by Lauren Rowe
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she screams. “I saw her smudged lipstick, Reed!”
Oh, God. I feel the ground giving way underneath my feet. Panic streaks through me. Regret. Remorse. But there’s no way around it. If she saw Isabel’s smudged lipstick, then I have to come clean. I have no choice. “Yes, I kissed her,” I admit, my stomach twisting and churning. “But, I swear, I didn’t fuck her.”
“Liar!” she shrieks.
She pushes on my chest and whizzes past me, racing past the hoods of my cars, and I follow her, my panic spiraling.
“She asked me to give her a goodbye kiss, for old time’s sake, and I did it,” I blurt, keeping step with her. “How could I say no to that? But it meant nothing to me.”
She whirls around in front of my Porsche, her eyes aflame. “I don’t believe you only kissed her as far as I can throw you. But let’s pretend you’re telling the truth, for a minute. How could you say no?” she asks, echoing me. “How could you not say no, Reed?” Tears fill her eyes. “You said it made you crazy to think of me kissing anyone else. You promised exclusivity was a two-way street, and I believed you. You said you’re not a cheater! You said that to me, and I trusted you!”
Anguish grips me. Why did I do this? Why did I fuck up the best thing that’s ever happened to me? I want to rewind the clock. Take it all back. I have to fix this. “I’m so sorry, Georgie. I admit I fucked up. But you have to believe me, I only kissed her, and it meant absolutely nothing to me. In fact, I told her—”
“Even if you ‘only’ kissed her, which I don’t believe, does that really make it okay in your book? If I secretly disappeared with someone... Let’s say Savage. He’s hot as hell. Let’s say I disappeared with Savage into your garage, in the middle of the party tonight, without telling you, and I made out with him in here until my lips were swollen and my lipstick smeared and my face bright red and my hair tousled—but it meant nothing to me!—that would be perfectly fine with you? That wouldn’t break your heart, after everything that’s happened between us this week?”
“Georgie,” I choke out, the enormity of what I’ve done slamming me. “Please, put yourself in my shoes. The example of Savage isn’t the same thing. I’ve known Isabel ten years. She’s getting married and wanted one last kiss. It was a goodbye kiss, Georgie. It’s unreasonable for you to expect me not to give her that, after ten years of knowing her, when I’ve only known you a matter of weeks.”
She looks crushed. Furious. Heartbroken. “Obviously, this past week meant a whole lot more to me than it meant to you.” She throws her hands over her face. “God, I was so stupid to let my guard down with you. I was so stupid to think this week could have meant anything to you.”
I feel like my heart is physically cracking in two. “Georgie, don’t say that. Please don’t doubt how much this past week with you has meant to me. It’s been the best week of my life. Every minute with you, Georgie—”
“Save it!” She marches away, whizzing past my cars, all the way to the back wall filled with sports equipment, which is where she whirls around to face me. “How’d you meet her, Reed?”
“Who?”
“Isabel!”
“I told you how I met her. At CeeCee’s birthday party.”
“Josh didn’t introduce you to Isabel?”
I pull a face of confusion. “No. Why are you asking—”
“Josh didn’t introduce you to Isabel at one of his parties?”
“No. I introduced Josh to Isabel at one of Josh’s parties. Why are you asking me this?”
“Because Isabel told me she met you through a mutual friend. And when I asked the name of the friend, she said Josh Faraday. She said she went to one of Josh’s parties, and he introduced her to you that night.”
My stomach is twisted into knots. My breathing is shallow. Fuck. “Isabel is mistaken,” I say. “Which is understandable, since it was ten years ago.”
Georgina throws up her hands. “Why are you both lying to me about this? It’s something so meaningless and insignificant! I don’t get it!”
