Her Secret Life

“And anyway, there you go, mentioning your family again, and them being on your ass.” Her tone was lighthearted, setting them back into their peaceful place. “Yet, here I am, still not meeting them.”

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. She’d just told herself not to push him.

“Forget I said that.” She reached out to touch his forearm. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

He grinned, not seeming the least bit bothered, making her feel instantly better. Which was halfway nuts, too, because Michael never seemed bothered by anything.

“I’ll get some answers for you, Kace,” he said, his tone as even, as soothing, as always. “How late are you working tonight?”

“I’m only in two scenes this afternoon, so I’m thinking no later than seven.” With all of the changes in recent years, they didn’t film by scene sequence anymore. Everything was shot by set, not in time sequence, in four long days so the actors had three days off and the daytime viewers still had five episodes to watch every week. If she didn’t have a scene on a particular set, like that morning, she didn’t have to be there.

He nodded.

“I’ll call you when I get out,” she said—more because of this curious urge to keep talking to him than because she thought he’d have any answers for her that soon.

He grinned at her. “You’d best get your butt into town,” he said, chucking her on the arm like a brother might do. “You’d really give them something to gossip about if you showed up on set like that.”

She wore a wig on the show and looked completely different without her stage makeup. For the first time, she wondered if he thought the Beverly Hills Kacey looked better than the toned-down version he always saw.

Why it should suddenly matter made no sense.

“You know that I know that life is about far more than looks, right?” It wasn’t like her to have these retrospective moments. She was facing the sun and had to squint to look up at him.

Squinting caused facial lines.

She wanted to not care, but turned so that neither of them was facing the sun.

“What’s going on?” His question was as pointed as he’d ever been with her.

“I don’t know.” She heard the brush-off in her words. “I really don’t, Michael. I just... I am who I am, you know?”

“Of course I do. You have no problem here, Kace, if that’s what you’re thinking...”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s just, I hear myself sometimes, you know, like the first time we met...”

She cringed even bringing up that horrid afternoon. Her second class at the Lemonade Stand. Standing at the front of the room, telling nine battered women that their looks did matter. That if they did what they could to make themselves look their best, they’d feel better about themselves, which would breed confidence, which then bred strength. If they felt good about themselves, they’d be more apt to really believe in their own worth and then stand up for themselves until they were treated respectfully.

It was all true. All valid and important. She was helping women she’d come to care about a great deal. In a little less than a year, she’d seen two of those women get jobs, places of their own, and stand up in court and win.

“I was the one in the wrong that day.” Hands in his pockets, he shrugged, as if there was nothing to talk about.

He’d interrupted her at the beginning of her lecture when she’d still been talking about how much it mattered to take time to do your hair and makeup. To choose clothes purposefully for your body size and style. He’d suggested, quietly, in a completely Michael way, that she might want to consider where she was and whom she was dealing with before she started in on her beauty-pageant rhetoric.

She’d had no idea he was a volunteer at the Lemonade Stand—one who had financed the computer repair shop that now helped support the shelter and who’d started and still oversaw computer-skill training classes there for the residents.

“No, that’s just it.” She touched his chest, fiddled with the button on his black button-down shirt. She was naturally a toucher. With everyone. She stopped, concerned she’d offended him again. Her hands hung suspended in midair. “I mean, yes, you were wrong, but so was I. I’d seen you come in and it didn’t even occur to me to change my rhetoric.”

She’d been talking about the value of beauty, knowing that a man with a markedly scarred face was in her small audience. She should have shown more sensitivity.

She’d later found out that he’d shown up at her class on behalf of a group of residents who’d asked him if their reasons for not wanting to come to her class were valid. They didn’t think a woman should put so much value on her looks.

“And you were right, too,” she quickly continued, letting one hand land on his chest—as some kind of weird compromise she was making between life as she’d known it and life as it was. “We can’t help what we’re born with or what happens to us, and there are a lot of victims of domestic violence who have had what beauty they were born with permanently altered...which doesn’t in any way diminish their worth. Their rights.”

