Read Online Hollywood Blackmail by Jackie Ashenden - Free Book Online Page A

glanced at him. “If you want to talk about something we could go with the weather.”
    “Do I look like I want to talk about the weather?”
    “Then how about you be quiet and let me drive.”
    There weren’t many people these days who told him to be quiet, let alone a little woman with freckles on her nose. But then she’d always been strong, even at seventeen. Strong enough to tell him she didn’t need his protection from the bullies at school, that she could handle them herself. At least she had until the attention she’d started to receive after the episode of her mother’s show had aired got to be too much.
    “Nobody tells me what to do, sugar,” he said lazily, more to mess with her than anything else.
    “Well, maybe they should. You could use a little less hot air in that ego of yours.”
    No one ever talked back to him like that either. He was A-list. They all kissed his butt. Then again, he had to admit, it was sort of thrilling to be around someone who didn’t give a shit about the fact that he was a star.
    He grinned at her. “My ego is just fine, thank you very much.”
    Lizzie just shook her head and turned her attention back to the road.
    …
    Perhaps Ash was right. Perhaps she should have gotten a bigger car. Because having him sitting sprawled all hulking and massive next to her, one muscular thigh nearly brushing against hers, made the vehicle seem even more minuscule than it actually was.
    What on earth had made her put him in that security guard jacket? As if she needed another reminder of the past. Of how irresistible he’d been when her mother had told her he was going to be her own personal security guard. She hadn’t wanted to fall for him back then—she’d already had a grandstand view of how guys treated women by that stage—yet he’d been nothing but respectful. The perfect gentleman. And because she’d only been seventeen and he was the first man who’d ever shown an actual interest in her as a person, she’d fallen for him like a ton of bricks.
    But not now. Definitely not now.
    No. Absolutely not. The past was over with, especially that particular past.
    She drove home as though driving was the most important task she’d ever done. All her concentration on the road and on other drivers. Pedestrians. Ladies taking their wiener dogs for a walk. Rollerbladers. Cyclists. Hell, anyone who didn’t happen to be Ash Kincaid.
    It felt like forever before she finally pulled up outside her apartment building. “Why don’t you stay here,” she said, reaching for her backpack. “I won’t be long.” She so didn’t want him in her apartment. It was her refuge, her safe place. And to have him in it just felt too…too…exposing somehow.
    “I don’t think so,” Ash said aggravatingly.
    “You don’t have to come up. I can—”
    “No, Lizzie. Less chance of anyone spotting me if I’m inside.”
    Dammit. “Okay, fine.”
    Annoyed and struggling not to show it, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and got out of the car, conscious of him behind her as she went up the stairs to her apartment.
    “Nice place,” he murmured.
    She put the key in the lock, trying to ignore the fact that he was standing really close behind her. And the heat from his body was doing weird things to her insides. “Don’t tell me, it’s a little small, right?”
    “Hey, I didn’t say a word.”
    Lizzie shoved the door open. “Good plan. Stick with that, please.”
    Her apartment still felt the same—the sun streaming through the windows, turning the place into her oasis of calm. When she’d first bought the apartment—the first big thing she’d actually owned—she’d spent a whole week repainting the interior and sanding the wooden floors. Turning what had been dark and poky into a clean, white expansive space. The wage she got from Helen was pretty good and she’d been able to buy herself a few nice pieces of furniture: A long, low plain oatmeal-colored couch that she’d scattered