The words hovered between us, the unspoken question.

"You will come back to L.A. with me, won't you?"

"I live in L.A.," I reminded him. "I'll go back either way."

The employee shall return to L.A. with her employer and continue to live in a state of constant agitation and confusion about what the true nature of their relationship is.

He let go of me abruptly. "Well. Okay. I have to get back to the set."

Chapter Eighteen.

Love *

The paparazzi overran our secluded villa by noon. The sparkly ring on my finger was a top-level news item. It comprised the lead story for hundreds of papers, and they wanted, they needed, pictures. They knocked, they cajoled, they pleaded, they begged until the police came and moved them back behind bright orange CAUTION tape, which they walked around as soon as the police left. I wanted to open the door and scream at all of them, You realize it's all for fucking show! This entire relationship! It would have felt spectacularly cathartic to do that, but the truth was I didn't know anything more about the nature of our relationship than they did.

No, the only one who seemed to know or understand what our relationship was by this point was Jeremy. He went on as if nothing were wrong, as if there were no blurry lines or unanswered questions between us, or rings of undetermined sentimental worth on my finger. So while the paparazzi grew in number and rudeness, I refrained from screaming anything out to them.

Instead I slumped on the couch and watched as Kyle and another staffer from the set packed everything up. By three we had checked into a high-security hotel in Lisbon. We left a couple of days later for Italy, for another posh hotel in central Rome. By that time I had a new Italian bodyguard, a short, burly, affable man named Arturo, who looked like he could crush a Hummer into a twisted chunk of scrap metal with his bare hands.

Arturo brought some much-needed comic relief to our uptight little family with his broad smile and endless supply of jokes. It didn't seem to matter to him that we didn't understand a word of them. Jeremy was a ball of stress as the end of the shoot neared, and Kyle and I continued to be awkward around each other since Jeremy had outed his crush on me. But Arturo was all goodness and light. He was fun and pure of both heart and soul.

Also, Arturo was in the dark about our true relationship. He assumed Jeremy and I were a typical loving couple, engaged to be married, just not yet choosing a date. Of course, since we didn't speak Italian and he didn't speak English, explaining what confused even us would have been hard.

It should have been a relief that Arturo didn't know, I guess, but I found it grated on me. Jeremy still trumped up his evil little punishments, but now they were carried out in secret, for Arturo's sake. So I'd find myself fidgeting through a day with a toy in my ass or tacks in my bra or a rope knot against my clit, and it was made all the worse because I had to hide it from Arturo.

But when Jeremy returned each night, Arturo left, and then things were comfortingly routine. Kneel in front of the couch, release his cock, suck it, take a break to eat dinner or not, and retire to the bedroom for more cock sucking or ass fucking or getting tied up or bending over for punishment, or whatever Jeremy wanted to do. I still wore his ring and flashed it obediently in public, although we never discussed it privately and certainly never made any plans for a wedding. I finally had to face the fact that it truly was only for show.

At the same time, he still insisted that he loved me. He whispered it in my ear every night when there were no cameras or reporters to convince. He still bought me too much, spent too much money taking me to expensive restaurants, and procured a ridiculous amount of mythology books to replace the ones he'd destroyed. And he still dominated me, as he always had. Lovingly. He had dominated me lovingly from the start.

He was so caring, so careful, to give me just a little more pain than I thought I could take, but never, ever too much. He almost always permitted me to find my own pleasure. In fact, his eyes shone with the deepest lust not when he lost himself to orgasm, but when I was moaning in his arms. The way he kissed me, there was no doubt in my mind that he felt love, whatever love meant to Jeremy Gray in his strange, perverse mind.

And yes, of course, I loved him more every day.

In the middle of January we left Italy and Arturo behind to fly to Los Angeles for the Golden Globes. It was to be a short trip, a couple of days before we returned to Greece to finish the shoot. I sat beside Jeremy on the plane and felt, as always, like I was flying blind. What was I to Jeremy? Who was Jeremy to me? My employer? My lover? A friend? Something more? A pretend fiance, that much was sure. I was staring down at my ring when Jeremy took my hand and leaned close to me.

"Whenever we fly at night, I remember that first flight to Thailand," he said in the darkness of the first-class cabin. "You were so quiet and scared."

"Yes, I was. I barely knew you then."

"I know. That's what was so amazing about it. It was kind of thrilling, knowing how scared you were, and that you were sitting there beside me anyway, flying halfway across the world." He fell silent. I supposed now that thrill was gone.

"Are you getting tired of me?" I asked before I could stop the words.

He scrutinized me. Could he see my insecurity? My fear? He squeezed my hand. "No, I'm not tired of you. Not at all. Why would you think that?"

"What happens when we leave Greece? When your shoot is over?"

"Oh Jesus, Nell. What do you want to happen?"

