A Hot Mess

by Brandi Evans

  "I hate how everything feels so fucked up between us," he finally said.

  "Me, too."

  He took a step forward, stopped, took another step toward me, stopped again, cursed under his breath and then, finally, sat beside me on the bed. He didn't reach for me, but he did place his hand next to mine where it rested on the mattress.

  "Just so you know, Bree, I'd give up my entire fortune if I could fix this. In a heartbeat."

  Tears pressed against the backs of my eyes. I wasn't sure how to respond. Would he really give up his entire fortune for me? Part of me brushed his statement off to hyperbole, but the other part told me he was one hundred percent serious. Maybe it was the haunted shadows dulling his usually blue eyes that tried so hard to convince me.

  I inched my hand closer to his, touched the tip of my pinky against his, but I didn't take his hand. This stupid man drove me crazy, but he loved me. I no longer doubted that. At least, I didn't think I doubted it. I wasn't sure where that love left us or if it would be strong enough to hold under the onslaught I knew was coming.

  "Anyway, I was just coming in here to grab my cell phone," he said. "I'll let you get back to sleep or—"

  I shook my head. "I need to get up. I doubt I could go back to sleep, even if I wanted to."

  He nodded. "Okay. While you're in the shower, I'll order us some room service. I might not be able to manage that time machine, but I can get you some coffee. It's the least I can do."

  I nodded, and Max left me without another word—or a kiss—just one more sign that everything was screwed the fuck up.

  I missed the feel of Max against me in the shower. The water and Max's hands sliding down my body had become almost as synonymous with my morning routine as going to the gym. Knowing he was only one wall away—

  "Stop it," I said aloud. "Just stop."

  Why was it so damn easy to love Max while being mad as hell at him, too?

  I shut off the water and grabbed a towel. Max had called Mrs. Higgins the night before to pack an overnight bag for each of us, so I knew I had clothes. I just wasn't sure what until I opened the closet.

  She'd packed a simple black pantsuit with three-quarter sleeves. She'd paired the suit with a simple champagne-colored blouse. The top had a low, draping V-neck that added a splash of femininity. It lightened the ensemble without looking as if I were trying to accentuate the female form. In other words, it didn't make me look like a vixen trying to weasel her way into Max's fortune. It was perfect.

  I stepped into the kitchen as a slew of curse words flew from Max's mouth, and he hurled his cell phone at the wall. The device practically disintegrated when it met the wood beam dissecting the kitchen from the living area.

  I froze. Max had a bit of a temper, yeah, but this type of intense physical destruction wasn't commonplace. This couldn't be a good sign.

  "Max," I asked softly, "what's going on?"

  He gestured at the TV in the living room, which was turned to a news program covering my father's crimes and, by proxy, me.

  "Phillip Lancaster," an overeager financial expert was saying, "ruined lives on a massive scale and left victims around the globe. My own father fell for this man's lies, and it nearly cost him everything. My parents lost their entire life savings! And by the time the dust settled, they ended up losing their home, and my father almost lost his life in a suicide attempt. All because of Phillip Lancaster. And if even a tenth of what I'm hearing about his daughter, Janet, is true, every investor with Whitecliff International is vulnerable. According to my source, it looks like Janet has been planning her con for years."

  I hugged my arms around my middle as that angry buffoon continued, but everything he said was so close to the truth that even I was getting caught up in the lie. Every detail was shifted just to the left of reality. He detailed on my overweight adolescence. He talked about my struggle with depression and anxiety, all of which was true, but what followed was not.

  Instead of getting fit and studying jujitsu as a coping mechanism for anxiety, depression, and nightmares, he spun the fact to make it sound as if it was all part of some diabolical plan to weasel my way into Max's life. Instead of my meeting Max for the first time when I'd interviewed for the job at Red Light Lingerie, he spun the meeting as the first planned step to insert myself into Max's life. Hell, the asshat even made it sound as if my weekly jujitsu class was part of my "revenge training". Somehow, they'd even managed to get ahold of a picture of me and Max in the parking lot of Restrained Fantasies, the morning he first took me there. Out of context, the image made it look as if I were indeed trying to manipulate Max, my hands on his cheeks while he looked sad.

  "We have to get out in front of this," Max said. "I can't let what these assholes are saying about you go unchecked. We need to call a press conference this afternoon and get you in front of the media to tell your story. Let them get to know the real you. We need to show everyone you're nothing like the manipulative monster these media hacks are making you out to be."

  I was simultaneously pleased he was so poised to fight for my honor and terrified of standing before a room full of reporters. After living so much of my life out of the limelight, the idea turned my stomach.

  "I can't do that," I said. "I can still remember the camera clicks and the shouting questions from my dad's trial and—" My voice cracked, and I wrapped my arms tighter around my middle. "Please don't put me in that position again, Max. Please."

  He crossed the distance between us and took my hands in both of his. "It won't be like that, Bree. I promise. We can have it at Whitecliff. I'll have my security personnel in the room, ready to escort people out of the building. You have my word."

  "I'm scared, Max."

  "I know, but I really think it's for the best. Anyone who gets to know the real you will surely love you as much as I do."

