I know I’m reading into this too much. I feel like I’ve been dropped into a trashy reality show with some sinister surprise waiting, but I can’t stop.
I have to make this right.
The sooner I see Brady, the faster I stop plummeting to the bottom.
“See you soon,” I say numbly, ending the call.
I just hope there’s some privacy when I can finally talk to Brady.
By the time I blink, my phone’s flashing with the call disconnected and that big black SUV is waiting in front of me.
Corbin steps out to grab my suitcase and open the door, kindly waiting like I’m Cinderella, ready to spirit me away to my moody, doomed prince.
XXIV
A Hungry Dog
(Brady)
The worst damn day of my life is also the loudest.
My phone won’t stop ringing off the hook. There must be at least ten frothing-mad voicemails from Dad I haven’t played.
No need. I know they’ll be nothing but awestruck horror and panicked demands. Plus, cursing me out every way he’s ever learned in his long, demanding life.
Too bad I can’t write it off as his usual bullshit.
He’s right to be fire-breathing pissed.
I’ve ruined his name. My name. The family name. Hell, the Pruitt brand.
After this, we’ll probably need a damn animal mascot, if the PR team doesn’t just advise us to ghost media entirely.
I’m sure Dad’s spitting demands are brutally simple.
Damage control. Break it off with Lena immediately, then get in front of a screen and tell the world how much she disgusts me.
Like I said, brutally simple—except for the part where I throw the woman I love under the goddamned bus, knowing she’s a victim.
Alec Pruitt will never understand that Lena never asked for any of this shit.
Every drama freak eviscerating her online makes me want to break my phone again.
What my father and the rest of the world don’t get is that if I go against her, it validates every flippant jackass who’s ever sent her a nastygram or talked her up like she’s a porn star.
I won’t fucking do that.
I won’t betray her.
And I also won’t stand by without defending my brand and my girl the best way I see fit.
I haven’t bothered looking at a single notification on my phone. For my sanity, they’re muted, even though I know they’re chirping like mad.
Thousands of chattering bees hell bent on making my business theirs because their own lives are so unremarkable. Maybe because so many of those lives have issues that make our drama look easy, and they just want to feel better about themselves for two seconds by laughing at someone else’s nightmare.
I’m starting to appreciate how time slows to a crawl as your army of haters grows.
Right now, the whole world feels stalled on a knife’s edge while our spectators hold their collective breath, waiting for their next hit of excitement.
