Forced to Love_Blackmailing the Billionaire Series

by Tasha Fawkes

  I believed him, which was good since I felt downright murderous at the moment and he was the closest person to me. While I felt betrayed about Martin and Lori's affair, that no longer affected me the way it would have when I still thought I loved Lori. The real betrayal was Martin and Lori's colluding together to send Brin away. It was a good thing Martin had disappeared, which was likely why he had. Even if he'd broken every ounce of trust I'd ever put in him, the bastard still knew me better than anyone.

  I focused on pulling in my rage. It wouldn't serve me well today, especially since Lori was coming by soon. I wanted to let her have it, to make her rue the day she ever thought to mess with my life, but what would be the point? Lori was Lori. She wasn't going to change, and even if she did, I wanted her out of my life for good. Besides, I had something else to figure out.

  There was a glimmer of hope now. Brin hadn't left of her own accord, or if she had, it was because of something false that Martin had told her. I had to get to her somehow, had to show her how I felt. I wouldn't survive if I didn't at least try.

  I pushed those thoughts down for now.

  I cleared my throat and addressed Russell. "Lori's going to be here soon. You might want to get out of here."

  "You don't need to tell me twice."

  Russell cleared out of the room, leaving me alone with my rage. While I waited, I retrieved my phone from the floor and tried Brin's number again. It would be a miracle if she'd somehow unblocked me, which was why I wasn't surprised to find that wasn't the case. I didn't have any other way to get a hold of her and I cursed myself for not getting an email address or even a mailing address. How was I supposed to get my words in front of her?

  Lori knocked on the door, and I texted Russell quickly, asking him to stop by my room in ten minutes with his laptop. Then I swallowed my anger and answered the door.

  "How did it go?" Russell stepped into the room, his laptop bag slung over his back.

  I let out a bitter chuckle and closed the door behind him. I thought about how Lori had shown up in an outfit that was obviously meant to seduce, and the moment she realized we weren't on the same page how her face had crashed. I thought about the screaming, the crying, the begging—all from her, of course. I found the whole show to be a bit too theatrical, considering she'd heartlessly lopped me off like a piece of hair with gum in it only a few weeks before.

  "It went. She denied everything, of course, but I kicked her to the curb anyway. We're done. For good now."

  Russell dropped his bag onto one of the chairs and started unloading his laptop onto the table.

  "What if she was telling the truth though? I mean, if Martin already lied to you, who's to say he wouldn't lie about Lori's involvement? Maybe she didn't know anything about Brin's disappearance?"

  I hadn't considered that. The whole thing seemed so right up Lori's alley that the thought that I shouldn't doubt her never crossed my mind. With Brin, I'd spent a whole damn week in denial that she would leave without saying anything, even though all the evidence suggested that that was the way things had happened and my own logic told me I deserved it.

  Nevertheless, the plot had Lori’s stench all over it.

  "She was involved." I sank down into the chair opposite Russell and rubbed my forehead. "She's always been a horrible liar. It wouldn't have mattered though—I was going to end things with her already. The past week with her has been nothing but a lie. We were over a long time ago."

  "Fair enough." He booted up his laptop. "So, what do you need?"

  "Can you pull up the footage from the first day of shooting? The kiss on the beach?"

  Russell tapped on his laptop for a couple of seconds and then turned the screen to me. "This?"

  The video played out, both of us relaxing on the sand and then Brin pouncing on me with a look of glee and wonder in her eyes. I'd replayed this video dozens of times since she left, to the point where I'd memorized each sweeping lash that brushed her cheek when she closed her eyes and sank into the kiss. My heart gave a wet thump.

  "That's the one," I said. "Do you have a camera with you?"

  "Sure." Russell rooted around in his bag and produced a small video camera, placing it on the table next to his laptop. "I gotta ask, what exactly are you going to do?"

  "Good question." I snorted. "All I know is that I've got to find some way to tell Brin that what we had was real."

