Playing With the Drummer

by Robin Covington

  That was the truth. That had been ugly, calculated to bring out the worst and twist it into something even nastier. She prided herself on letting the story speak for itself and not lowering her standards to produce trash for the sole purpose of creating scandal. People usually did that all on their own, and she didn’t have to embellish.

  “Well, you need to fix it,” Jake said.

  “Let me call my boss. See what I can do.” She knew it was useless, but she had to do something, try something. One more glance at Callie’s stricken face, and she steadied her fingers, touching the screen and thumbing through her contacts until she found Russ’s entry. She didn’t even hesitate to initiate the call. She was equal parts angry and hurt, and right now, she was going to direct some of both on her boss.

  The phone barely rang the first chime when he picked up, his usually surly tone grating across her nerves.

  “Matthews. Congratulations!”

  “Russ, what the hell happened?”

  “Your exclusive behind-the-scenes feature has gotten over a million hits since it went live, that’s what happened. Viral doesn’t even describe what is going on here,” he said, his words celebratory, but his tone was pure anger.

  She turned away from all of the faces trained on her and faced the wall. Her skin prickled; there was something else going on, landmines she couldn’t see. She was going into this at a disadvantage, and she didn’t like it all. Russ was a son of a bitch, cunning and sharp, and you never wanted to be on his bad side, but she wanted answers, and if it pissed him off, too bad. With both of them on the edge, there was no way this telephone conversation was going to end well.

  “Russ, I didn’t submit that video, and you know it. So I’ll ask you again, what the hell happened?”

  There was silence over the line, just long enough for her to sense the coming storm, to feel the tingle of lightning on the back of her neck.

  “What happened is that you killed the best goddam story of the year because you couldn’t get past Rocky Cardano’s dick game.” Russ’s voice dipped lower, the almost whisper communicating his fury better than any tirade could have done. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about you screwing him?”

  Yes and no. She’d figured that he’d find out about her relationship with Rocky, but she was surprised he’d found out about the Prentiss story so quickly.

  “How did you find out? About the story.”

  “Jesus. You aren’t even going to deny it?”

  She remained silent, waiting for him to continue. “Prentiss called me when you didn’t get back to him quick enough. I took one look at the press release, and I knew you’d written it.”

  Fine. She’d known this might happen, and she’d decided in an instant that she’d suck it up. Easier said than currently doing. The ache in her belly and the sweat on her palms gave away her anxiety. It was a natural reaction as she watched her career teeter precariously on a very narrow edge, just poised to fall over and shatter on the rocks below.

  “Eddie told me you were shacking up with Cardano, and I knew you’d lost your fucking mind. Gone native.”

  “Is that why you released that video of Callie and Jake?”

  “You weren’t bringing it home like I wanted, so I did it myself.”

  “I was delivering the story like we agreed,” Lita said, not hiding her agitation. She’d lived up to her end. “I gave you what I promised. You knew I was friends with Callie and Jake. You knew I wasn’t going to do a smear piece. You agreed.”

  “And you buried…” Russ backtracked, his voice lowering and taking on a bitter edge. “…the biggest fucking story of the year because you couldn’t keep your legs shut.”

  “I delivered the story you asked for in regards to Callie and Jake,” she said between clenched teeth. She wanted to rail against his treatment of her friends, but her outrage was personal, and he wasn’t wrong about Rocky. She’d done exactly what he said, and she would do it again if given the chance. It might not have been the best thing to do as a reporter, but it was the right thing to do from any other angle. There was no way she was ever going to do that to the man she loved, even if it would never work between them.

  And then her boss walked out into the daylight, lifted the axe, and dealt the deathblow. She’d known it was coming, but it didn’t stop her from flinching.

  “You gave me a shit product and stabbed me in the back, and don’t think I’m not going to tell people. You’re dead in this industry, Lita. Dead.”

