move, much less to stand, dress, and get to the door. “I thought we had two hours before the next shoot,” I whispered to him. It couldn’t have been two hours; there was no way. It’d been… I looked for the clock, but it was in the trailer’s main room and that was a good eight feet away. I laid my head against Cole’s chest instead. The person at the door pounded again, a series of raps that showed no patience or timidity whatsoever.
“Just pretend we aren’t here,” Cole stage-whispered, his hand tightening around me when I started to get up.
Our view on the bed afforded a door’s width glimpse into the living room of the trailer. Enough of a glimpse that, when the front door was kicked in, we saw the edge of it swing, the man stomping up the steps appearing in our doorway a second later. I gripped the sheet to my chest and tried to place the man… Cole’s attorney. DeRico or something like that. Here. With Cole’s trailer door now lying on its side, cockeyed on the floor.
“Shit,” Cole grumbled and pulled the sheet higher on me, his legs swinging off the bed, and he grabbed a pillow, covering himself as he glowered at the man. “What the fuck, DeLuca. Your phone doesn’t work?”
“Don’t bitch at me about communication. Not when you two go and play that stunt on national television without calling me first. Nadia is pissed. Beyond pissed. I had to listen to that bitch personally; she left me an eight-minute voicemail explaining her detailed plans for your castration.”
Cole shrugged. “Want to give Summer some respect and get the fuck out of this room?”
The man glanced at me, then nodded. “I’m sorry.” He made eye contact with the apology, and I shrugged my forgiveness. He turned his back to me and hovered at the door, looking to Cole.
“I’m coming,” Cole barked. “Give me a minute.”
DeLuca closed the bedroom’s door, and Cole was on the bed and above me in a second. “Sorry babe.” He kissed my neck and hopped off the bed, grabbing a pair of jeans off the floor and pulling them on.
“Will everything be okay? With Nadia?” We had conveniently forgotten her in this whirlwind of change, Cole solidly on the Obsessed with Me bus, oblivious to any of the side effects that seemed to plague Don and Casey’s view of our new union.
He shrugged into a shirt. “We already came to an agreement. We’re good. She’s just pissed. It’s normal.” He squeezed my foot, the closest thing to him, and winked at me. “I’ll be back.”
CHAPTER 108
The chair, a leather straight back that sat by the door, was in serious danger of joining Cole’s door on its trip to the set dumpster. DeLuca leaned on the back of it with both hands, his knuckles white, his face dark.
Cole sat down on the couch, his hand waving at DeLuca to proceed. “Okay, give it to me.”
“Nadia is contesting the mediation document, saying that your good faith actions in the mediation were false, and that you were in love with Summer the entire time.”
Cole tilted his head, trying to connect the dots. “But… she’s in love with the director prick. Has been the whole time. Why the fuck does it matter who I’ve been doing what with?”
DeLuca let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Because you knew she was doing the director prick. It was a shared understanding. See, from Nadia’s side, she was under the impression, when agreeing to our terms, that there was a chance that you two could rekindle things.”
“What the fuck?” he exploded. “She was the one who filed for divorce. And rekindle things?” He laughed and felt almost delirious, this a situation happening to someone else. “Getting back with Nadia hasn’t been part of the equation since before I even left LA.” He looked to the bedroom door and wanted Summer out there. Hated her shut away like she wasn’t part of this. He looked back at DeLuca, exasperated. “You’re the one who told me, if I loved Summer, that it was okay.”
“Is that what this is? It wasn’t that damn long ago that I asked you and you didn’t know.”
“I love her.” Cole nodded tightly and met the attorney’s eyes. “Without a doubt.”
“Right now, you have two options. Stay with Summer and split The Fortune Bottle with Nadia, or push this fling aside, we’ll repair things with Nadia and the press, and the movie will be yours. All yours.”
There wasn’t a moment of hesitation in Cole’s response. “Fuck no. Give her half if that’s what it will take.”
“You sure about that?” DeLuca let go of the chair and stepped closer, his head tilting as he examined Cole’s face. “You’re willing to walk away from half of this? Over her?” He nodded toward the closed bedroom door.
“You told me once that you had your soulmate. Would you have given half of a movie away for a lifetime with her?”
Brad’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not permanently walking away from her in my scenario. All I’m asking is for you to put this relationship on hold. Give it six months, then you can reunite, try it again.”
“Would you risk your relationship with your wife?” Cole repeated, and it wasn’t a question at all. It was a point, and Brad stared at him for a long moment before nodding in understanding.