  Twenty-One

  Brin

  My bedroom door squeaked open and Kim's face, topped by her massive bun, popped through. "Hey, I'm gonna head out now. You're out of paper towels."

  I dropped my pen onto the notebook in my lap, frowning at her.

  “I told you not to clean."

  I expected her to make some churlish comment, but her expression flickered with indecisiveness. She had something to say that had nothing to do with paper towels.

  I sighed and chuckled. "Just say whatever you want to say."

  Kim smiled guiltily and entered the room, slinking over to my bed and sitting down on the edge of it. She picked up my notebook and looked at it approvingly.

  "You're doing school work," she noted.

  "I've been doing school work all week. I'm ahead of where I'm supposed to be now."

  She nodded and dropped the book back in my lap. "I guess I just wanted to check in with you. You've been pretty quiet this week, and I'm having trouble gauging where you're at emotionally."

  Fair enough. I'd been hiding in my room most of the time since I got home from the trip, but at least the past few days had been more congruous to a healthy and happy life. Catching up on my school work was a great way to distract myself from my feelings, and from the realization that I was going to have to go back to dancing next week.

  "I'm good, Kim. I really am. I mean..." I grimaced. "That Chad and Lori thing. That was a bummer for sure, and I won't pretend like I'm not hurt, but there's no point in dwelling on it, right?"

  "Right." She nodded.

  I changed the topic as deftly as I could. "I just can't believe I have to go back to work next week. Bummer of the century."

  Kim rubbed my back. "You could take more time off if you need."

  "No, no," I quickly assured. "I don't mean it like that. I just mean that the trip put a few things in perspective for me, and one of them is that I need to work on getting myself out of there. For all his faults, Chad found his passion and pursued it—even when the people closest to him were hoping that he'd fail. I want to find that for myself. I've got a new appreciation for what I want my life to be, and all I want to do is get out there and explore the world."

  "You will. For now, at least dancing pays the bills."

  I chuckled. "That it does."

  Kim slapped her knee. "I should be hitting the road. You sure you're good?"

  "Better than good."

  I tried on a smile that I hoped would seem as enthusiastic as I didn't feel. It must've worked because Kim left me to my school work without further issue.

  As soon as I heard the front door slam, a craving that had been sleeping most of the day woke up and began gnawing on my stomach with a vengeance. I tried to ignore it, wrinkled my forehead in concentration and everything, but it persisted like a bad cold.

  I knew I would give in in the end. I always gave in. So why fight it?

  I fought it, I reminded myself, because I knew that I should. Because I knew that it was the right thing for my sanity and that I'd never be able to get over Chad if I didn't let him go fully.

  Still, I found myself giving a longing look to the laptop at the end of the bed. And, like an addict seeking their fix, I snatched it up.

  Chad's YouTube channel had become my obsession. My addiction. No matter how much I told myself that it was wrong, how much I reminded myself that it would only make this longer overall, I couldn't stop torturing myself. Part of it was a morbid curiosity about what he and his new/old girlfriend were up to. Part of it was because the comments were like free therapy sessions.

  C
had's fans hated Lori. On their most recent video, in which Chad was just as dead-eyed as he'd been in the one before, enough people had commented asking where I was that somebody had photoshopped my face and the words "missing persons" onto a picture of a milk carton and made it into a meme. Everyone had some sort of theory for my disappearance, and they ranged from realistic to hilariously outrageous. The general consensus, whatever the case, was that Lori was a cow and Chad had made a mistake getting back together with her.

  I scrolled through these comments for half an hour, smiling like a nut job the entire time. It only hurt when I stopped to think about the permanence of my dismissal, so I didn't stop to think. I just read and enjoyed, delighting in the creative insults the fans concocted for their numero uno persona non grata.

