Page 110 of Promise Not to Fall for the Rich & Famous

Desperation gripped hold of him, tightening his throat and chest as he sucked in his next breath. “But we need to talk. Can you just get her to listen so I can explain?”

“You know what she is right now?” Marsha challenged, pushing the door back open a crack. “She’s fire.” The intensity in her green eyes made him flinch.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean timing is everything when it comes to women. Right now, she’s a spark ready to explode. And anything you say is gunpowder. If you love this woman—practice some patience. Now’s not the time.”

With that, she yanked the door closed.

CHAPTER 21

“I’m here once you’re ready to talk.”

Kat stared out the cab window as they pulled up to her apartment building. She couldn’t remember LA looking so gloomy. Early evening, and already the sun was nowhere in sight.

“Kat,” Marsha’s voice came again. “At some point, we need to discuss the upcoming weeks. We can’t just stop production altogether.

She managed a nod.

“Stan, why don’t you help us take her things inside?”

Kat pushed open the door and moved numbly to the trunk of the cab. The team had divided for the trip back. Marsha and Stan accompanying Kat while Tina, the other cameraperson, had flown back with Randall and… and the imposter twelve hours later.

She shook her head each time she considered the truth of it. Her social experiment husband hadn’t really been Duke. He was Zander, the angry brother she didn’t even care for. Only he’d made her care for him. And he’d lied to do it. In fact, Kat didn’t know whether Zander had been acting like himself or trying to behave like Duke in order to keep up the ruse.

Hot knots of emotion threatened to overtake her at the thought, but she pushed them back. It wasn’t time yet.

While packing up her things at the beach house, and then the bungalow, Kat had conjured a barrier to stop her emotions from bubbling over. The shield was nothing so strong as a screw-on lid, rather a thin layer of plastic wrap, clinging to the edges while a pool of her emotions frothed and foamed just beneath.

She’d let them out once she wasn’t surrounded by taxi drivers, fellow passengers, and half the production crew. Kat felt a level of pride for containing herself this far.

Of course, two minor breakdowns had snuck in during her trip home. One in the ladies restroom at the international airport where a woman tapped on the other side of the stall and asked, in broken English, if she needed help.

The other came on in the box-sized restroom on the airplane when Kat accidentally looked herself in the mirror. The woman who’d been duped yet again. A woman who was not-so-smart after all.

And perhaps that was the worst part of it. Kat didn’t have gifts of flirtatious charm or charismatic allure. What Kat Morgan was known for—what her identity hinged on—was her smarts. And they’d let her down in a very big way yet again.

The acknowledgment was a fresh jab of its own. That really was the crux of it all. Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me twice…

It’s not time yet, she reminded herself as the tears threatened to come. She pictured sealing the plastic wrap tightly in place, keeping the pain out for just a little bit more. She could do this. She could wait until she was alone.

The march to her apartment was a blur. Before she knew it, Kat had led the others through the entrance, up the elevator, and down the short, wide hall to her door.

She motioned to the bedroom while Stan and Marsha filtered inside. The steady sound of suitcase wheels moving over the wood changed once Stan rolled it over her bedroom rug.

“I’m hanging your dress on the door,” Marsha announced.

Kat’s aimless gaze flittered into focus on the enclosed case holding her wedding gown. The sight was a butcher knife hovered over her protective covering.

“On second thought,” Marsha said, lifting the hook from the door’s edge, “I’ll tuck it inside your closet.”

Stan shuffled out of the room and gave her a partial smile. “I hope you work things out, hon.”

“Thanks.”

Marsha was next to step through the doorway. While Stan had taken on Kat’s somber disposition with slow steps and quiet tones, Marsha kept her paces swift and her shoulders high. “Why don’t I meet you in the cab in just a minute?” she said to Stan.

“Sure.” Stan gave Kat a subtle wave, headed out the open door of her apartment, and closed the door behind him.