43. Maddie
43
MADDIE
The soft click of her bedroom door opening roused Maddie from a relatively sleepless night filled with fitful, awful dreams. She blinked, her eyes swollen and burning from the tears she’d been shedding.
Brooks stood in the doorway, his figure barely visible in the early morning light.
With a cry, Maddie leaped out of bed. A startled Naomi, who’d spent the night with her, jumped and sat. “What the hell?” Naomi grumbled.
Maddie didn’t bother to glance back, running toward Brooks. She flung her arms around his neck, and he caught her, his arms tight around her as she clung to him. A fresh wave of tears burst from her eyes, and she inhaled his scent, molding her body to him as her shoulders shook with sobs. “I was so worried,” she cried. “My God, Brooks. I was terrified.”
Brooks said nothing, but his arms crushed her, his hands stroking her back and hair, soothing her.
“Let me give you two a moment,” Naomi said in a soft voice, then slipped past them, into the hall. The door shut behind her.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt? What happened to you?” She assailed him with a thousand questions at once, searching his face.
“I’m fine. I’m fine now. It’s a long story, but I’m here, and I’m safe, and I’m so sorry.”
He’s safe.
His words filled her with regret and worry.
Something had happened. Of course it had.
Tearing up again, Maddie laid her cheek against the soft fabric of Brooks’s shirt, listening to his heartbeat. God, I missed him. This heartbeat.
So much.
I never want to be away from him.
She wiped her cheeks and pulled away, swallowing hard as she gave him a half-hearted smile. Crossing to the window, she opened it to let in some early morning sunlight. “You have some serious explaining to do, Mr. Kent. I was this close to filing a missing person report.”
“Mike—” A pained expression crossed Brooks’s face, his own eyes looking glossy.
It was all he needed to say.
Her heart constricted. “Did he threaten you? What happened?”
Brooks shook his head, then sank onto the bed, covering his face. “Well, yes, but more importantly, he threatened you. He had pictures, Maddie. Of us. Damaging ones he was going to upload to the internet. Apparently, he’s had a private investigator following us for a while.”
A chill ran through Maddie, and she hugged her arms to her chest. “What did he want?”
“What do you think?”
“Money?”
“In cash. Only place we could get the amount of cash he wanted, though, was in Vegas. And it had to be yesterday because he wouldn’t let me out of his sight until the money was in his hands. If I used my phone, called you, the police got involved, he got arrested—any of it—he said he’d have the files transferred instantly.”
“So you paid him?” Maddie gaped at him and sat beside him, her brain spinning. “Brooks, that’s extortion.”
“You think I don’t know that? He had me by the balls, Maddie. What was I supposed to do?”
“Let the damn images be released. I don’t care.” It wasn’t true, of course, but what else could she say? It was better than extortion.
Brooks gave her a sharp look. “Maybe you don’t, but I do. I love you, Madison. I’m not going to allow the world to view our private moments. I don’t want other people looking at you that way.”
“Brooks, I hear you, but all you did is open yourself up to more of this. You think Mike won’t come back again? Haven’t you said he keeps doing it? And what if other people try to do similar things? You can’t protect me by constantly paying people off.”
“I know,” Brooks said miserably. He closed his eyes, his jaw clenching hard. “I know that.”
Tense silence crept in, and Brooks stood. “Which is why this has to be over between us, Maddie. I wanted to call you as soon as Mike let me go, but we needed to talk in person. You deserve that much. And I wanted to get my guitar. I don’t care about my other things, so you can throw them out.”
What?
Maddie’s heart ripped at his words, and she stared at him in disbelief.
She didn’t know whether to be angry or devastated.
He’d tried to do this before, and now he was doing it again.
“Absolutely not.” She stood and grabbed his hand. “No. You aren’t walking out on me, Brooks. I won’t allow it. We love each other?—”
“I do love you, Maddie,” Brooks said, his voice a low growl. He cupped the sides of her face and kissed her forehead. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything, but I can’t protect you. Over the past week, you’ve been attacked and threatened in ways that made me go crazy. I chose this stupid lifestyle, and there’s no going back for me. I can’t stop being who I am. But I won’t have your life and reputation put in danger because of me.”
