“You like this one the best out of everything we’ve seen,” Jax said, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I can tell. You can see the Los Angeles skyline from the deck off the main living room. And I’ve already gotten an estimate on what it would cost to make the pool into an infinite edge. We can look out over that view day or night from the water.”
“This is…” Lexi started, then paused. “Insane, Jax. Six million dollars? I can’t even fathom—” Anxiety bubbled in her voice. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m not sure it’s such a great time to buy. With what’s happening on the set, if Bolton falls through and they have to hire another actor, reshoot the first half of the movie—”
“Baby, that’s money for Renegades, not me personally, not us,” Jax reassured her. “This place is worth nearly twice what they’re asking. If it weren’t in foreclosure, it would go for ten million. In a few more years, it will be worth fifteen. We don’t have to stay here forever. Look at it as an investment I’d miss out on if it weren’t for you.”
Okay, seriously, Rubi couldn’t love that man for Lexi any more than she already did. Which was why she kept her distance and gave them room to grow.
Jax released the railing and slid his arms around Lexi’s waist. “I know this must feel overwhelming coming from a lunch bag…”
Lexi laughed and elbowed him at the same time, making Rubi smile. “My loft may be the size—”
“And shape,” he added.
“—of a lunch bag, but it’s an affordable lunch bag.”
“Affordability is relative. This house is very affordable for me. You’d feel better if you’d let me tell you about my finances.”
“No.” Lexi shook her head. “No, no, no. This is hard enough without knowing all the details of that filthy gold you’re hoarding in some vault.”
God that girl was as stubborn as Rubi when it came to their little psychoses or neuroses or whatever they were called.
Jax chuckled. “Bet the thought just makes your skin crawl, doesn’t it? Bet it just makes you want to shed those clothes and do me in front of all of Hollywood, right here on the balcony.” Lexi burst out laughing as Jax kissed her neck. “Don’t deny it.”
Okay…time to break this up.
Rubi walked to the open door. “No christening the new house until you own it.”
When Jax and Lexi turned toward Rubi’s voice, she cast a careless gesture with one finger toward the back of the house that looked out over the canyon. “Did I hear you’re going to make that pool an infinity edge, Chamberlin? Because as is, it so won’t do.”
“You’re such a diva,” he said, “and yes, we will… If we buy it.”
“Nice move, Jaxy-boy.” Rubi sauntered to their side with a soft click of her heels on stone. She stood next to Lexi and leaned on the railing. “I approve.”
A melodramatic whoosh of air exited his lungs, and he pressed a hand to his chest. “Oh, thank God. I can breathe now.”
“You might need to go back to acting if you keep collecting these multimillion-dollar mansions.”
“Don’t get Lexi all stirred up again.” He moved between them and draped his arms over their shoulders. “I was just telling her what a great investment this would be.”
She pulled her sunglasses back over her eyes. “That’s one way to look at it. And I have to say, this is the nicest place you’ve seen so far. Really the only one I could see Lexi being comfortable in—if that’s even possible.” She glanced at Lexi. “Though I still hate the idea of you not being down the beach from me anymore.”
Lexi sighed and squinted back toward the view. She exhaled heavily. “Baby, I just don’t know.”
“Christ, Rubi,” Jax muttered, “she was almost there.”
“I didn’t mean for you not to move, Lex,” Rubi said. “I just meant I’ll miss having you close more often. But I can still drag you out of the Malibu house for weekend runs, right?”
“Right,” Jax said for her.
Lexi turned toward him and pressed her hands to his chest. “Jax…” She cut herself off and bit her lip.
Rubi knew that sign. She was freaking out.
But Jax saw it and reacted before Rubi even had a chance. “Shh, it’s okay.” He cupped her face in his hands. “We’ll just keep looking. We’ll find one that says ‘home’ to you, baby. Don’t give up.”
Lexi closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. With a quick shake of her head, she said, “No. I like this one.”
He tilted her face up to his. “I don’t want to push you.”
Jax’s words echoed Wes’s the night before. “I don’t want to push you too hard, too fast.”
Lexi smiled. When it faltered, she forced it high again. “Sometimes pushing is a good thing. And honestly…” She breathed in slow…breathed out slow… “I need you to push me past these fears, because I don’t want to lose you over them.”
“Oh, baby.” Jax pulled her hard against him, wrapped her tight. “You will not lose me, Lex. Sure as shit never over something like this.”
Rubi had to blink fast behind her sunglasses to clear the sting of tears from her eyes. God, this was just too much emotion from too many directions. She hadn’t believed anyone could love Lexi as much as she did. They were best friends, after all. Family to each other. But Jax really did. And that made Rubi both ridiculously happy and horribly lonely.
Lexi smiled as Jax lowered his head to kiss her.
Rubi cleared her throat. “Hello, you’re not alone out here. And if you two start shedding clothing, I might have to take some photos for the local rag.”
Jax pulled out of the kiss and shot Rubi one of his pathetically unmenacing looks, then gazed down into Lexi’s eyes. “I have to get back to the set. Take your time. The Realtor said he’d leave it open two hours for us and come back to lock up. We’ll talk tonight.” He pressed his lips to hers again, then murmured, “I love you, baby. No matter what you decide.”
He released her and started toward the house. But in Rubi’s mind, she still saw the way Jax looked at Lexi. Still heard the tone of his voice. And couldn’t help but remember the way Wes had looked at her last night. The tone of Wes’s voice when he’d spoken to her.
And Lexi’s words now—“I need you to push me past these fears, because I don’t want to lose you over them”—tightened a slow knot in Rubi’s chest.
Jax passed Rubi with one glance head to toe. “Don’t come to the set like this.”
She held her arms wide and glanced down at her sweater and shorts. “What? The guys on set don’t wear shorts?”
