by A. B. Wilson
“I’ve been working with Candace and a few others to get to the bottom of the stories flying around the media. Doing interviews and digging up retractions.” I stumbled to a stop as his eyebrows climbed his forehead.
“What? Why?” he asked in clear disbelief. “I’ve been working with my team on this too and I think we’re close to filing suit on a number of these outlets. Alina, I want you to know how sorry—”
“Markus, that’s your team, not mine. I needed to take this on myself,” I interrupted quietly.
“Okay, I get that, but why wouldn’t you tell me?” he asked. “Can we talk about us for a second? I screwed up and—”
I didn’t want him to finish, wasn’t ready to talk about his feelings. He may have figured out where he’d screwed up, but he certainly wasn’t listening to me or taking me seriously when I talked about how I had to be in charge of my own efforts to combat the press. He couldn’t always protect me.
“Markus, I’m not talking about us right now—I’m not ready to make up or talk things out. And I don’t think you are either. I wanted to share with you that I’ve been working with people to address the stories on my own. I don’t need you—or your team—to constantly jump in and try to save the day.”
He was stunned and sat there with glazed eyes, licking his dry lips over and over. “Okay, I understand.”
“I don’t know if you do,” I said gently. “Your constant efforts to protect me and get me to rely solely on you broke me. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but you went from one codependent, fucked-up relationship to another without doing any emotional labor. Come find me when you’ve done that and maybe we can talk.”
He stood up, still in a daze. “Is that it?” I nodded. Our conversation had taken all of ten minutes.
His face crumpled as he turned to leave. “Well, thanks for meeting with me and explaining in person.”
“See you on set,” I offered, not ready to commit to anything more with this man. The only way we’d be talking again about an ‘us’ was if he did some work on his own to fix his shit.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Markus
I hadn’t been completely sober in weeks, not since the day Alina had disappeared from my life. Somehow I’d been able to work—at least I waited until the evening to start drinking. My team and I were doing as much as we thought was possible to take down the false narrative, but it had taken meeting with Alina and having her call me out to finally break me from my spiral of self-pity. That evening, I called a therapist I’d hadn’t seen since I first moved to L.A. and scheduled out a month’s worth of appointments.
When People and InTouch Weekly finally brought forward their ‘exclusives’ with Alina and others to set the record straight, the public responded in a mad frenzy. Suddenly she was back in control of her life, while I was still wallowing in the muck of my own. I was working on better coping methods for my anxiety and new strategies for dealing with stress, but I still had a ways to go. I’d let my codependent nature warp me into a distrustful, closed-off person who had brought everyone down with me.
My brother’s peppy ‘Kool and the Gang’ ringtone blaring out of my phone ripped me from another night of regret-fueled dreams a few mornings later.
“Ja, Matti?” I groaned as I answered the phone.
“No, fuckface, your other brother who you invited for a visit and is sitting at your front door. Come let me in.”
“I invited you for a visit? When?”
“Not relevant, big brother. Now let me in before I kick down the door.”
The little shit hung up on me.
“Markus!” Matti’s muffled yell and loud thumps against my front door drove me out of bed in a mad scramble, and I almost ate shit completely trying to hurdle the stairs to yank open the door before the housekeeper lost her mind and finally quit on me.
“Brother.” I stepped aside as he tore into my house.
“Ah, brother. Got a beer?” He nodded genteelly after the uproar.
I led him into my kitchen, where I glanced at the clock and saw that it was eleven o’clock in the morning. Whatever. I shrugged internally. I’d been living under airport rules for drinking for a while now and it was a day off for me. We cracked our beers and flopped down onto the couches in the adjoining living room.
“So to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You forgot that you invited me? I mean, I knew you were messed up over Alina, but how did you forget that you asked me to come out?”
“Maybe you forgot that I’ve been slightly busy lately, being stuck in middle of a publicity nightmare?”
“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, Markus. That’s a lame excuse. She’s gone and it’s your fault. You’ve been sulking and drunk, but it’s all on you.” He glared at me, daring me to contradict him. “For the record, you invited me a week ago. When I called you upset that I was being traded from Leverkeusen to a club in England.”
“What? You got traded?”
“Oh, so we’re not even going to talk about your elephant in the room. Let’s talk about mine, right? Totally fair.”
“Matti.”
“Markus.”
A staredown commenced until, finally, he blinked.
“Seriously though. Traded? What happened?”
Matti smiled grimly. “Exactly what you always warned me about. Management got sick of fielding calls from women saying they were having my baby. Oh, and one of those women might have been the niece of the owner, which I didn’t know when I hooked up with her.”
“Matti, Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
He sighed. “Me too, man. Me too. I really fucked up. Mother is pissed as shit, tore me a new asshole and told me I need to grow up. Dad basically told me I shouldn’t plan on coming home until I’ve grown up and learned how to treat women like people, not objects.”
“When do you have to report to the new club? Which one is it?”
“Monday, three days from now, in case you were wondering what day it is, you lush. I’m off to Chelsea.”