  “Russ—” She started to try to reason with him, but what was the point? She’d known this when she’d gone to Rocky with her plan about the Prentiss story. She’d made her bed. What she hadn’t counted on was lying in it on her own.

  “You can kiss that show of yours good-bye, too. Maybe you can get a job on some piece of shit site over in France or something.” He laughed over the line, the sound raising the hairs on the back of her neck with its vicious coldness. “I hope he was worth it.” And then the line went dead, the loud, insistent sound of the annoying ringtone the only thing that jerked her back to reality.

  Lita stood for a moment, staring at the beige-bland wallpaper, trying to process what had just happened. She wasn’t dumb, had known all of it was a possibility, but she was cocky enough to think she could pull it off.

  She guessed she was wrong. Lita turned to face the crowd waiting behind her, reaching out to grasp Rocky’s hand for strength, for an anchor. “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything. It’s live. I can’t pull it back. My employer owns the rights to everything. I couldn’t even sue them to bring it down.”

  “Damn it. I knew something like this was going to happen,” Rocky said, his words striking out like a cobra at her heart and hitting with perfect aim.

  He looked down at her and slowly pulled away. His face was stony and flushed with his anger, but underneath was the one thing she could not survive seeing in his eyes. Disappointment. Suspicion. He blamed her for this mess. Down deep where it counted, he still didn’t trust her.

  She’d thought they’d put all this behind them, but she was wrong. She reached out to him, and he took a step back, the space between them widening with each subsequent step he took.

  And with every step, she’d never felt more alone.

  She couldn’t breathe. The pain bloomed in her chest, starting at her heart and traveling along every nerve ending until her skin ached like she’d suddenly come down with the flu. Bile, sharp and filled with fire, threatened to escape as she struggled to stay on her feet.

  She took one shallow breath. Then another. Then another, until she believed her legs would carry her out of this place.

  And then she bolted for the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Oh. He’d totally fucked that up.

  Rocky watched Lita dart past him and beat feet for the hallway that led back to the rest of the guest quarters. Without even looking over his shoulder at the crowd behind him, he followed her out the door, having to break into a sprint to stop her before she hit the stairs to the second floor.

  “Lita, wait.” He grabbed her arm and stopped her a few steps shy of the bottom stair. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving.” She wrenched away from him, her expression completely shut down and impenetrable. She backed away from him, her arms crossed over her midsection like she was bracing for a body blow. He placed his hands up, palms out, letting her know that he wasn’t going to try to touch her. He just needed her to stay.

  “You can’t just leave. There’s got to be something you can do.” This was her area of expertise. She’d fixed the situation with his dad, and she’d make this right, too. He believed in her and her magic on the screen. He scoured his mind for another option. “Call your network and get someone higher to pull this version and run with the one you made.”

  She looked at him like he’d sprouted horns and a tail, and her tone matched her disbelief at what he was asking her to do. “That’s impossible. He owns all the footage, and it
was uploaded on a daily basis to our cloud service. Ultimately, he picks and chooses what runs. I have no control over that.”

  “Well, then issue a statement or something that makes it clear you didn’t make the video, that it’s wrong.”

  “I can’t do that, Rocky!”

  He knew that. He did. He was just desperate. Right now, all the people in the world he cared about were in the middle of a nightmare, and he wanted to fix it. He wanted to shield them from it. It was what he did. And he was angry that Lita was running like a little kid who’d been caught in the cookie jar. Where was her backbone? Her fight?

  “I knew this was going to happen. This was such a fucking mistake.” He knew the moment her expression changed that he’d said that all wrong. Again. She flinched as if he’d struck her, her skin pale instead of her usual golden tan.

  She recovered quickly. Where she’d previously been in flight mode, his words had triggered full-on fight instinct, and she came at him like a wounded animal.

