I quickly hopped back into my bed and tried to look as if I’d just gotten up. I put my hands over my head and stretched.
Drew walked back in wearing nothing but his low-slung pair of jeans from last night and a mesmerizing smile. “So, how’s it feel?”
Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t jump to conclusions.
“Waking up next to me?”
I threw a pillow at him and then shrugged. “I don’t know since, when I woke up, you weren’t there.”
His face fell, and then a guilty look flashed before his sexy smile was back. “Sorry, a man’s gotta have some secrets.”
“Is this… a bad secret?”
He frowned. “Is this our first fight?”
“Stop deflecting.” I watched for any more clues in his posture, but he was back to his old self.
“I’m…” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, then my mouth. “…not deflecting.”
“You’re using your sexual prowess,” I grumbled, nearly forgetting why I’d been worried in the first place.
“Hey, a man’s gotta use everything in his arsenal. Besides, it’s your birthday morning, and since you’re probably exhausted…” He dove under the covers.
And my worry was completely forgotten.
Sucked away by Drew’s magnificent tongue.
It was the best birthday morning of my life.
With my rockstar boyfriend by my side.
Literally.
He managed to make pancakes and kept on talking about a surprise. He told me he needed to run an errand really quick, and that Amelia was already on her way back to celebrate with us.
I was giddy with excitement.
Which should have been my first clue that something was about to go wrong.
I cleaned up the house a bit and turned on the TV so that I could have some background noise. I hated feeling alone in that giant place.
“Hey, Mom!” Amelia bounced through the door and slammed it. “Happy birthday!”
“Thank you.” I pulled my baby into my arms and hugged her tight. “How did the night as Protector of the Ring go?”
She pulled out the black AmEx and handed it to me. Was I seriously holding his credit card now?
Life. So strange.
“I bought pizza for all my friends then thought about making up a fake receipt of huge purchases, including a yacht in the south of France, but decided that he’s old enough to have a heart attack so…”
“Heard that,” Drew suddenly said from the door, leaning against it so casual and sexy, my heart skipped a beat.
“You were meant to,” Amelia sing-songed with a grin. “I saw your car pulling up after mine.”
He let out a snort. “Too smart for her own good, folks.”
“The music world is being rocked this morning by the downfall of a legend…” said the prissy female newscaster. “A reliable source has confirmed that Andrew Amhurst, Adrenaline frontman, has fled to Seaside, Oregon, recently after pictures were leaked of him reverting to his old ways, partying late at night along with obvious drug usage.” She sighed. “We hope that Drew gets the help he needs from his bandmates in Oregon. Maybe third time’s a charm.”
Everything in me seized up.
Everything.
All the hushed conversations came back full force as a numbness washed over me.
“Amelia, go to your room,” I whispered.
“Mom, I—” Tears welled in her eyes.
“Now.” I flipped off the TV.
Drew looked just as upset as I felt, but he didn’t say a word, didn’t deny it, didn’t do anything except stand there with a pained expression on his face, as if he didn’t know what to say.
Those damn phone calls.
“You’re using?” My voice trembled.
“What do you think?” His face was stone, his jaw clenched.
“I-I don’t know what to think. I mean, you weren’t supposed to be here recording still, right? And then you’re suddenly here, and you keep making these phone calls and talking about demons and, and—”
“Wow, seems like you’ve got it all figured out. Every puzzle piece just fits together perfectly, doesn’t it?”
“You had wine,” I pointed out, “and champagne.”
“Are you serious right now?” His face completely broke. “After everything we’ve shared, everything, you’re going to believe a celebrity gossip?”
“Then tell me.” Tears spilled onto my cheeks. “Make me believe you. I don’t want—”
“You know the worst part?” He looked down at the floor, his posture defeated. “I thought that this was different, a fresh start. I thought that if I could just wake up to you, fall asleep next to you, that as long as you kept the demons at bay, I could trust you. I could finally be myself. I could, with some work, drop this exhausting facade, this persona people project onto me. And now—” He lifted his head and met my gaze, his eyes filled with inscrutable emotion. “—you’re looking at me as if I burned the world. You’re looking at me as if I’m already guilty.”
I sucked in a breath and covered my mouth with my hands as more hot tears welled then streamed down my cheeks.
Without saying anything else, he turned and walked out of the house but left the door open. He was back with a cardboard box.
He gently set it at my feet, and inside the box was the cutest bulldog puppy I’d ever seen in my life.
A red bow was tied around his neck.
And inside the box was a card that said Happy Birthday attached to a small blue Tiffany’s box.
“Drew—” I choked on a sob.
“I was trying to surprise you for your birthday. And Will found a local breeder who had a puppy left. But go ahead and let me know if you need me to piss in a cup to prove to you that I’m not a liar.” His voice cracked, and then he was walking away again. “I need air.”
“Drew!”
“Please…” He stopped in his tracks and refused to turn around. Seconds turned into a minute, my heart pounding in my ears. “…stay.”
