“But you weren’t supposed to be my agent,” I say softly. “You were supposed to be my mother.”
“You were always so dramatic.” She scoffs.
“And you were always so cold.” My voice gets even quieter, but there’s no missing the sincerity of my words. “Now, give me my check before I get my security detail to come in here and make you give it to me.”
Biting back the scathing words on the tip of her tongue, she whirls around with her taloned hands curled into fists. Her stilettos click against the hardwood floor as she crosses to her writing desk and pulls an envelope from the top drawer. I don’t move as she approaches, extending it toward me.
“Here.”
I reach out to take it, but her grip tightens on the check. We stand with the envelope suspended between us, playing tug-of-war over the key to my financial freedom, and I recognize the fear in her eyes, just below the contempt and frustration boiling at the surface. She knows, as soon as I have this money, I won’t need her any more. The success she pushed so hard for has, ironically, made her irrelevant.
“I have only ever wanted what’s best for you,” she hisses, leaning into my face. “If I pushed you too hard, it was only because I knew you could be great. You can hate me for challenging you, but we both know without me, you’d be nowhere. I saw your potential and did everything in my power to make sure it was fully realized. I made the rest of the world see it too. If that makes me a monster in your eyes, so be it. I have no regrets.”
I stare at the woman who made me pirouette in front of the mirror until my toes were bleeding through my ballet slippers. The woman who woke me at four in the morning to stand in line at open-call castings for parts I never wanted. The woman who bought me a spray-tan machine instead of a bicycle for my eighth birthday. The woman who padlocked the refrigerator before auditions so I’d look thinner. The woman who scoffed when I revealed her ex-husband had made a pass at me. The woman who gave me everything I’d never asked for and withheld the only thing I’d ever wanted.
Love.
“You aren’t a monster,” I say softly. “You’re nothing at all.”
I rip the envelope from her hand, turn my back on her, and walk out of her life for good.
* * *
I stare at my phone . The blank screen stares back at me.
No call.
Three days since I left the island behind, and with it all my hopes for us.
Three days since I let him strip me bare for the last time, body and soul alike.
Three days since I whispered secrets beneath sheets as his lips skimmed my temple.
Three days since I felt myself falling, sinking, a ship caught up in a sea of limbs and lust.
My sails weren't strong enough to hold me on course.
Grayson Dunn doesn’t do commitment.
My keel wasn't steady enough to keep me from capsizing.
Grayson Dunn will never be what you need.
He kissed me like a wave against the shore, eroding my defenses with the brush of his mouth. The caress of his palms against my shoulder blades pulled me in like a piece of driftwood without a tether. I felt myself sink under his thrall as he sank into me beneath thousand thread-count sheets in a dim, humid hotel room.
He’s probably fucked a thousand other girls, girls just like me, who thought it meant something because he said it's different with you, babe with his mouth tugged up in that half smile and his green eyes drooped at half-mast as his fingers slowly worked at the buttons of my blouse.
He talked about our future, and held my hand in his, and stroked my hair as we fell asleep intertwined, and for a little while, I let myself believe it was more than just sex for him.
The sad part is, I knew better and I let it happen anyway.
How many times have I told myself to judge a man by his actions, not his words? Words are pretty, useless things — butterflies behind glass. You may feel warm and bright as you stare at their beauty but you'll walk away empty and cold, clutching nothing but the painful realization that you never really had anything at all. You never even got close enough to touch those fleeting gossamer wings.
The blank screen taunts me.
Still no call.
Something ugly stirs to life in my stomach, claws its way up through my chest cavity with razor-edged fingertips. His silence is the sharpest knife; his indifference is the keenest weapon.
I have grown so used to constant contact, to the instant communication of my social media generation, that I have lost any ability I once possessed to be comfortable in my own company. An hour without a text message is an eternity. A day is unbearable. A week is tantamount to torture.
Worse is the itching of my hands to check the gossip site headlines, the stream of Instagram pictures he’s posted, the online social network where we added each other as “friends” the first week of filming. I can barely leash the restless, self-destructive longing to log online and stare at the words last active 23 minutes ago beside his profile picture and pretend they don't leave me gutted. To see the last three photos he’s tagged in are with girls — all blondes, all beautiful, at some club downtown. To feel that final, delusional shred of hope that maybe he dropped his phone in a toilet or accidentally left it in a limo or just didn't see my ‘Hey! I’m home. Where are you?’ messages yet, slip away like a handful of sand on the wind.
He's an asshole.
You deserve better.
Why hasn't he called?
Why do you still want him to?
I hate him for reducing me to this. This needy, pathetic creature flailing between emotional extremes like one of those wacky inflatable tube men they set up outside car dealerships to catch your eye as you speed past on the interstate. Air-dancers, they call them — fifteen feet tall, fluorescent yellow, wavering this way and that at the mercy of the winds.
Spineless .
My phone buzzes on the pillow and my heart gives a great leap inside my chest. I fumble for the phone in the darkness, dragging it close enough to read the illuminated name.
