The doorbell rings, and we both turn our heads.
“I’ll get that on the way out. You call me if you need anything, okay? And when Dean is home, text me a grocery or meal list for next week so I can go shopping before I trek out here to Malibu. You know the Whole Foods near me downtown is one hundred times better,” he scolds, because I have forgotten to text him before.
“Thanks, hon. Have a good night.” I smile, about to slop a big old scoop of cobbler into a bowl.
But before I can, Patrick comes strolling in, bringing his brisk, professional air with him. Skylar must have let him in on his way out, knowing that there was no gate Patrick couldn’t get through. And that he was welcome here any time, anyway.
“Hello, Kara.” He nods curtly.
“Patrick, what can I do for you? You know Dean isn’t here, right?” I almost always feel uncomfortable around Dean’s agent.
It’s been six months, and he and I have just not clicked. I admire him for protecting Dean the way he does, and how Dean thinks of him as a surrogate father, but he always seems very cold to me. Perhaps we just haven’t had the chance to get to know each other, and now that the trial is over and things have calmed down, we’ll have that time.
“Of course, I know he isn’t here, I manage his schedule, remember?” He smirks, and I think it’s a teasing smile but I can never be sure.
“Of course.” I nod. “Would you like some cobbler? I was about to make myself a bowl. Skylar puts drugs or sunshine or something in this.” I point to the steaming hot glass dish on the counter.
“No, thank you. I’m actually here to see you. We need to take a look at the relationship contract when Dean arrives back in Los Angeles.” Patrick doesn’t bat an eyelash as he moves the conversation to business.
I stutter. “Oh … okay. What about it?”
“The charges are dropped now, the engagement did its job of distracting and showing the world that Dean was a changed man. And now, he doesn’t really need that beard anymore.” Patrick leans against the kitchen counter, his impeccable navy suit not creasing with any movement.
His matter of factness almost bowls me over. “I thought we would just let it ride out until the one year mark?”
“If it’s the money you’re worried about, I’m sure Dean will have no problem giving you the final installment early so we can dissolve the contract.”
My heart sinks at Dean’s name. Has he sent Patrick here to hammer out these details? “I’m not worried about the money … or I should say, I’m not concerned about it at all.”
Patrick doesn’t move, and his relaxed stance is setting my teeth on edge. “Right, because the school loans have been repaid. No matter, you’ll get what you’re owed. But I believe it’s best for Dean if this contract ends now. Think about it, Kara … the rumors alone have been a detriment. If news got out that you have been a mask for your former high school sweetheart, it could ruin him. And you don’t want to remain here anyway, if I recall. Let’s sit down, sign the NDA papers. You can go home, go back to your life.”
I feel woozy, my knees knocking together as I grip the cold marble counter. “You believe it’s best? What does Dean say?”
I can’t believe he’d do this, send his minion to deliver the news while he was out of town. I thought … he’d said he loved me. Had taken me away, had made love to me so many times in Hawaii, and before then. We’d promised we were trying to be together for real, for the long run. Was it not fast enough for him? Did I not get on the same page quick enough? I cursed myself for not uttering those three words the moment I felt them.
“I think that Dean would agree. It’s what is best for everybody. You’ve said it multiple times, Kara … this isn’t your world. You’re apprehensive at best when it comes to industry events or nights out, and you have only attended a handful of concerts in the past seven months you’ve been out here. You don’t want to be the musician’s wife; can we just admit that? Think of what Dean needs, think of what you need. I think you can acknowledge that those two paths are not meant to converge.”
My heart broke in half as his words hit my ears, but a part of me knew he was right. Dean’s world, my world, they weren’t the same anymore. We’d been on the same level in Elm Hill growing up, but too much time had passed. Patrick was correct in saying that I wasn’t thrilled about the TV and radio appearances, that I didn’t want my picture taken every time I stepped foot outside.
“Did he … does he want you to set up a negotiation?” I can’t help the crack of emotion in my voice.
I don’t want Patrick to see me cry. Suddenly, I can’t stand being here, my stomach souring as I look down at the cobbler. He will tell Dean if there is even a crack in my façade, so I hold it wisely, trying to seem as unaffected as possible. Even when my heart goes black with mourning. Even as my brain melts down, going over every moment of affection we’ve had in the last seven months.
“I can schedule it for the morning he flies back, so we don’t have to waste any more time, you see.” He points this out like he’s making a decision about whether to pick steak or fish at dinner. Simply, like it’s not sending my life into a tailspin.
“Then I guess you should set it up.” I can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, can’t believe I’m about to walk away from the man I’ve just fallen back in love with.
But I’ve been hurt too much, have endured so much pain due to him and his actions. If this is what he wants, then I won’t fight. It’s futile now, trying to win him back. I’ve been a fool, and that much is clear when Patrick curtly nods and turns on his heel, leaving me in this mansion that no longer feels warm and inviting. It’s a hollow empty shell of the fleeting shooting star Dean and I almost held on to.