It felt good to speak with passion in real life, rather than just on camera. And odd and somewhat threatening, too. So many changes in the past year...

“I was completely insensitive to the fact that the idea of judging one’s self-worth based on beauty, or by making it about external looks, is as detrimental to some as a little makeup and hairstyling is good for others,” she admitted.

“But you were completely right, too, as I’d have known if I’d listened a little longer before jumping on my soapbox.” His grin settled her.

And got her going again, too, in a way she was much more comfortable with.

“No matter what we’re born with or, as you say, what happens to us, we still feel better about ourselves when we give attention to our bodies. When we do all we can with what we have,” she said, happy that her rhetoric had value.

She wanted to touch his face. Had wanted to so many times over the months she’d known him, but never so much as she did in that moment. Wanted him to know he didn’t have to tilt his head slightly to the side to hide himself from her view.

“I really do find you beautiful, Michael.” The words were all wrong. She knew it as soon as they spilled out.

He didn’t push her away. He’d never be that cruel. He just stepped back until her hand fell from his chest and down to her thigh.

“You don’t need to work me, Kace,” he said, a note of bitterness mixed with pity in his tone. If such a thing were possible.

She felt pitied as he looked at her.

“I’ll find your hacker. And I’ll find out why you appear to have been targeted for things you don’t do anymore. But I’ll do it because I’m under the impression that we’ve become friends. Not because you turn on your charm.”

Stung to the core, she felt real tears spring to her eyes. And blinked hard a couple of times so they’d leave before they showed. She was an actress—a good one—she could do calm and unaffected just fine.

With a laugh, she tapped his chest again, hoping it wasn’t out of a pathetic need to show them both that she was allowed to do so. “I’m not working you, honey,” she said with an obviously made-up drawl. And then, more seriously, “If I ever work you, Michael, you won’t know what hit you.”

What in the hell did she mean by that?

This whole stalking thing—not that she was anywhere close to being stalked—but seeing herself framed as the drunk she’d once been had upset her. A lot. She didn’t like that woman. Was ashamed of her.

Didn’t want her family to see her in that light.

She wasn’t that woman anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she told Michael. “I just... It feels kind of like someone is trying to force me to be the old Kacey whether I choose to or not...”

“I know.” He nodded. Didn’t smile. The look in those chocolate-brown eyes was kind.

She had to go. And let him get back to his life, too. It was selfish of her, the way she’d call and let him come running.

Her butt landed against her car when she leaned back rather than turning. “I meant what I said. I was not working you.”

He nodded.

“You’re a beautiful man. Outside and in.”

She saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. Not something that she’d noticed before.

“I’m smart enough to figure out, based on your scars, that at one point, the left side of your face was difficult to look at.” She was staring him straight in the eye. “It’s not anymore, Michael. The scars, they show strength...” She shrugged. “I don’t know, integrity, somehow. Like you have what it takes to wear them well.”

She was a class-A idiot. Lacey had said, on more than one occasion, that she didn’t know how to let things lie. Always had to prod to the fullest degree.

But then, Lacey was a happy, newly married woman and stepmother partially because of Kacey’s prodding, so it wasn’t like her identical twin could complain too much.

Michael wasn’t speaking. But he hadn’t left her standing there alone, either.

“Okay, well, I have to get back to the city,” she said. Sliding toward her door, she spun and grabbed the handle, pulled, started to lower herself to the black leather bucket seat.

“Kace?”

“Yeah?” She was staring up into the sun again. Couldn’t make out his expression.

“I think you’re beautiful, too. Inside and out.”

With that he was gone.

And she was left with thoughts of him consuming her. All the way back to real life.

CHAPTER THREE

MIKE KNEW, AS he put off dinner with his youngest sister and her family to focus on Kacey’s job, that she’d worked him. Just like she worked every single person she met.

