Welcome to Pembrooke: the complete Pembrooke series

by Prince, Jessica

“Ms. Anderson, my name is Loni Ruday. I’m a journalist with The Inquisitor. I’m calling about the photos that were released of you and Denver Wildcat’s Ethan Prewitt. If you’d be willing to do an exclusive interview—”

  “Wait, wait. What?” I interrupted as a million and one questions bounced around in my head. “You’re from a magazine? And what pictures are you talking about?”

  “The ones released this morning. I’m sure you’ve—”

  I cut her off again. “Of me and Ethan?” My eyes went to Lilly as I mouthed the word “Google,” air-typing with my fingers just in case she didn’t understand me. She jumped from the couch and went to the laptop sitting on our dining room table.

  “Yes, Ms. Anderson… may I call you Eliza?”

  My back went straight at her overly friendly tone. First of all, she was calling from The Inquisitor which was only about two steps up from a trash mag. Second, I had no freaking clue what photos she was talking about. And third, she’d been blowing my phone up for an exclusive. None of that sat well with me.

  “No, you may not,” I answered. “And while I’m at it, I’d prefer you not call me at all. I have nothing exclusive to give you or anyone else. I don’t know how you got this number, but I suggest you lose it.” With that, I disconnected the call and powered the phone off completely.

  “Oh my God,” Lilly breathed, her eyes going wide as she looked at the computer screen. Then her cheeks split into a huge grin. “This. Is. Awesome!”

  “What? What’s awesome?” I rushed over to where she was sitting and leaned over her shoulder. “Holy shit!”

  Right there, big as day were pictures of me and Ethan sitting in the stands at the high school football game. The caption above read Denver Wildcat’s Ethan Prewitt getting cozy with his own personal cheerleader.

  The photos, while completely harmless, were taken to make it look like what was happening between us was much more intimate than it was. There were three pictures in total. One was of Ethan holding my hand as we walked to our seats. The next was of us sitting under the blanket, you could see his arm around my waist clear as day. And the third was snapped when he’d leaned in to whisper something in my ear. His face was half-buried in my hair and I’d just turned to look at him over my shoulder, giving the appearance we were less than a second away from kissing.

  “How did they get these?” I asked as I kept scrolling.

  “Hold up!” Lilly slapped my hand away from my mouse and started reading the online article out loud, picking up somewhere in the middle.

  “Sources close to the couple say that things heated up between the pair when Prewitt returned home to Pembrooke, Wyoming to recuperate from surgery after a tear to his ACL took him out of the game for the rest of the season. Prewitt and the woman, now identified as longtime family friend, Eliza Anderson, reconnected since his return and have been inseparable ever since…”

  “Who the hell told them that?”

  “When rags like these say ‘reliable source,’ they mean someone who vaguely knows at least one of the parties involved in the story. But seriously, Eliza, how cool is this? I mean, look at these pictures! You two look so cute together!”

  I stood tall and moved away from the chair. “Someone’s spreading rumors about me and Ethan, going so far as to use my name, and all you can think about is how cute we look?”

  “Well…” she trailed off, her eyes bouncing between me and the screen. “Yeah. You have to admit the coincidence with the costumes made for a perfect photo op.”

  “Oh my God!” I cried. “Lilly, focus! They have my name. That was a reporter who’s been calling, which means they also have my phone number. You know how I am about my privacy. Hell, you just said it yourself! I hardly let anyone in! Now I’m going to have people in my business all because someone lied about me and Ethan.”

  Realization dawned on her face. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.” I threw my hands up and began pacing. “You know what this means? This means my privacy is shot because someone spread false rumors.”

  “Well…” When she trailed off, my gaze landed back on her. “Now, just hear me out,” she said hesitantly. She took my silence as her chance to continue. “What if it wasn’t a false rumor?”

  “What?”

  “I said hear me out!”

  “Well I didn’t think you were going to follow that up with something so stupid!”

