31. Laney
I wake the following morning to the ringing of my phone.
I’m back in my own bed in the trailer, and I feel around for my cell. I locate it and check the screen. Cade’s name flashes up.
“Hey,” I answer, half sitting and brushing my tangled mess of hair out of my face. “What’s up?”
“Have you been online?” he asks.
“What? No. You just woke me.”
“I tried to think of a way to protect you from it, but the truth is there isn’t one.”
My stomach drops. “Protect me from what?” As so often is the case, the first thing my mind jumps to is Smith and his men. “Have they been found? Are they being brought home?”
His confusion is clear in his tone. “What? No, Laney. It’s not that. It’s you and Reed.”
Fuck .
My heart clenches, the air in my lungs freezing.
I don’t even tell Cade to hang on, I just pull up a social media site and search Reed’s name.
Sure enough, there’s a picture of Reed bending me over the car.
The angle of the shot means no intimate part of either of us is exposed, but it’s obvious what we’re doing.
“Oh, God.”
With the photograph is the headline: Reed Riviera in intimate cinch with barely of-age stepdaughter. Accompanying it is the by-line: What really happened in the wilderness?
“No, no, no,” I mutter.
I pull up a different site.
Did Reed Riviera groom his underage stepdaughter?
It’s exactly what we feared.
I put the phone back to my ear. “Where is Reed? Is he okay?”
“What do you think, Laney? What the fuck were you two playing at?”
There is nothing I can say to make this better. “I… We weren’t thinking…”
“I can see that. The pair of you have ruined everything. We’ll never recover from this.”
“ We’ll never recover? Your name isn’t even mentioned, Cade. Mine is, and Reed of course, and Darius for being Reed’s son, but not yours. You’re nothing!”
I speak out of anger and self-defense, but he didn’t deserve that.
“I’m so—” I start, but the line is already dead. Cade has gone. Will he ever want to speak to me again? Tears stream down my cheeks. I wish I could go back and change what we did last night, but it’s impossible. What’s done is done.
Someone would have found out eventually. Were we supposed to keep our relationship a secret forever? No, it wasn’t supposed to be forever, just until the media storm surrounding the plane crash went down, and I hadn’t even been able to do that.
I think of something and go to my window. I crack open the drapes and peer out. My breath catches. Sure enough, several strange vehicles are parked outside. People I don’t recognize hang out beside the cars and vans. A couple have large professional cameras hanging around their necks.
Shit. Reporters.
Fresh tears fill my eyes. I’m too hot and my heart beats fast. I swallow down a wave of sickness. What am I going to do? I can’t hide out in the trailer forever, but the moment I try to step outside, the reporters are going to swamp me.
It was one thing having to deal with them when they only wanted to talk about the crash and how we survived, but this is something else entirely.
What am I supposed to say?
I can hardly deny there is anything between us considering they have photographic proof.
Should I stand up for Reed and tell the press that nothing happened between us until after I’d turned eighteen?
Would they believe me? Or is it something a groomed victim would say?
I have no idea. But does staying silent make him look worse?
For the moment, I can’t face doing anything. I want to climb back into bed and pull the covers over my head. I can’t deal with this. It’s all too much.
What about Reed? This is going to be a hell of a lot worse for him.
Does he hate me now? Does he regret ever getting involved with me?
He must rue the day he received the phone call to say my mother had died and he was my only living relative.
They’re making him out to be a weirdo, a pervert, even a child abuser.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
If Reed hates me, then Darius and Cade are going to utterly despise me. I’ll have singlehandedly destroyed their father.
Would it be better or worse if the whole world knew I’d been sleeping with Cade and Dax, too?
I don’t know what to do. One thing I do know is I won’t be stepping outside of the trailer door anytime soon.
Instead, I do what I’d planned and climb back into bed. I pull the covers over my head. I still have my cell phone clutched in my hands. I will for a message or a call from any of them, but my phone taunts me with its silence.
Despite my better judgment, I torment myself by going back through all the social media articles.
There are so many, it’s overwhelming. All the stories have a similar theme and wording.
It’s as though one member of the paparazzi has gotten hold of the information and sold it to anyone who’ll take it.
Then I make the mistake of reading the comments.
Why does the stepfather get all the blame? I bet she’s just a whore who’ll spread her legs for anyone.
Little slut. Bet she screwed her two brothers as well.
That someone has guessed the truth punches me in the gut.
Bet the stepfather is a pedo. Should be stoned to death IMO.
Dirty old man. Needs locking away
I’ll never listen to Darius Riviera again. I bet he’s as bad as his father!
I’m shaking all over, my hands trembling. This is awful—so much worse than anything I’d imagined.
All I can do is hide away. My appearance to the press will only stir up more of a media frenzy. If I hide for long enough, maybe everyone will forget about this.
It’s early, but I need a drink. I have a bottle of vodka under the sink.
I’ve watched my mother destroy herself with drink and drugs and her bad choices of men, and for the first time in my life I understand how she felt.
It’s what I want to do now—destroy myself.
I don’t deserve any happiness or kindness in my life.
I’m just that girl with her legs spread on the beach while a man who hated her fucked her.
I’m the girl on the bed with a gun pushed inside her.
I’m disgusting, repulsive.
I ruin people. I ruin lives.
Getting out of bed, I find the bottle of vodka, unscrew the cap, and take a swig.
It burns down my throat, and I grimace. I suck in a sharp breath and drink some more.
I keep drinking, seeking oblivion. It doesn’t help my sadness, though, and I continue to cry.
I drink again. I don’t care that it’s first thing in the morning and I haven’t even had breakfast yet.
I’ve lost everything.
I glance up at the urn containing my mother’s ashes still sitting on my shelf, and stagger to my feet and lift it down. Then I sit back on the floor, hugging what remains of my mother.
The mother I’d railed against all my life, but who I’m more like than I’d ever known.