CYNTHIA
The hope disintegrates so fast it makes my lungs ache. I throw my phone across the room in frustration, out of sight, where it can no longer provoke me. I won't look at it anymore. Cynthia’s words earlier echo in the darkness.
Did you truly believe he’d ever be loyal to you? That he could love you?
I am disgusted at my own weakness when, not five full minutes later, I drag myself over to retrieve my phone from the floor and place it carefully back on my pillow, so I won’t miss it if it buzzes with an incoming call from him. A familiar voice mocks from the deepest corners of my mind, especially piercing in the total silence of my bedroom.
You are the most pathetic girl who ever lived.
I press my fingertips hard into my temples and resolve to delete his number so I won't be tempted to reach out to him again. To change the name GRAYSON DUNN in my phone to something like GIANT DICKHEAD so if, in the off chance he does deign to communicate, I'll remember what an asshole he's been for waiting three days and — I glance at the clock on my bedside table — fourteen and a half hours to text me. I tell myself to remove him as a friend online, because surely we cannot be anything akin to friends when he has made me weep and rage and stand in front of my floor-length mirror pinching the thin layer of fat that rolls over the waist of my size-two jeans, wondering whether a few pounds would've made any sort of difference in his obvious ambivalence, or whether, if I’d looked more like one of his models, I would’ve lasted longer than two weeks on his ever-rotating roster.
I do none of these things.
Phone clutched between flattened palms, like a prayer to a god I don't believe in, I curl up in a ball beneath my favorite blanket and squeeze my eyes shut.
I hate him.
I hate him.
I hate him.
Because... I think I really could've loved him.
It doesn’t matter that he didn’t — couldn’t — love me back.
&nb
sp; Or, it matters … but it doesn’t change anything. His indifference does not alter my attachment. His lack of love does not mitigate mine. The sad fact is, I gave him my loyalty when he never asked for it. I spent weeks falling for someone who never gave a shit. And there’s no cure for that. Not even time.
It’s past midnight when I walk outside my condo and knock on Masters’ SUV window. He rolls it down, taking in my tear-stained face with curious eyes.
“I need you to drive me one more place.” I sniffle and wipe my nose with my shirtsleeve. “But I promise, tomorrow, I’m buying myself a new car and you won’t have to take me anywhere ever again.”
“Get in,” he says quietly, no questions asked. No complaints.
I do.
“Where are we going?” he asks, starting the engine.
“Malibu.”
I swallow hard as I give him Grayson’s address, but it does nothing to dislodge my heart, which is stuck firmly in my throat.
Sixteen
“ D o you believe in soulmates ?”
- A man who will undoubtedly get in your pants before the night is over.
H e pulls open the door , wearing nothing but a thin pair of black boxer briefs. I can tell from the way his hair is sticking up that I’ve woken him.
“Kat?” He blinks at me blearily, as if he can’t fathom why I’m standing on his doorstep at one in the morning. “What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?” I ask.
He holds the door wide and I step inside, hugging my arms around my body as if they might somehow protect me from the emotional wreckage about to be inflicted.
The door closes. It’s so quiet I can hear my own heartbeats. I look at him and I know, before he speaks a word, that everything is different.
This is not the man who kissed me on the beach, who fucked me under the stars. This is an unrecognizable stranger, someone whose motives I cannot comprehend.
We stand in his huge, high-ceilinged atrium, not touching. Staring at each other like we don’t know each sloping curve of each other’s bodies, like we haven’t seen each other’s every imperfection at three in the morning when the whole world is silent and still except for the soft, secret noises we make beneath the sheets.
The silence stretches on. He hasn’t said a word yet, and I’m already blinking back tears.
“What’s going on?” he asks finally. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I say. “I’m really not.”
I watch his throat work as he digests that. “Tell me what’s wrong, Kat.”
“I….” My voice breaks. I can’t finish.
His eyes are sad as he takes a tentative step closer. “Do you want to sit down?”
“Not really.”
“Okay.”
I stare at him, every perfect part of him, and despite everything that’s happened between us, there’s still a part of me that cries out at the sight of his green eyes and strong jaw and dark eyebrows, whose shapes I’ve traced in the darkness. There’s still a desperate piece of me that yearns to run into his arms and beg him to love me back.
I ignore it, steeling myself for the reality of my situation.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Kat,” he says eventually, the sleepy haze clearing from his eyes. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“Grayson…” My eyes fill with tears as I say his name. “Everything is wrong. You. Me. Us. The whole damn world.”
His eyes narrow. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I scoff brokenly. “Of course you know. How could you not know?” My hands fly out from my sides as I gesticulate, and with that small lapse of control I feel my whole facade of togetherness begin to unravel. “You disappeared on me. And I thought, maybe, I could just let it go. I thought I could let you slip away without a protest, but I can’t. I won’t.” My hands curl into fists. “I deserve an explanation. I deserve a conversation, after everything that happened between us back in Hawaii.”
“I know.” His voice is quiet.
I blink. “What?”