“So you hire security! We live in your gated community?—”
“That would mean you having to leave Brandywood. You don’t want that.”
“I . . .” She hesitated, swallowing hard.
For the past week, she’d ignored the thought. What if Brooks needed her to choose between him and her home? Her family? The place where everyone knew her, and she knew everyone?
And now, with Pops stepping back even further, her family needed her more than ever.
“I know you’re not ready for that. And you haven’t even decided about your grandfather’s business.”
“I-I’ll tell him no. That I won’t do it.”
“Do you have any idea how massively unfair that would be for me to ask something like that of you? Something you’ve barely had a chance to think about? You might hate me for it later.”
She hated him for being the voice of reason right now.
“Couldn’t we get security at a house here? Maybe build a gate?”
“Around Main Street?” He stepped back, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Or the lake, where you were attacked?”
“That wouldn’t have happened if I’d had a bodyguard with me.”
He nodded. “You’re right because I got careless. I got so comfortable being here, where no one knew how to find me at first, that I forgot I don’t get that privilege all the time. Mike implied he gained access to the lake house to put cameras in during the weekends when I wasn’t there. And your life was threatened, your grandfather was hospitalized, my niece traumatized. Enormous price to pay for my carelessness, wouldn’t you say?”
She shook her head. “Brooks, I know it won’t be easy, but I?—”
“You don’t know, though. You don’t know the half of it.” Brooks shoved his hands in his back pockets. “You have no idea what it’s like to be chased by the paparazzi in LA. To go out to dinner and be mobbed. To have the people you love threatened when they’re completely innocent. Mike pulled a gun on me. ..what if he did that to you?”
She gasped. “Mike held you at gunpoint?”
Oh my God.
Brooks could have been killed.
Brooks nodded, the strain on his face clear. “Why do you think I didn’t do more?”
He looked so tired, so sad . “I can’t show up anywhere without being photographed. My life isn’t normal. And for a few weeks, you gave me normal again, Maddie. Fall festivals and making out in storerooms and getting breakfast at Bunny’s. Family parties. Almost enough for me to forget who I am.”
Her throat thickened. What scared her more than his descriptions of his life was that she didn’t seem to be changing his mind. “Brooks, listen to me. I’ll admit that I don’t know what any of that is like, but I’d still rather live that than be apart from you.”
“You could barely look at me after what happened to your grandfather, Maddie. Hell, I could barely look you in the eye—I was so ashamed. What if something like that happens again? It’s not just you and me involved. It’s your family. Any future kids that you want. Kayla and Audrey have the unlucky position of being my family and look at what happened there. Mike has been a plague to them both. Getting him to go away this time came at a high cost.”
“So we take him on legally?—”
“He still has access to those images. If I take him on legally, he’ll release them. I got him to sign a contract saying it’s a one-time deal and that he’d stay away from you, Kayla, and Audrey in perpetuity.”
“He’ll come back. He’ll continue threatening to release them.”
“Not if he’s convinced I don’t care about you. Those images will lose their power then.”
The weight of his statement made her want to throw up. To convince Mike of that . . . Brooks would have to convince the whole world that he no longer had any interest in her.
“I’m changing my phone number after I leave. Getting rid of this one because it was hacked.”
“What do you mean? How? Didn’t you say you had a team to stop that?”
He nodded. “I did. They clearly didn’t do their job. I got a text that I thought was from you—it even went into our exchanged texts—asking me to meet you in the trailer alone. I thought you wanted a quickie, so I went. But it was Mike waiting there for me with a gun. He demanded I text you and tell you I was leaving.”
She gasped, horrified at the idea. A message from her? Mike lured her with a fake text from her? And she’d been right. Dammit, I was right. I knew it. The message from Brooks hadn’t been real, either.
