Brandon’s gaze met mine. “I know it’s a big ask.”
I nodded. But then again… “It’s not so different from what I was asking of you.”
He gave me a pale imitation of his normal smile. “Will you do it? Not forever, obviously. Just… just until I can figure out how to tell my mother and my friends the truth. I need to tell them before I tell the world.”
I hesitated.
“Please, Lila.”
I swallowed thickly at the sight of his pleading eyes. This guy—this honest-to-God nice guy needed me. No one ever needed me, or if they did, they didn’t come to me for help. They didn’t seek me out to solve their problems.
But Brandon did.
I knew Jack was getting close, and everything in me wanted to say no. To say to hell with Hollywood and my father and my old life. But Brandon was watching me. Waiting. He was hoping for me to be kind and selfless.
He might’ve been an idiot for expecting me to be selfless, but a sweet idiot.
I nodded. I couldn’t quite force the words out, but apparently, the nod was enough because relief flooded his features and he started to back away. His eyes caught on someone over my shoulder, and a flicker of emotions passed over his features, replacing that temporary relief.
Hurt, anger, maybe even fear. “Don’t tell Jack,” he said suddenly, his voice sharper than it had been.
“But—”
Brandon’s eyes cut back to mine, and his glare was intense. “Please, Lila. Don’t tell him.”
I shook my head, not sure if he meant about him being gay or about his decision to leave, but either way he was so insistent I had to agree. “I won’t. But why?”
“I can’t trust him,” Brandon said. “I can’t trust any of them.”
“What do you—”
But he was already gone, heading back toward the exit and disappearing just as Jack reached my side. “Where’d Brandon go?”
“I, uh…”
But he seemed to forget the question instantly, his gaze raking over me as he gave me that lopsided smile that made my chest ache and my belly do flip-flops. “You look beautiful, Lila.”
Oh God, so did he. Beautiful might not have been the right word for it, but his mussed dark hair was neat, and his suit, while not tailored or designer, made him look older. Mature. He looked like a man and not a teenage boy.
Which… maybe he was. He’d be eighteen this year, as would I. We would be honest-to-God grown-ups, so I supposed it was fitting that for the first time in my life, I’d made a grown-up choice. A mature choice. I’d made a decision that, for once, wasn’t about me.
Hooray?
I’d made the right choice, I knew that. So, why did it hurt so bad?
I met his gaze and held it, drowning in the emotions there and letting myself dream for one more moment that maybe things could be different. That I could be different.
That this could be real.
But neither of us were kids anymore. I couldn’t go on acting like one, living in a fairytale world where I could start over and live someone else’s life.
I had a life, and it was back in L.A. With Tess and my father… and now Brandon. The reality of my situation hit me like a punch in the gut. Just like that, the magic of the night was replaced by a cold certainty as my feet landed back on the ground.
“He left,” I said, my voice coming out quiet and sad. I could do what I had to do, but that didn’t mean I had to be happy about it. I met his gaze. “I have to go too.”
His gorgeous smile faded fast. “What?”
“I have to go,” I said again, firmer this time. More words threatened to come out. Explanations, justifications. His friend needed me. My friend needed me. For once, I’d do the right thing, the responsible thing.
I drank in one last, long gaze, trying to tell him all the things I couldn’t say.
I was doing this for him in a way. Or at least because of him. He made me want to be better, to be different.
Well, what was more different than for Delilah Devereaux to do something selfless for once, right?
I let out a long breath that was part sigh and part humorless laughter. For once in my life, I was trying to do the right thing by thinking about someone other than myself, and yet I was still going to hurt people. One person. I was going to hurt Jack.
My heart broke in two at the thought.
“Stay,” Jack said. His voice was quiet but firm, and underneath it all, there was the tiniest hint of pleading.
I steeled myself against tears as I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
He took a step toward me, but I backed away, and once my feet started moving, I didn’t stop. I saw him reach for me, and I opened my mouth to say… what? I’m sorry? I love you?
