Free Proud Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 2) by Phoenix Sullivan Page A

very brave.” She swept in the half-step separating us and brushed a kiss across my cheek, retreating as quickly as the assault had been.
    I blinked, then grinned. “ That you couldn’t have caught on camera?”
    Regardless, I felt like a grinch whose heart had just grown three sizes too big.
    The adrenaline, the rewards…a man could get used to this hero business.

    That night, Dee and I sat by the camp stove long after our empty cartons of flash-preserved stroganoff and peas had been discarded.
    Her amended contract had come through from the studio in late afternoon, in record time. Filled with legalese about contingencies and non-union provisions, it was, nevertheless, pretty fair under the circumstances, and Dee had put her digital signature to it and returned it immediately. Which meant the one act of true heroism I’d ever committed would air publicly in a couple of months. I had composed a teaser for my Facebook page as I sat out by the lions and the cub I’d saved. Later tonight, while we had the sat signal, I’d post it, along with a picture of Caesar.
    “Cheap PR,” I told Dee with a sheepish grin. “It’s expected.”
    “It’s not that you’re getting off on it, then.”
    Damn her for being so far under my skin that I let whatever she thought affect me so much. She was like a maggot, eating away at all the rotten stuff and forcing me to see myself not as the cameras saw me but as she did.
    “Is it so wrong to be proud of what I did?” I snapped back, more harshly than I’d planned.
    “Being proud? No. I’m proud of you. Portia and Caesar are proud of you. And you have every right to be proud of yourself.”
    “But…?”
    She frowned. “Pride is something that happens on the inside. It shapes our character, becomes a part of who we are. Real-life heroes, even movie heroes, don’t brag about it.” Her voice gentled. “They don’t need to.”
    “What are you saying? That I’m insecure?”
    She stared at me for an eternity before asking, “Are you?”
    Such a simple question. And such a ridiculous one. Chris Corsair insecure? Mr. Hollywood himself, who could entertain a different girl in his bed every night, inviting them with nothing more than a crook of his finger, insecure? That wasn’t even worth the time of a shrugged dismissal.
    Was it?
    Something wriggled under my skin.
    I did have a need to be liked. Every actor did—it was the reason most of us turned to it as a profession—to feed that need. Were all actors insecure? And did insecurity translate proportionally into arrogance?
    “Do you think I’m arrogant?” I countered.
    “Do you think there’s anyone out there who doesn’t think you’re arrogant?” she shot back. “You’re the dictionary definition of it.”
    It was, in fact, a definition of myself I’d cultivated. It defined who I was. It was how my fans saw me.
    How they remembered me.
    How I’d be remembered long after my star imploded and became a black hole sucking every last vestige of my career into its nothingness.
    “That’s not the legacy I want.” My whispered confession was half-plea, half-declarative.
    “Only a jerk would want that,” she agreed. “The moment you walked off the plane I figured you were 100% jerk. Now…”
    “Yeah?”
    “Maybe only 95%.”
    She threw me a quick smile then, 95% encouragement and 5% hope. Zero percent snark.
    My odds with her seemed to be improving.
    Lightning brightened the sky above the hills to the east, as unexpected as a paparazzi’s flashbulb at a quiet dinner.
    “Storm?”
    “Shouldn’t be,” she said. “Probably heat lightning.”
    The night air was dry and brittle, crackling with an undercurrent of electricity. The lightning seemed to be a promise of change.
    Change that I was deeply and sincerely ready for.

CHAPTER 14

Dee
    “God, you’re tight,” Chris murmured. “Almost there... Almost. Can you take it? Just one more inch. Does it hurt?”
    Was he kidding? I was being stretched in ways I