Free Hollywood Secrets by Gemma Halliday Page B

up as I took a deep, cleansing breath.
    God, he was just as good looking in person. No. Scratch that. He was better. Airbrushing didn’t do him justice. His tanned skin wasn’t quite as picture perfect IRL, hinting at stubble along his jaw line. But instead of flawed, it made him look more real, like a true man’s man. Faint laugh lines creased the corners of his eyes, speaking to the fact that, unlike his fiancée, he wasn’t a devotee of Dr B’s. His hair was a little mussed, but not the perfectly gelled into a fake bed-head look that was currently all the rage, but an actual I-just-came-out-of-the-wind muss that made him look rugged and vulnerable all at the same time. And he had a pair of sandy eyebrows that were perfectly plucked to still look masculine yet avoid the unibrow look. A pair that were, I noticed, currently furrowing into a look of concern as they studied my face.
    “ Who let you in here?” he asked, his gaze shifting behind me.
    “ Uh…”
    “ And who exactly are you?”
    I cleared my throat, getting over my initial surprise at finding him here (and hotter than hell) instead of in some guy’s trunk. “Cameron,” I answered.
    “ Cameron what?”
    “ Dakota.”
    “ Great. Nice to meet you. Now what the hell are you doing in my house?”
    “ Your Koi pond is broken.”
    “ My Koi pond is outside. You are in my foyer.”
    Is that what they called it?
    “ Right. Well, I… uh… took a wrong turn.”
    Trace crossed his arms over his chest, a motion that showed off biceps to make his personal trainer proud. I wondered whether the move was deliberate preening or just a lucky break for me.
    “ I’m not quite buying that,” he said. “Wanna try again or should I just call security?”
    “ Okay. You’re right. I’m totally lying. The truth is I’m a…” I racked my brain for a better lie. But as Trace’s clear blue eyes stared me down, I found the truth inconveniently falling from my lips instead. “I’m a photographer.”
    Trace’s eyes narrowed. They did a slow sweep of my frame. So slow and lingering that I felt my cheeks heating again and shifted nervously under his gaze.
    “ I know you,” he finally concluded.
    I swallowed back a dry gulp. “You do?”
    “ Yeah. I’ve seen you following me around. You work for some tabloid, right?”
    A teeny tiny part of me was flattered that he’d taken notice of me. It was kind of like the star football player in school admitting he actually had seen you in the back of science class all year.
    I nodded. “The Informer .”
    “ Riiiiiight.” He shook his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It was the same sexy little half-smile that women the world over paid ten bucks a pop to watch larger than life on the big screen. And in person, it was twice as nice. Worth a twenty at least.
    “ Cameron Dakota at the Informer, ” he repeated.
    Ohmigod, the star football player said my name.
    “ Hi. Nice to meet you.” I stuck my hand out.
    Only Trace didn’t move to shake it, instead raising one eyebrow in a questioning motion.
    “ How the hell did a tabloid reporter get into my house? Security slacking out there?” he asked.
    Only he didn’t seem as pissed as I might have imagined at the idea. More… amused. His eyes were still crinkling in the corners, his mouth threatening to crack into a full-fledged smile any second. It was his boyish “romantic comedy” face, and, I had to admit, I was having a hard time not melting under it like his Email co-star.
    I cleared my throat, trying to clear out my hormones’ goofy teenage reaction to him as well. “How I got in isn’t important.”
    “ Maybe not to you.”
    Good point.
    But he let it go. “Okay, let’s move on then. Why are you here? From what I’ve seen in your paper, you get plenty of intimate enough shots with your telephoto lens.”
    I bit my lip. “You saw those, huh?”
    “ The pool montage in yesterday’s paper? Yeah. I got that.”
    I felt my cheeks