“Just trust your lawyer,” Veronica said. “Tell him not to worry about the restraining order. If Seth comes around again, I’ll call the police and I won’t involve you.”
I nodded, kissing her temple and squeezing her shoulder.
We were busy in New York, going from interview to interview, from morning shows to late night TV, radio and magazines. Morgan had us doing promotions and shows morning, noon, and night. It was all leading up to the Grammys. On Saturday, we’d be playing on the biggest stage of the year as we launched our latest album.
At night, Veronica would come to the Ritz with me. I thought I saw a glimpse of Maddox with Lacie, and I grinned. All three of us kept to ourselves.
Even Garrett was quieter than usual. All our other trips to New York had been full of booze and parties and girls, but this time we just worked, came back to the hotel, and had quiet evenings.
Well, not so quiet, if you count Vee’s screams and my moans. But there was little to no partying. It was like all three of us had an understanding, and that we’d all shifted away from our partying ways at the same time.
This PR team really had been incredibly effective in reforming our image.
On the second day in New York, Veronica heard back from the hotel staff at her hotel that Seth had been arrested. She went down to the police station to discuss her options. I wanted to come with her, but she shook her head and said she’d go alone.
“If you’re there, there could be reporters and this whole thing will be all over the papers. Morgan will probably fire me, and your divorce will be a disaster. I’ll go alone.”
I bit my nails and paced the floor until she came back. She was quiet, sighing and shaking her head.
“They asked me if I wanted to press chargers. They said the evidence was shaky, and a conviction wasn’t certain, so I said I wouldn’t do it.”
“The evidence was shaky?” I roared, the anger boiling inside me. “He followed you across the fucking country!”
She smiled grimly. “I know.”
But she shook her head and I just wrapped my arms around her. As hard as this was for me, I knew it was harder for her. I kissed her, and then I made love to her.
When she fell asleep in my arms, I brushed my lips across her forehead and ran my finger along her cheek. My whole world had shifted, and I didn’t know what to do about it. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time.
Chapter 19 - Veronica
After my first night with Carter, I caught a cab to the first studio and set up my camera. I had to get back to work, and focus on taking great pictures of the band. Lacie appeared in the dressing room, looking flushed and tired. I’d seen her disappear with Maddox at the airport, and I knew she’d had an evening similar to mine.
Once the band were in the studio doing their first interview, I leaned against the counter and studied her face.
“You never checked in to our hotel yesterday,” I said with a grin. I know exactly where you were.
“No,” she replied slowly, focusing on her makeup and hair supplies. She put the brushes and makeup away, clipping the case closed without looking at me.
“Stop avoiding my eye,” I laughed. “What’s going on with you?”
“I’m engaged.”
My jaw dropped, and Lacie finally looked at me. My eyes widened and I opened and closed my mouth until finally I could speak.
“What?”
Turns out Lacie’s night had actually been crazier than mine… And I hadn’t even told her about Seth!
“I said I’m engaged.”
“I know what you said,” I laughed, not knowing how else to react. “What I mean is, what?! How? To who?! Are you engaged to Maddox Freaking Knight?!”
“Sort of,” she replied. “I don’t know. I think so?”
I put up my hands, shaking my head as I closed my eyes and tried to understand what the heck she was telling me. When I opened my eyes, I put my hands on my hips and stared at my best friend. Had she gone fucking insane? Had this band slipped something into our drinks and made us all crazy people? What the heck was going on?!
“Lacie, babe, I love you. You’re my best friend. But will you please tell me what the fuck you’re talking about right now?”
Her eyes were bright as she stared at me. We stayed like that for a few seconds, until Lacie started giggling. She couldn’t stop, and I stared at her for a few moments.
Yep, she’s gone nuts.
I tried to frown, but her laughter was contagious. I shook my head as the giggles started to bubble up in me, too, until finally I gave up. We laughed and laughed until tears were streaming down our faces.
“I’m sorry,” Lacie said, wiping her eyes. “I know it’s crazy.”
“You’re fucking right, it’s crazy. What is going on?”
“I guess he needs a wife to get his inheritance or something. I don’t know, I don’t really get it. He said he’d pay for my mom’s medical bills if I married him.”
Uh oh.
I frowned. “Lacie, that’s fucking weird. That’s like… coercive. I’m not okay with that.”
“No!” She said, shaking her head. “It’s not like that. He said he’d give me the money either way.” She opened my mouth but said nothing.
My heart started thumping. This was even worse than a stalker ex-boyfriend. Why would Maddox want to marry her? Just to get some money? This had ‘disaster’ written all over it.
I leaned against the counter, folding my arms and staring at the ground to gather my thoughts. I didn’t want Lacie to get mad at me, but I wanted to make sure she was okay. Finally, I looked at her. She was shifting uncomfortably, looking at me as she bit her lip.
“And you’re okay with this?” I asked
She took a deep breath. “I have to do this for my mom, Vee.”
“There are other options.”