  She stood from her chair and came my way, placing her hands on my shoulders. “It’s not stupid. He already told you he’s in love with you. And before you say it, I already know damn good and well you love him too.”

  “I do not!”

  Her lips twisted to the side in a you’re so full of shit expression. I opened my mouth to continue to argue, only to have it slam shut. Oh my God, did I love Ethan?

  I’d been so focused on the stress brought on by him saying it that I hadn’t given myself time to sit back and think about how I felt.

  When I was nine, going on ten, I’d convinced myself that I was going to marry him. Then he became my best friend and that love turned to something else, but it was still love, all the same. When he’d abandoned me, it had hurt worse than anything I’d ever experienced. He had broken my heart… because I loved him.

  But there as a difference between loving someone and being in love with him. And without trust, I just… well, I just wasn’t sure. All I knew for certain was that there was something substantial between us. And that’s why I was so terrified.

  Because the ones you loved the most were the ones with the power to truly hurt you.

  “Shit,” I sighed, closing my eyes and lifting a hand to rub at my forehead. “Shit, shit, shit. How did my life become such a mess?”

  When I opened my eyes again, Lilly was smiling. “You need to let him in. If there’s anyone who can fix this, it’s him. I’m sure he’s got a whole team of people who are paid specifically to handle stuff like this. And I bet it’ll all die down before you know it.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, inhaling deeply and squaring my shoulders. “Yeah. He can fix this.” I turned to head for the front door just seconds before someone began pounding on it. Then I heard Ethan’s rugged voice call through. “Eliza, open up! There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Apparently he’d just gotten the same call I had.

  23

  Ethan

  Eliza was going to lose her mind.

  I knew that for a fact, because I was already losing mine.

  “I said to go home and recuperate, not get drunk and make an ass out of yourself in a public bar.”

  Apparently someone handy with a camera phone had taken pictures of my confrontation with Kevin at The Moose a few nights ago that didn’t shine me in too good of a light. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there were also pictures of me chasing Eliza out of the bar and along the sidewalk. I didn’t know who had taken them, but it was guaranteed that when I found out, someone was going to pay. All of this hitting the media earlier this morning without me being aware meant I was now dealing with my pain in the ass agent when he was the last person on my mind.

  “Jesus, Carl,” I griped, rubbing a hand over my face. “It’s not as bad as you’re making it sound.”

  “This isn’t about me making it sound bad. This is about how those pictures make you look bad. The ones of the two of you at the football game were great, don’t get me wrong. People pay for that kind of publicity, and your little piece is hot, I’ll give you that—”

  All I saw was red. If Carl had been standing in front of me just then, I’d have probably killed him. “Talk about Eliza like that again and I swear to fucking God, I’ll rip your goddamned throat out.”

  “Good grief,” he sighed. “Calm down, would you? I was just saying—”

  “Don’t say shit about how she looks to me ever again and we’ll be fine. Break that rule, and I break your face.”

  “Fuck me, she’s got you whipped.”

  “And?” I snapped, not both
ering to deny something that was one hundred percent true.

  He let out another sigh. “What I’m telling you is that those original pictures were great. The ones from the bar with the caption ‘Trouble Brewing between Prewitt and his Hometown Sweetheart’ are not.”

  I pulled in a breath in the effort to calm myself. The only thing Carl was worried about was how this would look in the media, while my concerns were focused on something altogether.

  “Look, Carl, it’s not a big deal. It was one situation, that’s it. There isn’t going to be any more bad publicity.”

  “I still think we should reach out to your PR people and get ahead—”

  “I don’t give a shit about getting ahead of anything. What I need you to do — the only thing I need you to do — is find out who the fuck took those pictures and sold them to the tabloids. That’s it. Job done. This shit will be old news by the end of the week.”

  “I hardly think—”

  “Only time I pay you to think is during contract negotiations. Find me a name.” With that, I hung up and took the stairs two at a time, screw my knee. I needed to contain the damage as much as humanly possible.

