Dinner at the loft tonight with Mother and Alexis. I'd love it if you'd join us.
Rick had spent the better part of his day at Nimm Studios, taping his segment for Terri Cohen's late night talk show. Kate had tried to not watch the clock but she knew that he was headed there around noon and, although she knew he'd be occupied for hours - between hair and makeup, the taping of his own interview, and sitting through whatever else they'd be taping at the time - she couldn't help but keep checking her phone for a text from him. So, when his dinner invitation came through just after four o'clock, she asked Ryan if he could cover for her for a while and left work early.
She couldn't wait to hear all about his day, couldn't wait for him to tell her everything went swimmingly and she had been stressing for no reason at all.
So when Rick answered his front door with a "I'm sorry, they're vultures" instead of his usual warm welcoming, she couldn't shake the dread that consumed her.
"Oh, Richard," Martha's voice scolded from behind him. "At least let the poor woman in before you bombard her with your dramatics!"
"Right," he breathed. "I'm sorry. Come in."
He stepped aside, allowing Kate plenty of space to enter his home. She looked over Rick's shoulder to see Martha and Alexis standing by the couch, looking at her somewhat sympathetically, and that dread grew heavy as it sunk to her feet and cemented them to the spot. Rick closed the door behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist.
"How was your day?" he asked.
Seriously?
That was the greeting she received and he expected her to just dive into how her day was without any further explanation?
"Nuh-uh," she said with a firm shake of her head. "You first."
Rick sighed. "It may have been a little bit of a disaster."
"It wasn't that bad," Alexis told Kate in a calm yet firm tone. Similar to that of a pre-school teacher trying to calm down a petulant child. "It just... didn't go exactly to plan."
Kate forced herself to take a breath; passing out because she forgot to breathe definitely wasn't going to help the situation. "What happened?" she asked quietly, turning to Rick.
His arm was still wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closer before leading her toward the couch.
Martha and Alexis sat together on one end, Rick flopped down into the corner at the other end leaving plenty of room for Kate to sit in the middle but, when her feet refused to move, Rick held her waist and pulled her down. She wasn't sure if he had intended on pulling her into his lap or not but she most definitely was not about to sit on him in front of his family so, as she dropped down, she shifted and plonked herself onto the arm rest beside him.
"I had a plan," he reminded her.
He didn't, though. Not really. His plan was to give just enough information to ease the curiosity, and then ask for privacy. That's not really a plan.
"Did you get nervous and spill my deepest, darkest secrets?" Kate asked with a soft chuckle in attempt to lighten the mood, to ease this guilt Rick obviously felt.
"I didn't have to," he said dryly. "She knew everything."
Everything? Surely not. Kate was still often confused by the complexity of her relationship with Rick; surely a talk-show host only thought she knew everything.
"Okay."
"Okay?" Rick echoed.
"Well-" Kate swallowed, her mouth suddenly very dry. "I don't- I don't really know what that means. What is everything?"
"She knew... you. Your name, what you do, where you work. She even mentioned the café where we get coffee of a morning."
Rick's warning from earlier in the week echoed in her mind: They've kind of made it into a game, like a puzzle... who can solve it first. Apparently, Terri won.
"Okay."
She could feel three sets of devastatingly blue eyes studying her, waiting for the response they were obviously expecting from her: a response that was more than a quietly muttered okay.
But she couldn't muster anything more than that right now.
"How exactly did she obtain this information?" Martha asked when she realised Kate obviously wasn't going to.
"Don't." Kate put her hand on Rick's shoulder. "I don't want to know."
But it was obvious, wasn't it?
"Kate," Rick said softly, too softly.
He didn't say anything else. No one did. Not until Kate finally worked up the courage to ask, "Am I being followed?"
"Not anymore." As if that made any difference. As if that could wash away this feeling of being spied on, of being violated. "I'm so sorry, Kate."
They're vultures.
Kate shook her head. It was supposed to be a reassuring, it's not your fault kind of head-shake but, without the words, it seemed angry.
She was angry. But not at him.
She wrapped her fingers around his hand and pushed it from her waist, then pulled herself to her feet. She wasn't running, wasn't pushing him away, she just needed space. But when he rose to his feet and trailed behind her she knew he was thinking the worst. That was why he was so nervous; he knew she wouldn't handle this well. He had expected her to revert back to her tried and true method of running from pressure. She had to prove to him that she wasn't, she wouldn't.
"It's okay," she said with as much conviction as she could muster. She turned to face him. "It's not your fault."
Rick's eyes darted to where his mother and daughter sat watching, then back to Kate.
Maybe she had imagined it but she could have sworn there was a flicker of something in the ocean blue of his eyes. Regret, perhaps.
"There's something you should know," he admitted, so quiet she had barely heard it.
"Richard," Martha warned.
Alexis looked at her grandmother with wide eyes, than back to her father. It seemed Kate wasn't the only one confused.
"Can you give us a moment?" Rick asked his family, but his eyes never left Kate's.
Wordlessly, Martha rose from the couch, grabbing Alexis's hand to ensure the girl was following.
"Dad?"
"It's okay," he assured his daughter. "Just go upstairs."
The knots in Kate's stomach grew tenfold as they waited in silence to be alone; her heart raced, thumping painfully in her chest. As soon as Rick's family was out of sight, she asked him, "What's going on?"
He took a small, hesitant step forward and held out his hand, but she refused to take it.
"Can we sit?"
"Just tell me what it is I should know," she ordered, trying her best to stop her imagination and paranoia from running wild and sending her into an all out panic.
Rick took a long, deep breath in, readying himself for whatever confession was to come.
"This is my fault, Kate."