The woman oozed charm by nature, not by choice.

He’d fallen under her spell months ago and had chosen to stay there.

Not only did she add a fascinating little sidebar to his satisfying but rather boring life, but he genuinely liked her. She was flirty and dramatic and could act as well as she played the authenticity card, but she had a bigger heart than most.

One she was just starting to learn to live with. To the world she was a star. A rich, successful actress.

To him she was like a fledgling bird, one that would grow into the dove of peace and be able to save the world, as long as her vulnerabilities were tended to and she was treated with care.

She wasn’t too hard on the eyes, either. He didn’t know a heterosexual guy alive who wouldn’t choose to have alone time with her, given the chance.

He was given the chance. And quite happily took it.

For what it was worth. Not for something it would never be.

He wished he had better news for her when seven o’clock rolled around. He’d settled out by the pool with a shot of bourbon in the backyard of his three-bedroom home.

The home he’d owned in a gated community and had lived in, alone, for the past five years, was situated on a golf course he’d never played.

He hated the sport.

But the lush green grass added value to the property and was nice to look at.

Noticing a theme to his thoughts—surrounding himself with things and people who were nice to look at—he took a sip from his glass and set it down on the table in front of him. Opened his computer and booted up.

His phone rang at a quarter after.

He could hear voices in the background. “You still at work?”

“No, I...” She paused, as though listening to someone else. “I’m sorry, Michael. Bo showed up at the studio this evening and surprised me with dinner and tickets to a show I’ve been dying to see. Anyway, I’m in the restroom at the restaurant now, so we can have some privacy. What did you find out?”

Taking another sip of the one whiskey he allowed himself in any twenty-four-hour period, he thought of her hiding in the bathroom to speak to him and grinned as he looked out over the green grass beyond the half wall surrounding his yard.

Of course she’d be out. “Michael?” The concern in her tone sobered him, so he gave her the bad news all at once.

“Someone is not only using your old email address as a screen name, they’ve hacked into your email account, too.”

“Who’s doing it?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve traced an IP address to a physical address not far from your place in LA.” He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell her. He sure as hell didn’t want her confronting anyone herself. “I still don’t know what we’re dealing with here, Kace,” he told her. “There’s no evidence that your address has been used for anything other than to register for the account used to post the one photo. I’ve searched deep and I don’t find anything else.”

“But it’s a concern that they used my email address.”

That was putting it mildly.

“The first thing I’d like to do is talk to Lacey...”

He’d met her sister several times, mostly at the Lemonade Stand. Jem, Lacey’s husband, had been in counseling at the Stand for most of the past year. Mike had also chatted with Kacey’s family at several of the Stand’s social functions.

They’d invited him to do more, to join them at their place for dinner a time or two, but he couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t risk giving anyone the impression that he and Kacey could or should be paired off as a couple. If that happened, things would only grow uncomfortable between them and inevitably have a negative impact on their friendship.

But for business, with Kacey in Beverly Hills, he could stop by her sister’s place.

“No. I don’t want you bothering Lacey with this. She and Jem have been married three months and are only just this next week leaving for a honeymoon in Italy. Mom and Dad are going to be watching Levi for an entire seven days. I don’t want that messed up.”

“We need to talk to her, Kace,” he said. “We need to know who could have had access to her account information. Is it on her computer at work? Could someone there be behind this?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t, either, but we need to find out.”

Her pause let him breathe a little easier.

“Okay, but let me tell her about it.”

“Then have her call me.”

“Okay. I’ll call her as soon as we hang up.”

He had a thought about dinner and the show. Wondering how much time she had. And how patient Bo Neanderthal would be.

“I have a lunch meeting tomorrow in LA,” he continued. “I plan to drive in a little early and check out the physical address where the IP address is registered.” Before she suggested she could do it herself, he added, “But in the meantime, I’d like to know how many people actually knew and used this email address.”

