The Price of Fame: A Price Novel (The Price Novels Book 2)

by Craft, Maggi

  Later that evening, I decided I needed to go apologize to Mom. No one was home but her, and she didn’t look like she wanted to talk to me any more than my wife did. She was standing in the kitchen, and I grabbed a beer and sat down at the bar. “Mom, I’m sorry for being ugly to you. I was wrong for taking it out on you.”

  Her expression was still foreign to me. Disappointment. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now. This isn’t something I’d expect from you. Brady, maybe, but not you. You can’t run off and act like a jackass because you got your ego hurt. She was scared. And you should have been there. That’s what marriage is.”

  “I know, Mom, but there was other stuff going on.”

  She shook her head, blowing off what I said. “Doesn’t matter.” She let out a breath and looked at me. “Slayde, I’m your mother, and there’s nothing you could ever do that would make me not love you, but that doesn’t go for wives too. You’ve really messed up.” She grabbed a tabloid off the counter and threw it in front of me. “What were you thinking?”

  It was full of pictures from the club. They were of Whitt, Kevin, me, and several women, sitting at our table, drinking. Then there were pics from later on that night when we were sitting at the blackjack table. That woman who was messing with me was in several of the pics, and she was sitting right by me each time. It didn’t look good.

  “Somebody must have taken these and sold them. When did this come out?” I asked.

  “Today. I doubt Arden has even seen it yet. Does she even know you went to Vegas?”

  “Yes, but this isn’t going to help anything. I didn’t do anything, Mom. You have to know that no matter how upset I ever get with Arden that I would never cheat on her.”

  “Sometimes you don’t have to cheat to hurt your marriage, Slayde. Can you imagine how this is going to make her feel? She’s going to feel stupid. I know I would if I were her. All these people like to think they know you just because they see you in a movie or on a talk show every time they turn around, but they don’t know you. Arden, she knows you, and she loves you anyway. This is going to make her question that. People are going to think you cheated, whether you did or not.”

  “I don’t care what they think,” I shouted.

  “Well, maybe not, but you already know that she does. She’s left you for less,” she reminded me.

  “What do I do? How do I keep this from getting blown out of proportion any more than it already has?”

  “You better go tell her everything about your little trip before she finds out from someone else.”

  “She won’t even talk to me,” I shouted.

  “Well, she doesn’t have to do anything but listen.”

  I took the magazine and headed home. Arden was in the kitchen making bottles when I walked in. “Arden, we need to talk.”

  She didn’t even look up from what she was doing. “I already told you that I don’t want to talk to you, and I’m busy. Go away.”

  I took the bottles from her and handed them to Casey, who tried to look like nothing was going on. I grabbed Arden’s hand and walked her to our bedroom. “Slayde, what are you doing?” she asked. I knew by the tone in her voice she was concerned.

  “I’m about to tell you something that is going to upset you, but you have to promise me you will hear me out.”

  She didn’t say anything, but she looked terrified.

  “Do you promise?”

  She shook her head, but I think it was only to make me speak.

  “I was pissed at you, and I went with Kevin and Whitt to Vegas. We partied like idiots, but none of us hooked up or anything stupid like that. We did have some women following us around. Someone obviously took some pictures and sold them to the tabloids, but I swear to you nothing happened.” I handed her the magazine so she could see for herself. She didn’t say anything at first, but she did start crying silently, which was no shock to me.

  She looked up at me with anger in her eyes. “You fucking hypocrite! How dare you try and make me feel guilty for talking to a colleague at work, and you go to a club and party with a bunch of skanks.”

  “I know what it looks like, but I swear nothing happened.”

  “Get out. Get the fuck out!”

  “What? This is my house.” I knew immediately that was the stupidest thing I could’ve said.

  “You’re right. Then I’ll leave.” She went into the closet and grabbed the luggage I’d bought her and started packing.

  This had to stop now, and I had to stop it. I wasn’t over this Dr. Greene thing by any means, but I didn’t want her to leave. We had too much to throw away over stupid stuff. I had to find out what had happened, so I could trust her, and now she was questioning her trust in me. And that was my fault.

  I grabbed her hand gently as she was putting stuff in a bag. Calmly I said, “Stop packing. You aren’t going anywhere. We’re married, and we have two babies who deserve for us to figure this out. This is stupid. I love you more than anything in this world, and I swear I didn’t do anything with anybody. Ask Kevin! Ask Whitt!”

  “Like Kevin or Whitt would ever throw you under the bus.”

  She had a point. “You’re right; they probably wouldn’t,” I admitted, “but ask them what happened, and we will all have similar stories.”

  “I’m not going to make myself look any stupider than I already do.” She went back to packing.

  “For better or worse,” I whispered, swallowing back tears.

  “What?” She looked at me, her green eyes glassy with tears.

  “We vowed to love each other for better or worse,” I said.

  She stopped packing and looked at me. “I don’t how to fix this, Slayde.”