"I don't know." I cloaked my distress in apathy. I picked at my cuticles, then shrugged. "I guess it's all up to you."

"I thought you wanted to go to school."

I did want to go to school. Now I just want to be with you. I'll sign another contract. I'll do whatever it takes.

"I guess," was all I said out loud. He squeezed my hand again.

"Listen, I want you to be prepared. Things will be wild in L.A. The paparazzi are horrible there. You can't throw a rock without hitting one. You'll need to think about your security. You're not to go anywhere alone. We'll stay in a hotel, just for added safety. I don't want you at the house."

"The stalker? She's in L.A.?"

"She might be. They can track her movements when she leaves the country, but she can move around the U.S., and we don't really know where she is."

"Have you been tracking her? It's that serious?" His silence unnerved me. "Has she actually left the country looking for you?"

"She was in Thailand, yes," he said finally. "And Portugal for a while. And she's not looking for me, Nell. She's looking for you. I'm not saying that to scare you, just to let you know that you need to be safe. You can't go anywhere alone. You can't just run off when you feel like it."

I looked down at the ring, twisting it.

"If I weren't so selfish, I would make you go." He gave me a look so guilty, it was heartbreaking. "If I weren't so selfish, I would have let you go as soon as all this stalker craziness began."

"You can't let one woman change how you live your life," I said.

"But it's not just my life. You're involved too."

"Am I?"

He scowled and shifted beside me. "We won't have much time in L.A., but I'll find time to beat your little ass if you piss me off enough."

And time did fly. As soon as we arrived at the hotel, Jeremy ran off to do some interviews or something while Kyle let in a stylist from the studio with a rack full of designer dresses and three suitcases of makeup, jewelry, and fake hair. He tried out "looks" on me, some of which made me want to laugh, some of which made me want to cry. Kyle's smirk was in overdrive as Leonard remade me again and again. At Leonard's urging, I finally decided on an ivory dress that was simple yet elegant, embellished with rhinestones and pearls.

Jeremy got in late from his movie-star activities and woke me from a sound sleep just to turn me over his knee. I chalked the brief but painful spanking up to either stress or frustration. It hurt, but I figured it was my job to help him unwind, and I felt inordinately pleased with my work when he fell into a deep sleep minutes afterward. He still woke up to fuck me at some point during the night.

He was gone again in the morning when Leonard arrived, bright and cheery, to give me the spa treatment from head to toe. It was tricky to hide the bruises from the spanking when he was dressing me, but I did my best. If he noticed them, he was circumspect about it. I'm sure a studio stylist like him had seen it all.

"So lovely," he said when I was dressed and ready to go. "All that's missing is your smile."

I faked a smile for him that hurt my cheekbones. Kyle arrived just as Leonard was preparing to leave with his many suitcases full of stuff.

"God," Kyle said as he closed the door behind the stylist. "Just...wow. Look at you. God."

"What?"

"Look in the mirror." He led me over to the bathroom, and I looked in the mirror at the elegant stranger standing there. Ivory gown, sparkling diamond earrings and choker, perfectly made-up face.

"It doesn't look like me," I said, frowning.

"Maybe. But it's still pretty," Kyle said. "Come on."

He drove me to the Golden Globes preparty. Jeremy met me just inside the door, acting the solicitous fiance in love. I smiled back and accepted his awkward kiss for the photographers. He left me alone then and went off to chat with some of the many other actors and luminaries crowding the room. For God's sake, what the hell was I doing here? I hid in the bathroom as long as I could, then slunk around behind the coatroom, then drifted over by the stairs before Jeremy came to find me.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I shrugged.

"I want you to stay where I can see you-"

"Jeremy! Nell!"

I turned from Jeremy and found myself clasped to Jessamine Jackson's bountiful breasts. She let go of me and hugged Jeremy. Mason winked at me from behind her back.

"We're sitting together. I arranged it! Nell, you look awful." Jessamine frowned. "For God's sake, have a drink. You should be shit-faced by this point. Everyone else is."

I blinked. "It's only four o'clock."

They all laughed like I was hilarious, and Mason squeezed my hand. "It's so good to see you again, Nell." I didn't miss his subtle glance in Jeremy's direction, or the fact that Jessamine still had her hands on Jeremy, practically squeezing his ass.

"Four o'clock," said Jeremy, looking at his watch. "Ready to go?"

The red carpet was terrifying. It was the same yelling and persistent camera flashing as the paparazzi on the street, only now we had to actually cooperate with them. Even worse, there were bleachers and crowds of yelling fans everywhere I looked.

She could be anywhere.

I looked down at my rhinestone-encrusted bodice and thought about the Romanov girls, who couldn't be killed because the bullets kept bouncing off the diamonds hidden under their dresses. But they'd been killed eventually. Their murderers found a way.

