Free Loving by Karen Kingsbury

couldn’t tell him how she really felt. Not yet, anyway. Her mind raced, searching for a safe topic. But none came to mind.
    He kept the car at top speeds until they turned left into the gated marina parking lot. “They’re gone. They’ll never follow me onto the water. Takes a whole other level of paparazzi.”
    Bailey wanted to believe him. She stared out at the marina and the yachts lined up one after another. “It’s beautiful here.” Bailey turned to him. “I can’t believe you never said anything.”
    “Well.” He eased the car to a stop and settled back against his seat, his hand gripping the wheel. He looked more like himself now, but his tone still held a weary edge. “Compared with the ride I’ve been on since I met you, it didn’t seem that important.”
    He had a point, and again Bailey’s stomach ached at the thought of the conversation they needed to have. How could she tell him how she felt while they were out at sea together?
    He parked in an underground lot, and as he killed the enginehe leaned hard into his side door. “That whole race here … it wasn’t how I planned this.” He looked at her. “Please, Bailey … every time a photographer jumps out of a bush, it’s not the end of the world.” His frustration from earlier remained. “You make it exhausting.”
    “Because it is.” She didn’t want to fight, but she couldn’t let the moment pass without at least trying to explain herself. Her voice grew louder. “It
is
exhausting. Always wondering who’s following us or what kind of pictures they’ll take and how they’ll lie about them in grocery stores across the whole country.”
    “Who cares?” His tone matched hers, both of them more upset than they intended to be. “Nobody believes that trash.”
    “You can’t be mad at me for wanting my privacy.” She pressed her open hand to her chest. “I didn’t grow up with this, Brandon.”
    “But you don’t have to react to it.” He lowered his voice, but clearly he wasn’t giving up. Fear and determination mixed together in his expression. “Don’t you see, baby? They want to break us up. If we let them … they win.”
    “We aren’t breaking up.” Bailey hated even hearing him talk like that. Still, he had a point. Moments like this made the paparazzi the winners. They were creating the drama they liked telling people about. Even now the paparazzi had given her no time to explain herself, no time to ease into the conversation. It wasn’t just the constant sense of being chased. The problem was with Hollywood itself, and the lack of projects she would even consider being a part of. And now CKT needed a director — at least while she thought about the big picture of her life. Like whether she should audition for Broadway shows again, among other possibilities.
    Her head was spinning, so she closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her knuckles. “Please, Brandon … can we go? Can we get out onto the water?” She paused, dizzy from the sadness and confusion fast dancing in her mind. “I can’t think in here.”
    Brandon released a burst of air, in a way that filled the car with defeat. He stepped out, and before she could open her door he was there, opening it for her. “Thank you.” Her voice was weak, tired, because of how she dreaded the talk ahead. Maybe the struggle was all her fault, her fault she couldn’t handle the photographers and her fault she didn’t like LA.
    He grabbed his bag from the backseat, shut the door, and locked the car. He started walking fast toward daylight, but then stopped and held his hand out to her. She hesitated, but only for a few seconds, then she caught up and let her fingers slip between his as they headed for the boat docks. Tears stung at her eyes, because everything about Brandon was still wonderful and amazing and full of the sort of love she’d never known before. And as they walked through the gated ramp and out to his yacht, she couldn’t think of a single