A sort of buzzing sound fills my ears, making it difficult to think straight. “Liam?” I repeat. I can’t comprehend the idea of anyone looking at the golden retriever in human form and wanting to hurt him. “How?”
Janie tucks her hands between her knees and shrugs. “Hot Scoopwas going to do everything they could to ruin Liam’s career if they didn’thave something new to say about you. So I told them about one of your dates with Bonnie, and they went easy on Liam in exchange.”
I curse, thinking about all the tabloid crap Liam and Kasey had to deal with when they first got together. “That was going easy on him?”
Janie nods. “Your mom sent me one of the stories they would have posted if I didn’t cooperate. It was so bad, Derek.”
“And with Bonnie?” I ask, afraid to get an answer.
“Same thing,” Janie confirms. She’s relaxing now, probably because I don’t have anger rolling off me in waves, even if it’s boiling just beneath the surface. “As long as I gave your mom little facts about you,Hot Scoopheld back.”
That doesn’t make any sense, especially if Janie didn’t giveHot Scoopanything truly interesting. Leveraging my friends is a bold move, but Liam and Bonnie were both able to counter the attacks fromHot Scoopand come out the other side for the better.
“Cole?” I ask instead of the question I really want an answer to.What is my mother’s plan?I’m not sure I want to know.
Looking completely miserable as she slumps in her seat, Janie shrugs again and stares at the food on the coffee table. “She likes him the least. Probably because you’ve known him the longest. I don’t think anything I did helped when they were going after him. And with Princess Freya—QueenFreya,” she amends with a quick glance at me. “I think your mom wanted you to be with her, and then Elliot…”
I curse and rub my jaw as I think about the storiesHot Scoopposted about Elliot. It was the first time the tabloid didn’t treat me as a paragon, and it messed with my head. “Elliot is as much her son as I am,” I mutter. “ButHot Scoopwasn’t kind to Freya.”
Janie shakes her head, whether in agreement or because she doesn’t have a response, I’m not sure.
Sighing, I lean back in my seat and try to process all of this new information. Donovan’s still holding my hand, and she seems to sensemy growing frustration because she squeezes my fingers and leans into me, offering silent support. I don’t know my best course of action, and a large part of me would rather go back into the bedroom where my only worry was taking things slow with Donovan until we can figure out what the future might look like. That moment of waking up and seeing her beside me made me feel like I had the sun inside me, warm and bright.
But Ican’tfocus on a future with Donovan because there’s one very large obstacle in my way. One I need to remove as quickly as I can so I don’t waste any of my limited time with the woman next to me. I’m supposed to be flying back to LA this afternoon.
I turn back to Janie, meeting her wary gaze with my own. “Why didn’t youtellme?” There’s more pain in that question than I’d like, but I’m tired of masking. Tired of hiding the fact that I’m human, that I have feelings, that I’m far from perfect.
Janie’s eyes fill with tears again. “Because you already deal with so much, Derek,” she whispers. “You’re stressed as it is, and with your mom going after your friends, I couldn’t… I was trying to protect you.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I made a mistake, and I know how much you hate those.”
Guilt builds in my stomach. How much have I been pushing my issues onto the people around me? Looking at Hunter, I take a moment to study the pain in his expression before I ask, “Why didn’t you? How long have you known?”
He ducks his head. “Almost from the start,” he admits, looking up at me again. “And for the same reason. I’m sorry, Derek, but I agree with Janie, and I don’t think you would have handled this well. You get…” His eyes jump to Donovan. “You’re not always logical when it comes to the people you care about.”
I don’t know whether to be offended or accept that he might be right, even though I used to pride myself on being logical. As I learned this week, there’s a lot about my reactions to things that I can’t control, andif what my friends dealt with fromHot Scoopis the mild version of things, Hunter likely has the right idea. I didn’t react well to the paparazzi getting a glimpse of Donovan yesterday. If I had known who was behind the attacks on my friends…
I would have torn the world apart until I stoppedHollywood Hot Scooponce and for all.
With a groan, I hang my head and rub the back of my neck. My frustration with my employees has fizzled out completely, leaving me simmering with anger that has nowhere to go. “I hate this,” I admit. “I hate that you had to deal with this on your own, Janie. I hate that I don’t know how to fix it. I hate all of it.”
“Do you know why she’s doing it?” Donovan asks over me. “If she hasn’t talked to Derek in years, what does she hope to gain by attacking his friends? That’s only going to make him hate her more.”
She’s got that right.
“I don’t know,” Janie says. “She always says she’s doing what’s best for him.”
“She has an odd way of showing it,” Hunter grumbles.
Donovan scoffs. “I think we all can agree that there are a lot of things wrong with that woman.”
As they continue to talk like I’m not in the middle of them, throwing out all sorts of theories that range from ridiculous to infuriating, my thoughts run through some of the recent stories that circulated about my friends. Very few of them mentioned me by name, but when they did, it was almost always something similar.Bonnie has moved on—Derek must be heartbroken! Poor Derek has been replaced in Princess Freya’s life! Derek must be feeling so alone now that his best friend is married with a kid on the way!So many of the articles seemed determined to make my friends look like bad people. Not worth the chaos and damage they allegedly cause.
Hot Scoophas done their best to convince the world—maybe even convince me—that I’m better off without them.
Better off alone.
The laugh that bursts from my lungs silences the conversation happening around me. I feel anything but happy, but the truth of it all is so ridiculous that any other reaction would feel insufficient.
“Uh, Derek?” Donovan puts her hand on my shoulder, her eyebrows low. “Everything okay?”
