Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“What is it? Did something happen to Elena?”
I gripped the steering wheel and tried to stay calm. I hadn’t looked her up since coming back and hadn’t ventured into the outside world, not even through my phone. I’d cut off all communication, and since I was using my new phone, no one else had any of getting in contact with me except Mom, who was the only other person to have the number.
I hadn’t seen the many messages she’d tried sending me before I turned my phone back on, but the anxiousness in her voice was freaking me out. “No, nothing like that. I can’t explain it over the phone; just get back here as soon as you can. It’s important.”
“Okay, I’m on my way. It’s going to take me a few hours, though.”
We hung up, and I forced myself not to go over the speed limit. Though I was miles away from the nearest town, part of my new beginning was doing things the right way no matter what. Thinking that whatever this was had something to do with Elena added to the panic in Mom’s voice and pretty much knocked all of my good intentions out of my head. “Fuck this!” I gunned it the rest of the way to the airport.
Because I didn’t want anyone to know where I was, I haven’t used my pilot since I went to see her in the hospital, and though my alias gets things done, that name doesn’t have the same power and pull as Ryder Sumner does. Hoisted by my own petard.
***
*Elena*
It took me a couple of days to feel at ease again after running from my vacation. The first thing I did was throw myself into the new project, a TV series, the first in many years since the last and a completely different genre than I was accustomed to, which helped to keep my mind off of my real life because it took all of my attention.
It was only at night, back in my apartment in the new city where I was left alone with my own thoughts, that I relived that moment of seeing him in the crowd. I might have gotten over it sooner rather than later had the tabloids not gotten ahold of it somehow with a whole ass picture that was planted on the front page of every damn Pop magazine, not to mention the Internet.
For weeks it was all people would talk about, and since his face was pretty well hidden behind the mask, there were teams of people trying to dissect the image frame by frame to prove its authenticity. He might’ve escaped, we both might’ve, with just a still image, but of course, my life can never be this simple. Someone had a video.
Of course, they did! Now it was my reaction to the stranger with the hoodie pulled up over his head and a mask on his face that was giving away the fact that it was, indeed, Ryder. This, in turn, got his crazy wife and her friends to open up a new campaign against me, and well, let’s just say that had it not been for my new job and the contract I’d signed, I’d probably have been tempted to go back into hiding.
The funny thing is, I liked this new city; I felt freer than I have in years, and though there were cameras everywhere, most of them were my fans which I’d take over the vultures any day. I was having fun and, as Sydney so succinctly phrased it, flourishing.
After the news broke about Ryder blending in with my fans to get close to me, she’d gone on the warpath, which for her means she’s been furiously writing songs. Sydney likes to have mortal combat through melody; it’s her thing. And no matter how I begged her to leave that whole thing alone, she’d had enough, according to her, and she wasn’t putting up with any more of their shit; her words.
Having friends like her and a few others in the industry who were constantly checking up on me is one of the things that has helped me stay settled this time around, and staying the heck off the Internet.
Someone in my profession should relish the amount of free press I’ve received over the years, but I’m not built that way. Being the topic of discussion on everyone’s tongue makes me sick to my stomach.
Whoever said any press is good press has never been on the receiving end of this kind of attack, or they’re just not human. It was all I could do to hold onto my sanity, especially when all the speculation had the paparazzi relocating to my safe haven in droves. Thanks a lot, Ryder; jackass.
Chapter 24
*Ryder*
“It was a setup.” I’d barely made it through the door after hours spent running around to get here, and this was Mom’s greeting.