No. I couldn’t say any of that. The L-word scared the crap out of me, and I wasn’t sure that I was sorry about this decision. It was the right thing to do. It sucked, and it made me want to scream, but it was the right thing to do. The longer I stood here, the better the chance that I’d change my mind, that I’d let him pull me into his arms and kiss me senseless. The longer I stood here staring into those dark, brooding eyes, the weaker I’d become.
“Lila,” he started.
I turned and ran.
It wasn’t until I was back in my car that I stopped to breathe.
Okay, fine. I cried. Just a little. I’d never been big on tears, and this was so not the time to start turning into some weeping ninny over a guy I’d likely never see again.
That thought did nothing to squelch the tears running down my cheeks. I turned on the car. I had bags to pack and arrangements to make.
Daddy would need to know that he’d gotten his way.
Again.
Like always.
Brandon MacMillan was coming home, and I’d be at his side.
A little while later, I was home and packing. Tess seemed to get that I didn’t want to talk. Or maybe she was just too busy to pry as she went about making arrangements for the three of us to be on the next flight out of this hellhole.
A hellhole I was going to miss like crazy.
I pressed my lips together as that maudlin thought crept through my icy demeanor. Thoughts of Jack, of what might have been, kept sneaking in despite my best efforts to distract myself with packing.
I was tossing the contents of my closet into my suitcase when my phone dinged on top of the dresser. I went to pick it up but froze in the act as I glanced down at the screen.
It was a text message from a local number that I didn’t recognize.
It was a photo.
Oh my God.
It was Brandon… and he wasn’t alone. The lighting was dark, but there was no mistaking the image—Brandon and his friend Ryan. They were making out in the backseat of a car.
I slapped a hand over my mouth. Who would take this picture? Who would send it to me?
“Hey, Dee, do you have an extra carry-on I can—” Tess stopped talking as she entered my bedroom. “Are you all right? What is it?”
She came to stand next to me and looked over my shoulder.
Her curse was a hiss in my ears.
I knew she wasn’t cursing because he was gay. She wasn’t some close-minded bigot. No, she knew like I did that whoever had sent this had an ulterior motive.
Worse, they had leverage.
“I will kill her,” Tess muttered to herself.
I snapped my head to the side to stare at Tess. “Her?” I repeated. Suspicion bloomed into a sick feeling as Tess clamped her mouth shut. “You know who sent this.”
She didn’t deny or confirm, she just glared down at my phone. I could practically see the wheels turning. Tess was in full-on scheming mode.
Sometimes, that scared me, but today it only pissed me off. “Who is it?”
She glanced up at me like she’d forgotten I was there. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. The photo was followed up by another text. “Have fun in L.A. with your new boyfriend. Before you g
o, we should talk.” It was the sign off that made me gasp. “XOXO, Amber.”
“Amber?” I said looking up at Tess. “Amber?!”
She had the good grace to wince.
“You knew,” I said.
She held her hands up in defense. “You knew Daddy had his sources too. Who did you think it was?”
I opened my mouth and only a strangled sound came out. I hadn’t thought it was someone I knew. I hadn’t realized it could be one of his friends. “I thought it was an intern back in L.A. or maybe at his office in New York,” I said.
I sounded ridiculous even to myself. I took a deep breath and replayed this past month, starting from that very first night.
The night when Amber had conveniently spilled the contents of my purse and outed me as Delilah Devereaux. Anger replaced shock so quickly it left me breathless. She’d done that on purpose, but why? “What was her role?” I asked, struggling to mask my indignation and speak rationally.
Tess wasn’t fooled. She let out a sigh and threw her hands up. “I thought he’d just sent someone here to dig for information.” Her eyes widened at my look of disbelief. “Honestly, that’s what Daddy told me.”
At my glare, she shrugged, a flicker of pity in her eyes. “You didn’t really think Daddy would put all of his trust in you to get this done, did you?”
I knew by her tone that she wasn’t trying to be mean, but the words still stung anyway. I guess I had thought that he’d put his faith in me. I’d thought this was my shot to prove myself worthy.
But despite all his words of encouragement when he’d first sent me here, he hadn’t believed I could get it done. “He sent backup,” I said.
Tess nodded.
