Smitten

by Brooks, Gemma

  “See you then,” I said before hanging up.

  I wanted to throw up a little, but I swallowed my fear and stood up. I wasn’t going to allow her crazy antics to run my life anymore.

  ***

  Under the guise of a late lunch with Alec, I drove to the Grandeur Hotel to meet with Ava. My hands gripped firmly on the steering wheel as I drove. I was a girl on a mission. I was determined to put an end to Ava and her scheming, and I was prepared to go head to head with her.

  I pulled up to the valet and climbed of my Mercedes. My linen pants blowing in the light breeze as the ruffles on my pale pink, silk blouse danced about. With an air of newfound confidence, I pulled off my sunglasses and handed my keys to the attendant before heading inside. With each step, my heart raced. And with each step, I reminded myself that I had the upper hand. I had Hudson.

  “Hello,” I said to a pleasant front desk clerk who greeted me with a smile. “I’m Brynn Dawson. I reserved the tea room for one o’clock. Can you point me in the right direction?”

  The front desk clerk pointed down a hallway. “It’s the fourth room on the left. There’s a sign out front that says Ballmer Tea Room. It’s all yours.”

  “Thank you,” I smiled graciously. I was determined to maintain my composure. I wanted to be the spitting image of elegance and grace under fire. I wasn’t going to let Ava get to me. Not this time.

  Ava was already seated by the time I walked in. I erroneously assumed someone like her would’ve been at least twenty or thirty minutes late, if only just to mess with me.

  “Ava,” I said as I walked over to the table. She stood up and kissed my cheek, but I knew the gesture wasn’t genuine. She was onto me and my game, but I didn’t care.

  We sat down across from one another, her icy, platinum blonde hair pulled back into a low bun and shimmering diamond earrings dangling from her perfect little ear lobes. She wore a navy blazer over a gauzy tank top, skin tight jeans, and sky high heels. Her red lips were bold and her impossibly long eyelashes were even bolder.

  “So,” she began. “You called this meeting because?”

  She stared hard at me from across the table, unflinching, unaffected, and unwavering. I did my best to match her demeanor as best I could, but it was hard. She was good. She was really good.

  “First off,” I said. “Thanks for coming. I thought after everything that had gone on, that it would be good for us to meet privately.”

  “Wait,” she said. “So Hudson doesn’t know you’re here with me?”

  Her lips curled into a salacious grin for two seconds.

  “He does,” I lied. “He’s okay with it.”

  “Wow,” she mused. “Okay. Go on.”

  “Hudson and I are extremely happy together,” I said. “I’m just here, asking you woman to woman, to move on. If he wanted to be with you, he’d be with you. I gave him an ultimatum last night. I told him it was you or me. He picked me, Ava.”

  Her eyes burned into mine as her pouty red lips pursed. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or if she was accepting my words as some sort of challenge.

  “It’s time for you to move on, Ava,” I told her again. “Hudson has.”

  “But he hasn’t,” she said with a straight face. “You just think he has because he’s a good fucking liar.”

  She sipped her tea like she was some proper lady, her eye contact ever breaking mine.

  “Why do you keep pursuing someone who has absolutely no interest in you whatsoever?” I asked. “You’re beautiful. You can have any guy in this town that you want. Why Hudson? Why not just move on?”

  Ava rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to tell you, sweetie, you hardly know Hudson.”

  “I know him well enough to know that I’m crazy about him, and I’m going to fight for him. For us,” I said.

  “You don’t understand how he operates,” she said. A smart-mouthed half-smirk covered her face. “He’s going to get bored with you. He’s going to romance you and promise you the world and buy you diamonds and take you on lavish trips. He’s going to make you feel like you’re the only girl in the entire world. He’s going to say all the right things and if you ever question him, his explanations will make so much sense that you’ll wonder why you ever second-guessed him. He’s going to come across like some broken little bird but at the same time he’ll dominate you in the bedroom and make you feel like his dirty little slut, and you’ll love every minute of it. And when he’s not busy saving the world, he’ll stare at you like you’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. And when something better comes along, he’ll drop you like a sack of potatoes.”

  I stared at her, speechless. She had described him to a T. She had practically described my relationship Hudson to a T.

  “I just want what he promised me,” she said as she raised her eyebrows matter-of-factly and took a sip from her tea cup. I almost asked her why she cheated on him if she loved him so much, but I decided she wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t getting through to her anyway.

  “Stay away from us, Ava,” I said as grabbed my purse and stood up to leave. I watched her face for any signs of a smirk or evil grin or an indication that she was just attempting to get under my skin once again, but I found nothing. For the first time, Ava actually looked human. She looked hurt, and I was almost inclined to believe that for once she might not have been playing games with me.

  ***

  I returned to Hudson’s house with a bit of a guilty conscious. I had to confess. I had to tell him what I’d just done before Ava had a chance to.

  “Hello?” I called out as I walked in and laid my keys and purse on the island. “Hudson? I’m home.”

  He came out from around the corner with a questionable look on his face, his phone in his hand. I was clearly a day late and a dollar short.

  “You met with Ava?” he asked. His expression was nothing short of betrayed.

