Page 3 of This Time Around
Two
Cooper
Beneath the bright blue, newly bought University of Kansas hat, my blond wig itched my scalp like I’d been infested with lice.If I didn’t trust Max so damn much to not only purchase the ridiculous disguise—which worked surprisingly well based on the bland stare from my Uber driver—I would have told him to go to hell when he more than gently suggested I spend the summer in Kansas.
I was going to be living in the middle of nowhere, helping his niece on her family’s ranch.
Me.Cooper Hawke.Three-time Emmy Award Winner for Best Leading Male in a Drama was going to spend the next three months shoveling horse shit.
It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t such a perfect metaphor for what my life had become in the last six weeks since Camilla found a new way to get under my skin in a way she wasn’t before.
I fell in love with Camilla at a casting party for a movie I made five years ago.I should have known then, considering she was attending the party with some B-List washed-up actor, she was preparing to dig her claws into a moneymaker.Spend enough time in Los Angeles, around people only wanting one thing—to know what you could do for them—and you learned to read the signs pretty quick.
Unfortunately, I was so instantly lost in Camilla’s honey-colored eyes and her flexibility in bed—both in her body and positions she was willing to try whenever I suggested something—she flew straight to my dick, bypassing my gold-digger radar.I had no idea she’d not only had multiple affairs, which wouldn’t be such a surprise in the Hollywood industry but that she truly didn’t love me.
At least that’s what she said when I came home and caught her bent over our kitchen counter taking it doggy style, from ironically, a dog walker back in January.
We didn’t even own a dog.
He’d stumbled over his haphazardly shoved down jeans and scurried out of our house before I could slam my fist in his face.
She had tucked her ample breasts back into her bra and smoothed down her dress while ignoring her white lace panties still tangled around one ankle.Then she’d crossed her arms over her chest.
I’d stood there, completely speechless.I loved her.I loved her from the moment I saw her, and I thought,knew, we’d be the Hollywood Couple that would stand the test of time.We’d be together forever, have children together, fill a home with a family and pets and laughter and love.
My suburban upbringing had rendered me completely naive to the fact that this woman, this woman who I loved with my entire soul and my entire being, could look at me so callously and say, “It was never about love, love.It’s always been about the next big thing, moving up, getting ahead.I only apologize I stayed with you long enough for you to believe all of this was real.”
I groaned and scrubbed a hand down my face.I couldn’t scrub the memory out of my mind regardless of how many hours I tried.But just thinking of those words sent a vicious punch flying to my chest.
Shit had just started calming down when six weeks ago, Camilla started making a new play—one to get me back.Since then, I’d been hounded day and night, not only by her but the paparazzo.I could hardly take a shit in my own home without seeing a photographer creeping along the fenced edge of my property.
When Max approached me, practically demanding I get the hell out of town for a while, I didn’t exactly jump at the opportunity, but did I consider it?
Obviously, since I was currently being driven down a two-lane road with nothing but fences and green grass as far as the eye could see along with the sprinkling of cows and horses roaming within their large fenced in acreages.
But still?A freaking farm?
Half of my brain must have imploded the day I caught Camilla.How else could I explain this?I might have grown up in a mid-size town outside Buffalo, but nothing in either my life or my acting career prepared me for what I was about to face.
I was about as handy with a hammer and saw as I would be building the next rocket to space.
A flash of panic hit me, my chest ignited, and heat spread.My hands grew clammy and I shoved one against my sternum to quell the rising pressure in my heart.I couldn’t stand the flash of panic.
I rolled down the window in order to catch some fresh air.
“You okay, sir?”the Uber driver asked.
“Yeah.”I inhaled deeply, catching only the whiff of farm and manure and whatever else clung to the air here and quickly rolled the window back up.“Just a bit of motion sickness is all,” I said when he peered at me through the rearview mirror.
He nodded, but his eyes were doubtful.
I wasn’t going to throw up.That’s not what happened when I thought of Camilla and a panic attack followed.They built slow, slow enough I thought I could beat them, until the weight of a dozen elephants slammed onto my chest, suffocating me, turning my world black and causing me to break out in a cold sweat.
It was debilitating, and all I really wanted was a bottle of Jack and a two-liter bottle of Coke so I could drown my sorrows and anger at my wife—ex-wife—and pass out until the feeling passed.
“No worries,” the man said.“We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Thanks.”
