Hook, Line, and Sinker: A Novel (Bellinger Sisters Book 2)

Fox would just pretend like it never happened.

That’s all there was to it.

What had actually happened, anyway? Nothing.

Apart from seeing Hannah in a bra and panties, which was an image that would be burned into his brain for all eternity, he’d put his mouth on her neck, run his hands over her smooth skin. Dirty talked her a little bit. So what? Even though he’d almost slipped, no boundaries had been crossed.

There was nothing to be tense about.

No reason for this fissure in his gut.

Fox scrubbed a hand up and down the back of his neck forcefully, trying to rid himself of the tightness. He stood in the kitchen surrounded by ingredients for potato leek soup, vegetables finely chopped on the counter with no cutting board. He’d made a mess, and he could barely remember doing it. Or walking to the store to buy everything he needed. All he knew was that Hannah would be back from set any minute now, and he felt like he owed her an apology. She’d needed something from him, and he’d failed to give it.

He’d turned her off.

Not on. Off.

Hannah must like the director more than he thought. Otherwise she would have let Fox blow her mind, right? That had to be the reason she’d stopped before it was over. Couldn’t be anything else. Couldn’t be that Fox had exposed himself by accident, and she didn’t like what she’d seen.

Could it?

He stirred a dash of thyme into the soup, watching cream swallow the green flecks, very aware of the pulse beating thickly in his throat. It wasn’t as though rejection was a totally foreign concept to him. But after college, he’d kept himself out of situations where being denied was a possibility. He did his job well, went home. When he hooked up, the terms were already outlined with the woman ahead of time, no gray areas. No confusion about anyone’s intentions. No chances were taken. No new horizons were embarked upon.

This thing with Hannah was nothing if not a new horizon.

It was friendship . . . and maybe that was another reason why he’d fucking pushed it earlier today. Because he didn’t know how to be a friend. The possibility of failing at it, disappointing her, was daunting. Now, distracting her with sex? That was so much easier.

The sound of a key turning in the lock made Fox’s insides seize up, but he stirred the soup casually, looking up with a quick smile when Hannah walked in. “Hey, Freckles. Hope you’re hungry.”

She visibly took his measure, hesitating before turning to close the door—and Fox couldn’t help but take advantage of those few seconds she wasn’t looking at him, absorbing as much as he could. The messy bun at the nape of her neck, strands of sandy-blond hair poking out on all sides. Classic Hannah. Her profile, especially her stubborn nose. The practical way she moved, pressing the door shut and locking it, her shoulder blades shifting beneath her T-shirt.

Jesus, she’d looked so hot in her underwear.

In street clothes, she was someone’s little sister. The girl next door.

In a black bra-and-panties set, holding massage oil, eyes laden with lust, she was a certified sex kitten.

And she might have purred for him temporarily, but she wanted to get her claws into someone else. He needed to get on board with that. For real this time. Deep down, he’d believed that if he just put in a little effort, of a physical nature, she would fall at his feet and forget all about the director. Hadn’t he? Well, he’d been mistaken. Hannah wasn’t the type to genuinely like one man while hooking up with another, and it had been wrong, sickeningly wrong, to put her in that position.

Fox zipped his attention back to the stove when Hannah faced the kitchen once again. “That smells amazing.” She stopped at the island behind him, and Fox could sense her working up to something. He should have known she couldn’t just pretend this afternoon didn’t happen. That wasn’t her style. “About what happened today . . .”

“Hannah.” He laughed, adding a forceful shake of pepper to the pot. “Nothing happened. It’s not worth talking about.”

“Okay.” Without turning around, he knew she was chewing on her lip, trying to talk herself into dropping the subject. He also knew she wouldn’t succeed. “I just wanted to say . . . I’m sorry. I should have stopped sooner. I—”

“No. I should have let you have your privacy.” He tried to clear the pinch in his throat. “I assumed you would want me there, and I shouldn’t have.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you there, Fox.”

Christ. Now she was going to try to make him feel better over the rejection? He would rather turn the hot pot of soup upside down over his head than listen to her explain she was being true to her feelings for the director. “You know, it’s totally possible to just eat this soup and talk about something else. I promise your urge to hash out every detail of what happened will pass.”