  I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “I did. I was actually just coming to tell you about it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “So tell me.”

  I wanted to call him out for still communicating with her, but at that moment I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I had to do some damage control.

  “I just wanted to talk to her, woman to woman,” I said. “We kept things civil. It didn’t get too crazy. I think I got my point across. That’s that.”

  “That simple, eh?” he asked.

  “Pretty much,” I said, though I was still feeling a little unnerved by her ridiculously spot on description of him and our relationship.

  “I just wish you would’ve told me beforehand,” he said. “I don’t like secrets, Brynn.”

  I took a step closer to him and placed my hand over his chest. “I just didn’t want you to talk me out of it.”

  He said nothing, but his heavy breathing told me he was still struggling with his decision to completely abandon Ava in her supposed time of need.

  “You said you picked me,” I reminded him. “So what does it matter if I told Ava to get out of our life?”

  “I do pick you,” he sighed. “But you have to understand, Ava needs help. She has severe mental and substance abuse problems. She has no one. She’s so crazy that no one will put up with her except her posse of girls, and even then, those girls don’t give two shits about her. They just want status and all the things that come along with being in Ava’s inner circle. They’re a bunch of enablers.”

  “Hudson,” I said, placing my other hand on his other shoulder and forcing him to look at me. “You don’t have to save the world.”

  “I’m not trying to save the world,” he replied. “I couldn’t save my mom. But if I can save just one other person in her memory, it would be worth it.”

  He looked distraught, and suddenly I was left feeling like some sort of monster. I didn’t mean to hurt him like that. I was just trying to salvage our relationship so we could take things to the next level and move on from Ava-gate. That’s all I wanted.

  “I’m sorry I w
ent behind your back,” I apologized. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

  “Okay,” he said, his eyes looking down at the ground.

  “Hudson, hey,” I said, shaking his shoulders and trying to get him to look at me. He refused.

  I leaned in and pressed my lips against his, but my kiss went unmet.

  “I’m going to go lay down for a bit,” he said. “I’m tired.”

  “It’s only two thirty,” I objected. “We’ve got the whole day ahead of us. Let’s go do something. A hike. A drive. Anything.”

  “I’m tired, Brynn,” he said. He slid off the bar stool and shuffled down the hall to his bedroom and closed the door.

  He hadn’t necessary chosen me over Ava. Not yet anyway. I may have had his heart and his presence, but Ava had something else of his, and I couldn’t quite figure it out.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Hi, honey!” my mom said as I walked into her room. Her hair was slicked back into a pony tail and her skin glistened with sweat. She looked pale, sickly almost, but her face lit up like the Fourth of July the moment she saw me.

  “Mom, are you okay?” I asked as I rushed to sit next to her on the bed.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just the early stages of detoxing. Makes me a little sick, but you have to get sick before you can get better. That’s what my counselor told me.”

  “Mom,” I said with sympathetic eyes. I hated seeing her so weak and vulnerable, but I knew it was for the best.

  “Sweetie, don’t worry,” she said as she patted my back. “They have doctors and nurses here. I’m in good hands. This place is truly amazing.”

  I glanced out her bedroom window, which had ocean views, and watched as the leaves on the trees swayed and ruffled in the Pacific breezes. I couldn’t have picked a better place for my mom to recover and get healthy.

  “So you adjusting okay so far?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I feel like I’m on vacation. Well, minus the constant puking and sweating. And the food here, it’s so healthy and flavorful. I’ve never eaten this well in my life!”

  I laughed. My mom was never a good cook. The best she could do was make a box of macaroni and cheese or throw a frozen pizza in the oven. And we were always lucky when nothing came out burnt.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” she asked as she studied my face. “I can tell something’s up.”

  My mom, even in her sweaty, clammy, sickly condition, could tell something was bothering me.

  “It’s Hudson,” I sighed. I couldn’t beat around the bush with her. She knew me too well.

  “What about him?” she asked, her eyes squinting. She didn’t like the sound of it, I knew that.

  “He has ex-girlfriend with some problems,” I said. “He thinks he needs to help her. She’s crazy, mom. She comes over uninvited. She says horrible things to me. And he won’t get rid of her. He feels like she’s his responsibility. He has to save her or something.”

  My mom sighed and slipped her arm around my back.

  “Men,” she said. She shook her head in sympathy. “Am I right?”

  I wiped a tear from my eye. It felt good to talk to someone I knew I could trust.

  “You know what I think?” she asked. “I think that Hudson’s a good egg. Look at everything he’s done for you. For me too. He is crazy about you, that man. Don’t let him go for one second.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” I moaned.

  “It is simple,” she said. “No relationship will ever be perfect, Brynn. And every relationship requires compromise. It’s not fair for you to ask him to change the person that he is. Has he asked you to change who you are?”

  “No,” I replied. “Not at all.”

  “See,” she said. “He loves you for you. You have to love him for who he is too.”

  She had a point, but it still didn’t change the fact that I wanted Ava out of our life for good.

  “What about Ava?” I said. “Does that mean I have to put up with her being in our life and meddling in our relationship?”