“What options?” She exploded. “I’ve been denied loans, we can’t remortgage the house a third time, and I barely make enough money to pay for the house and food. I have no family to ask for money and I’m not going to like, start stripping to pay for it or anything. Remember that pole dancing class we took? I looked like a baby deer pretending to be a firefighter.”
I tried to fight the smile off her face, but I couldn’t. I finally laughed and nodded.
“Right, so stripping isn’t an option,” I grinned. “But marrying a guy you met a couple days ago? That’s not a good idea, Lacie.”
“I…”. She looked away and took a deep breath. “I kind of want to.”
“You want to marry Maddox?”
“I know it’s insane, and I know that it doesn’t make sense and we only just met a couple days ago. I know it’s probably a terrible idea for a zillion reasons, but—”
I held up her hand and Lacie stopped talking. I wrapped my arms around my best friend and squeezed her close. If Carter had asked me to marry him last night, after all the craziness that had gone on and the way I was feeling about him, I might have said yes, too.
“I get it,” I said. “As long as you want to, and you’re not just doing this because you feel like you have to.”
“I do want to,” Lacie squeaked, sniffling as her eyes started to mist. “It sounds crazy—”
“I get it,” I replied. I pulled away, putting my hands on her shoulders. “I’ve met someone, too, and—”
“Carter,” Lacie interrupted.
It was my turn to blush. I grinned at Lacie. I wanted to tell her about Seth, but she seemed so happy, and I didn’t know what would happen if I told her. I’d tell her later, when she wasn’t buzzing off her engagement to a rock star.
“Now we just need Morgan to hook up with Garrett and we’ll be all set.” I finally said.
“Yeah, right.” Lacie replied. “It’s one thing for you and I to do something like this, but Morgan is way too straight-laced.”
“I don’t know,” I said, grinning. “I thought I heard something in the hallway at The Morning Show the other day.”
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Lacies’ cheeks flushed. “That was probably me,” she laughed.
Looks like I hadn’t been the only one getting freaky that day.
I shrugged. “Didn’t sound like you.”
“You think she and Garrett…?”
“I mean, you’re getting freaking married, so nothing would surprise me now.”
Lacie was getting married to the drummer, Morgan was hooking up with lead singers in the studio hallways, and I was trying to get rid of my creepy ex while falling head over heels for the bassist in the same band.
What a mess. A beautiful, sexy, insane mess.
Chapter 20 - Carter
By the time we got back to LA, everything with Veronica’s ex seemed to have blown over. We checked the papers every day to make sure that nothing had been leaked to the press, and it looked like we were going to get away without a huge media backlash.
That was good news, because the Grammys were the next day, and a lot was riding on our performance. Doing well at this show would mean a solid start to our album launch and upcoming tour.
Spending three nights with Vee beside me made it that much harder to sleep on my own when we got back. When I got home, Maddox disappeared to his end of the mansion and I slumped on the couch. I pulled out my phone and dialed Bill’s number.
“Hi, Carter,” my lawyer answered.
“Any news?”
“Not yet. I’ve petitioned the judge to throw out Angela’s request for your music rights. It’s the last snag in the divorce, and she’s not budging. It’s up to the judge now, so we’ll see what happens.”
I sighed. “Thanks, Bill.”
When we hung up, I rubbed my temples and took a deep breath. I never imagined divorce would be so difficult. We didn’t even have any kids! I knew I’d acted like an ass for much of our marriage, but I hadn’t though that she’d be so vindictive.
The doorbell chimed through the house and I groaned. I peeled myself off the couch and dragged my feet to the door. Our hectic schedule had taken a toll on me, and the tiredness was setting into my bones. The last thing I wanted to do was deal with whoever was at my door on a Friday evening.
When I opened the door, my eyebrows shot up.
“Angela,” I said, my hand squeezing on the doorknob. She looked tired. Her face was drawn, and she was clutching her purse close to her body.
“Hey,” she said. “Can I come in?”
I stared at her for a few seconds and then nodded, stepping aside and waving her in. She took a deep breath, looking around the house that Maddox had let me move into when things with Angela had fallen apart.
I gestured towards the hallway. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” I said. “Keep your shoes on, don’t worry about it.”
She nodded, and we walked in silence. She walked a little distance away from me, and it felt like the space between us had become so vast it was hard to imagine a time when we were close. I gestured towards the kitchen island.
“Beer? Coffee?”
“You got any water?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, we’ve got water,” I replied. “Check out this fancy-ass fridge. You want ice? I can get you cubes, crushed, cold water, room temperature water, anything you want.”
Angela smiled, and I realized it was the first time in months that I’d seen anything but a sour expression on her face. “I’ll have cubes please,” she grinned. “And cold water.”
I nodded and poured us both some water. Angela nodded in thanks, sipping the glass. She held it up.
“That’s good water, Carter.”
I grinned. “You know me, I’m like a cat,” I said. “I always land on my feet.”
She laughed, then, and I saw the old Angela. A week ago, seeing her like this would have pulled on my heart strings until the pain radiated through my whole body. It would have made me long for our old life together.