  It was a cruel and spiteful way to spend my days, and it probably blackened my soul a little bit each time, but in a way it made me feel better. At least that was what the addict side of myself reasoned. During these moments, it didn't matter that as soon as I closed the page, I'd feel like a hollowed out pumpkin, viciously scraped from the inside. For a few minutes I got retribution, and it tasted like heaven.

  My phone trilled beside me, and I jumped. I'd been hiding this dark side of myself from Kim, and I half expected it to be her calling, having somehow figured out what I was doing. It was a number I didn't recognize with a New York area code. Strange.

  "Hello?" I answered.

  "Hello, my name is Ted Branson from Kleingarden Model Management. Is this Brianne Reed?”

  My jaw dropped. "Uh, yes, this is."

  "Hello, Ms. Reed. Have you heard of our firm?”

  Heard of it? It was only one of the biggest modeling agencies on the east coast.

  I answered with a cool, “ I think so.”

  “That’s great news. I wanted to speak to you regarding a potential offer of representation at our firm. Would you have time for a video conference sometime next week?”

  All the heat drained from my face and I could have sworn my heart stopped beating. “Is this some sort of practical joke?”

  Ted chuckled. “I can assure you it’s not. You've gotten a lot of attention recently from your work with Chad Harlan, and we think you have a great look. We'd love to take you on and see what we can do with that."

  I was speechless—so much so, that Ted had to prompt me for an answer a moment later.

  "Ms. Reed?"

  "I'm so sorry!" I sputtered. "I just—what I mean is—yes! I absolutely have time next week."

  We arranged a time for our conference, and I gave him my email so he could send me more details. Ted wished me a good day, and I hung up the phone, still not entirely sure that what had happened was real.

  I pinched myself. Hard. It hurt like hell, which I took to mean that I was currently living in reality and that, in fact, a modeling agency had just called to speak to me about representation. My heart was racing so fast that I thought I might keel over and die, which would be just my luck. Finally, breakthrough in the modeling industry only to fall over dead before my first interview.

  I was so awestruck that at first, I didn't notice that the page had refreshed and Chad's channel was showing a new video. When I did notice, I furrowed my brow in confusion and, with a shaking hand, clicked the play button on the untitled video.

  The video loaded and began to play. Surprisingly, there was no music, no intro, just Chad's face in front of a plain white background. He was staring right at the camera, bereft of his usual carefree grin.

  "Hey guys," he began. "This is going to be my last video for a while. Maybe even forever." He ground his teeth and looked down for a moment like he was gathering the words in his palms. When he looked back up, the sincerity in his eyes startled me. "Many of you have noticed that there's been a lot of change going on in my life right now. Many of you have also shared your feelings about these changes, and the result has been interesting for sure. It's not always easy to make the right decision in life, especially when things are so..." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Fucked up, for lack of a better word. I've always prided myself on living a life with no regrets, so much so that I think somewhere along the line I forgot how much regret can hurt. I've got one regret right now that's just killing me, and I'll never forgive myself if I don't say this one thing."

  As he spoke the next words, it felt like he was staring right through the camera into my soul. I knew he couldn't see me, and that he'd probably recorded this hours ago, but at that moment I felt a connection to him that defied all logic.

  "Brin," he said, voice laden with emotion. "I need you to know that what we had was real."

  The image cut to footage of Chad and I on the beach. I recognized it as our first day, right after we'd been snorkeling. I'd never seen this video before, and I hadn't realized Martin was even filming at this point. We looked so happy, chatting and laughing with each other while the sun melted into the horizon.

  My eyes misted with tears. I knew what came next.

  On-screen Brin threw all inhibitions to the wind and kissed Chad. I'd had my eyes closed at the time so couldn't see his face, but the video captured his expression of surprise perfectly. His eyes flared open for less than a second, body stiffening like he didn't know what he was supposed to do. Then he relaxed, and his eyes closed tight as he pulled me against him and made the kiss his own.