  “Fuck you, Rocky. I know exactly what you knew. Everybody knows. You’ve spent most of this week complaining about me being here. And I guess you were right. This was a mistake. You. Me. The interview. Everything. Huge mistake.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Oh yeah? Then how did you mean it?” She cocked her head to the side, adding an extra dose of sarcasm to her next set of questions. He felt like he was being interviewed, just waiting for the spotlight to turn on at any moment. “Did you mean that I stabbed everyone in the back like you predicted? Did you mean that I’m a lying, self-occupied reporter? Or was it that fucking me was the mistake?”

  “Stop putting words in my mouth.”

  “What part isn’t true? I’d love to know, since I just lost my fucking job for you.”

  “He fired you? For the video?”

  “Are you kidding me? He fired me for burying the story about your father. After what I did for you, for us, you just—” She choked back whatever she was going to say, taking a deep breath and pointing back toward the living room where the rest of the group sat processing all the crap that had just gone down. Damn, but he wished he had a few moments to figure this all out, because he was really fucking this up, having to deal with it on the fly. Lita wasn’t going to give it to him. “I saw what you did back there.”

  “I didn’t—” He shut down the angry retort, willing himself to be calm if he had any chance to explain this to her. This had gone down like a plane crash, and he needed a minute, time he wasn’t going to get. “I meant that I worried this would happen. That something out of our control would get in the way of everyone’s perfect plans.”

  She cut him off. “I know you’re stubborn and pig-headed, but I never thought you were a coward or a liar.”

  Oh, that pissed him off, and he felt his anger rise deep in his belly. Until he saw the quiver in her lip, and he knew she was barely hanging on. He would not take the bait, even though she was spoiling for a fight.

  “Lita, I’m sorry.” And he was. If he could rewind and take back that moment when he’d let the old bullshit creep in and take over. Take her hand back in his and never let it go. He’d give anything to take back the one thing he’d done to make her doubt them, make her doubt that he’d put all their crap in the past. “I didn’t mean to pull away from you. It was an automatic reflex from all these years.” He took a tentative step closer, swallowing down his panic and biting back his reaction to her backing farther away from him. “I’ve been reacting this way for so long that it was second nature. I’m used to going it alone, fixing everything on my own. I didn’t think, and I was an ass. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” Her words could have meant that they were back on the right path, back on the same side and planning a future together. But they didn’t. Her tone was resigned and had the echo of good-bye in it.

  He reached for her, grabbing her arms and hauling her close so that their bodies were touching from chest to knees. She didn’t struggle, didn’t fight, but he didn’t fool himself that it was because she was giving in, no, she was just saving her energy to push him away once and for all.

  “Lita, don’t do this,” he said. He didn’t know what else to do but show her that she was killing him with every second that passed, every minute she wasn’t holding onto him like he ached to hold onto her.

  “Rocky, I saw it in your eyes. Even after what I did, you don’t trust me.”

  “I do.”

  “I know you keep saying that, but it’s to convince yourself. You pulled away from me, and while you might think it was a knee-jerk reaction, it was how you really feel.” Her mouth pulled up, a watered down version of her usual smile, and it made his chest hurt. “I think we need to admit that we are just too different, that this stuff is always going to jump up between us. It will kill us to constantly have to struggle with trust and forgiveness. Neither one of us is wrong, but I can’t wait around for the next time you look at me like I’m a stranger.”

  “I do forgive you. I meant it then, and I mean it now.” And he did mean it, cursing himself for his momentary weakness. “It was just my old demons getting the better of me for a moment. It will never happen again.”

  “Stop. Stop.” She leaned forward, letting their foreheads touch as she let out a long, anguish-filled sigh. He released her arms, sliding his around her waist, caressing her back as they stood together poised on the edge of a precipice he didn’t have the balls to face head-on. Instead, he kept his eyes shut, willing her with his touch, with his body, to give him a second chance. Give him one more chance to not let her down. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”

  “It won’t be. We just need time to figure this out.”

  “I want you to keep me from going,” she whispered.

  “I will. Until my last breath, I will.”