  “So you’re just going to quit? You know I’d never hurt you. You know I’d never hurt our kids. You have to know that.” I grabbed her wrist and made her look me in the eyes. “Do you really think I would throw you away on some women I didn’t even know? I wanted to make you upset, but I’d never break your heart.”

  She looked away and started sobbing. I pulled her to me and let her bury her face in my chest and cry. After a few minutes, she calmed down and said, “You were right about Dr. Greene.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. I pushed her away so she had to look at me. “What do you mean?” I could feel my heart beating in my throat.

  All of these disturbing scenarios of what that actually meant started flipping through my mind at warp speed. She obviously saw my insanity kicking into overdrive.

  “No, not that you were right about him and me. You were right about just him. And his intentions. He kissed me. Well, tried to kiss me, but I pushed him away,” she said.

  “What? When?” I was furious and relieved at the same time.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? At the hospital?” I shouted, and she nodded, still crying. “I was there yesterday.”

  “I know. It was when you pissed me off, and I went downstairs to get away from you. I went outside and sat by the fountain to try and think. He must have followed me out there. I really wanted to be alone, but I was crying and didn’t have the energy to make him leave. He was listening to me and telling me everything was going to be fine. Once I finally calmed down, he leaned over and kissed me.”

  “Did you kiss him back?” I asked. I was sick. The thought of another man touching her made me want to throw up.

  “No!”

  I believed her. “What happened?”

  “I pushed him away and walked back inside, and I haven’t spoken to him since.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” I shouted, starting out of the room.

  “No, you can’t. I have to work with him.” She grabbed my arm, turning me around.

  “No, you don’t. We have more money than we can spend. You’re gonna quit and stay home.”

  “No! I’m not! I love what I do, and you can’t make me quit.”

  I knew I couldn’t, but I couldn’t leave for work knowing she was going to work with that s
on of a bitch either. I sat on the bed, fuming, and gathered my thoughts. She sat next to me and was nervously twisting her blond hair around her fingers. “You’re going to call him and ask him to meet you for drinks, but you won’t be there. I will.”

  She sat up straight. Obviously shocked. “What? No, that’s crazy.”

  “Why not? Do you have something to hide?” I knew that would slow this argument, and she’d eventually give in.

  “Absolutely not, but I don’t want you going and beating him up and making things worse than they already are. I have to work with him, Slayde.”

  “I’m not going to beat him up, but I am going to make sure he knows not to ever touch you again. When do you have to go back to work?”

  “Tomorrow morning at seven, if Noah’s OK.”

  “Is he going to be there?” I asked.

  “I don’t know his schedule, but I’m sure at some point he will be.”

  I handed her her cell phone. “Then call him!”

  She was nervous, and I could tell she didn’t want to do this. She held the phone in her hand, staring at it. “Slayde, you can’t be serious. This is a bad idea.”

  “I’m very serious, Arden. Call him.” I didn’t think she was going to do it at first, but then she texted him and asked him to meet her for drinks at a bar not too far from the hospital. As I headed out of the door, she followed me. “You aren’t going,” I said to her.

  “Yes, I am. I will sit in the car, but I’m going with you.” She followed me out of the house and to my car.

  I stopped, crossed my arms, and leaned against my car. “Arden, I don’t want you to go.”

  “If you aren’t going to beat him up, why can’t I go?”

  “I just think I need to handle it.” She didn’t say anything else, and I got in my car and left.

  He was already at the bar when I got there. He wasn’t in his scrubs. He had obviously changed into something nice for her. He didn’t see me come in, and I sat back for a minute, trying to decide the best way to handle this without getting arrested or drawing a lot of attention to the situation. He looked at his watch several times and then got up and walked to the bathroom. I knew this was probably the most privacy we were going to get. I walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. When he turned around, I slammed him against the wall with my hand on his throat and got right up in his face.

  “I don’t know how your wife feels about you kissing other women, but if you ever come near my wife again in anything but a professional manner, I won’t be this nice about it.”

  After a minute, I let him go because I wasn’t sure if he could breathe. I wanted to scare him, not kill him. He didn’t say anything; he just rubbed his neck.

  “Do we have an understanding?” I asked.

  He didn’t say anything. He just nodded.

  “Then have a good day,” I said, and I left. That had gone way better than I had planned, and I felt a lot better about the situation. I didn’t know where that had come from; it seemed more like something Jake Brandon would have done than me.

  After I got home, things still weren’t OK. We slept in separate rooms and only spoke to each other about the kids. But at least we were still under the same roof. The press had a field day with my little Vegas escapade for only about a week. Once someone else did something else crazy, they forgot about me again.

  With all this tension in the house, I felt bad for Casey and Hannah. Arden and I both tried to act like everything was fine in front of them, but I knew they had witnessed a lot of the mess and had to have heard us fighting. And they definitely knew we weren’t sleeping in the same room. Hannah, who had been staying every night since we got back from the hospital with Noah, had to bunk with Casey.

  “You know, this isn’t unusual. First-time parents have a really hard time adjusting, and they usually end up taking it out on each other,” Casey said to me one day while I was making myself a sandwich.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yep, Google it if you don’t believe me,” she said.