  My mom, in all her sober clarity, flashed me a perplexed look. “I don’t know, sweetie. I have a feeling she won’t meddle forever. If Hudson truly wants to be with you, she’ll have to accept that sooner or later. Eventually she’ll have to move on when she realizes she’s not coming between you two.”

  “I hope so,” I sighed. I leaned my head on my mom’s shoulder and breathed her in. The unfamiliar scent of lemongrass and verbena permeated from her soft skin. It was probably the kind of soap the facility gave them to use, but she still felt like home.

  “I’m so glad you’re not hung up on that Luke asshole anymore,” my mom said frankly.

  We both laughed.

  “What was so bad about Luke?” I asked.

  “Ugh,” she groaned. “Everything.”

  “I never knew you felt that way,” I told her. I’d always had a hunch, but we’d never actually talked about it.

  “I just always knew you could do better,” she said. “I could never really picture you as a farmer’s wife anyway. You’re too delicate.”

  “Psh,” I laughed as I swatted her arm.

  It felt good to have my mom back again, and if it weren’t for Hudson, it would’ve have been that way at all.

  I left the visit with my mom floating on a breeze with my head in the clouds. I felt clearer, and better about everything that had happened. I had to go home to Hudson, apologize a million times, and try to make things right. It wasn’t fair for me to expect him to change or give him ultimatums. He’d never done anything like that to me. I had to love and accept him for who he was and pray that Ava would eventually wise up and go away. Everything was going to fall into place, I just knew it.

  The moment I pulled into the garage, I saw it. The empty parking stall. The black Range Rover was gone, which meant so was Hudson. I checked my phone but there was no text message. In the pit of my stomach, I hoped to God he wasn’t with Ava.

  I walked inside only to find Flor standing in the kitchen, scrubbing the counters.

  “Hi, Flor,” I said, attempting to sound chipper. “Have you seen Hudson?”

  She turned to look at me, shrugged, and then resumed scrubbing.

  “Yes? No?” I asked.

  She shook her head no.

  “So you have no idea where he went?” I asked. I wasn’t buying it. I didn’t want to believe she was covering for him, but no other explanation was making any kind of sense in that moment.

  I was done playing games with Flor. I didn’t have time. I grabbed my bag and headed back out to my car. I had to drive by Ava’s. I had to see if Hudson was there. I hoped and prayed he wasn’t and that I was just overreacting, but I had to put my mind at ease.

  I didn’t remember how to get to Malibu, but I did remember her house was right off a very memorable stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway. If my nav could get me there, I was sure I would remember which house was hers if I saw it. It was just up the road from an adorable little gas station with a blue steel roof that we’d stopped at once before.

  I typed “Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu” into my nav and hoped for the best. My fingers gripped the steering wheel as I drove like a crazy person to Malibu. Everything was a whirring haze around me as my ears pulsed and my stomach churned.

  Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been such a perfect Saturday. The sun was shining, as always, there was a light breeze, and the birds were chirping. The traffic wasn’t ridiculous, and the ocean views spanned on for miles. I played some of my favorite music as I attempted to enjoy the drive there and distract my busy brain from assuming the worst, but nothing was working. I wouldn’t calm down until I saw that Hudson wasn’t with Ava.

  As I approached Malibu, I realized there were hundreds and hundreds of houses along the Pacific Coast Highway and a fair amount of gas stations to boot. It wasn’t like I could just slow down and leisurely take my time trying to remember which mansion was hers. It was going to take a stroke of luck
, and I’d never been a lucky person.

  I drove up and down the highway for at least a good hour, my head turning every so often to catch a good glimpse of the houses while still making sure I stayed in my lane and avoided mailboxes and oncoming traffic. It was a struggle, but when I finally found that quaint little gas station I knew I was in the right area. As soon as I saw her modern, square abode, I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d soon had my answer.

  I pulled off onto the side of the road, gravel crunching beneath my tires, as I attempted to peek into her driveway. It was surrounded by trees and bushes and my vision was somewhat occluded. I didn’t want to get any closer in case someone saw me, but I inched up little by little until I saw it. The tail end of Hudson’s black Range Rover. He was there. He was with Ava.

  I felt like I’d been sucker punched. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t see through the hot, heavy tears that were forming in my eyes well enough to get myself back onto the highway and the hell away from Ava’s.

  I waited until there was a break in traffic before getting back on the road. I didn’t understand. Bringing it up to him would only make me look crazy and would probably start a fight, not to mention he’d of course have a perfect explanation for it. He always had a perfect explanation for everything.

  I had a decision to make, and I had very little time. As if something washed over me, my tears suddenly dried up and my pathetic, woe-is-me attitude turned into anger. I pulled off the road and turned around to head back to Ava’s.

  The iron gate to Ava’s driveway had been left open, conveniently, and I pulled my car just up to the edge. Somewhat hidden by the massive amount of trees and shrubbery that surrounded her place, my mind raced as I thought about going up to the door and confronting them both.

  There were two possible outcomes that played in my head. Either it would go really bad and I would freak out and cry and scream and look horrible, then walk away like some pathetic girl, with Hudson and Ava embracing and laughing about how pathetic I look.