“Just Lacey and me.”

“I mean, who might have known it from emails you’ve sent.”

“I have no idea...” Her voice trailed off and he heard a toilet flush. Heard her chuckle and make a muffled comment. “Sorry, someone was in here. We haven’t sent emails or given out the address in years. Not since Lacey went to college. But when we were in high school, our close friends had it.”

“I’ll need those names.”

“Okay, but...should I be calling the police, Michael?”

“And tell them what? That someone used your email account to post a picture of you?”

“A Photoshopped picture.”

“But coming from your account.”

“But it made me look...drunk. Or high.”

“A year ago, from what you’ve said, the depiction would have been accurate, so it would be hard to prove a motive of maliciousness, or even harm.”

“It’s illegal to hack into someone’s email account.”

He heard the tiger in her voice and almost smiled again.

“Yes, it is, but until we have proof that it’s happened, or proof that malicious harm is intended, or any harm, we have nothing to take to anyone. This could be little more than a prank.”

“Do you think that’s what it is?”

He wanted to tell her he did. Simply to ease her mind.

“No. What I want is for you to be careful. Watch over your shoulder, but live your life and let me do what I do...”

“Okay.” She sounded...definite.

“How soon can you get me those names?” He had all night.

“You want me to cancel my evening plans? I can go home right now and look through past emails. At the advice of an agent, Lacey and I have always saved everything we’ve ever sent or received. They’re on flash drives. I’m happy to go now if you think it’s necessary.”

Poor Bo.

“No, that’s fine. But call Lacey for me, would you? I’d like to speak with her tonight, while she’s at home, just in case there’s someone in her office who’s trying to cause trouble.”

He didn’t think that was what had happened. At all. Whoever had posted the picture had clearly been after Kacey. But to what purpose? Why now, after she’d stopped living the wild, partying lifestyle?

Ringing off, he reminded himself that the purpose was not his business. His job was internet investigation. Beyond that was up to Kacey. Or, if things turned bad, the police.

* * *

THE LAST THING in the world Kacey wanted to do was phone her sister with her crap. Their whole lives Lacey had been the one to take care of things, whether it was smoothing the way with their parents when Kacey had gotten them into trouble or getting rid of an unwanted suitor—and, their whole lives, Kacey had been the one to shine.

Over the years, while she hadn’t understood it and had been hurt horribly by it, she and Lacey had grown further apart. Until one day her identical twin, her other half, had left her. Just...left.

Well, Lacey had told her that she was going—but only the day before. Then she’d packed up and walked out. Left the modeling business. The commercial-making business. They’d been in front of the camera together since they were too young to do anything but look cute and gurgle, and Lacey had broken up the team.

They’d become almost strangers after that—as much as identical twins who still saw each other often and talked every week could be strangers.

Then finally last summer, by some miracle, Lacey had invited Kacey to spend her vacation in Santa Raquel. There’d been some tough moments, but they’d worked through a lot of their past hurts.

And they were slowly finding their way back to a better version of the best they’d ever been.

She didn’t want that progress slowed. Or damaged.

Yet there she was, right back to being in the spotlight and needing Lacey’s help.

And she absolutely did not want her sister to think that she’d gone back on her word and started drinking heavily or partying again.

What she did want was to be in control of her life. And accountable for it.

Forgetting Bo for the moment, not caring about dinner or theaters or anything in Hollywood, she speed-dialed her sister’s number. Tried to feel what Lacey would feel when she heard the news.

And got in her own way. She couldn’t feel her sister when she was too busy feeling herself.

The call took less than two minutes.

Lacey was great—passionate and compassionate. Ready to do whatever it took to wipe the planet of any demon that might dare to venture into Kacey’s life.

Not for one second did she indicate, in any way, that she had even the slightest doubt that the image was Photoshopped.

She said she’d call Mike Valentine immediately.

Told Kacey she loved her.