“He needs to be arrested, babe. If not for what he did to you and me, for Kayla and Audrey’s sake.”
“I’m already working on security measures for them. Please don’t make this harder on us both.”
“Brooks, no.” Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she reached for him as he turned away. She rushed up behind him and clung to the back of his shirt. “No, no, no. Don’t do this. Please. I love you.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, her tears soaking through his shirt. “Please.”
“It’s over with us, Maddie,” he whispered. “It has to be. I won’t risk you. Find someone who can give you everything you deserve. I can’t give you that here in Brandywood, where you can have everything you’ve ever wanted. And you deserve everything you’ve ever wanted.”
But I want you.
He peeled her arms from his waist, a resolve in his face that frightened her. “Thank you for loving me.”
Tears clouded her vision.
How in the hell was this happening?
He was breaking up with her. Really, truly breaking up with her.
She couldn’t order him back to bed this time. Convince him to talk about it when they’d had some sleep. Nothing would change his mind.
“I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything. But I can’t protect you. I won’t have your life and reputation put in danger because of me.”
Maddie understood that from a cerebral point of view, but what about his heart? Our hearts? She wanted to rant and rave, to scream for him to stay, but his determination to protect those in his life was fierce—something she couldn’t fight against.
He’s leaving.
He came for his guitar.
He made up his mind before he came here.
She sank onto the floor, covering her eyes as he slipped out of the room, tears flowing down her face.
Why hadn’t he given her the chance to change his mind?
Yet . . . the last time he’d tried to leave, and she’d changed his mind, things had only gotten worse. As he’d been worried about.
A murmur of unintelligible voices from the living room sounded—he must be saying something to Naomi—and then she heard the door open.
He was gone.
Brooks.
The man she loved with all her heart.
The man she’d sworn would never hurt her.
He’s leaving.
She scrambled to her feet.
What am I doing? I can’t let him go like this.
Grabbing a sweatshirt, she yanked it over her pajama top and ran through the living room.
“Maddie!” Naomi called out as she went past her.
She ignored her. Hurrying down the back staircase, she went out the back door.
Brooks was on his way to the front of the building, heading toward Main Street, guitar case in hand.
Maddie ran, her bare feet stinging against the pavement. “Brooks! Brooks, stop!”
Brooks slowed as he reached the front sidewalk and turned to look over his shoulder at her.
“Brooks! Please don’t go. Please,” she called out.
She didn’t care that anyone who might be on Main Street would hear. Or see her running, barefoot, in her pajamas, with swollen eyes and tears on her face.
She didn’t care if she looked pathetic.
Brooks turned toward her, just slightly, his hand lowering the guitar case to the ground slowly. His expression was tortured, his face filled with grief.
Then a flash went off.
Two flashes.
Three.
The damn paparazzi were already waiting for him.
Whatever momentary hesitation had come over him vanished. Brooks turned and headed straight for an awaiting black sedan.
“Brooks, no,” she cried out as he climbed in, and the sedan swiftly pulled away from the curb.
Then he was gone.
Maddie sank to her knees. She covered her face with her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.
Oh, Brooks.
Please...no.
Why can’t there be any other option? This isn’t fair. He wants to be with me.
She heard more camera flashes, then strong arms enveloped her.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Naomi yelled toward the paparazzi, her arms tight around Maddie. “Out! Before I call the cops for trespassing.” She pulled Maddie against her chest, cradling her head. “Come on, sweetie, we have to get up. Get away from the bloodhounds.”
“I don’t care,” Maddie sobbed, her shoulders shaking. “He was blackmailed, Naomi. He’s leaving because he won’t risk me getting hurt.”
Why is there no other way to be together?
Naomi shielded her with her arms and body, and Maddie felt her sister’s tears splash onto her neck as she drew a shaking breath.
Thank God for Naomi.
Thank God she’s here.
Then Maddie drew a hard sniffle, desperately in need of a tissue. “We can go inside,” she managed.
“It’s over with us, Maddie. It has to be. I won’t risk you.”
Brooks wasn’t coming back.