  I had to laugh at that. Google was my favorite go-to for information. “So I can find that on Google?”

  “I’m sure you can find thousands of articles about it if you Google it, but I’ve seen it in every house I’ve worked in. I can only imagine that with your demanding careers, it has to be even harder.”

  “Are you thinking about quitting?” I was really worried about that, and had been since all this happened.

  “No, you pay too well.” She laughed.

  “Well, I’m glad! You aren’t replaceable,” I said. “Thanks for being so great.”

  Chapter 23

  Arden

  I was so tired of this thing with Slayde. I was mad at him for going to Vegas with his stupid friends and not being there when we needed him, but he was right about the fact that, had Noah not gotten sick, I would have gone to work and never noticed he was even gone. He was also right about the way I handled Dr. Greene. I shouldn’t have allowed that to continue, but I really thought I could handle it.

  I couldn’t believe that he had tried to kiss me—at the hospital no less, and in front of everyone. He may not have any self-respect, but he wasn’t tarnishing my reputation in the process.

  I needed to talk to Slayde about all of this, but I also needed to talk to Chief Robbins without letting on that anything had happened. It wouldn’t help my career to be in the middle of some kind of scandal, and I just wanted to move on.

  I went to work early to talk to him. I was glad to find him in his office. I knocked, and he looked up from his work. He smiled when he saw it was me and pushed his glasses farther up his nose with his middle finger. “Come in, Dr. Price.” He pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

  “Thanks,” I said while sitting.

  “Is everything OK?”

  “Yes, but I think I am ready to move on to Dr. Townsend.”

  He didn’t look surprised. “OK, I’ll make the changes tomorrow. You’re with Glanding today anyway. Greene is off.”

  Whew! I nodded. “Perfect, thanks.”

  I stood to leave, but he gave me a look and said, “You know I’m here for you if you need me.”

  I smiled. “Thanks.” I was pretty sure he suspected I had been having issues with Greene but was waiting to see how I wanted to handle it. This was how I wanted to handle it. No fuss. No drama.

  Now I just had to figure out how to handle things with Slayde. I had a right to be angry, but so did he. I hadn’t handled anything the way I should have. I didn’t like the little stunt he pulled, but I didn’t think he did anything really wrong either.

  Chapter 24

  Slayde

  I had been in Chicago for nine days, and I hadn’t talked to Arden but once the whole time. We did text each other at least once a day, but that was all the communication going on between us. I would text her that I loved her, because I did, and I wanted to make sure she knew that, no matter how bad things were between us. Most of the time the only response I got was I know. Every now and then she would tell me she loved me too. This was taking her longer to get over than I thought it would, but I guess it was just part of the mess. I wouldn’t say that I was over it, but I was dealing with it, and I would eventually get over it.

  I had three days off, and I was hoping to go home and try and work on things with her. I was later leaving than I had originally planned, and when I got home, Casey told me she had already gone to bed. Casey said she hadn’t been in there long, so I stuck my head in just in case, but she didn’t say anything, so I went to bed alone as usual.

  About an hour later, I heard the bedroom door open, and Arden climbed into bed with me. She didn’t say anything, but she snuggled right up close to me like she was trying to keep warm. I wasn’t sure if that was it or not, so I didn’t move. I didn’t want her to leave. She always said I was warmer than an electric blanket. I could sleep completely naked with nothing but a sheet and be fine in the dead of winter, but she was always cold. I think
it had to do with the fact that she had no meat on her bones. She usually used me like her own personal heater, and that was just fine. The closer she was to me, the better.

  She completely shocked me when she started kissing the back of my neck. I almost wanted to turn the light on and make sure it was her, but I was afraid that would change her mood. I seriously thought about it, though. This was a whole one-eighty from the way she’d been acting the last few weeks, and there were two other women living in my house at the moment. Not that I thought either would do such a thing, but I hadn’t thought Arden was even speaking to me. I figured that my hands knew her body well enough to check out the situation. I rolled over and kissed her, and she kissed me back. It was her all right. I didn’t know what was going on, but I wasn’t going to spoil the moment by asking.

  After we made love, I asked if that was her way of saying she forgave me.

  She laughed. “No, that was my way of saying I’m horny—do your husbandly duties.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. I never knew what she was going to say. “What if I’d said no?”

  “Like you would have said no.”

  “OK, good point, but if I gave you sex, what are you going to give me in return?”

  “Well, I think it was an even trade.” She laughed.

  I laughed too at first, but then I was serious. “No, forget that. I want forgiveness.” She got quiet. “Arden, you know I didn’t cheat on you, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but if you ever disappear like that again, I won’t forgive you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, and I think that’s fair.”

  “You promise?” she asked.

  “Pinkie promise.” I grabbed her finger. “How are things at work?” This was something I had been wanting to know for a while.

  “You mean with Dr. Greene?” She groaned.

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” Just thinking about it made me nervous.

  “Whatever you did obviously worked, because he’s avoided me like the plague.”