“They don’t wear shorts that short, and they don’t look like that in them. Wes was already worthless on set all morning. He doesn’t need any help.” At the door, he paused and turned. “But you can wear what you want to dinner. Wes is grilling for us tonight. Come over about seven.”
Rubi flipped back into her sassy cover, slid her sunglasses down her nose, and grinned at Jax over her shoulder. “You had me at Wes.”
Lexi couldn’t even wait until Jax’s car started before she asked, “Are things better with Wes?”
Rubi’s unease whipped up again, flooding her body with anxiety. She turned toward her friend and leaned one elbow on the railing. “So are you going to do it? Are you going to plunge in feetfirst and move into this six-million-dollar mansion with your beau?”
Lexi’s enthusiastic smile fell. “Don’t try to change the subject.”
She gazed past Lexi toward the opposite end of the canyon. “You should have some decent privacy here. Even if some jealous father of a rival designer hired a photographer again, he’d have to have one hell of a lens or a death wish to get photos of you and Jax up here.”
“What’s going on? You know you’re not getting out of here without telling me.”
“Let’s walk and talk,” Rubi said. “Show me this palatial new home of yours, little orphan girl from the white-trash slums of Kentucky.”
Lexi turned with a sigh and linked her arm with Rubi’s as they walked back into the office. “It’s not mine. It’s Jax’s. Which is why I don’t like the fact that he needs my approval.”
“Did you interview those students from Parsons?”
Rubi strolled down the marble hallway with Lexi’s chatter about her new interns floating around the edges of her brain. They paused in the foyer by the grand spiral staircase.
“So I’m setting up a small shop in another building nearby where the seamstresses will work,” Lexi said. “That way I can hop over there between fittings and client meetings if I need to. It sure would be nice to have somewhere close to come home to.”
“You mean somewhere close that houses Jax to come home to.”
She grinned, and the whole line of her body softened. “Yeah.”
Lexi wore her typical light touch of makeup, coloring her lashes, perfecting her already perfect skin, brightening her cheeks. But that wasn’t what turned the woman from stunningly beautiful to truly radiant.
“Have I ever told you how much I hate the way Jax makes you glow?”
Lexi laughed and returned her attention to Rubi. “Stop.”
“You want this house for the staircase, don’t you?” she asked, giving Lexi a sly grin. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Jax.”
Lexi bit her lip against a grin and glanced over the railing, her hand sliding over the iron. “I swear I could stare at it all day. It’s like a piece of artwork.”
She and Rubi burst out laughing at the same time. Rubi wandered away, through the massive living area. “Damn.” She squinted through the glass of one French door and placed a flat hand at her brow, teasing, “Is that the ocean?”
“I think that would be the Los Angeles smog layer,” Lexi said, her voice thick with yeah-right attitude.
“Ah, yes. Smog.” Rubi moved through a wide archway to a smaller sitting room—though small was all relative here. “Oooh, I like the bar.”
“Have you heard from Dolph on your house?”
“Nope. Nada. Sixth offer unacknowledged.” Rubi forced her voice light, like she always did, even though she knew Lexi could see right through her. She thought about the call she’d made to Dolph’s voice mail last night and pitched the rig’s concept. That was before she’d even seen the real thing—which was ten times more advanced than she’d expected. Maybe that would garner a phone call, during which she could broach the topic of buying the house—again.
She ran her hand over the tall, velour-covered chairbacks and glanced up at the six wide-screen monitors mounted high on the wall. “This will be where the Renegades sit when they come over. But you’ll have to get a few more chairs. Hell, you might have to turn this into a man cave.”
“There’s a man cave downstairs. Complete with another bar, bigger televisions, and a pool table.”
“Oh well,” Rubi huffed. “Excuse me.”
They moved out onto the deep stone terrace running the length of the house. “My God,” Rubi said. “You could have one hell of a party out here. Maybe even…a wedding.”
Lexi groaned. “Don’t mention marriage around Jax.”
“Good to know he’s smart enough to plan for a future with you.”
Lexi wrapped her fingers around the iron until they turned white. A tortured sound rolled in her throat. “Why is this so hard? I love him. I love everything about him. Why does jumping terrify me?”
“Sweetheart, you’re asking the wrong woman.”
Lexi faced her, mirroring Rubi’s stance. “Okay. Spill. What’s going on with you and Wes.”
Wes. Rubi’s insides took a major hit, a fiery-nuclear-bomb-type hit. Pleasure expanded deep in her belly. A warm, tingly, sexual thrill that crept steadily higher like a rising tide. But by the time it reached her chest, the silky excitement turned into searing, prickly tendrils and wound around her heart, her throat, until every vision from the night before vanished. The only thing filling her mind was the bottle of Xanax in her glove compartment.
“Don’t you have to get back to the shop?” Rubi asked…a little too hopefully.
“You’re way off your game. I made sure I had everything covered so we could talk when you got here. So talk.”
Rubi’s first instinct was to shut down. Shove the fanged monsters of fear back into the dark, slam the door on every muddy shadow from her past, and stand in front of her internal scars with her best I’m-so-over-all-that-shit expression.
But for the first time in her life, an emotion other than fear weighted her heart. The identity of that emotion was still murky. Desire? Affection?
Love?
Her lips parted, and she drew a breath to say…something. But she found her chest too tight, her mind too mushy. And all that came out was an uneven, “I think Wes and Jax are a lot alike. Determined.”
“I’ve always envied your ability to be so free in your sex life,” Lexi said. “So…open…to going for it. To getting what you want.”
Rubi tensed. “But…?”
“Are you happy, Rubi?” Lexi’s beautiful face, usually so open and light, now compressed with concern. True, heartfelt concern that made a new, sweet ache bloom around that damn knot. “Really happy?”