And went back to her life. More specifically, she was going to join Jem and Levi for a trip to the local ice cream store.

After she ended the call, Kacey stood alone in the Beverly Hills restroom, wishing she had what Lacey had.

A home in Santa Raquel with her own family.

A life she’d purposely chosen.

A path she understood.

CHAPTER FOUR

MIKE WASN’T THE least bit surprised when Lacey’s call included an invitation for him to come right over and check out her machine. Lacey and Jem Bridges were just that way—open doors and willingness to help written all over them. As a social worker, Lacey offering a helping hand seemed natural. Jem was just plain one of the nicest guys Mike had ever met.

He also had an embarrassing and never to be spoken of—or even fully acknowledged to himself—sense of brotherhood with Jem. Like Mike, Jem had suffered at the hand of a loved one. Equally as bad, worse in Mike’s case, was the world knowing he was a victim. That sense of people looking at you with pity could make you feel less...manly if you let it. Jem didn’t. At all.

Mike didn’t, either.

Hence the brotherhood.

It ended there. Unlike Jem’s abuse, Mike’s injury had had nothing to do with a loved one purposely attacking him. Mike’s injury was the result of a complete and total accident. A tragic accident that had...

No.

Kacey had touched his chest...telling him he was beautiful...

No. He was not looking back. There was no point wondering what could have been.

If not for the bullet that had ripped his face apart, he never would have met Kacey. Known the joy of her friendship.

He’d have been married to Susan, fully entrenched in the corporate world in whatever city made him the best offer, and probably spending Saturdays driving their kids places.

Not a bad picture.

But not Kacey.

And he wouldn’t have been able to help out the Lemonade Stand, either, or had such close relationships with his parents and siblings.

“Mike, come in!” Lacey stepped back, pulling the door open wider, as Jem came forward to shake his hand.

“What’s up, man?” Jem fist-bumped him on the shoulder with his free hand, a grin on his face.

“Business, unfortunately,” Mike answered as though he’d rehearsed his response. Which he had.

He wasn’t there because he was hot for Kacey. He was working.

As soon as it became anything else, people would start pitying him.

And this time, with reason. If he was stupid enough to fall for her, he’d deserve to be pitied.

He might find the daytime-soap star hot, he might even enjoy her company, but he most definitely did not want to queue up in her line of men.

He was a one-woman kind of guy who liked the quiet life. A geek who liked his own company.

He would hate being a part of the crazy mélange that was Kacey’s Beverly Hills life.

The thought of enduring even one week of that lifestyle gave him cold sweats.

Much more effective than a cold shower.

“I’m going to be playing T-ball. You like watching T-ball?”

Shaking errant thoughts from his mind, Mike focused on the five-year-old who’d just approached licking a soggy chocolate ice cream cone.

“Yes, Levi, it just so happens I do like watching T-ball,” he said, nodding. “I used to like to play, too, and watch my little brothers play.”

“Cool. Maybe you could come watch me sometime.”

From what he’d been told by his secret friend, Kacey attended every Levi event she could. But T-ball games often happened on weeknights. And Kacey would be in LA.

“Maybe I could,” he told the little boy and tensed at the same time.

What are you doing, man?

What if Levi’s team made it to a tournament? The family would expect him to come cheer the team on. Tournament games were on Saturdays and...

“Levi, you’d best lick fast.” Jem tapped his son’s shoulder and pointed him toward the hallway. “It’s your bedtime. And Mr. Valentine’s a busy man.”

Yes. He was. And he was there to work. He watched the dark-haired boy walk down the hallway with his dad, remembering Kacey’s tears the first time she’d talked about the abuse the little guy had suffered at the hands of his biological mother.

Thank God for Jem. And Lacey. Levi seemed like a perfectly normal, happy kid.

“It’s so great of you to do this,” Lacey said as she led Mike to the home office she shared with her husband. “I know you’re crazy busy—hence a house call after eight at night...”