He hung his head and whispered, “That’s all I ever wanted. Someone to look at me the way you do, and now I can’t bear to turn around. It will kill me to see what I know is every single one of my sins exploding inside me, as I stand there in utter shame and embarrassment, cutting my hands on the sharp broken edges, trying to pick up the dark, bloody pieces, all by myself… Utterly. Alone.” He held his head high again and kept walking; the slow cadence of his footsteps felt like a death march. “I need to deal with this, and I need to think.”
And that was all he said before getting into his car and driving off, leaving me wondering why I hadn’t just assumed the best instead of the worst.
Was it because we didn’t make sense?
Was it because I was that insecure? Still?
I hated myself.
I hated my mistrust.
And most of all, I hated that I projected it onto Drew when it had been another man who’d put it there in the first place.
“Mom?” Amelia’s thick voice filled the empty living room. “Did he leave us?”
Us.
Not you.
Us.
I covered my mouth with my hands. I wanted to keep it in, the sob, because if it was unleashed, I wondered if it would stop.
But all it took was my daughter’s arms wrapping around me in comfort for me to break.
The dam was too overwhelmed with the pain.
She’d just repeated what she’d said when she was a little girl; only this time, she sounded sad, not relieved.
“I don’t know,” I choked out. “I don’t know.”
“Shh, Mom, it’s okay… it’s okay. I’m going to call Braden—”
“No!” I sniffled. “He’s on his honeymoon. He needs time—”
“Mom.” Amelia put her hands on my shoulders and forced me to face her. “—you’ve spent your entire life protecting us, loving us, taking care of us. Now it’s our turn.”
I started crying
all over again and wondered how I was going to fix this when the puppy managed to bounce out of his box and run over to the couch.
Amelia picked him up and let out a little gasp when she read the small note attached to him.
“What?” Sniffing, I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand like a four-year-old. “What’s his name?”
“It doesn’t say.”
“What does it say?” I whispered.
Amelia’s eyes filled with tears, then one slid down her cheek. “Not-Our-Family-Dog.”
I closed my eyes.
“And it says to read the card.”
She shook as she went over to pick up the card and the Tiffany’s box, and with trembling hands, opened the card and read out loud. “Not-My-Future-Wife.”
Tears were streaming so hard I couldn’t see straight.
The last thing in the box was a worn brown leather notebook I’d seen him carry around; he’d had it at the studio too.
The yellow sticky note on top of it read, “
The only person who’s ever asked to see my demons and truly meant it — is you. So here they are, laid out in painful page after page. It reads like a story with a happy ending, though, because somehow the universe saved your songs for last, the ones you inspired, so maybe it’s possible to walk into the sunset. Maybe you battle the demons and then get your reward. Maybe my reward, though so undeserved, is you. Happy birthday.”
Sobs wracked my body. “I have to talk to him; I have to—”
“It’s going to be okay.” She wrapped an arm around me. “Braden will know what to do. We’ll just talk to him. You know how some guys get, and Drew’s… He’s… different from normal people.”
“He feels too much,” I said through my tears. “What if this causes him to do something stupid? What if I’m the reason—”
“Nope. Not going there, Mom. He’s not a Ryan. He’s a Drew, remember?”
Last night’s conversation played over and over in my head. “He’s a Drew.”
“I’m gonna wait for a Drew, Mom.”
I hoped I still had mine.
CHAPTER 19
Andrew
Me: Help.
That was all I texted in the group text, all I could get out as I drove around in circles and finally found myself back at the beach, staring at the waves.
It was as if I was back to where we’d started—having to prove myself to someone I shouldn’t have to prove myself to.
My phone started ringing.
I nearly dropped it trying to answer and didn’t even look at the screen. “Bronte?”
“No. It’s Skye.”
I wanted to crunch the phone with my bare hands. “I already told you—”
“Did you like the pictures?”
“What?” I hissed. “What the hell did you do?”
“It’s time for you to stop ignoring me. Come back to LA, and we’ll talk. Promise. We were good together. You know it.”
I cringed. “Even if I did have any feelings for you — which I don’t — I can’t be around you, Skye, not when you’re using. I’ve done everything I can. I even helped get you into rehab again. I’ve been your friend, your sober buddy. I’d even been your everything a very long time ago. But I can’t, not anymore. I need someone who’s rooting for me to win, not someone trying to justify one little pill and then another and another.”
“So basically, you can’t handle the temptation both my body and beliefs offer you?”
“Are you hearing yourself right now?” I shrieked. “You need help, Skye! Real help.”
She snorted out a laugh. “Fine, see what happens if you reject me again. I’m just going to keep leaking pictures.”
“Old pictures.”
“Doesn’t matter. Still makes you look bad, and I’m a very reliable source. After all, I’m the poor young impressionable girl in some of those pictures. I think the next headline’s going to be, Drew Amhurst’s Dark Past and the Woman He Nearly Killed with his Addictions.” Her laugh was pure evil, hatred.
“Please,” I rasped, almost unable to find the strength to keep talking. “I’m begging you not to do that. Don’t push me this far, Skye. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to survive it.”
“Then you know exactly how I feel,” she spat, and then hung up.