“We’re not both lying. I’m telling the truth, and Isabel is simply mistaken. Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because it’s just further proof that every word out of your mouth is a fucking lie. You didn’t take Isabel into your garage, in the middle of your party, to kiss her goodbye. You fucked her goodbye. And you didn’t meet Isabel at CeeCee’s birthday party, either. I saw the photo spread in Rock ‘n’ Roll from CeeCee’s party, and in one of the shots, behind Justin Timberlake, you and Isabel were arriving together to the party. Reed, you were getting out of the limo with Isabel. Ergo, you did not ‘meet’ her at that party, as you’ve told me. You cannot meet someone you’ve arrived with. Ergo, you lied to me about that. And you’re lying to me about this.”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. “Isabel and I were on a blind date that night,” I blurt, desperation seizing me. “We hadn’t met before that night, but I’d seen her photo. She didn’t want me to pick her up at her house. So, she asked me to pick her up in the limo a mile away from the party. I think I picked her up in front of a McDonald’s. And that’s why that photo showed us arriving together. But, in my mind, when I told you I’d ‘met’ Isabel at CeeCee’s party, I was telling the truth. I mean, technically, we met a few blocks away, yes, but I wasn’t intentionally lying to you. It was just too complicated to explain the logistics. Yes, she was my date that night. Yes, we arrived together. But I swear to God, I also met her that night. I was telling you the truth about that night, Georgie. And I’m telling you the truth about tonight. I’m sorry I kissed her. I shouldn’t have done that. But, trust me, if you’d seen the way it went down, you’d understand it didn’t take anything away from the amazing week we’ve had—and the amazing summer—”
“I told you about Mr. Gates!” she screams, a sob lurching out of her. “I told you about Shawn, and you said you’re not a cheater! You said nobody is allowed to hurt me, ever again, and then you came in here and threw me away like I never mattered!”
My heart feels like it’s physically shattering. I take a step toward her, determined to convince her. To fix this mess I’ve created. “I’m sorry. I think maybe, in part, I was sabotaging myself. I think a piece of me maybe got scared of how much I’m feeling for you, Georgie. Because, I swear, I’ve never felt the way I do with you before.”
She stares at me with disdain for a very long moment, before saying, calmly, “I have one question. And I want you to answer it with complete honesty.”
My heart leaps. Is she throwing me a lifeline? If I answer this question right, will she forgive and forget that stupid kiss ever happened?
“Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
Her nostrils flare. “Did you have anything to do with me getting my internship, including but not limited to donating the money that ultimately went to me as my salary?”
Oh, fuck. “Yes. But let me explain...”
But she’s done listening to me. As quick as lightning, she grabs a golf club out of my bag and marches straight for my Bugatti, the club raised high above her head.
“Not the Bugatti!” I shout at the top of my voice. “Georgie, please! Not the Bugatti!”
To my surprise, Georgina stops mid-swing, barely missing the hood of my Bugatti, and marches to the next car in line. My yellow Ferrari. The first expensive car I bought when I started making some real money. Up Georgina’s golf club goes... and then down it comes, smashing into the Ferrari’s newly repaired right front fender.
“You told me to go Left Eye Lopes on the next guy who hurts me?” she shrieks. “Well, guess what, asshole? You’re that guy!”
As I stand to the side, watching in shocked silence, Georgina raises her club and smashes my Ferrari’s windshield. “This one’s for you, Reed!” Panting, she heads to the car’s passenger door. “And this one is for Shawn!” She brings the club down again. Next up, the passenger window. “Another one for Reed!” She walks
around to the back of the car and whacks both taillights and the bumper with her club. But this time, the name she yells breaks my fucking heart. “Mr. Gates! Mr. Gates! Mr. Gates!” From there, she marches to the driver’s door and whacks it with all her might, yet again in Mr. Gates’ name. The same thing with the driver’s side window and left front bumper. “Mr. Gates! Mr. Gates!”
And through it all, I say nothing. Do nothing. I stand back and watch, and take my punishment. It kills me to hear her scream my name along with Mr. Gates’. And worse, it shatters me to know I deserve it. Indeed, I deserve every single dent in that car. Every drop of her rage. She trusted me completely. I asked her to surrender to me, without holding back. And she did. In body, heart, and soul. And I knew it. And then, I turned around and betrayed her. What’s wrong with me? Women have been asking me that my whole life. And now I’m wondering the same thing. What’s wrong with me?