I winced. That team was mid-to-lower-Premier League. A huge step down. “How bad was it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s leave it at it was bad and that I’ve been advised by my lawyers that I’m lucky no one is suing me. It’s probably for the best though, you know? I need to do better and I’ve been a complete tool.”
“Shit, Matti. I don’t know what to say—maybe it’s true, but I wish it hadn’t happened this way.”
“Me either. Let’s talk about something better. I’m getting another beer. Looks like we’re both thirsty today.”
I didn’t want to tell him that I’d been all too ‘thirsty’ lately, and simply waited for him to return with the beer. “Thanks, Matti.”
“No problem. So, saw the covers of those celeb magazines. How’d you pull that off?”
“What? Me? I did nothing, Alina and her friends did all of it.”
“Really? And how are you two?”
“Not speaking at the moment, other than when we have to at work. It’s okay though, I don’t think I’m ready to, and I’ve been working with a therapist to learn how to manage my issues. Until I’ve fixed myself, I can’t go back to her. She deserves more.”
“Good for both of you, but I still can’t believe you fucked that up. You two seemed so solid in Berlin.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m working through it.”
“Markus, I think you need to—with more than a therapist. Your family is here for you, whether you want us to be or not,” he said gently. “Tell me, what happened?”
“Me. I happened.”
“Don’t be fucking dramatic, jackass. What happened?”
“I screwed up, badly. Tried to wrap her up in cotton wool to protect her, not support her or lift her up, worked it so she was overly reliant on me and then dropped the ball big-time when the shit hit the fan. Told her she was being ridiculous and bitched her out for hooking up with a guy before we
even met to hurt me.” The last was nearly whispered.
“You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did. Like I said, I fucked it up. Big time.”
“I promise not to tell Mother or Ella,” he said solemnly after a moment’s pause.
“Thanks.” My laugh sounded like a creaky door.
“Anyways. What are you going to do about it? I mean, you love her, right?”
I sighed again. “Yeah, I do. More than I ever would have thought possible. She’s—I don’t know how to say it. Central to me? Like gravity or some other force of nature. Like breathing.”
I dropped my head to my hands and finally admitted the truth. “The shit of it is, I knew the minute I saw her that she was it. But I denied and denied, we barely talked about our status beyond casual—even though I knew we both knew it was more. She deserves someone who will fight for her, and I stood back and let her walk away when the press came in and turned up the pressure.”
“Markus, I’ve never heard you say anything like this before, and god knows I’ve never felt anything like what you’re talking about. What are you going to do to try to win her back?”
“She won’t answer my calls, respond to texts. I’ve stopped though—I’m trying to respect her space while I work on myself. I think I’m ready, or at least much closer, to doing that now. To be the right person for her.”
“You’re still a fucking moron and you need to stop being such a pussy. I hope you’re planning something big.”
“What? Why? If I could get her to listen, I could easily explain—”
“Markus, Jesus. How are you this stupid? She’s a woman, the love of your life, who you’ve royally fucked over. There’s no reason for her to listen to you. So what are you going to do to fight for her? How will you show her you’ve changed?”
Ah. The old deeds-versus-words distinction. I was an idiot.
“Truthfully? I have no idea. Got any suggestions?”
Matti rubbed his hands in glee. “Oh yes, I might have a few. But first, tell me. Does she have any single friends?”
* * * *
“All right, gorgeous. See you this afternoon!” My brother grinned as he tucked his phone back into his pocket and gestured for me to stop pacing and sit down. “She’s in. I’m picking her up at three and we’re getting coffee. If all goes according to plan, we’ll meet you at the observatory around five. Cool? And stop biting your nails, man. It’s unbecoming.”
I nodded and slid into the chair opposite him. My bouncing leg immediately started shaking the end table.
“You really think this is the best idea?” I asked.
“Well, good idea or not, she’s in and it’s happening. So you better be bringing your A-game, big guy. You’ll need it.”
My little brother was a force of nature with all of his plans and schemes, but step one had worked. Well, actually step one-point-five, since step one had really been to get her to answer the phone and stay on long enough to convince her to meet him for coffee.
“Okay, Matti, okay. We’re doing this your way, but if it backfires, I’m stealing your first paycheck.”
“Bah, fuck you, Markus. She loves you. You love her. Both of you said some things that you shouldn’t and she freaked out about dating an uber-celebrity.” He shrugged with his arms spread wide. “It’s all understandable. That pressure from the media blew everything out of proportion—but it can’t hurt you guys anymore. It’s up to the two of you to make this work. If you want to, that is.”
“You know I do, more than anything.” I blew out a stressed breath and tried to channel my inner light. Or whatever the fuck my useless meditation app called it.
“Then stop whining and go get yourself ready to win back the woman of your dreams. Get a haircut and a manicure while you’re at it. You look like death.”
I lurched up and tackled Matti, holding him down while I poked him repeatedly between the eyes. “I. Am. A. Fucking. International. Sex. Symbol. I will never look less than gorgeous.”
He twisted and flipped me onto my back. “You. Look. Like. Shit. Take. A. Shower.” He was howling by the end as I punched him in the kidneys till he rolled off me.
