As soon as I heard that familiar Southern drawl, I leapt off the bed and hurriedly dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top.
Quickly, I left the bedroom, ready to face my past.
By the look on Heath’s face, he had already worked out who was standing in front of him. My stomach sank. I had a bad feeling about this.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Colton said, a little smugly.
“EX-boyfriend,” I said without thinking.
At the sound of my voice, they both turned to face me.
“Well, my Harlow, you are a sight for sore eyes,” Colton beamed.
“Colton, what are you doing here?” I asked.
His eyes rolled over the length of me. When he grinned I noticed Heath’s jaw clench.
“I’m pleased to have found you, that is for sure,” he said with a high-wattage smile.
Standing closely behind Heath I asked, “Why are you here?”
He looked at Heath and then back to me, and his smile faded. “It’s Poppy,” he said. “She had a stroke.”
“Poppy?” I stepped forward. “Is she okay? What happened?”
“She was out here on business. At a vineyard just north of Los Angeles. Now she is convalescing in hospital until she is well enough to return home to Georgia.”
Poppy was the matriarch of the Labousse family. Spritely. Astute. I liked her very much. We’d spent a lot of time together over the past few years. When I’d told her about my plans to spend the summer in California, she had thought it was a good idea.
Poppy was stoic. Stubborn. You didn’t get much past her. Grey but still as elegant as the ’40s debutante that she once was, I adored her. She ruled the Labousse clan with an iron fist. Iron yes. But festooned with jewels, as she would say.
In a few weeks I would be attending the very same debutante ball she had sparkled at almost seventy years earlier.
“Oh Colton, I’m so sorry, is she going to be okay?” I forgot myself and stepped towards my ex-boyfriend. “What do the doctors say?”
“She’s stable. But too unwell to return to Georgia in her current condition.”
“Where is she staying? I should visit with her.”
“She would appreciate the gesture. She has a room at Cedars-Sinai, LA.”
I turned to Heath.
“I have to go,” I whispered.
His eyes were like an auger boring through me. He felt threatened, I could tell. But if Poppy was as ill as Colton had said, I needed to see her. Heath would have to understand.
“Of course,” Heath agreed, although I could tell he was reluctant.
“I can drive us, unless you’re otherwise …” He cast an arrogant appraisal over Heath’s tattooed torso. “Occupied?”
Heath’s hands fisted at his sides. “I will drive her.”
“You have a flight to catch,” I said quietly. “There’s no time.”
“We have a flight to catch.” He reminded me. His tone left nothing to the imagination. He didn’t want to go to Vegas without me. And he certainly didn’t want me travelling to LA with Colton.
But it would take an hour each way, at least, to drive to LA. The flight to Vegas was in less than three.
“Heath please.” I didn’t want to argue the point. Not in front of Colton. My two worlds had just collided and to say there was an awkwardness in the air was like saying Atlantis had sprung a leak.
“I’ll reschedule our flights. We can join the band later,” Heath said, his eyes still fixed firmly on my ex-boyfriend. When he looked at me, his face softened. “Let me do this for you. Let me take you to the hospital.”
“Are you sure?”
He smiled and I fell in love with him all over again. “Whatever you want to do, we’ll do it.”
Colton didn’t argue. He told me Poppy’s room details and after another disapproving appraisal of Heath’s magnificent shirtless form, drove off in his rented Audi Spyder.
While I showered and changed, Heath rang the airline. When I was in the bathroom pulling my hair back into a high ponytail, he walked in with a frown on his face.
“I couldn’t get us on other flights that will get me there in time for this afternoon’s publicity shoot.”
The band was committed to the shoot. Heath had to be there.
“Then you have to go. I will take a later flight.”
“Or you could come with me.”
I swung around to face him.
“I have to see Poppy, Heath. She has done a lot for me over the years. You heard Colton, she is very ill. If I don’t go and something happens -” I tilted my head, suddenly realizing what was behind his frown. My eyes rounded. “My God, you don’t trust me!”
When he didn’t respond, it was like a slap in the face.
Finally, after everything we’d been through—after finally pulling down the walls and letting him in—he still didn’t trust me. Something inside of me snapped.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I demanded. “Tell me you trust me.”
He had to think about it.
“I trust you. It’s your ex-boyfriend I don’t trust,” he finally said. But it was too late. His mistrust had hit a raw nerve and I’d fallen into a deep well of anger while I waited for him to tell me I was wrong.
“What about all the women who couldn’t care less about you having a girlfriend. I don’t trust them, but do you see me throwing a tantrum like a two year old?”
“They’re strangers. Colton is your ex-boyfriend.”
I gritted my teeth. “Exactly. My EX boyfriend. EX!”
“Something tells me that doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to him.”
“Just because you’re helpless when it comes to keeping your hands off the opposite sex, doesn’t mean we all suffer from the same affliction,” I snapped.
I didn’t mean it, but I was angry. And my mouth couldn’t be trusted to keep itself shut when I was angry.
Heath narrowed his eyes. “If I’m not mistaken you just called me a slut.”
“Well … if the shoe fits …” I raised my arms outwards.
Yep. My mouth just couldn’t help itself.
Heath’s eyes flashed and his jaw flinched as he clenched his teeth. He stepped closer to me as he snapped, “I’m not the one riding off with my ex-boyfriend.”
My hands went to my hips. “Oh, so now I’m a slut?”
Because he was angry at me, he raised his arms outwards just as I had. “Like you said Harlow, if the shoe fits …”
It took approximately three seconds for the brush in my hand to collide with his shoulder. Bad shot. I was aiming for the head.
“Fuck you, Heath. Go to Vegas. I’m staying right here so I can see Poppy. With Colton.”
“Fine.”
“Fine!”
I grabbed my denim jacket and stormed through the house. My cell was by the front door. Angry I rang Colton. I wasn’t hanging around to be insulted any further.
“I think I’m going to need that ride to the hospital, after all.”
Pretending not hear the smile in his voice I grabbed my handbag, slamming the door behind me as I left Heath’s house.
This was our first argument as a couple and it had spiraled out of controlled so quickly. Heath felt threatened by Colton. I got it. But just as he had expected me to get over the threat of all the women who wanted to get into his jeans, I expected the same of him. Yet instead of dealing with it, he acted like a jerk.
Riding in the Audi towards Beverly Hills, I tried to calm myself down.
“You care to tell me what happened?” Colton asked in his Southern drawl.
I shook my head and gazed out the window. I wasn’t sharing what I had with Heath, with him.
“You shouldn’t have called yourself my boyfriend. You and I broke up, remember?”
“I apologize.”
Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I knew he was smiling. Colton liked to cause mischief. But when I didn’t reply, the smile left his voice. “I didn’t mean no harm, Harlow. I didn’t mean to upset your summer fling.”
I turned to face him. “It’s not a summer fling, Colton. It’s so much more than that.”
He looked surprised and stared at me a little longer. Then his eyebrows rose and he turned away, shaking his head.