  Love you as much as I do…

  I closed my eyes and, giving in to a moment of weakness, stepped into my lover. I rested my cheek against his chest as his arms circled me and held me.

  "Are you sure this is the best way?" I asked.

  "I am."

  "Then I'll do it."

  He kissed the top of my head. "I also want to call in Angela McCormick. She specializes in PR. She's the best there is, which is why I keep her on retainer."

  "If you think that's best, I trust your intuition." I paused before asking him the same question I'd asked him at Restrained Fantasies, what now felt like years ago. "Do you promise to keep me safe?"

  "Always."

  And despite everything, I believed him.

  "That's a lot of people. A fucking lot of people."

  I peeked through one of the thin windows near the stage entrance of Whitecliff International's largest event room. The press conference prep hadn't prepared me for this. There were hundreds of people crammed in that room, and they all wanted to know about me. Talk to me. Scream at me? Accuse me.

  Flashes from my childhood came back in a paralyzing rush. I'd been snuggled against my mother as we ascended the steps of the courthouse, the crowd's hatred for my father bleeding over onto us as if we were guilty for his deeds, not victims, too. I'd felt their hatred like venom in my veins. I'd been a frightened five-year-old, unable to understand why complete strangers hated my family so much. Why they hated me.

  I turned from the scene and looked at Max. "I can't do this. I just can't."

  "Of course, you can," Max whispered. "I have complete faith in you."

  "That makes one of us."

  "Shh." And there, in the big middle of everything, Max pulled me into him and held me against his body.

  My first instinct was to pull away. Not because I was still mad at him—everything was fucked up in the extreme—but because, after so much time in a secret relationship, adjusting to life in the light would take a while.

  "He's right," Angela McCormick said. "Just remember what we talked about, and everything will be fine."

  Max's PR person offered a friendly, almo
st motherly smile. She had black hair that was streaked with silver, and she wore a power-blue pantsuit. She'd been kind and knowledgeable as she'd coached us through what to expect. Well, more like coached me. Max was already a pro.

  We'd spent the morning strategizing. Max had kept me by his side and engaged in the planning process every step of the way, but he might as well have been asking my opinion on building a rocket ship. Still, I was glad for the effort on his part; he'd made me feel included, two people fighting together.

  "Would you like a final rundown of the immediate strategy?" Angela asked, her voice gentle without being condescending.

  "Yes, please," I answered.

  "The name of the immediate game is likability mixed with vulnerability. Be forgiving of what has happened to you. Show them you don't blame them, that you were all victims of a vindictive third party, but without naming names. Let that come later today. Make them wonder who the third party is. Plant the seed of mystery. Give them something to chew on, so when news leaks of Dubois Fashions suddenly being dissolved and its namesake sued, they'll put the pieces together. They'll remember you didn't name names, that you went high when the other party went low."

  Angela made everything sound so simple.

  "When you walk out on that stage," she added, "do it hand in hand. Be a unified front." She turned her words directly to me. "Most of all, follow Max's lead. He's a pro at this." She focused her next words directly at Max. "I'll be watching everything play out and gauging the crowd's reaction. As soon as it's over, we'll conference and see how well our strategy is working."

  "Thank you, Angela." Max held his hand out, and the other woman shook it.

  "Anytime."

  Todd stuck his head around the corner. "Mr. Penn, they're ready for you."

  Max nodded toward his executive assistant before turning to me and smoothing the sleeves of my black blazer. "You've got this, my sweet."

  "God, I hope so."

  He took one of my hands, pressed a kiss to my palm, and hand in hand, we stepped into the lion's den.

  The flash of cameras and the frantic sound of reporters' questions jumbled together, morphing into an undecipherable assault on the senses. Was it too late to back out?

  I gripped his hand tighter as we stepped behind the podium. Angela had suggested Max speak first—warming up the crowd, she'd called it. "His charismatic personality will have them eating out of his hand," she'd said, "which is exactly what we want."

  Max struck a somber tone as he began. "Each of us has a past. For better or worse, we are the product of that past. Some parts of our past, we had direct control over, and other parts, we didn't. The latter is the case for this amazing woman."

  Max turned to me and lifted our joined hands to his chest. When he spoke again, his eyes stayed locked on mine as if talking to me alone. It was part of Angela's strategy, playing up the emotional aspect; I just hadn't expected it to feel so intimate.

  "Janet Lancaster was a victim of Phillip Lancaster's lies and deception, too. Maybe more so. Many people lost their life savings because of that man, but she lost her father, emotionally speaking and then physically after her father's death. What happened to her was a tragedy, which is something so many news reports seem to ignore."

  Max drew his thumb over my cheek. The act was tender, a touch between lovers.

  "Janet Lancaster—or as I've always called her, Breanne Jennings—has been a bright spot in my life for the past four months, longer than that if I'm being honest with myself. She started out as little more than one of my countless employees, but as I got to know her, she became both my lover and my best friend." He kissed me softly, lips to lips, for the briefest of seconds then turned back to the crowd. "That's why, when I listen to many of the reports some of you have run, I can't reconcile the woman on screen and the woman at my side. I'm not sure who your exclusive source is, but I can venture an educated guess. And while I'd love nothing more than to out the name of your source and show her the same treatment she bestowed upon Bree, we're not looking for revenge. We just want to open a dialogue so you can get to know this amazing woman, so in that spirit, we're going to open up the room to questions."

