Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dove
It took a great force of will to unfold myself from Deacon’s arms in the morning. Waking up next to him was a new kind of bliss. I awoke to a beautiful sunrise as I hastily donned my work boots and grabbed an iced coffee from the fridge, leaving Deacon to sleep in as I dashed off to start work for the day. I skipped up the hill toward Mom’s house to grab my radio, humming an old Lucky Role tune as I went.
But when I wandered up the front porch into the kitchen and saw my family anxiously gathered, whispering frantically to each other, I knew ready or not, the blissful bubble had burst.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Whoa!” Finch exclaimed, holding her arms out wide and preventing me from seeing the newspaper behind her.
I tried to peer around her to the kitchen island, and she lifted on her toes, raising her arms like a basketball player guarding me. “What are you doing?”
“Softening the blow,” she replied with a grimace.
“Oh god, what happened?” I skirted around her and shot forward to see a cluster of newspapers and laptops and phones all strewn across the marble . . . all of them with photos of me.
Photos of us —Deacon and me.
On the beach, the red carpet, the zoo, stolen looks and glances between us that were meant to be used to promote the conservation trust but instead were twisted and morphed to make it look like dates. And the way I looked at him . . . it was so obvious I was completely in love with him, meanwhile every single photo, he was looking away, split-second moments that made it look like a completely different situation than it actually was—as if I were a deranged fangirl and Deacon a cold, detached heartthrob.
The first headline read, “Deacon Harrow Caught Cheating on Girlfriend Ivy Blanc with Zookeeper.”
“What the hell is this?” I screeched, grabbing Mom’s phone and flicking through more images. “Did you Google alert my name? Oh my god, there are hundreds of articles! Why would they print this?”
Horrified, I scrolled through more headlines:
“Bad Boy Deacon Harrow Caught in Another Cheating Scandal.”
“Deacon Says He was Manipulated into an Affair. Is He Being Blackmailed?”
“Hope for the Normal Girls, Even Zookeepers Can Snag Movie Stars. Take this Test to see if your Star Sign is Ready for True Love.”
“Meet the Other Woman: Everything You Need to Know About the Zookeeper Deacon is Keeping on the Down-low from Ivy.”
“Deacon’s Secret Baby with Zookeeper. Ten Baby Names for Deacon and Dove’s Future Brood.”
“It’s not true,” I spluttered, looking between my siblings and Mom. “He and Ivy were never even a thing. Oh my god.” I kept scrolling, seeing all these op-eds about me.
“ Who is Deacon Harrow’s New Mistress?”
“Mistress?” I balked. “They didn’t even get my name right! Who the fuck is Duck Loblin?”
“This one says you’re thirty-seven.” Wren showed me her phone. “They’re calling you a cougar.”
“Not helping, Wren,” Finch said, pulling Wren back behind her.
“It’s all lies,” I insisted, searching through the article. “People can’t seriously believe this. It will go away, won’t it?”
“Dove.” Hawk scrubbed a weary hand down his face. “We’ve decided we need to hire a security team for everyone’s safety.”
“What?” I glared at them. “On the island? On the off-season? That’s ridiculous. This is just?—”
“These are only the headlines,” Hawk started. “You’ve been getting a lot of hate from these articles, too, and you’ve seen what fans of Deacon are like. They hired a private yacht to camp out at the zoo in hopes of seeing him for crying out loud!”
“They were only there for a couple days and then they gave up,” I pushed, folding my arms tightly to keep my limbs from shaking. I tried to put on a brave face, but I could feel the entire world crumbling around me.
“It’s not just jealous teens, hon,” Mom added gently, her whole face creased in pity. “It’s?—”
“Death threats,” Wren finished.
“What?!” I yelped, feeling like my soul left my body. This was my fault. I’d brought this upon my family. A terrible question echoed in my mind: what have I done?
“Not helping, Wren,” Finch gritted out, tucking Wren behind her again. “We’re supposed to be breaking this to her gently, guys.”
“Death threats?” I asked, horrified. “But those are just keyboard warriors online. That’s not . . . not a real concern. Is it?”
“We’ve had a couple calls from the shoreline police station.” Hawk sighed. “They know where you live because you live where you work and where you work is in every headline in every major news site today.”
“Not the kind of publicity the zoo was hoping for,” Mom said, trying to make it sound like a joke, but it was more like a groan.
“It makes you a target,” Hawk continued. “Some of these things sound credible, and I’m not taking a risk with my family.”
“This is crazy.” I shook my head. “We have electric fences and cameras at every entrance and . . . What is even happening right now?”
“This is what happens when you date one of the most famous men in Hollywood,” Finch said with a shrug. “But we’ll figure it out, Dovey. It will be okay.”
“This is too much,” I whispered, eyes pricking with tears. “I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t do this to all of you.”
Wren gasped at her phone. “Oh my god.”
“Whatever you’ve just seen, Wren, we don’t need to know about it,” Finch grumbled. Wren showed her phone to Finch. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” she exclaimed.
“What?” My heart thundered in my chest as Wren showed her phone to Hawk.
“He fucked a Madigan?” Hawk shouted.
“What?!” I screamed, lurching forward and grabbing the phone from Wren’s grip.
On it was grainy footage of a couple on the beach, the title reading: “ Does Deacon Harrow Have a Type? Old Footage of Deacon Harrow Kissing Lynx Madigan Surfaces Amid Latest Cheating Drama .”
I watched the clip all the way through twice, tears welling in my eyes before my mother gently extracted the phone from my grip.
“Honey, I?—”
“Don’t,” I said, voice wobbling.
Mom’s phone buzzed and she picked up. “Kirby? You okay? I thought you were still in Greece.” Mom looked at me. “Yeah, she’s seen it.” Her eyes flared. “They’ve been trying to reach you at the Salty Dog? Why? There’s no story there.”
“Oh my god.” I dropped my elbows onto the countertop, head in my hands as Finch circled her palm down my back in calming strokes.
“Kirby,” Mom continued. “Petey’s calling me. I’ve got to go. Okay. Bye.” She switched lines. “Petey, hi. Yes. She’s seen it. How did they get your number? What?” Mom exclaimed, covering the speaker and looking at Hawk. “Someone is trying to hire Petey to drive them around the island and take photos of us.”
“What did he say?”
“I normally wouldn’t repeat what he said,” Mom hedged. “But since this is kind of an emergency, he said, ‘Get fucked.’”
“Well done,” Finch said with a huff.
“They are offering him a lot of money for any stories he might have on Dove, too.”
“They’re probably calling every person I’ve ever known in my entire life right now.” I groaned. “I don’t understand why this happened all at once. I thought he had a team that dealt with this stuff. Why now?”
“I have no idea,” Finch said. “But it’s going to be okay, Dove. We’ve been through worse.”
“Worse than this?” I shouted, unable to contain my panic. “We can’t—we can’t—I won’t put you all through this. I won’t put you in danger. This is insane. I . . .”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Hawk suggested, taking me by the elbow. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”
“I can’t do this,” I said again, voice breaking as I burst into panicked tears.
“Somebody needs to call Deacon,” Mom urged.
“This is all that bastard’s fault,” Hawk growled. “He pulled Dove into this and threw her to the fucking wolves. He?—”
The door opened before Hawk could finish that thought and Deacon rushed in. “I’m here.”