Kate frowned, shook her head. "No, it's not. You can't control what others do or say. I know that." She stepped closer to him and slipped her fingers into his palm. "I'm a little shaken," she admitted, as if it weren't already evident. "But, I told you, I can handle whatever comes next."
"I know you can handle it but you shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have-" He took another steadying breath and raked his free hand through his hair. "I caused this."
Because he was the famous one. He was the one they were actually interested in; she was just collateral. Right?
"The night we met," he continued. Her stomach dropped: what does that night have to do with what's happening now? "I... I used you, Kate. I'm sorry."
The words hit her like a freight train. They hurt, like really hurt, but it's not like she had expected him to know where that night would lead them. How was he to know that they'd fall in love? Even though he had looked at her like she was made for him, she never actually expected him to have believed that to be true. And, besides, she had used him that night, too.
"Isn't that kind of the whole premise of a one night stand?" she asked, shrugging nonchalantly to hide the effect the words I used you had on her.
"No, Kate. I-" He huffed, frustrated that she obviously wasn't understanding some part of his confession. She was certain she felt just as frustrated. "Earlier in the night I had dinner with Alexis but we had to cut it short because, well, it was the middle of a tour and things get kind of chaotic. There were photographers outside trying to get into the restaurant. I don't like Alexis being subjected to that."
Kate nodded, recalling a similar conversation they'd had when they first met.
"I do whatever I can to protect her from this," he continued. "Usually, if the press start to focus a little too much on my family life I can just do something stupid to refocus their attention. You know, show up somewhere with some European model, steal a police horse, that kind of thing-"
"You stole a police horse?" She'd rather focus on that than the European model thing. That was too much for right now. "When?"
"Doesn't matter. My point is I'll do whatever I can to protect the ones I love but... I don't think I can protect you from this, Kate. Not when I'm the one who started this whole mess."
This whole mess being the game to figure her out. She frowned, trying to piece together the bits of information she'd been given. He was so sure that he had caused this, but how?
And then it clicked.
"You drew focus from Alexis by taking someone home," she surmised. Her voice held more venom than intended but she couldn't help it. "So, what, you saw me and the apparent neon sign I carried that said heartbroken and vulnerable and decided to parade me through a crowd of paparazzi?"
She pulled her hand from his and buried her face in her palms.
"It wasn't like that."
"M'such an idiot," she mumbled into her hands before dropping them to her sides. "Did you even, like, want me that night or was it all just part of your plan?"
"Of course I did," he insisted vehemently. "From the moment I saw you, Kate, I was-"
"Don't," she warned, shaking her head. "Don't do the whole love at first sight thing."
"Actually, I was going to say it was like being struck by lightning but I guess yours works, too." His smile was so nervous and she could tell he was trying desperately to add a little levity to the moment but she just didn't have it in her to humour him right now. "Look, I didn't target you. It wasn't anything that devious. How I felt about you was never forced or exaggerated, it was never a lie. I just- I saw an opportunity to control the online chatter a little so I took it. I asked Greg to pick us up out the front rather than around the back."
So, he could have spared her from the spotlight. He could have kept her his little secret for a while longer. But he didn't. He dragged her into that light knowingly.
To protect his daughter, she reminded herself and the thought seemed to throw a bucket of ice water over the red hot rage that burned inside of her chest. On that night she was just a stranger, of course he was going to choose his daughter's privacy over hers. And, as Alexis had mentioned just the other day, the women Rick usually associated with weren't all that bothered by the spotlight.
There was no malicious intent behind what had happened.
"You stepped away to make a call," she remembered. "Did you call them there?"
For some reason, she felt like that mattered.
"No. The call was to arrange the room we stayed in."
Kate let out a somewhat relieved breath. "And have you... used me again since then?"
Rick shook his head. "No."
She wanted to believe him so that they could be done with this conversation, so that she could put this revelation behind her and forget the bitter taste being used by him had left in her mouth. A distraction. God, she hated that so much. It wasn't any worse than how she had treated him that night and yet the sting of betrayal was so undeniably present.
At least she had been upfront about it.
Because now there was a small part of her that questioned everything. Those early coffee dates, Conrad's party, the shopping trip that had landed them in the headlines again: were they all actually carefully orchestrated events to aid his media manipulation?
But he didn't have to be telling her this. He confessed because he wanted her to know the truth, the whole truth, so why would he lie to her now?
"Okay," she said softly.
"O-okay?"
Great, she was doing it again; the words don't work thing. But she didn't know what else there was to say so she just shrugged.
"Look, I'm having lunch with Terri tomorrow, Rick told her.
What?!
"I'm going to beg her not to air the full segment. There's plenty of footage, she doesn't have to air anything about you. And she's not a bad person she's just... ambitious. Hopefully she'll listen to what I have to say and she'll do me this favour."
"And then you'll owe her," Kate replied bitterly.
She didn't even want to think about Rick owing the coquettish host something in return, but she was relieved that he would fight for her privacy until the very last minute. The show aired on Friday night so the chances of her being able to change anything after lunch tomorrow were slim to none.
"I don't care what I'll owe her," he said bluntly and, yeah, that was kind of the problem. Kate had been worried about him having to lie for her... but what else would he possibly do to 'protect her'? "I should have never put you in this position. I'm sorry, Kate. Even if you can't ever forgive me, I just need you to know that I never meant for this to happen."
Even if you can't ever forgive me...
But she already had. Sure, she was hurt and still very annoyed by the whole situation but she trusted his intentions. He made a mistake, one for which he so desperately wanted to repent - she had sure made her fair share of them and he had forgiven her every time.
She stepped closer to Rick, gently touched her fingertips to his cheek and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He instantly relaxed against her, his hands bracketing her hips as he kissed her back.
"I love you," she whispered as she pulled away from his lips.
"I love you, too."