  As Angela had suggested, a "sit-down area" had been set up off to the side of the podium. She'd said if we sat, it would be more inviting, a conversation as opposed to a press conference. I was just happy for a place to sit before I fell. My quads felt like Jell-O, and I didn't have leg day to blame this time.

  Max and I sat side-by-side on the loveseat—another of Angela's suggestions to play up our romance to the crowd—our legs touching and his left arm around me. My right hand came to rest naturally on his leg. I hadn't even realized the gesture until his other hand covered mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. I didn't even attempt to lie to myself; I hadn't reached for Max because of what Angela had said about playing up the romance. I needed Max; he was my touchstone.

  I gravitated even closer to him as he pointed to a female reporter wearing a dark blue dress. She looked stern and business-like but not too hostile. "So just to verify, you deny all reports that portray Ms. Lancaster as—"

  "Jennings," Max interrupted. "Please refer to her as Ms. Jennings. That's her legal name, which was changed when she was a child, after her mother made an agreement with the federal government. Bree had no input in the decision. She didn't go and change it as some ploy to get to me." He turned to me, a smile on his lips. "Unless you began planning this elaborate revenge scheme at, what, age seven?"

  "Six," I corrected, "and, no, I wasn't planning some sort of revenge. I started first grade as Breanne Jennings, and I was still trying to figure out why everyone hated my dad and why my mom had started insisting on calling me Breanne."

  I'd hoped to put a good dose of pain in the words, but I feared I'd come off frightened and weak, which wouldn't help my cause. Or maybe it would. If everyone thought me a timid deer, they'd be less likely to see me as a master criminal, right?

  Maybe.

  Max brought our joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. It was the sweetest way he could say, I'm sorry without using words, and for a brief second, I almost forgot where we were sitting. Almost.

  Max turned back to the crowd and pointed to a dark-haired man wearing a pair of black slacks and a light-blue pin-striped button-down. "Did you know about Ms. Lan—Jennings' past before becoming involved?"

  Another question for Max, and I was thankful.

  "Did I know about her past before we began our relationship? No. Did I know about it before any of these reports surfaced? Yes."

  "And you never had any qualms with what you found out about her?" the same person asked.

  "Absolutely not. The only qualm I had was trying to devise the best way to make the information known while causing Bree and her family the least level of heartache and turmoil. It looks like I failed on that end, and I can only hope she forgives me."

  I glanced at Max. Had he really been planning an outing strategy? I wasn't sure whether to be honored he'd thought enough about me and our relationship that he'd entertained the idea or annoyed because it was yet another thing he hadn't told me.

  Another reporter, another question, this one a brunette. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun. "So can we take that to mean the relationship is serious, then?" she asked.

  Max looked at me, and I looked right back at him. Was this serious? Before this all went down, I'd thought we were headed there. Then, I had thought things were on the verge of completely falling apart until Max had said he loved me, and now, I didn't know what to think.

  Loved.

  I wasn't sure where anything was headed anymore, but I found myself answering the reporter's question before realizing I'd even begun forming a response.

  "Serious is such a terrible word to describe a relationship. To describe love." My gaze never left Max's as I spoke. "Serious feels so negative, don't you think? Illnesses are serious. Car accidents are serious. Financial loss is serious. B
ut love… it's intense and passionate. It's a chemical storm of hormones in the brain. It's a force of nature. It's what's left behind after the seduction and the courtship. It's a choice to put someone else's needs above your own, no matter what. It doesn't always make logical sense, and above all, love is an all-consuming insanity." I turned my gaze to the woman who'd asked the question. "So I guess, if you want to call that serious, then yeah. This is pretty serious."

  I forced a smile. I just hoped it didn't look forced, and judging by the chuckle weaving through the crowd, I'd managed to pull it off.

  "Does that mean there will be wedding bells in the near future?" someone else asked.

  I wasn't sure of the voice's owner, but I didn't need to be. This question was a plant from Angela, and we each had a scripted response. She'd assured me it was supposed to shift the focus from my past to something the tabloids loved speculating about: when one of the world's wealthiest bachelors would be off the market for good.

  As I laughed and shook my head the way I'd been instructed, I channeled my best Will Ferrell and said, "Well, that escalated quickly."

  As predicted, my response drew a chuckle from the room.

  Right on cue, Max leaned forward as one might when adopting a conspiratorial posture. He removed the arm that had been draped over my shoulder and held his hand to his mouth as if about to whisper something. "Actually, I've penciled our wedding into my calendar for next February. Just don't tell anyone, okay? I still need to propose."

  "What?" Laughter echoed through the room as I stared at Max. That hadn't been his scripted response. Not even close.

  As he drew me in for a hug, he whispered so only I could hear. "I love you," was all he said.

  Chapter 11

  Actually, I've penciled our wedding into my calendar for next February.