Read Online Sparked (city2city: Hollywood) by Edie Harris - Free Book Online

have to follow him. Like, now.”
    “But why?”
    “Because Wes Jackson just snuck out of his own movie, dumbass. That’s fishy as fuck.” Rustling movement, footsteps, the squeak of hinges as the external door opened. “You owe me for getting you this job in the first place, so come on.”
    “I don’t—”
    “You do, and you know it. We’re going. Move your perky ass, bitch.”
    After a few seconds of shuffling on the other side of the door that signaled the reluctant Janey’s exit, silence reigned. With a glance at Ryan, standing tall and serious behind her, Sadie cracked open the door and peered into the booth.  
    Empty. Grabbing her purse, she strode from the closet, fighting against the fear that had set in at his words. You’re not going to like it . It was going to be all right. It had to be all right, because if it wasn’t… If it wasn’t, she was going to need to book an immediate flight to London and cry her eyes out in her mother’s arms. Just like the last time. Facing him with what she prayed was a serene smile, she asked, “What do you need to tell me?”
    “I was engaged once,” he said quietly, and watched the color drain from her face. Her mouth opened, then closed, and she shook her head, looking for all the world as though he’d slapped her.  
    Why did she have to wear every emotion on her sleeve like that? Just out there for everyone to see, as if she didn’t care how much people saw of her innermost self? As if she had no secrets she wished to keep hidden.  
    He was angry with her, he realized. Freaking furious, as a matter of fact. How dare she be so hurt at the idea of him wanting to marry someone else? “Life moves on, you know,” he muttered, scowling. “I never asked you to wait for me.”
    “I didn’t.”
    Frown deepening, he straightened. “You didn’t?” His thousands of late-night searches scrolled through his head.
    Sadie Bower single.
    Sadie Bower dating.
    Sadie Bower boyfriend.
    Sadie Bower fiancé.
    Sadie Bower husband.
    Her delicate jaw clenched at the accusation in his tone, faint though it was. “No, I didn’t. I dated.” When he said nothing, she narrowed her gaze on him. “Just because nothing showed up on Google doesn’t mean nothing happened. What’s the phrase—discretion is the better part of valor?”  
    Scorn laced her tone, and Ryan knew that he had disappointed her all over again. “I’m sorry.”
    Her hands fisted at her sides. “You keep saying that. I don’t think it means what you think it means.” Without giving him a chance to speak, she continued, “Because what it looks like—what it feels like—from here is that you…you thought I was waiting for you.” Anger crept into her voice, her accent haughtier, colder, than ever before. “You got off on the idea that Sadie Bower was tucked away in her lonely bed, pining for you like fucking Ophelia and debating the merits of slit wrists versus drowning.” Her eyes glittered with obsidian fire. “All while you, you , go off and ask another woman to marry you!” She trembled visibly. “You bloody hypocrite.”
    Guilt and shame crashed into him, shaking the ground beneath his feet like an earthquake. She was right, because of course he knew he was a hypocrite. He’d known it for months. Why else would he have stayed away so long, when he knew in his heart what this woman meant to him, could mean to him?  
    He didn’t deserve her, he told himself, and not because he was a masochist. No, he didn’t deserve Sadie Bower because it was only recently that he’d figured out she wasn’t some sort of one-dimensional fantasy ideal, but an actual person with depth and layers and feelings.  
    In London, she’d been a dream, his rescuer from a night of misery. Then, when he had gone to see her first feature film a year later, knowing that he’d been with her once—kissed, touched, loved by her—was a point of masculine pride, though he had never said a word to anyone about it, not