Page 200 of My Real Love Affair

The familiar rage bubbled up. Years of being controlled, dismissed, told I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, responsible enough to make my own choices. Every argument we’d ever had seemed to converge in this moment.

Before I could lose my shit, my dad looked at Cash, then me before strolling out of the study. We were officially dismissed.

Cash and I walked out together in tense silence.

“That went well,” I said sarcastically.

“Could have been worse.” Cash stopped by his car, turning to face me. “Austin, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest.”

“What?”

“You love her, don’t you?”

I could deflect, make a joke, keep my walls up like I always did. He deserved the truth, though.

“Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”

Cash let out a long breath, running his hand through his hair. “Then brace yourself. This is going to get really fucking messy.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” He looked at me seriously. “Summer’s going to come at you with everything. She’ll twist the truth, manipulate the narrative, make you look like a villain. And Melody’s going to be caught in the crossfire. The media will dig into her past, her family, her business. They’ll analyze every photo, every post, every moment you’ve shared together.”

“I can handle it.”

“Can Melody?”

That was the real question, wasn’t it? I could take the heat. I’d been dealing with negative press my entire life. But Melody? She’d just barely recovered from one scandal. Could she survive another?

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I have to give her the choice.”

Cash nodded slowly. “Okay. Good luck.”

He drove off, leaving me standing in the driveway of my father’s estate, my mind racing. Shit was about to get complicated.

CHAPTER 62

MELODY

Iwas curled up on my couch in my favorite oversized sleep shirt and soft pajama pants, a mug of chamomile tea cooling in my hands. The TV played some mindless show I wasn’t really watching. My mind was too full, spinning with contracts and screenshots and Summer’s calculated smile and Austin’s face this morning when he’d left.

The envelope was still in my desk drawer. I’d looked at it three more times since getting back from the tapas bar, trying to reconcile what Summer had told me with what I knew about Austin. I thought about what he told me about his family. I knew things were strained between them. He told me some of the things that had been done in the past, but would they really do this? Did they convince him to get back together with me just for show?

My heart and brain were in an all-out war. I tried to think back through every moment we shared, searching for cracks in the facade. Any hint that he’d been performing rather than feeling.

But I couldn’t find them.

The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention? That wasn’t acting. The tenderness in his touch whenhe massaged my feet last night, the protectiveness when he pulled me close in crowds, and those random sexy smiles? Those were real.

I knew Austin wasn’t perfect. He had baggage and family drama and a history of making impulsive decisions. But he’d been honest with me from the start about all of it. He’d laid out the fake dating arrangement plainly, given me an out multiple times, never pressured me into anything I wasn’t comfortable with.

And when things shifted between us, I had felt it. I felt it in his kisses and the way he made love to me. He was a generous lover to begin with, but the way he held me and took care of me felt real.

No one was that good of an actor. Not even a Bancroft.

I thought about this morning, the confusion and concern on his face when he sensed something was wrong. If he’d been playing me this whole time, wouldn’t he have been relieved I was pulling away? Wouldn’t that make his job easier?

I sipped my tea and thought about texting Austin. It was kind of weird to be sitting alone. After the week in Tahiti and then the few days apart and then back together again, I definitely liked having him with me. Even if we were doing nothing more than watching TV. I missed him, which was ridiculous. I was a strong, independent woman. I had never lived with a man. Being alone was part of who I was.