“Then why was she working against me?” Other moments came back to me, not least of which all the many times I’d seen her cozying up to Brandon. I’d thought the girl was desperate—hopelessly in love. But she’d been playing him. She’d been playing me.
Hell, she’d had us all fooled.
“If Daddy sent her to help us convince Brandon to come back, then why would she out me on my first day here?” I held up my phone. “And why would she send me this?”
Tess shook her head, but I saw her mind working. “Maybe…” She pinched her lips together as if rethinking whatever she’d been about to say.
“Maybe what?”
She took a deep breath. “Maybe he made the same deal with her that he did with you.”
I stared at her for a moment. Would my father do that?
No.
Maybe.
Oh hell. Yes. Yes, he totally would.
“Or,” she said slowly. “He hired her to get some dirt on her former friend, and she tried to get more out of the bargain.”
“Like a ticket out of Podunk,” I finished for her.
“Precisely.” She tilted her head to the side. “Either are possible. I wouldn’t put anything past Daddy, and Amber is clearly not to be underestimated.” She nodded toward my phone where the image still glared back at us.
“You don’t think she’d really out one of her oldest friends, do you?” I asked.
Tess stared at me, and her look was unnerving. I shifted a bit. No one ever applauded naiveté in our family. “Okay, fine. Maybe she would. But I doubt that’s her plan.”
“So, then, what do you think her plan is?” Tess asked. She crossed her arms and faced me, and I swore for a moment there, she looked like a proud mama, or maybe a particularly invested teacher.
“Blackmail?” I suggested.
Tess gave a short nod. “Most likely.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked.
Tess’s lips quirked up in a little smile at the ‘we’ comment, and then she did the unexpected—she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. Kind of like she really was my big sister. Half-sister. Ugh, whatever.
“We deal with it,” Tess said. “This chick doesn’t have anything on the Devereaux girls.”
“I thought we were the Baker sisters,” I reminded her.
She shrugged. “Same difference.”
Some of my tension eased a bit at her confidence that we’d handle Amber.
“First things first,” Tess continued. “We need to get Brandon back to L.A.”
I nodded and then glanced at my phone. “And Amber?”
Tess heaved a weary sigh. “The girl is obviously motivated. But she won’t blow her one and only piece of leverage without making demands first.”
I nodded because that made sense, but I was also watching Tess with a new sort of admiration. I always knew she was smart, but this was the first time I’d heard her talk strategy and game plans that hadn’t been crafted by our father, and it obviously came naturally to her.
A daughter after my father’s heart.
It made me wonder what else she had planned.
But Tess was right, one thing at a time. And right now? I had a flight to pack for and a new boyfriend to take home and meet Daddy.
God help us all.
It wasn’t until the next day that I heard from Jack again. Honestly, I hadn’t expected to hear from him at all. When it dinged while we waited at the airport, I tensed, thinking it would be from Amber. I shifted away from Brandon who sat in the seat beside me and read the message. One thing was clear—Jack had found out that we were leaving.
All of us.
Jack: Take care of him.
My fingers hovered over the screen as I debated what to type back. There were so many things I wanted to say. So many explanations to give and secrets to divulge. But they weren’t my secrets, and in the end, it didn’t change anything. Instead, I settled for a promise. It was the best I could do.
Me: I will.
And I would. That was the only thing I knew. Whatever Amber was up to, whatever my dad had planned—I’d look out for Brandon. I’d keep him from getting hurt in the town that had destroyed his father and ruined his family.
My father might’ve been powerful, but he had one fatal flaw. He underestimated me. He always had. That was how I knew for certain that if push came to shove and I had to go to war with my father?
I’d win.
Thank you for reading! To see what happens next for Lila, Jack, and the rest of the Pinedale crew, be sure to grab the next book in the series, Princess of Hollywood
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About the Author
MAGGIE DALLEN writes romantic comedies in a range of genres including young adult, historical, contemporary, and fantasy. An unapologetic addict of all things romance, she loves to connect with fellow avid readers. Subscribe to her historical newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dgUNif or her contemporary newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bFEVsL
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All-American Princess (The Glitterati Files Book 1) Page 14