  I knew what I said to Carl was true. My relationship status would be overlooked the minute some tween pop princess flashed her vag for all the world to see, or some douchebag singer lost his shit and walked off stage at a packed concert. That wasn’t what worried me. What worried me was how Eliza was going to handle it.

  Part of having that wall up around herself was keeping her personal life personal. She was an extremely private person. The only ones who got the real Eliza were those of us in her inner circle. And even then, it was only bits and pieces. Most of the time, I felt like I was the only one that got all of her. Her father and Chloe got her love, that was certain, but she didn’t talk to them about the scars her mom left behind. That was only for me.

  “Eliza, open up!” I shouted, knocking on the door a little harder than necessary. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.” To my surprise, the door swung open less than a second later and just seeing Eliza standing there before me in a pair of yoga pants and a thread bare, well-worn hoodie made my heart stutter. “Baby—”

  “The internet knows my name.”

  My head jerked back and by eyebrows dipped in confusion. “What?”

  “The internet knows my name. And they think we’re a couple.”

  Well, that explained her bizarre declaration. I held my hands up in a placating gesture, “I know, sweetheart. And I swear to God, I’m already taking care of it. I talked to my agent and told him I wanted the name of the person who’d taken those pictures at The Moose—”

  “The Moose?” she cut me off. It was obviously her turn to be confused. “What are you talking about?”

  And fuck. “Wait… what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the pictures online of us at the football game.”

  “Ah. Okay. Well…” I paused, trying to think of a delicate way to inform her that those weren’t the only photos about us online. Before I had a chance to lay it out gently, Lilly was there, clutching the laptop to her chest.

  “Holy crap! Look at this.” She spun the screen around for Eliza to see. “Whoever took those pictures at the game must have taken these from the bar the other night too.”

  I watched with growing panic as her eyes went wide. She studied the screen for what felt like an eternity before looking back at me. Her lips parted to speak, but I jumped in first, not wanting to risk her slamming the door in my face.

  “I’m going to fix it.”

  Eliza’s mouth snapped shut. Then opened again. Then closed. Then, “Really?”

  “Absolutely,” I answered vehemently. “I’ve already talked to my agent. He’s going to hunt down the name of the person who sold those photos. I’ll get them pulled down. And I know you hate any invasions of your privacy, but I swear this will die down. Trust me, I’ve dealt with shit like this before. Football players are small time.”

  She bit her lip, looking hesitant to believe me.

  “He’s right. You know how much I love those gossip mags. As soon as a rapper cheats on his more-famous-than-him wife with their housekeeper, which happens like, all the time, people will forget all about this.” Lilly chirped, and I made a mental note to stuff her Christmas stocking with twenty dollar bills.

  Eliza’s eyes bounced back and forth between the two of us before she finally released what appeared to be a relieved breath. “All right. If you say you’re going to handle it, I trust you.”

  Those last three words hit me right in the fucking chest, stealing the air from my lungs. I didn’t realize until that very moment that I hadn’t been waiting weeks to hear her say she trusted me… I’d been waiting six goddamned years. I knew it wasn’t her full trust that I’d earned, but just that little bit was enough to make me feel invincible.

  “Good,” I declared, pushing my way into the apartment past two suddenly bewildered looking ladies. “Now that that’s out of the way and you’re finally answering the door, I’ve decided I’m taking you to dinner.”

  “I’m sorry…” Eliza blinked a few times. “What?”

  “Dinner. A date. I know you get the concept of a date.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Seeing as you went on one with the wrong guy not all that long ago.”

  “Ethan,” Eliza sighed, reaching up to rub her forehead as Lilly shoved the front door closed with a huge smile on her face.

  “What a great idea!”

  At her friend’s declaration, Eliza’s head shot up. She glared at Lilly at the same time I smiled… huge, having just discovered I had another person fighting in my corner when it came to winning Eliza.

