Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
At the begging, pleading tone, at the fear and panic in her glazed eyes … my heart crashed in my chest.
It scared her I believed Harriet Blume.
What the fuck?
For a moment, I wanted to be angry, but gazing at the woman I loved in distress, I took a few calming breaths and thought about why she’d think that.
And decided … why wouldn’t she think that? After the way I’d treated her in the past.
I could see it clear as day in front of me.
The damage I’d done. It hadn’t just magically disappeared because I told her I loved her.
I strode across the room, and her eyes widened before I pulled her into my arms and kissed the top of her head, holding her so bloody tight. “My love, I know. I know,” I assured her.
Her trembling body melted and she sobbed against me.
Fuck!
“I know, I know,” I kept whispering. “I know you’d never do that. Come on, Sunset. It’s all right. You’re killing me here.” My voice cracked as emotion thickened my throat.
Her hands clutched at my jacket, pulling on it hard as she tried to soothe her cries. “I’m sorry,” she managed through tears. “I’m sorry for thinking … for thinking you wouldn’t believe me.”
I rested my cheek on top of her head. “I’m sorry for giving you reason to doubt me.”
She shifted as if to pull back, so I lifted my head. She tilted her chin. “I won’t again. I … I love you, Brodan. Since I was twelve years old, I have been in love with you.”
Relief and joy cut through my darker emotions, and I kissed her. I kissed her as if that one kiss might keep her with me forever. “I love you too,” I whispered against her now swollen lips.
“I know who told her.”
That made me jerk back from her. “Who?”
Anger lit her eyes, but there was also the shadow of fear there. That just made me want to kill someone. Turning, she reached for a piece of card on the coffee table and handed it to me. “This was posted through the letter box. No stamp. It was hand delivered.”
I took the card.
Handwritten across it were the words:
Enjoy the fame, bitch. That’s what you get for sending thugs to my door.
Understanding dawned. Steven Shaw.
“I’m going to destroy the bastard,” I growled slowly.
“Brodan, no.” Monroe yanked the card out of my hand, expression mulish. “I told him things when we were together. Before I realized he was a prick. I told him I knew you, that we grew up together, that I loved you. I didn’t tell him everything, but I told him enough. At the time, I honestly didn’t think he believed me. But when you sent him that message after the Christmas card—”
“He realized it was all true.” My eyes flew to the window. “He must have been watching us, Roe. He took those photos.”
“And sold the story to Harriet.”
Furious, I glowered at her. “And you want me to just sit by and let him get away with it?”
She gestured with the card. “Look what antagonizing him did. He’s a sociopath, Brodan. Giving him attention is what he feeds off. We just need to ignore him.”
“Ignore him? Everyone and their uncle knows about us, Roe.”
“Wouldn’t it have come out, eventually?”
“Aye, of course. But in a way I could somewhat control.”
“It’s done.” She dropped the card on the table and pressed her hands to my chest. “I don’t want to give him or her any more of our time.” Roe’s expression softened with amazement. “We love each other, Brodan. It took us over two decades to get here. I don’t want anything to ruin that.”
For her, I tried to let my anger go. I enclosed her in my arms again. “All right.”
She sighed with relief and burrowed her head against my chest.
Then I remembered the receptionist at her school. “The school said you went home because you were sick?”
Roe pulled back, expression sheepish. “I found out in the staff room about the articles and the video … I got so panicked, I threw up.”
“Fuck.” My rage returned.
“Brodan. Please. I’m okay.”
I clasped her face in my hands. “We trust each other now, right? Going forward … nothing but love and trust.”
She nodded, happiness cutting through the shadows in her eyes. “Nothing but love and trust.”
35
Monroe
Steven and Harriet Blume outing Brodan and me meant I finally got a taste of what Brodan’s life was like. When he called to speak to his publicist, Annie, he put her on speaker and introduced us. Annie was a bit surprised to hear I was Brodan’s girlfriend, but she moved past it with blunt professionalism. She insisted that if Brodan wanted to take back some control from the tabloids, then he should post to his social media. It was apparently harder to get readers to follow the clickbait if celebrities were already posting their personal lives to socials.