Only when I hear the front door close do I allow myself to sink down to my knees on the cold kitchen tile, tears painting the bare skin of my cheeks and dripping down onto my legs.
Chapter Forty-Two
Dean
Patrick’s building glints in front of me as my legs take the long walkway up to it. The large glass and steel structure is meant to intimidate and impress; he sees both clients and Hollywood types of all kinds here, and my agent has a reputation for being cutthroat but excellent.
It’s not a new deal or money that’s making me take the stairs two at a time though. It’s the fact that I know Kara is sitting in one of these conference rooms, and I’ve been away from her four days too long.
My hands tingle with the need to touch her, my heart thumps in my chest at the thought of only being seconds away from covering her mouth with mine. Now that she was mine, had fully committed to making us work, I wanted to spend every waking moment just looking at her. Seven years I’d missed out on my fill, and weekends like the one I’d just spent in Seattle were absolute torture being away from her.
And today was just another road block we were mowing down. In mere hours, the contract would be lifted. We would be engaged for real. And I wasn’t letting her out from under my hands and mouth until she said she loved me, while also begging me to let her come.
The thought has my cock twitching violently in my pants, but I stifle him as I walk into the conference room.
I’m next to her in two seconds flat, not caring about the other lawyers and Patrick’s assistant sitting around the table. “Hi, gorgeous.”
I kneel next to her, not getting a good glance at her before I devour her lips. She tastes like vanilla and cool mint, those luscious lips meeting mine, but holding back. I guess it’s because we’re in public.
Pulling back, I smile at her and press my forehead to her own. “I missed you.”
She gives me a small smile, but I can tell I’ve embarrassed her or something, so I take my seat next to her and plant a hand on her thigh.
Patrick walks in, his presence commanding everyone to sit up straighter. I’ve missed this bastard too, if not for his professionalism, then his friendship. I make a mental note to ask him to grab a drink this week.
�
��Hello, everyone, thank you for coming.” He sits, taking several folders out of his briefcase. “Today we are discussing the dissolving of the contract between Mr. Jacobs and Miss O’Connor. Outlined in these packets are the terms, the settlements for both parties, and there is a non-disclosure at the end of yours, Miss O’Connor.”
The coldness in the room begins to creep into the marrow of my bones, and I get a weird feeling in my gut. The packets are passed down the table, and I take the last one Patrick hands out.
“You’ll see that Miss O’Connor has already signed her portions, and has agreed to move out of the Malibu home, return the engagement ring, and cease from discussing the dissolution of this relationship. In return, she will receive the full settlement promised to her upon completion of the contract, which we are dating as today.”
Wait, what?
“Hold on …” My mind scrambles to keep up with Patrick’s words, and I turn to Kara to see her staring blankly at the paper in front of her.
Flipping through the papers, I see that everything my agent just explained is true. And that Kara has already signed it. “What the fuck is going on?”
Kara won’t look up at me, and I snatch my hand away from her thigh, betrayal pouring over my head like a cold bucket of water.
“Dean, as is stated in the contract, everything is taken care of. Kara has signed her portion, and wishes to be released from the binding legal agreement.” Patrick spells it out like I’m a five-year-old.
I take ten seconds, counting them, to get my breathing under control while the other lawyers across the table firm up that the contract in front of them is adequate. Kara still isn’t saying anything, and I can’t sense her mood.
So, this is what she wants? After all of the progress we’ve made, after we’ve forgiven each other over and over? My heart crumbles, laying like ashes in my chest cavity.
Swallowing my anger, I reason with myself. What happened in the time since I left, and now? Did Kara reconsider, did she realize she didn’t love me the way I said I loved her? Maybe that was it … maybe she realized it was too much for her and she didn’t want to give us a second go.
The man I used to be would get up right now, rage and storm around. Or do something to thoroughly fuck this up. Go out and get drunk, do something I’d regret. But our time together had not only changed Kara—I know it has even if she denies it—it had made me grow up. It seemed an impossibly short amount of time, but I’d been running around blind like a little boy, grabbing at whatever I wanted. In the past months, I’d shown restraint, put someone else’s needs ahead of my own, been truthful about my feelings.
So, in that moment, I decide I’m releasing her from her ties to me, cutting the contract, letting her go free. There is that cliché quote, you see, about loving someone and setting them free. Even though I’d brought Kara here out of my own selfish needs and fear, she’d changed me yet again. Made me a better man, the man I should have been had we stayed together. Ripping up this contract was selfless, it made no sense on my part. I wanted to bind her to me for all eternity, and instead I was giving her the option to flee.
Everything in me prayed she wouldn’t take it, but I saw that look on her face. The same stone-cold expression she’d regarded me with in our first contract meeting.
If this is was the only time we would get together again, at least I could look back and know that I’d put all of my cards on the table.
So I picked up the pen, flipped to the section Patrick had marked for me to sign.
The scratch of the pen on the dotted line sounds like multiple rounds of bullets. Straight to my heart.
Chapter Forty-Three
Kara
Irony has a way of slapping you in the face and making it sting.
I guess that’s why my cheeks have been red and swollen for days … or maybe it’s from the crying.
