Chapter 57
CHAPTER 57
CHARLOTTE
The city is alive around me, but I can’t take it all in. It’s like the noise is filtered through a shield. Can’t reach me, can’t touch me. I’ve been driving for the past hour. I took the Mulholland Drive that Aiden showed me and stopped at the scenic overlook.
But I couldn’t handle staying still.
So I got back in the car and drove the roads around Beverly Hills. When that didn’t work, I drove down Sunset Boulevard, all the way out toward the ocean, until it intersected with the Pacific Coast Highway.
The sun is setting outside my windshield. I can see it. Disappearing in the distance, dipping below the vast horizon. I could look at that view forever and never tire.
In my pocket, my phone rings. Once, then twice. I know who it is before I glance at it. Aiden. He’s probably home from work now and is wondering where I am.
I stop at a red light and look back out at the ocean. It’s so huge, it could swallow me whole. I could disappear out there and be no one at all. Not recognized, not seen. One wave among the masses.
My parents did not approve.
They asked if I knew what I was doing, writing this memoir. Why I hadn’t told them right away. Why I hadn’t broken the NDA.
Honey, Mom glances at Dad with a worried look on her face, you’ve been pushing yourself so hard for the past few years. Take a break.
I don’t need a break.
This doesn’t sound good. I don’t like the sound of it, not one bit. My dad, with his arms crossed over his chest and an angry concern in his eyes. The kind I’d seen so often in those first few months, years ago, when our lives turned upside down.
The media will get ahold of this when it’s published.
I’d told my dad that I don’t go by the same name. They won’t put two and two together, when no one has in the past.
Mom’s eyes flash. The media always finds out. That company doesn’t deserve an ounce of your time, and certainly not your writing! Honey, what are you doing?
Nothing I said mattered. This was a dumb decision. Again . Mom used it as an excuse to pile on the guilt about wanting me to move back to Idaho. And Dad, he asked me to read the contract in case I missed something, some loophole in the fine print. They’re both trying to get me out of Titan Media’s clutches. Again.
Dumb little Charlotte, making another dumb mistake.
It’s hard to imagine how much worse this could have gone if I’d also told them I was living with the CEO of Titan Media, not just writing a memoir in his favor.
Not to mention, sleeping with him. That the “boyfriend” they were so happy about just the day prior is the very same man. Now, they see him as someone who won’t let me out of an NDA, the villain in the story.
Anger takes the place of numbness. It seeps in slowly, and I have no way to let it go. It builds and builds until it spreads through every limb. Until I grip the wheel so hard, it hurts.
Maybe I’m not making a dumb mistake.
Maybe I’ve grown.
Because I’ve realized Aiden isn’t intimately involved with the shows the network produces. He handles big-picture things. He only became CEO two years ago, for Christ’s sake, and before that, he worked in Titan’s strategy department. He had absolutely nothing to do with my experience on The Gamble .
I drive until the anger slowly seeps out of me. I likely speed, too, a weak parallel to the jogs I like to take. Maybe that’s what I should do instead. The LA air is much cooler at night.
I arrive back at Aiden’s Bel Air home. It’s late, almost midnight when I pull into the driveway. Maybe he’s already gone to bed.
But when I open up the front door, the lights are still on. Footsteps sound across the hardwood floor.
“Charlotte.” Aiden’s hair is a mess, like he’s repeatedly dragged his hands through it. His eyebrows are drawn low. “You’ve been out?”
“Went for a drive.”
“A very long drive,” he says. “Were you safe?”
“Yes. I’m always safe.” I pass him and head into the massive kitchen to pour myself a glass of water.
“What’s happened?” he asks. There’s a cautious note to his tone, one that I’ve rarely heard before. Like he thinks I’m seconds from exploding.
That’s just ridiculous.
I’m the picture of calm.
I set the now-empty glass down on his marble countertop a bit too hard. “I got a lecture today from my parents, after telling them about the memoir.”
