As this was the fourth time she’d heard Ron’s plan, she didn’t especially need the peremptory reminder. He’d been a spoiled brat of a boy, convinced of his own genius and prone to teasing the most vulnerable children—including her—until they cried, and he evidently hadn’t changed much.
“Yes,” she said. “I understand.”
Telling her parents about Cousin Ron’s cruelty had only upset them and caused her mother to argue with Aunt Kathleen on the phone. Eventually, she’d spared everyone the distress and begun pretending she enjoyed her cousin’s company, and now she was paying the price for her dishonesty.
While you’re between jobs, you should go visit your cousin in Spain, her mother had said last month. You and Ron used to get along so well, and you haven’t seen him in years. Aunt Kathleen and I always hoped you two would be closer. She’ll be hurt if you don’t make the effort. Anyway, you could use a vacation, sweetheart.
A vast understatement. Lauren had been desperate to get her sleep schedule back in order, and even more desperate to bask in the sun and simply relax. And after endless years of overtime—the ER was perennially understaffed when it came to therapists, especially for the overnight shift—she had plenty of savings. Enough to buy her a few weeks before she had to decide where to work next.
Enough to take a vacation. A long one.
During that much-needed vacation, she’d had zero desire to see Ron. But unless she had no other choice, she didn’t disappoint her family. Or anyone, really.
So she’d driven to visit Ron the day she’d arrived in Spain, intending only a brief stop at this remote coastal town before she headed toward Barcelona. And then …
Then she was stuck. Because he needed help, and if she didn’t provide that help, she’d be hearing about it from her parents and Aunt Kathleen.
Besides, she had her own reasons for taking the job.
“Good.” Ron turned to Alex. “Show her where your trailer is before we start filming, and do what she says. The bad publicity ends now.”
Her cousin strode away, and a small, irrational part of her wanted to spite him. To call him back and renege on her offer and free both herself and Alex, if only temporarily.
But Ron was offering an eye-popping salary and covering all her expenses—including the rent on her duplex back in North Hollywood—for months. All so she’d watch over one man, who, recent brawl and current fury notwithstanding, had the reputation of being charming enough, if somewhat reckless and overly blunt on occasion.
A delightful asshole, his costar Carah Brown had famously called him.
With the money she’d save watching over him, Lauren could take all the time in the world before she decided whether to return to the ER or join her friend’s group practice. And what could be farther from an emergency room than the windswept coast of Spain or a television star’s Hollywood Hills guesthouse?
So, yeah, she could handle Mr. Woodroe’s anger, and she didn’t care if he considered her ridiculous and ugly or thought she had a beaky, birdlike nose. Of course he was angry after being injured, jailed, and then dressed down in front of a stranger by his condescending asshole of a boss. And of course a man that beautiful—with thick hair a rich shade of golden brown, long enough to brush his collar and fall in front of his eyes if he didn’t push it back; intense eyes the color of a rain cloud, still gorgeous despite all his bruising; handsome features accented by a neat beard; and an immaculately honed body—would disdain a woman like her.
Her nose was beaky. Also crooked from that incident her first month at the ER, when she hadn’t ducked a tray quickly enough.
She was fat and short too, and she’d been mocked by people much more vicious than him. He’d called her ridiculous, and the word was apt. She’d certainly experienced plenty of ridicule in her life. She’d grown accustomed to it.
His contempt meant nothing to her. She’d do her damn job, and she’d do it well, no matter what he said.
She swiveled to face him. “You were asking me something when Ron interrupted.”
“Um …” He was watching a gull pick at props left overnight on the battlefield, his brow creased in seeming concentration. “Oh, yes. Tell me, Lauren, what would you do if I wanted to go to another bar after work tonight?”
He meant to begin their work relationship with a test of her boundaries, then.
Fair enough. They might as well make those boundaries clear from the beginning. “Ron said no more bars, so I’d tell you to go to a sit-down restaurant or your hotel room instead.”