  The memory made my chest flutter. It was such a perfect moment, one that even the shitstorm that followed couldn't spoil the memory of. I could still feel his strong arms around me, the heat of his mouth against mine and the way he held me like if he didn't, I'd float off into the universe.

  The video ended.

  I sucked in a breath and fell back against the pillows, mind reeling. What did this mean? What was he trying to say? My thoughts spun mercilessly around my skull, and I was so overwhelmed that I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

  I needed to see him. Even if it was just goodbye, I needed to see him. But how the hell was I supposed to do that?

  My phone rang. I held it up to my face and stared at the caller ID suspiciously. Not a New York number, but not a familiar one either. Who the hell was it going to be now? I considered not answering it, based on the fact that I'd just received a mindfuck of a video message and needed to process, but the curiosity ultimately got to me in the end.

  "Hello?" I answered.

  "Did you see the video?"

  I scowled. This was a voice I never expected to hear again. Never wanted to hear again.

  "Yeah. I just saw it. What do you want?"

  Silence from the other end, and then, "We need to talk."

  Twenty-Two

  Chad

  I curled my toes, sand tickling my bare feet. I anchored my hands in the sand the same way, arms stretched behind me and knees bent in front of me in a position that looked more relaxed than I felt. I wasn't sure what I felt, at this point. A lot of things, and yet nothing all at once.

  The sun was hot on my face. It painted the beach and everything on it, including me, a warm orange that lent the landscape an otherworldly quality. There was nobody around, though it was far from quiet. Gulls swooped for their dinner not too far from shore. The waves gurgled and sighed. The breeze whistled past my ears. It was the perfect place to lose myself for my last evening in Hawaii. It had also, once, been the perfect place to find something in myself I hadn't realized existed.

  I thought about what Brin told me the last time I was here. We were sitting almost in this exact spot, at almost this exact time. I understood it now—the spectacle of life, the thrill of existing. Though the time we'd been together had been brief, it was wondrous. Just like this sunset. A thrill that wouldn't last but maybe was more beautiful because of it. Then again, I thought bitterly, the sun would rise again. I doubted Brin and I ever would. It was easier to tell myself that we were more beautiful because of our short time than admit the truth—I'd really lost something when I lost Brin. Something I might never find again.

 
; I wondered if she would see the video and if she did whether it would make a difference. She probably hated me for jumping right back in with Lori the moment she was gone. I hated myself too. The situation was complicated, almost as complicated as my feelings had been. My feelings were crystal clear to me now, but I had a sinking suspicion it was too late. I thought she might send a message to me or something and had been anxiously sifting through every single DM and email I received. There was lots of reaction from the video but nothing from Brin. The sun had gone down on us.

  I watched the last of the golden orb disappear, leaving only its glow behind. I sighed, knowing I couldn't stay here much longer. I had a flight to catch in the morning. After that, I didn't have anything planned. Whether I went back to making videos or not was up in the air, and depended on more than just finding a new cameraman.

  I sat up, rubbing my hands together to shake off the sand, then rose to my feet and turned away from the golden band of light and toward the unknown.

  There was someone else on the beach with me.

  I squinted in the low light, picking up the figure of a woman as she walked toward me, hair blowing back in the breeze. At first, I worried it would be Lori, come to try to win me back again. I didn't dare hope that it was Brin, even as she got closer and I started to see her features. The wind blew her cotton dress flat against her body, showing off her ample curves and making my heart jump in my chest like I'd been hit with an electric shock.

  I thought I might crumple into a heap on the sand.

  "Hi," Brin said, stopping in front of me.

  Her bright hazel eyes, greener now than usual, winked with the last remnants of sunlight. She'd never looked more beautiful.

  "Hi." I opened my mouth to say more, but the words wouldn't come. All I could think to say was, "How—? What are you doing here?"

  She chuckled and tangled her fingers in her hair, pulling it over her shoulder. "Martin, if you can believe it. Though I think Russell had a hand in it too."