As I watch Georgie turning my three-hundred-thousand-dollar car into a pile of scrap metal and shattered glass, I feel pain and remorse and regret like nothing I’ve felt before. But I also feel two unexpected emotions, too.
One, I feel pride. I’m damned proud of Georgie for going Left Eye Lopes on me, and on all the men who’ve hurt her. As she should. Smash that Ferrari, baby. Smash it and never let anyone hurt you again.
And, two, as strange as it sounds, even as I watch Georgina decimate my Ferrari, I feel a twinge of hope. Because, even in the midst of her justifiable rage and confusion, Georgina didn’t bring her club down on my beloved Bugatti.
Yes, Georgina is heartbroken and angry and deeply confused. She doesn’t know what happened between Isabel and me in this garage tonight. She doesn’t understand how or why the money for her salary came from me. All of which isn’t good for me. Obviously. But, thanks to my Bugatti, and the fact that there’s not a scratch on it, I have reason to believe it’s not hopeless for me. Indeed, thanks to my pristine Bugatti, I have reason to believe Georgina is holding out hope I’ll eventually be able to win her back.
Chapter 34
Reed
I’m panting as I follow Georgina out of the garage and toward the house.
“Hey, Georgie!” Savage calls to her as she passes.
He’s at the ping pong table with Davey from Watch Party. And I swear to God, I’m this close to wringing his fucking neck.
“Hey there, handsome!” Georgina calls back to Savage. “I can’t wait for you to take me ATVing!”
Savage looks at me, and I shake my head, letting him know whatever they’ve planned is never going to happen.
“Let’s do dinner and drinks afterwards!” Georgie calls to Savage as she continues marching toward the house.
“Stop it, Georgie,” I whisper-shout to her. “You’re not going anywhere with Savage. Zasu is doing his interview.”
“I’m done taking orders from you, asshole. Ciao, stronzo. I’m not only going to interview Savage, I’m going to fuck him, too, and then lie to you and say I only ‘kissed him goodbye.’ But it won’t matter, right? As long as it meant nothing to me?”
She barrels into the house and, immediately, gets greeted by Kat and Hannah, who happen to be standing just inside the French doors. And the minute Kat sees Georgie’s tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes, she morphs into a grizzly bear protecting her cub.
“You’ve been crying,” Kat says, her face etched with concern. “What happened?”
“I haven’t been crying. I’m just drunk.”
“You don’t look drunk. You look devastated.” Kat’s blazing blue eyes dart to mine. “Why has she been crying?” Her eyes narrow to murderous slits. “What did you do?”
Georgina looks frantically around. “Have you seen Alessandra?”
“Not for a while.” Kat shoots me another death stare. “What happened, Reed?”
“We’ve had a disagreement.”
“A disagreement.” Georgina scoffs. She returns to Kat. “Have you seen Fish?”
As if on cue, Fish walks up, looking distraught. He shoots me a death stare that rivals Kat’s, before addressing Georgie. “Alessandra needs you. Reed told her she sucks, and that her music is bullshit, so she ran upstairs to your room to cry.”
Oh, for the love of fuck. “That’s not how it went down at all,” I blurt.
But nobody is listening to me, least of all Georgina. Indeed, suddenly, it feels like everyone around me is gathering up their pitchforks, and I’m the guy with a rather conspicuous hump on my back.
“I tried to comfort her,” Fish says, “but she said she preferred being alone, until you could come.”
“I was trying to help Alessandra,” I say lamely. “I was encouraging her.”
Fish flashes me a look that plainly says, Prick. Kat shoots me one that says, I’ve seen your version of encouragement many times, Reed. And it ain’t pretty. And Georgie doesn’t even look at me. Indeed, her skin flushed and jaw tight, Georgina marches away from me, without so much as a glance at me, through the packed party, straight to the staircase, and up the entire flight of stairs, like a woman possessed.
Of course, I clamber after her, desperate to clear my name on this one thing, at least. “I told Alessandra she’s talented!” I shout from behind Georgie, matching her every bounding step. “I told her she has great vocal control. All I said was she’s trying to be someone she’s not and—”
“I told you not to say anything to Alessandra about her demo!”
Oh, shit. That’s right. She did.