He grits his teeth. “They don’t approve.”
“Approve is a nice word. They’re not the kind of people to express themselves that way. But yeah, they’re questioning my sanity, which is worse.” I close my eyes against a wave of guilt that punches through my frustration. “They’re worried that I’m back to making stupid decisions.”
“You’re not,” Aiden says.
That makes me smile. “You would say that, though. Wouldn’t you?”
His eyes narrow. He’s in a pair of dark slacks and a gray T-shirt that spans his broad shoulders, and I wonder if he’s been worried. If he’s been pacing the house waiting for my return. More guilt joins the already swirling whirlpool inside me.
“Maybe I should have been there,” he says.
I throw up my hands. “Oh my god, Aiden. What would that have done?”
“They could have been mad at me, instead of you.”
“They would have been mad at us both.”
He braces his hands against the kitchen island. “Did you tell them about us?”
“God, no.” I bury my head in my hands. “Can you imagine? I totally lied about living here, too.”
There’s complete silence across the space. Then he sighs. “They’re not going to be my biggest fans, and I guess that’s only natural.”
“No.” Numbness has seeped into me again. Chased out the strong emotions, leaving me with only hopelessness. “I’ve gotten more involved than I should’ve. I’ve moved in with you. And we only have about a week left until the memoir is due… and you don’t do relationships. And I’ve never done a relationship.”
Aiden pushes off the kitchen island. “Don’t think too far ahead.”
“Too far ahead? We’re talking days!”
“Charlotte.” He reaches for me and pulls me against him. I resist. Put my hands against his chest but I don’t relax. I don’t surrender.
Not at first.
But then his warmth envelopes me. His scent is uniquely his, like soap and cologne and man. His arms around me are familiar. I relax against him and bury my face against his shoulder.
“I’ve really fucked up this whole thing from the beginning,” he mutters against my hair. “We hadn’t even met yet when I messed up the first time.”
“You didn’t. You didn’t work for Titan, then.”
“No, but I was the heir to it. I was living off the money that came from it.” His hands move down my arms, slowly up and down. “I’m trying to make amends, though. Whatever you want, sweetheart. Do you want me to cancel the show?”
I lean back and just stare at him. “What?”
“I’ll happily do it, if you want.”
“That’s crazy, Aiden. That show employs hundreds of people.” I push away from him and try to find my breath again. “It’s not the show itself, it’s… it’s the way the shows are produced. It’s so exploitative.
“I have the deepest respect for reality television, I really do. Especially for the people who share their real lives for entertainment. But it’s never on equal footing. The producers will massage and twist a story during editing until ‘you,’ the actual real-life person starring on the show, no longer exists. And ‘you’ don’t have a say in any of it.”
“Charlotte,” he says, his face drawn tight. “I’m sorry.”
I wrap my arms around my chest. “I saw a few of the contestants in bad situations. Too drunk, hyperventilating, sleep-deprived. There were panic attacks, and no therapists around, or trained professionals to help with that sort of thing. Not to mention consent… That whole thing…”
He nods. “Changes need to be made to the production.”
“Yes. They’re young people, mined for content. If they’re okay with that, great! They’re adults. But just, you know… have some guardrails in place. Can you do that?” Hot wetness streaks down my cheeks, and I brush it away. “Damn it. I’m not sad. I’m just… feeling a lot right now.”
Aiden takes another step closer. “Can I hold you again? I understand if you don’t want me near you right now.”
“It’s not your fault.” I shake my head slowly, and now, I’m crying harder. I didn’t even know I was sad. But now that my tears have started, I can’t seem to make them stop. “I tried and tried to hold on to my grudge against you because of the show, but I always knew you weren’t the one directly responsible.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay if you hate me forever.”
“It’s not. Because I don’t, and never did. You aren’t to blame for what happened back then.” I take a deep breath and say the thing I’ve come to be most afraid of. “But it was safer to hold on to my bitterness than to face that I was falling for you.”