“You should have told me,” came Will’s voice from behind me, and then his hands were on my shoulders.
I couldn’t find my voice, so I stared at the waves.
I couldn’t find my center, because she was back at the beach house.
I couldn’t find my heart, because I’d left it with her.
So, the darkness closed in.
Will was talking again, pulling me back from the deep, dark waves. “Yeah, this is Will. I need a cop to do a wellness check on Skye Amhurst. Drew just received a very concerning phone call. She may be overdosing or on the verge of it. I’m going to send her publicist and agent over as well to help.” He sighed. “Yeah, I know. Thanks, man.”
I listened in numb silence.
Skye was the reason I didn’t do one-night stands.
Because the last time I did one, I’d somehow ended up married in Vegas to a girl who woke me up with a line of coke on a mirror on my naked stomach.
I’d relapsed that day.
I hated myself for it.
She was poison.
And I’d hired an in-home therapist to do rehab, divorced her ass as fast as I could, and had my team keep it quiet.
She’d been given a million dollars to keep our past relationship a secret, and then she’d been required to sign an NDA stating she could never speak out against me because of the divorce.
So apparently, this was how she was getting around it, for revenge.
She was just like the demons— Hell, she was one of them.
Will sat down next to me and got on his phone again. “Yeah, I need you to send out a press release about the leaked pictures. They’re from at least three years ago from the looks of them.” He paused. “Because I know everything about him. It’s my job. And because he wasn’t wearing his red bracelet, which means he didn’t have his tattoos that show the dates of his last overdose and one and only relapse three years ago. Check out the photos again. We want a full apology put out immediately, or the team will take legal action…Yup, I’m on my cell…Yeah, I have him…Okay. Bye.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thank you. For believing me.”
Will sighed and wrapped an arm around me. “You’re a pain in my ass, a dick half the time, and too talented for your own good. I know you’ve been clean, man. We all do. I knew when I saw the pictures that it was from forever ago, and most were blurry enough so you couldn’t see any lines on your face.”
“The hell are you saying? Lines? I don’t have wrinkles! I Botox this shit.”
“See? I offend you, and you stop being sad. How well do I know you? I mean seriously?” Will pulled his arm back and elbowed me.
I scowled. “At least someone believes me.”
“Bronte?”
I nodded.
“I take it you didn’t give her her presents yet?”
“Ah…” The lump was back in my throat. “…the pictures popped up on the news the minute I was trying to.”
Will winced. “Well, that’s incredibly bad timing.”
“Amelia was there.” I sighed. “If you find my bloating body tomorrow morning floating around by the jellyfish side of the cliff, know that Braden got to me before I could tell him the truth.”
Will shook his head. “Not gonna happen. Braden loves you like a brother, even though you’re in love with his mom.”
I made a face. “Maybe say that sentence differently in the future?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “All I’m saying is that he gets how this industry is now, how cutthroat. Bronte hasn’t even seen part of how bad it gets, how people lie, and manipulate to get what they want. So, you can’t expect her to understand everything. You have to take the time to
tell her just like she needs to take the time to listen.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “Welcome to a real relationship.”
I stood. “I need to go talk with her.”
“No need, man. No need.” Will looked over my shoulder, and I turned to follow his gaze.
Bronte stood there, must have been standing there the entire time, tears streaming down her face. Had she heard it all? Did she know my pain? What I was trying like hell to protect her from?
“I went to the house first,” explained Will, “and then turned on my Find-a-Friend to make sure you were okay. She cried the entire time here, so she wasn’t all that helpful.” He gave her a sad smile. “But I told her to wait, to listen. Always two sides to every story.”
I didn’t give Will the chance to walk away. I jerked him in for a massive hug. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Don’t make me cry. She’ll tell my wife.” His voice cracked.
Hearing him call Angelica his wife didn’t make my chest hurt. If anything, I finally felt as if I could smile. His wife.
His wife.
They deserved each other.
They deserved happiness, and I deserved Bronte.
Will walked off down the street toward his car.
Bronte’s face was red, and her eyes puffy from tears. “Will you forgive me?” Her voice was thick with emotion, sick from crying. “Please? I don’t think—” She covered her face with her hands.
“Don’t cry,” I took a step toward her. “Not on your birth—”
I stopped talking.
On her left hand, was the gorgeous ring I’d gotten her for her birthday. I had a speech prepared about it being too soon, but that I hoped one day she’d give me that ring back and tell me it was time, time to replace it with a diamond.
Because I wanted forever, even if I had to wait in order to have it.
“You’re wearing the ring on your left hand.” I felt my throat close up.
She dropped her hands. Two steps and she was in my arms, hugging me. “I know you didn’t ask, but I couldn’t stand to put it anywhere else but there, where people will see who I belong to, who I will be honored to walk with, who I am proud to love.”
I lifted her up in my arms and kissed her hard against the mouth. Our lips parted. My eyes hooded as I drank in her beauty; even after crying, she was stunning. “When you’re ready, I want to replace it, something flashy, something that you can see from space…”
Surrender Page 16