  “Oh, I wish…” she said on a soft sigh. Her voice ached with her pain, but he also sensed her steel determination. “I’m asking you to let me go.” She pulled back, and the tears in her eyes hung briefly on her eyelashes before they spilled onto her cheeks. “I don’t want to do this anymore. Four years is long enough.”

  Ouch. He sucked in a breath at the impact of her words as they brought back the knowledge that it was his suspicion that had torn them apart all those years ago. He’d reacted quickly, by instinct, and pushed her away. He’d hurt her then just like he had tonight. He’d done this to them.

  Fuck.

  “Please, Rocky.”

  Her quiet pleading was the last straw. Man, what he wouldn’t give for her to curse at him, to yell and scream until she was all worn out, the hurt seeping out of her with her energy. He knew what to do with that. He had no idea what to do with this. He was in over his head with her soft request for him to protect her from his own selfish, hurtful ways. There was only one thing left to do.

  Rocky leaned in, watching her as he took her mouth. He caressed her lips softly, silently begging her not to forget this, not to throw away what they had. She responded, her own kiss bittersweet and full of the love he knew she had for him. Her eyelids slid shut, and he deepened the kiss for a few brief seconds, his tongue exploring the hot depths of her mouth as he reminded her of their passion, their love for each other.

  He retreated, allowing her to slip out of his arms and back away from him as if she didn’t trust him enough to turn her back or as if she couldn’t stand to turn her back on him. He prayed it was the latter.

  “This isn’t over,” he promised. “I love you. You love me.”

  “Oh, Rocky.” She shook her head. “That was never our problem.”

  And she turned her back and walked up the stairs and away from him. He’d give her some time to calm down, to collect her thoughts. She thought it was good-bye for good, but he refused to believe it. Somehow, he’d find a way to prove to her that he trusted her and then love would be enough.

  Chapter Twenty

  She could not fall apart. Not yet.

&n
bsp; Lita leaned against the door to her room and wiped the wetness from her cheeks, refusing to slide to the floor and give into the heavy pain pressing down on her chest.

  Hell. When Rocky had walked away from her four years ago, she’d sworn that nothing could eclipse the white-hot agony that had settled in her chest.

  Oh man, was she wrong.

  This was one hundred times worse. Maybe it was because it was fresh. Maybe it was because she finally knew what it felt like to be loved by Rocky Cardano. She’d dreamed about it for years, never really naming her desire, but now that she’d experienced it there was no fooling herself.

  She’d believed they were one of the few who could beat the Hollywood odds, but they’d lasted less time than a reality TV star wedding. Stupid Lita. True love only existed on the pages of a script, and she’d allowed herself to forget, to ignore the price she would pay for her foolish wants. There would be lots of retail therapy and pints of Ben & Jerry’s in her future, but right now there were two things she needed to do first.

  She sat on the edge of her bed and dialed the airline, trying to see if she could get a flight out of bumfuck Montana tonight. Lita didn’t harbor any illusions that Jake or Callie wanted her here any longer, and truth be told, she didn’t want to run into them, either. It was a coward’s way out, but she just couldn’t face them right now. Not for a long time. L.A. was going to feel very small in the coming months, and her life would be lonely without her friends in her life.

  Twenty minutes later, after offering to pay the equivalent of a ransom, she resigned herself to one more night here at the hotel. There was no flight until tomorrow morning, and she’d booked a seat on it and didn’t even blink at the cost. She’d have paid twice as much.

  She turned the phone off and tossed it onto the bed. She didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway.

  That wasn’t true. She wanted to talk to Rocky, but that was as useless as wishing for her ass to be a tad bit smaller and her breasts a half cup size larger. Not. Gonna. Happen.

  He’d tried to explain why he’d done it, cut her to the quick with his knee-jerk reaction to what had gone down, and she believed him. He meant the apology at the time— Rocky was no liar. But he’d also meant to step away from her, when the poo poo hit the platter, he’d also believed the worst of her. Or acted like he did.