I pull the covers back over my face, the earliest lights of dawn signaling that I’ve made it to another day. Great.
Dramatic … I’m definitely going overboard with the dramatics, but I’m twenty-seven, am living back under my parent’s roof, and have a heart so severely broken that even a surgeon couldn’t properly put it back together if they tried.
I’ve been back in New Jersey for almost a week, and have done nothing but sit in my room, watched bad soap operas, and avoided all human contact. Mom and Dad have to know what’s going on … when I showed up on their doorstep with all of my bags in hand and tears running down my face, they hadn’t pushed. I loved them for that, but they kept tiptoeing around me instead of coming out and asking. That was almost driving me more insane. No one else knew I was home.
Not Heidi. Not the media. The residency and hospital thought I was taking some time off for wedding planning, or at least that was what Patrick told them I suppose. That was the other thing … aside from losing Dean, I’d lost the wonderful career I’d been building for myself. Sure, I could probably go back to the practice I’d been at in town, but it wasn’t the same.
A tear slides down my cheek, and I’m surprised that there are still anymore left in there.
Dean’s voice echoes in my brain. The way he’d acted, it was as if Patrick hadn’t come to deliver his bidding. I think the fact that he feigned outrage at first was worse than his nonchalance by the end of the meeting.
When he’d signed that page, sealing our fate, I’d wanted to crawl under the table and disappear. He was dismissing me, cutting himself free of the shackles that my being around bound him to.
I hated him.
I hated myself for falling back in love with him. For believing all of the lies he’d spouted for months, just so what? We would have an easier time being together? That it would look convincing to the media?
And there I’d been, fantasizing about our wedding and our future. How Goddamn foolish was I?
The first time I’d lost him, I thought my life was over. Dean had been my entire world since the time I’d turned fifteen. My heart, my soul, had been crushed when I’d thought he’d cheated.
But this … this was worse. It was a bait and switch, he’d been acting the entire time I’d lived in that house with him. He’d made me fall in love with him, and then called it all off without even saying that’s what he was doing.
He was the worst kind of person, and I couldn’t believe I’d ever put my faith in him being a changed man.
I guess it was true what they said; like father like son. He came from a bastard, he was a bastard. Poisoning people against him was in his DNA, selfishness swam in his blood.
No matter what, though, I knew one thing for sure. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And I wasn’t going to allow there to be a third time.
Chapter Forty-Four
Dean
The track sounds horrible, the guitar chords are off and the melody unchained.
I rewind the bars, my unskilled producing hands fiddling with the machines in the studio. It was too late to be here, I wasn’t going to get any productive work done. But I couldn’t go home.
I couldn’t sit in that big empty house, which had never felt like that before Kara had come, but certainly did now. She’s only been gone a week and I can’t seem to function. I barely go out, haven’t seen my bandmates in days, I even had Patrick cancel two appearances and a gig I was supposed to attend.
She’d left me, again, and I’d just let her go. Hadn’t even fought for her. What the fuck was wrong with me? I just let history repeat itself, which was the exact thing I’d promised I’d never do.
But, I was trying to be the better man. Trying to respect her wishes and her space. Trying to love her enough that my selfish wants were put on the back burner, and the only thing that mattered was what she needed most.
“What are you doing here?” Patrick’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
I don’t turn around, glancing instead at the time in the top corner of the Mac desktop that houses the recording software. 12:16 p.m.
“Working on
music, isn’t it obvious?” My tone is flippant, but I can’t change it.
“Yeah, seems like you’re getting in some quality stuff here.” His voice drips with sarcasm as he sits down in the booth next to where I stand.
“Do you need something?” I don’t want company, and I’m beginning to grow more irritated by the second.
“Yeah, I need to know why you cancelled three appearances next week?” Patrick scolds, and I hate when he treats me like a kid.
“Maybe I just don’t feel like being Dean Jacobs anymore. Ever think of that?” I head to the fridge, pulling out a beer because, why not? My mood couldn’t get any shittier than it is right now.
“Oh, cut the melodrama, superstar. So you lost your fuck buddy, you’ll find a new one. You always do.”
Fury ignites low in my gut. “What did you say?”
“Kara … she left. Isn’t that what you wanted anyway? The trial is over, no more engagement … you’re a free man!” He waves his hand as if to say “you’re welcome.”
“Are you fucking crazy? Of course that’s not what I wanted. I love her, Patrick. Are you fucking blind?” Where the hell had he been?
And how dare he judge me as if I was still the same playboy asshole I had been for the last few years. He had to have seen the change in me since Kara had been out here. Either that, or he was busier than I thought.
Patrick’s face goes white as a ghost. “You love her?”
I toss back more of the sudsy, throat-stinging beer. “Of course I do. She’s the best damn thing that ever happened to me, and now she’s gone. I dissolved the contract and she hopped the first plane out of here that she could.”
“But I thought … you said that you would play along until the charges were dropped but that after that, you couldn’t handle her back and forth anymore.”
As Long As You Hate Me Page 17