Page 85 of Almost Perfect
“You too.”
Maybe that exemplified why my first response hadn’t been to insist on going with her. Yes, I’d traveled and seen some of the world. But my life was here. Going with her would be a step outside what I’d imagined for myself, and in this moment of crisis, I hadn’t even realized Ishouldoffer.
Exiting the library, I didn’t notice the man on the sidewalk between me and my truck until he stuck the microphone in my face.
“Wyatt Saint? What’s it like to sleep with Miss Mayhem?”
I froze, solid ice mid-stride. Normally a non-violent man, I mentally wrestled the urge to punch this man into a choke hold, then mumbled, “No comment.” My body jumpstarted and I continued walking, careful not to touch the guy or even make eye contact.
“Seriously though, man. What’s it like banging the most hated woman in America?”
“No comment.”
“What made you fall for her? Was it the money, the reputation as a matricidal maniac, or the fact that she cheated on the most beloved popstar in the world?”
Oh, this guy wanted a beating.Actually yeah, genius, he definitely wants a beating so he can sue you and get a headline.I shored up my resolve. Another ten feet to my truck and I’d be able to shut him out. “No comment.”
“Did she get you hooked on anything? Did she—”
I grabbed my door and swung it open, narrowly missing him. “No comment.”
The door slammed, and I cranked the engine. I wouldn’t peel out of here how I wanted, but I’d never wanted to get away from someone so fast.
Where did he get off asking things like that? The questions were biased and sensationalized. They were simplywrong.
The engine warmed for a minute before I carefully navigated out of my spot, leaving the man standing in the empty space next to where I’d parked, talking into his phone and staring at me.
The frantic, rushed, almost panicked feeling I got when he sent the barrage of questions at me had jolted me into a weird stress response. If I wasn’t generally a tight-lipped person, I might’ve slipped up, even just to deny or ask where he got his information. But none of that would help Calla. Having the ability to quote me in any way would only fuel the fire.
She’d handled this kind of thing constantly for years. This was likely not even a fraction of the stress and irritation she’d endured at the hands of the press. A fresh wave of admiration for her strength washed over me. I wanted to hold her. Help her. Do anything to protect her from all of this. But she didn’t need me to do that for her—she could do it herself.
Yes, she could handle it, but I wished she didn’t have to. I wished we weren’t less than twenty-four hours into this new, fragile territory between us.
And the reality of the situation—the firestorm of bad press and how directly it affected her—made a boulder settle on my chest. Apparently, that fire was going to get a lot worse before it got better. If itevergot better.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Calla
Rad Bickman’s name flashed across my phone’s screen, and just seeing those letters sent a bolt of rage through me. Rage, and an all too familiar smack of heartache, a small reminder of what all of this meant for me. Not just my publicity, the stories people were telling, butmy life.
Jenna’s eyes grew wide when I showed her. Her hand shot out and grabbed for the device. “Let me have it. I want to talk to that—”
I held it out of her reach—handy that she was petite and she had no prayer of getting it this way. “Not a chance. He’s not talking to anyone. My lawyers are on it, and they’re the only ones who are going to deal with him.”
I didn’t even want to say his name, let alone think it. Reading it was bad enough.
Rad Bickman. Manager. Controlling Jerk. Possible accessory to murder.
No, he hadn’t forced my mom to overdose, but he’d led her down the path. He hadn’t actually been the one to give my mom drugs—that’d happened on and off over the years all the way back to my teens and the modeling phase. But it ramped up when he introduced her to a man he called his best friend. Candy could never resist a charismatic, wealthy man like Chet Thandy.
And Chet apparently couldn’t resist a beautiful woman with connections to famous people, even if his friend had that already. Chet didn’t last long as a boyfriend because I’d convinced Candy that his treatment of her wasn’t okay. That conversation had kicked off the estrangement, but it’d been the deepening dependency that’d exacerbated it. I’d sent her to three different in-patient programs over the years, each one mildly successful until she fell right back in with the people who had the same old habits she’d tried to shed.
Grief clutched my heart in its fist. “It’s stupid, but all of this is making me miss her.”
Jenna circled me in her arms and squeezed me close. “I’m sorry. She could be so fun and loving.”
“She really was sometimes.”