“That’s called suppression. It’s very unhealthy.”

“We’ll survive just this once.”

She moseyed around the far side of the island, dragging her finger along the surface. Then she reversed her course, filling one cheek with air and letting it seep out.

Man, it was wild that he could be frustrated with her inability to drop a sensitive subject while being grateful for it at the same time. He’d never met anyone in his life that gave a shit as hard as Hannah. For other people. She thought that compassion made her a supporting actress instead of a leading one, and didn’t realize that her empathy, the fierce way she cared, made her something bigger. Hannah belonged in a category far more real than the credits of a movie. A category all her own.

And he wanted to give in to her. To rehash what happened in the bedroom earlier, his reaction to being made . . . useless. At least in that moment, he wanted to give in and let her sort through his shit, no matter how much this discussion scared him. Because every day that passed, she came a little closer to going back to LA, and Fox didn’t know when he’d have her near him again. Maybe never. Not in his apartment. Not alone. This opportunity would be gone soon.

He used a ladle to fill two bowls with the thick soup, added spoons and slid one across the counter to Hannah. “Can we just work up to it a little?” he said gruffly, unable to look at her right away.

When he did, she was nodding slowly. “Of course.” She visibly shook herself, picked up the spoon, and blew on a bite, inserting it between her lips in a way he couldn’t help but watch hungrily, his abdomen knitting together and flexing beneath the island. “Should I distract us by telling you I had a terrible day? Not because of”—she jerked her head in the direction of the guest room—“not just because of that.”

His vanity was in fucking shreds. “Okay. What else was terrible about it?”

“Well, we didn’t get the shot we needed, because Christian wouldn’t come out of his trailer after lunch. Might mean adding days to the schedule, if we’re not careful.” Fox shouldn’t have been surprised when his pulse jumped happily at the possibility of Hannah staying longer, but he was.

How intensely did he feel for this girl and in what way? Everything, every feeling or non-feeling, was usually wrapped up in sex for him. Only sex. Even if the director wasn’t in the picture, was he capable of going beyond that with Hannah?

“And I tried twice to approach Brinley, but she was pretty determined to blow me off. I’m not sure I’m going to get the experience I was hoping for and . . . don’t tell anyone this part.”

Fox raised an eyebrow. “Who am I going to tell?”

“Right.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t love the direction she’s going with the score on this film.”

Containing his amusement was difficult. “Your shit-talking needs work.”

“I’m not talking shit. I just . . . Sergei shifted gears by changing the location to Westport, and I don’t think she shifted gears with him. There is grit in her choices. An LA club-scene vibe.” He kept his smile in place when she mentioned the other man, but it took an effort. “The songs don’t fit, but I can’t make suggestions without looking like a know-it-all.”

“What about talking to”—he tried to lick the acidic taste out of his mouth, gave up, took an extra-large bite of soup—“Sergei?”

“Go over her head?” Hannah drew an X onto the surface of her soup with the tip of her spoon. “No, I couldn’t do that.”

He scrutinized her for a second. “If you were in charge, what would you do differently?”

“That’s the other terrible part of my day. I don’t know. The songs aren’t coming to me like they usually would. I guess . . . something that captured the timeless spirit of this place. The layers and generations . . .” She trailed off, quietly repeating that last word. “Generations.”

When she didn’t elaborate, Fox realized he was holding his breath, waiting to see what she said next. “Generations . . . ?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “I was just remembering the sea shanties my grandmother gave me the other day. A whole folder of them she found. They were written by my father, apparently.”

“Wow.” He set down his spoon. Almost said, Why didn’t you tell me? But thought it would sound presumptuous. “That’s exciting, right?” He studied her features, noticing the tension around the corners of her mouth. “You’re feeling some kind of way about the whole thing, yeah?”

She made a wishy-washy sound. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh no. Nope.” He pushed his bowl aside, crossing his arms over his chest. “You want to bury my feet in cement and force me to talk about shit that makes me uncomfortable, Freckles, you’re going to do the same.”