“I know — you deserve more than this. I’m sorry. None of this has been fair to you. Shutting you out. Not calling you back. The stuff with Helena…”
“It’s true, then?” I feel my heart skip. “About you and Helena? About the… the baby ?”
“Kat…”
“God, it’s true.” My eyes focus on the ceiling, to keep my tears from falling.
“No! No. It’s… Look, things are just really complicated for me right now. I need some time.”
“Uncomplicate it for me,” I suggest. “Explain it to me. Give me a chance to understand.”
“It’s not that simple. There are things you don’t know.”
“Are you back with her?”
“I’m not back with her. I was never with her. We were just…”
“Just fucking?” My voice cracks on the word. “Right. Because that’s what you do. That’s your thing, huh? With her, with me. No emotions. No commitment. Just physical. Just fucking . Right?”
“That’s not fair, Kat.”
“Fair ? Don’t talk to me about fair, Grayson. None of this is remotely fair to me.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I whisper. “I just want you! That’s all I ever wanted. You’re the one who changed things between us. You’re the one who stepped away.” My voice is a plea. “I just want things to be like they were, back in Hawaii.”
“They can’t be. Things have changed.”
“What’s changed?”
His eyes are tortured. “Look, while we were there, while we were away from all this bullshit — the press, the paparazzi, the parties, the past — I thought, maybe, things could be different. That I could be different. For a few weeks, I wanted more than anything to be the one for you. To be the standup guy who holds your hand and keeps his word and always comes through. But I think we both know… I’m not that guy . I don’t think I’ll ever be that guy, Kat. No matter how much either of us wants me to be.”
The tears start to trickle from the corners of my eyes. He watches them fall, looking horrified.
“Don’t cry…” He moves toward me. “God, I don’t want to hurt you. I’d never want to hurt you, Kat. Don’t you know that?”
I step back, arms held out to stop him. “Don’t.”
“What can I do?” he asks. “What can I say besides I’m sorry? How can I make this better for you? The last thing I ever wanted was to make you sad.”
“It’s a little late for that,” I snap.
“That’s not fair, Kat. You knew what this was. You know who I am.” He runs his hands through his hair. “I can’t be the guy you want me to be.”
“I never asked you to be anyone except yourself.”
“You didn’t have to ask, Kat. I can see it in your eyes, every time I look at you. I can sense it in every breath you take. I can taste it on your lips. And it kills me, to know that I’m hurting you.”
My tears fall faster. “So, instead of hurting me by being with me, you’re going to break me completely by cutting me out of your life?”
“I’m not cutting you out. I couldn’t do that, even if I wanted to, with the film premiere coming up…”
“Wow .” I cry. “What a gentleman.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not a gentleman. I’m no good for you, Kat. This, right here — you at my door in the middle of the night, heartbroken and hurting? — this is why I only do casual.” He sighs. “You and me… there’s nothing casual about us.”
“Maybe I can do casual,” I whisper recklessly.
“You can’t. You’re not built that way.”
I don’t argue, because I know he’s right.
He steps closer, making me flinch back. “This thing, whatever it was that we had — it was beautiful. And I don’t want to ruin it by trying to force it into something it’s not.” His voice softens. “I don’t want
to erase all those moments of joy with anger and bickering and bullshit. That’s what happened to my parents. My grandparents. My aunts and uncles and friends and cousins and every damn person I’ve ever met who’s ever tried to make a serious relationship work.”
“So, what? We see each other from now on and just… act like strangers? Like none of it ever happened?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “All I know is, if we keep this up, I’ll ruin it. No question.”
“How do you know?”
“I feel so fucking guilty just being near you. I feel like I’ve let you down, because I can’t be the guy you fell for in Hawaii. Maybe someday, I’ll feel differently. Maybe someday, I’ll be ready. But right now…”
“Don’t!” I cross my arms over my chest to hold myself together. “Don’t you say that to me. Someday is an empty promise. Someday is a lie you tell girls you blow off, to make yourself feel a little better.”
“Kat…”
“You know what?” I ask, staring at him. “I came here for answers. You gave them to me. They just weren’t the answers I wanted.” It’s an effort to keep my voice even, I’m crying so hard. “I appreciate your honesty. I’ll be going now.”
“Kat, wait—”
I turn back to look at him, just before I reach the door. “Wait for what, Grayson?” My words are soft. “For you to change your mind? For you to be someone you aren’t? For you to force yourself into a relationship you don’t want?”
His mouth opens and closes again without a sound escaping.
“That’s what I thought,” I whisper. “I can’t wait for you — I’ll be waiting forever.” I pull open the door, steady my shoulders, and speak to the darkness. “Goodbye, Grayson Dunn.”
He doesn’t follow me.
This is not a movie — there is no last minute change of heart, as he chases the SUV down his driveway barefoot, determined to win me back. The music does not swell. We do not ride off into the sunset together.
I ride home alone, weeping steadily, much to the horror of my bodyguard.
The Monday Girl (The Girl Duet #1) Page 27