  “No it’s not,” Eliza grumbled, looking from me, back to her roommate. “Have you forgotten about the fact that there’s someone out there following us around and snapping pictures?” I couldn’t help but think she looked fucking adorable when she was throwing attitude.

  “Then you guys can stay in,” Lilly replied, causing me to frown because having her along as a third wheel on our date wasn’t the best solution to me. I was just about to mention that when she continued talking. “And the timing couldn’t be more perfect. It just so happened that I planned on spending the night with my parents tonight anyway. What a happy coincidence!” She clapped her hands and smiled in a way that read loud and clear it wasn’t a coincidence at all. And I suspected her parents were going to be in for a surprise when she showed up at their door.

  Eliza’s sigh told me she was about to argue so I jumped on Lilly’s train of thought. “I’ll make you dinner,” I announced, surprising both women into speechlessness.

  “You cook?” Eliza asked.

  “Yep,” I answered with a confidence I most certainly wasn’t feeling. I didn’t know a thing about cooking. If I were being honest, I didn’t know jack shit about cooking, but I couldn’t possibly be any worse than my sister. It was Pembrooke lore that Harlow Murphy was one of the worst cooks to ever walk the planet. I was sure I could figure it out. How hard could it be? “You’re not thrilled with the idea of going out in public just yet, and you spend every day cooking for others. Tonight I’ll cook for you.”

  I watched in amazement as the uncertainty on her face shifted just slightly and her expression grew warm and soft. She liked the idea of someone else taking care of her, and I fucking loved that.

  “Brilliant!” Lilly clapped. “All right kiddo’s, I’m going to pack a bag and get out of your hair. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone, say no to drugs, and all the cool kids practice safe sex.” With that, she flounced down the hall into her bedroom, only to reappear about a minute later with an overnight bag on her shoulder. She gave a still stunned Eliza a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek and announced, “Love ya!” Then she gave me a menacing double finger point before disappearing out the front door.

  “She’s terrifying,” I said once she was gone.

  “She can be, but most
of the time she’s just really freaking annoying.”

  “I don’t know,” I laughed, turning to look at Eliza, “I kind of like her.”

  She glared, which only made me want to grab her and kiss her… and much, much more. “You would.”

  Closing the space between us, I did one of the many things I’d been dying to do since that morning in her kitchen. I slid my fingers into her thick, soft, dark hair and lowered my face close to hers. Her breathing instantly went erratic at my touch and her cheeks grew flushed.

  “Don’t act like that kiss didn’t affect you,” I whispered softly, my lips only centimeters away from hers. “I knew you felt it just as much as I did the minute your body melted into mine.”

  “I—” I could tell she was just about to object, but something flashed in the hazel eyes and what came out of her mouth was unexpected. “There’s nothing in the apartment to eat.”

  “What?” My head cocked to the side in confusion.

  “There’s no food. Lilly and I kind of suck at grocery shopping. There’s nothing to cook, and there’s no more wine left. And I haven’t even had a shower today!”

  I couldn’t hold in my laughter at her flustered rush of words. She was grasping at any excuse she could possibly think of. Leaning in, I gave her a quick peck on the lips and stated, “Go take a shower, baby. I’ll head down to Mabel’s and pick some stuff up.”

  “But—”

  I silenced her with another kiss, this one just a few seconds longer, but it was still long enough to make her eyes a little glassy when I pulled back. “Shower. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, sounding somewhat drugged. She turned and started down the hallway, and I waited, watching her insanely sexy ass sway in those yoga pants. The spell was broken when I heard the sound of the bathroom door shutting firmly.

  I shook away the dirty thoughts filling my head and tried to get my growing erection under control as I moved in the direction of the front door. I had groceries to buy and a dinner to make.

  And somewhere in between those two, I hoped like hell that I’d figure out the art of cooking.