"What's wrong?" asked Jeremy, lifting my chin.

"I feel like I'm going to die." I don't know why I said that. He pursed his lips and held my elbow hard.

"Just look happy," he said.

My face grew sore and tired from smiling as Jeremy dragged me here and there. I stood and posed like a mannequin beside him with his arm around my waist. Kyle steered us from interview to interview, engineering everything with subtle nods and gentle shoves. I declined to answer any questions, made Jeremy jump in and make stuff up whenever they asked about the ring. It was his lie. Let him chat to the reporters about it. I stared into space while I showed the ring off.

Going into the ballroom for the awards broadcast was a huge relief after the scary press of fans and photographers outside. The event was supposed to be a dinner, but everyone just socialized and drank. The Hollywood diet. I was long since desensitized to rubbing shoulders with the stars, so I didn't gawk very much, but I listened in to the conversations around our table and to the awards presentations, once they began. I felt Mason and Jessamine looking at me.

No. Not tonight.

I just really wasn't up for it. I hoped it wasn't something Jeremy would want. After Jeremy and Jessamine did their presenting duties and Mason picked up yet another Best Actor award, I leaned over to Jeremy and told him I was tired.

"It's not even nine o'clock," he said. "And there are more parties after this."

"Do I have to go?"

He frowned and looked away from me. "Yes, you do. If you like, you can go back to the hotel awhile and rest. But it's going to be a long night," he said, glancing over at Jessamine and Mason.

I got the hint.

He put me in a car outside the theater. "I'll tell Kyle to meet you there. But you'll only have an hour or two."

"Okay." I slid across to hunch against the other side. I wanted to curl up into a ball, but my dress was already wrinkled enough. I watched the bustle of Beverly Hills as we crawled through downtown, through brightly lit streets with all the beautiful people walking around. The hotel was nearby, and I was relieved to get upstairs to the room and collapse on the couch. Just a few moments later, there was a knock on the door and I stood up to let Kyle in.

But it wasn't Kyle.

The scowling woman in the doorway shoved a gun against my forehead and pushed me backward into the room.

"Lock the fucking door," she said, pressing the gun to my temple now. I hadn't ever in my life had a gun pressed to my head. I had never felt anything that felt so close to cold, hard death.

"It...it locks automatically," I stammered.

"The chain, you little bitch. No one's coming in until I tell you the things I need to say."

I turned to her. She was in her forties, heavyset, with nondescript eyes and drab, graying blonde hair. She wore a floor-length gown that looked like a bridesmaid's dress. She took in my dress with a malevolent chuckle.

"I don't know what my husband sees in a skinny, ugly bitch like you. That hair, ugh. You can tell it's fake, that awful red."

I shied away as she reached for a handful of my hair and pulled it. I clenched my teeth and swallowed a yelp of pain. I stared at the gun clutched in her other hand and felt nausea twist in my stomach. A gun. This was really happening. My mind raced through scenarios and outcomes, and none of them were good. Her finger was on the trigger, and it was shaking. Talk to her.

"I didn't-I had no idea Jeremy was married, I swear," I said. "I'll...I'll just go. I'll get my things. I'll leave him alone. I don't want to break up anybody's home."

"Go?" She laughed in a terrible voice. "You wish!" She shoved me away, wrenching my hair. I stumbled, and for a sickening moment the edge of my vision turned black. Jeremy, I need you now. Help me. I righted myself and turned to her. The gun was still trained on me, with both hands now. She gestured with a jerk of the weapon. "Sit down. Over on the couch. There's only one way you're going to go, and it's going to be in a way that's going to make it so you can't come sneaking back. Jeremy's always had a thing for the young ones. I love him, but he's not been the most faithful husband around."

"Men," I said, walking slowly to the sofa. "They always think with their dicks."

"You should know, running around to movie sets across the world with him. Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you really think that? Did he fuck you? Did he fuck you every day and every night? Did you like it, you nasty little home wrecker? You know he was only using you, right? Jeremy loves me. I'm his wife!"

You're his stalker, I wanted to scream at her. And he hates you!

"They'll know," I said slowly. "If you harm me. They'll know you did it. Because you're his wife."

She laughed. "Maybe they will, but as you know, Jeremy is a very rich man. He'll use his money to get me off, and we'll be together again while you're rotting in your grave."

I stared at her. I had no idea what to do, no idea what to say. I just knew I didn't want to die, not this way. My heart leaped as a knock sounded at the door, but I realized just as quickly that Kyle couldn't be endangered too.

"I don't know who that is," I said. "Just housekeeping."

He knocked again. "Nell, it's me, let me in."

The woman looked around frantically. I thought of jumping up and kicking the gun from her hand while she was distracted, as I'd seen Jeremy do in his action movies. With my luck I'd kick it right into my own face as it fired. I sat still on the couch.