“Thank you, Matti, for coming here and kicking my ass,” I finally got out when I could breathe again.
“And for being your co-conspirator, right?”
“Obviously. I owe you big, little brother. Huge.”
“Ah, yes, yes you do. And if Alina decides that she’d rather run off with me than meet you at the observatory, I promise that I’ll invite you to our wedding.”
“Bastard!” I gave him another punch in the gut for being an annoying little prick and leaped to my feet. Matti’s groans of pain were the sweetest soundtrack for my escape.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Alina
“Candace. I have a serious code red. Call me!” I don’t know why I bothered leaving a message.
When the unfamiliar German number had showed up on my phone on my day off, I’d answered out of instinct—I was finally ready to talk to Markus, but it wasn’t him. Apparently his baby brother was in town and wanted to meet up. Something about someone wanting him to read for a part and he wanted to talk about it with me?
And now Candace wasn’t answering or returning my calls. I needed perspective. Quickly. As well as a makeover from her so Matti would tell Markus that I looked gorgeous and was doing fine without him, which he already knew since we worked together, but—
Stop, you love him. Admit it.
Candace: Sorry, on set. Can’t talk now. What’s up?
Me: I may have agreed to meet up with Markus’s little brother. He’s in town and called. I answered.
Candace: WHAT? WHY
Me: Because… I don’t know. Are you busy around lunchtime? I need a makeover.
Candace: I’ll be free, but need to be on set. Come here, and we’ll get you ready. K?
Me: Thanks. I’m losing my shit.
Candace: Same, girl, same.
I was struck by a weird sense of déjà vu as I drove onto the lot, like nothing and everything had changed since my first day in L.A. on a real set. Even Candace was the same, bouncing around like a caffeinated jumping bean as she waited for me at the gates.
“Oh my god. Get over here. I only have—what? An hour to work some magic so you can turn Markus’ brother’s head and he can then tell Markus that you’re doing fine and he’ll come groveling?”
She was too good, and I rolled my eyes at her. “Obviously.”
“Are you going to—dare I say it—take him back?” She was full-on harpy screeching and people were staring. I grabbed her by the arm as we hustled down a hallway.
“No. I don’t know. He’s stopped leaving me messages, texting, everything. But it’s so him, right? Besides, you’ve heard the rumors. Apparently he’s out every night, partying like he’s a frat boy on spring break.”
“And…you’re meeting his brother why?”
“Because. When Matti called it was like a massive kick in the ass. Markus Fucking Shellenberg didn’t break me. I need to prove that. To him and to me.”
She scoffed. “Oh, Alina. Stop lying to yourself. If he hasn’t realized that over the last few weeks working together, then he’s seriously not worth it. But you’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
My eyes overflowed with tears out of nowhere. “Yeah, I am,” I answered softly. “He was so imperfectly perfect—for me. I’m still so pissed at him, but I don’t think our relationship ever had a chance with the media pressure and neither of us being ready for it. The feelings were the only thing that were real, but everything was built on trembling fault lines.”
Candace sat me down in a makeup chair and smiled at me in the mirror. “I know. Everyone could see it on set. It was like watching a chemical reaction. Every time you were in a room together, nothing else mattered but the two of you. It was so obvious.”
I sighed as she started to mess with my hair and dabbed a bunch of cream on my face. “I can�
��t believe we thought we were getting away with anything. But we both still have a lot against us and some major issues that we need to work through.”
“Yeah, you do, but you also have something special between you two.” Candace paused mid-brushstroke to look me over. “Oh my god! What if it’s not Matti that shows up today, but Markus!”
“Is it terrible that that’s what I’m kind of hoping for?”
Candace laughed in my face. “No, maybe that’s what this is. And maybe I’m styling you for your happily ever after.”
She finished up, twirled my chair around and whipped off my cape. “Ta-da!” Our eyes met in the mirror and I took in my no-makeup makeup and easy-breezy beachy waves. We both grinned. Today was going to be a good day.
* * * *
“Alina! Hey! Good to see you. Thanks for coming!”
I looked around the crowded coffee shop, hoping to see a different hulking Viking—my Viking—behind the six-foot-five, tatted-up berserker struggling to un-wedge himself from the little café table.
“Oof. Fuck. They need to make bigger tables,” he muttered as he almost upended it in his effort to crush me in an enormous hug and enthusiastically buss my cheek with the ubiquitous Euro cheek kiss.
“Matti, good to see you too.” I was still craning my head, hoping against all hope that Markus was hiding somewhere.
Matti caught my action and grinned slyly. “He’s not here, pretty lady.”
My cheeks heated up. “Ha, ha, who? I mean, duh. Not looking for anyone. So…you. You’re here…in L.A. What’s up with the show?”
He laughed in my fucking face. “Uh. Huh. Got it. Noted that you are absolutely not looking for my brother.”
“Shut up, Matti.”
“Ah, I missed you. It’s unbelievable that we only met for a day. Anyways, yeah, so, I lied.”