But now? Now it just made me glad that she looked like her old self, but it didn’t make me want to be with her. I looked at the woman that I’d married, who had spent the past six months fighting me on every detail of our divorce.
She looked tired.
“So,” I hesitated. I sat down beside her, keeping my eyes on my glass. “What’s up?”
Angela sighed, and finally pulled an envelope out of her purse. She took a stack of papers out of the envelope and slid them towards me.
I stared at them, frowning.
“Our divorce papers?”
Angela nodded, clearing her throat. I could see the emotion in her eyes as they misted up, but she blinked her tears away.
“I asked my lawyer to take out the stuff about your music rights. I also changed the split of assets back to your original proposal.”
My eyes widened. “So this…?”
Angela nodded. “Unless you’ve changed your mind, it should be acceptable to you. It’s pretty much what you originally asked for. Except for Edgar. I’m still keeping Edgar.”
Her jaw hardened as she talked about our dog. That little Cavalier King Charles dog had been the light of our lives, and watching her take him had broken my heart. But now, when I saw the look on her face, I realized she needed him more than I did.
I cleared my throat. “Why… why did you change your mind? You fought me on all of this for months.” I thumbed through the stack of papers, and I could see she was telling the truth. It looked like exactly what I’d asked for in the original divorce papers. Her signature was on all the necessary pages, with little tabs where I had to sign and initial.
I glanced at my soon-to-be ex-wife, and she avoided my gaze. She took a sip of water and set her glass down gently. I watched her take a deep breath, as if she were preparing herself to say something difficult.
“I had you followed by a private investigator.”
I frowned. Normally, the anger would have flared up inside me but I tried to keep it at bay. She was struggling to say something, and I didn’t want to stop her. My whole attitude had shifted over this past week—ever since I’d met Veronica. Everything about me was more calm, so I just sat there and listened.
Angela continued. “He told me about your new girlfriend—the photographer. He showed me pictures. I saw what happened at the hotel bar with her ex-boyfriend. I saw a copy of the police report.” Her voice was strangled, and she took a deep breath before finally looking at me.
“My lawyer told me it was enough to break down any character references that you might be able to provide. He said that showing your aggression would be enough to get me whatever I wanted.”
I swallowed, my heart thumping. So she knew about everything that had happened in New York, and it would have been enough to take everything from me.
“So why didn’t you?”
“I saw the way you held her. He had pictures after you pushed her ex away, and you looked—” a sob shook through her, and she covered her face with her hand. Finally, she straightened herself up and took a deep breath. She turned and looked me straight in the eye. “You looked at her how you used to look at me. Before the drinking and the fame and everything that came between us.”
I hadn’t said much the whole time she was here. And at that moment, I don’t think I’d have been able to speak at all. The emotion was choking me. I struggled to swallow past the lump that had formed in my throat, so I just nodded.
Angela looked at me for a long moment. Then she shrugged. “I guess I just remembered that you’re not a bad person. Maybe we just bring out the worst in each other, and seeing those photos… I don’t know. I just remembered how things used to be.”
I still couldn’t speak. I nodded, and Angela smiled sadly. She put her hand on my shoulder and laid a soft kiss on my cheek.
“She looks wonderful, Carter. Good luck.”
She started walking back towards the front door, and finally I managed to speak. “Angela,” I called out. She turned around, her eyes glistening with tears.
“I… thank you.”
She nodded. “I’ll unblock you on Facebook s
o you can see pictures of Edgar.”
“I’d like that.”
She gave me a watery smile and then walked out the door, and I was alone again. I stared at the divorce papers and let out a big sigh. Veronica had come into my life and turned everything on its head—even my divorce. I shook my head and sent Vee a goodnight text before calling Bill again. I looked at the stack of legal documents in front of me and took a deep breath.
“Bill,” I said when he answered the phone. “You’ll never believe what I’m looking at right now.”
Chapter 21 - Veronica
The morning of the Grammys was exciting. I went to bed with a goodnight text from Carter, and woke up to a good morning text from him as well. I smiled, and then jumped out of bed and got ready.
I would meet Lacie at a hotel near the Staples Centre, where we’d prep the band for the red carpet. Then, we’d head backstage and meet them before their performance to make sure they looked perfect.
From there, it was up to them to play how we all knew they could and get this album launched.
I glanced around the hotel room while Lacie got her makeup and hair supplies ready. “Thank God we get to watch the show from backstage. If I was stuck in this hotel room all evening I think I’d go crazy.”
“At least there’s a mini bar,” Lacie said, walking over and cracking open a tiny bottle of whiskey.
My eyebrow arched and I grinned. Looks like her time with Maddox had been pretty transformative. “When did you turn into a little rebel?”
“We can just bill it to the band,” Lacie laughed. “I’m about to be married to one of them, after all.”
I laughed and shook my head. This week had been insane. “Is that still going down?”
Lacie nodded, and then started laughing with me. “It’s so ridiculous, but Vee, it feels good.”
“Good.”
The door opened, and Maddox and Carter appeared. I put her hands on my hips.
Carter: A Bad Boy Rock Star Romance (Rock Hard Book 3) Page 8