“Are you capable of keeping one promise to me?” she shouts. “Why do you even bother pretending to make promises, if you’re literally never going to keep any of them?”
“I forgot you said that. I think I was stoned? I’m sorry. I was just trying to help her, and I guess I just... forgot what you said about that. I don’t know.” I run my hand through my hair. “Georgina, if you’d just let me tell you exactly what I said to her, you’d know I was actually doing her a favor.”
But she doesn’t stop. She keeps bounding down the hallway toward her room.
“All I said was she needed to tell the truth in her art. That she shouldn’t try to mimic—”
She stops in front of her closed door and whirls around on a dime, making me nearly run into her. “You told Alessandra to ‘tell the truth’ in her art? Oh, that’s rich, seeing as how you don’t even know the meaning of the fucking word.” She turns and swings open the door to her room, and gasps at what she finds inside: her stepsister lying on the bed in tears. “Ally!” she shouts as she runs into the room, leaving me in the doorway, like a vampire who hasn’t been invited inside.
Georgina takes her beloved stepsister into her arms, while I stand watching helplessly from the doorway. After a moment, though, when she notices me, she gets up, marches to me, and slams the door in my face. And that’s when I know: all hope is lost. If Georgie were standing over my Bugatti now, holding a golf club raised above her head, she’d smash it to Kingdom Come, even more so than she did to my Ferrari. And no command or plea from me would stop her.
I place my palms flush against the closed door, my heart feeling like it’s physically bleeding onto the wood. Let me in, Georgie. Please, please, let me in.
After what feels like forever, the door swings open, making me lurch back into the hallway, and Georgie and Alessandra barge out of the room.
Georgie’s wheeling her suitcase behind her, her regal head held even higher than when she wore that ruby necklace. Alessandra’s wearing a backpack on her back, and holding the cardboard box Georgie doesn’t know I know about. The one containing the documents from Stephanie Moreland’s lawsuit, plus, God knows what else.
“Where are you going?” I choke out.
“None of your business,” Georgie tosses over her shoulder.
I follow the girls down the hallway. “Alessandra, you misunderstood me. I’m sorry if my words seemed harsh, but—”
“Don’t speak to her,” Georgie hisses. “And don’t speak to me, either. Ever again.”<
br />
Down the stairs they go, with me following behind like a stray dog.
A new “super-group” is performing onstage now, which means, thankfully, everyone at the party is crowded in the main area, blissfully dancing and cheering with their backs to us. It’s the perfect time for the girls to make a getaway, completely unnoticed. Which is exactly what they do. Indeed, they walk straight out my front door, past security, and into the cool night, without anyone noticing a damned thing.
I follow the girls, of course, talking the entire time. Explaining. Apologizing. Defending. Rationalizing. Fixing, convincing, begging. Yes, fuck it. I’m begging Georgina to stay. To listen. To forgive. It’s something I swore I’d never do with Georgina again. But now isn’t the time to be proud. Now is the time to make her understand. To fix this mess I’ve gotten myself into. To make her forgive me.
But Georgina isn’t having any of it. And Alessandra follows her lead, looking straight ahead like she can’t hear my pathetic pleas.
The girls march down my circular drive toward my iron gate, where four security guards greet us.
“Hello, Mr. Rivers,” one of the guards says. “Ladies.”
“Hello,” Georgina says brightly, her tone oozing with sex appeal. “My, you look handsome tonight, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re here to wait for our Uber,” Georgina explains.
“That’s fine.”
“Are you wearing cologne? You smell amazing.”
“It’s just soap.
“Well, whatever it is, it smells good enough to eat.”
“Georgie, that’s enough,” I say calmly. “Come inside, so I can explain—”
“No, thank you, Mr. Rivers. I think you’ve explained more than enough.”
Fuck. Begrudgingly, I shut up. If I don’t, it’s quite possible she’ll offer to suck a security guard’s dick, just to watch me commit murder and go to prison for it.
Headlights.
They’re shining on the guards’ faces. And then on the girls’. And then on mine. They’re shining in my eyes. Illuminating the blackness of my fucking soul.