Page 27 of Gunnar

Who is the mystery man carrying Devyn Martin?

Forget Colton Cross! Who’s The Silver Fox?

Devyn Martin Swept Off Her Feet, Literally

The photos of us are everywhere. Me, upside down and slung over his shoulder. My dress riding up. His hand on my ass. My hair almost covering my flushed, furious face.

“I’m the fucking laughingstock of Hollywood.” The words tear out of me, raw and ragged. I can feel the tears of frustration building behind my eyes, drops I refuse to shed.

Gunnar’s expression is unreadable as he scrolls through the tabs. His thumb moves with mechanical precision, flicking from one disaster to the next. When he looks up at me, his gray eyes are flat and cold.

“Do you have any idea what this is going to do to my image? My brand? I’ve spent years cultivating a certain aesthetic, a certain persona, and now I’m⁠—”

“Had you not been a little brat and actually listened,” he states matter-of-factly, enunciating each word with surgical precision, “none of that would have happened.”

I stare at him, my mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for water. “You’re saying this is my fault?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He sets the iPad down with a sharp clack. “You made a choice. You chose to violate protocol, take a restricted vehicle, and go to a public location without security. You chose to put yourself in that position. I simply chose to extract you from it.”

“Extract me?” My voice has climbed an octave, becoming shrill and unrecognizable. “You carried me out of a restaurant! You⁠—”

“Protected you?” he interrupts, stepping closer until he’s crowding my space and flooding my nostrils with his strong, woodsy cologne. “That’s what you hired us to do. And if that means carrying you out of a dangerous situation like a child throwing a tantrum, then that’s what I’ll do. Every. Single. Time.”

My heart hammers against my ribcage, and I struggle to breathe as I stare up at him, the air suddenly so thick it could be cut with a knife.

“Actually,” Jagger’s amused voice cuts through the tension of the room as he peruses the tablet, “the article isn’t even really about you. According to People, the public is way more interested in finding out who the hot silver fox is.” Scrolling with one finger, he reads out loud. “Apparently, the ladies are really turned on by his ‘Woman, mine,’ caveman behavior.”

He drops his voice into a deep register, doing a passable imitation of Gunnar’s gravelly tone, and pounds his chest with one fist. “Me Gunnar. You Devyn. Me carry. You like.”

“Fuck off, Jagger.” Gunnar hisses, not bothering to look at him.

I glance from Jagger to Gunnar and find his gaze still fixed on me. His stormy eyes bore through me, and I see what the articles are talking about. The lines around his eyes that speak of experience and sleepless nights. The morning light makes the silver threading through his dark hair more prominent. Yet, even at his age, it is clear that, beneath the shirt stretched across his chest, is a wall of muscle.

He is a silver fox.

Gunnar is undeniably attractive. He’s one of the hottest older men I’ve ever met. And that’s saying a lot, since I live in fucking Hollywood. I roll my eyes, forcing a dismissive expression. “He’s not even that good-looking.”

“Liar,” Jagger singsongs, giving me a wink before nudging Gunnar with his elbow, both with a reckless abandon that makes me wonder how he’s made it this far in life. “Way to go, Dad. You are trending on social media. You are officially a DILF.”

“Jagger,” Gunnar admonishes, his voice low and dangerous as he gives him a warning.

“What? I’m just saying what the internet is saying. As weird and gross as it is, the ladies love you. They’re all over the comments section, talking about how they’d love to be manhandled by you. And…” He trails off, cocking an amused brow before his eyes flit from the screen to me as he clears his throat. “And other things I probably shouldn’t say in mixed company.”

My phone rings. The sound is jarring, cutting through Jagger’s commentary and Gunnar’s simmering rage. I scramble uncomfortably to yank it from the pocket of my robe. Leslie’s name flashes across the screen when I pull it free.

“Great,” I grumble, swiping to answer. “Now I have to deal with this.”

I huff out of the kitchen, desperate to put air and distance between us. I need to be far away from Gunnar’s stormy eyes so I can ignore the way my entire body seems to hum with awareness whenever they’re focused on me.

“Dev?” Leslie’s voice bursts through the speaker before I make it to the living room. “You’re awake. Did you get my texts? Have you seen the tabloids?”

I collapse onto the couch, staring at the ceiling and the prisms of light dancing across it from the crystal chandelier. “Yes,” I exhale on a heavy sigh, closing my eyes. “I’ve seen them.”

The silence on the other end is ominous, and I know she’s upset. She’s been with me through bad breakups and worse movies. She held my hand through a scandal in my early twenties, thanks to a very out-of-context photograph of me leaving a married co-star’s hotel room. Leslie carefully constructed my reinvention, creating Devyn Martin, the movie star. She doesn’t do silence. She does strategy.

“Leslie?” I prompt, my stomach tying into knots. “It’s bad, isn’t it? Just… Just tell me how bad.”

“I’ve been fielding phone calls all morning,” she shares. Her tone is strange. Instead of sounding annoyed or upset, she’s excited. Almost breathless. “Talk shows. Magazines. Everyone is calling with requests for interviews. And they all want to know one thing, Dev. They want to know who the mystery man is.”