“Uh, excuse me. Where do you get off being right?”

He cracked a smile, waved her on. “I’m waiting.”

Glumly, she shoveled a final bite of soup into her mouth and made a whole show of mimicking him, pushing her bowl aside and crossing her arms. “Look. This is me stalling.”

Why did he have to like her so fucking much, huh? “I can see that.”

“This isn’t going to distract me from the actual conversation we’re going to have,” she warned him.

His lips twitched. “Noted.”

“Well. Fine.” She dropped her hands and started to pace. “It’s just that . . . you know, Piper, she really connected to the soul of Henry Cross. When we were here last summer? And me . . . I was kind of pretending to.”

She stopped pacing to look at him, judging his expression, which he kept impassive. On the inside, he was curious as hell. “Okay. I get pretending.”

Hannah studied his face thoughtfully before continuing. “I was two years old when we left Westport. I don’t remember anything about Henry Cross or this place. No matter how much I dig, I can’t . . . I can’t feel anything for this . . . invisible past. Nothing but guilt, anyway.”

“Why are you under pressure to feel something?”

“I’m not under pressure, really. It’s just that I usually would. Feel something. I can watch a song play out in my head like a movie and bond with the words and sound, connect with something written about a situation I’m not even familiar with. I’m an emotional person, you know? But this . . . It’s like zip. Like I’ve got a mental block on anything related to my father.”

It was really bothering her. He could see that. And thus, it was bothering him. Not only that this lack of connection with Henry Cross was under her skin, but . . . what if he couldn’t find the right words to make it better? Comforting women wasn’t exactly his forte. “Do you want to forge some kind of bond with the past? With Henry?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why were you drawn back here?”

“I missed my sister. I missed this place. I even missed you a little,” she said playfully, but sobered again quickly. “That’s all.”

“Is that all? Missing people? Or are you chewing on something you can’t quite name?” Fox wished he had his shirt off, so he could feel less exposed. And what sense did that make? “Same way you came in here, poking at me until I gave in and agreed to have the damn talk . . . Maybe you’re just doing the same with this place. Poking around until you find the way in. But you know what? If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t make you guilty of anything, Hannah.”

Slowly, gratitude spread across her features, and he let out a breath. “Thanks.” She stared at something invisible in the distance. “Maybe you’re right.”

Desperate for some way to get the attention off himself, at least while he was attempting to dole out comfort, he coughed into his fist. “Want me to take a look at them? I might recognize one or two.”

“Really? You still . . . sing shanties on the boat?”

“I mean, not very often. Sometimes Deke starts one off. Not joining in kind of makes you a dick. Case in point, Brendan never sings along.”

That got a laugh out of her, and some weight left his shoulders. “Okay, I’ll go grab them.” She seemed nervous about the whole thing, so they might as well get comfortable. While Hannah was in the guest room, he put their bowls in the sink and moved to the living room, taking a spot on the couch. A minute later, she returned with a faded blue folder stuffed with papers and sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, pausing slightly before opening it. She ran a finger over a line of script, brows drawn in concentration, then handed him a stack.

Fox scanned a few lines on the first page, didn’t recognize the lyrics, but the second one was very familiar. “Ah, yeah. I know this one well. The old-timers still sing it sometimes in Blow the Man Down.” His chuckle betrayed his disbelief. “I didn’t know Henry Cross wrote this. You always kind of assume these songs are a million years old.”

Hannah shifted into a cross-legged position on the floor. “So you know that one. Can you sing it?”

“What? Like, right now?”

She gave him puppy-dog eyes, and his jugular stretched like the skin of a drum. Sucker. But knowing he could help, knowing he could do something to potentially make her happy? That was like holding the keys to a kingdom. Even if he had to sing to get to the other side. The desire to give Hannah what she needed had him adjusting the paper in his lap, clearing his throat.

There was a huge possibility this wouldn’t mean much to her, either, but when she looked at him like that, he had to try. “I mean, if it means that much to you . . .”

In a voice that definitely wouldn’t win him any contests, Fox started to sing “A Seafarer’s Bounty.”