Relentless (Relentless #1)

by Alyson Reynolds

  I climbed into the waitingcar and told the driver to take me home. The privacy glass divided me from the driver. Pulling up my phone, I searched through my contacts quickly. I called the one person I needed right this second. She answered on the second ring.

  “Magnolia, I need you,” I said through sobs that consumed my entire body. I had done so well waiting until Jaxon couldn’t see or hear me, but I was done being strong.

  “Vi, what’s wrong?”

  “Just come,” I whispered.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Vi? Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

  Stephen wasn’t at the house when I got there. It was further proof he was pissed off at me too. What kind of awful person doesn’t check on her best friend after he had a head injury? I deserved his anger.

  I am an awful judge of character. The three men I had fallen in love with had royally screwed me over. Looking around, I realized I was in this house all by myself because I would never find someone to spend my life with. What good was success if I didn’t have anyone to share it with? I sat down on the couch and curled up in a blanket trying to comfort myself. I didn’t bother wiping the tears from my eyes as they fell. After a few minutes of sitting in the dark, I decided to change clothes. My pity party lasted long enough for me to go take a shower and throw on pajamas.

  There was a soft knock on the door. As soon as I cracked it open, my little sister burst through and wrapped me up in her arms. Magnolia Taylor Montgomery hugged me close and let me cry on her shoulder. The tears for my ruined relationship with Jaxon, my pregnancy, my fight with Stephen and everything else that had happened in the past year were a huge release I needed.

  Her light brown hair was damp in places from my tears. I stood back and took in her concerned brown eyes. She watched to make sure I wouldn’t break down again before moving us to the couch.

  “I would say let’s drink and forget about everything, but we can’t do that for the next seven or eight months,” she joked. “Too soon?”

  “Taylor,” I whined.

  “Joking! I’m just joking!” she waived me off. “Vi, I think you’re scared. Sure you are stressed the hell out too, but this is a big thing. You’re allowed to be freaked out and ready to run. The pregnancy is a wonderful thing, but you aren’t ready to see that yet. I can’t wait to be an aunt.” She paused for a minute. “Wait? You said Jaxon Garrett? Wasn’t there some kind of scandal about him? Some girl duped him into believing she was pregnant with his kid. If I remember right, she had been sleeping with half of Australia behind his back, including his twin brother. He was willing to marry her.”

  “I never heard about that,” I said quietly, staring down at my hands.

  “There are always two sides to every story, sis. I know he said some pretty fucked up things, but even if the media only got half the story right, he has a huge reason to be scared. It doesn’t excuse how he reacted, but maybe you shouldn’t give up on him yet. You should have told him as soon as you found out and that’s part of the reason you feel so shitty about the whole situation.”

  I stared at my sister. She had always been good at reading my mind, but tonight she was on a role. Her attitude about men was typically that they were awful and you shouldn’t trust them, but tonight she preached the exact opposite. She was going soft on me now of all times that I needed her to be a hard ass.

  My anger wasn’t far from the surface, but her words made me step back and think. If Jaxon had gone through that, he really could be terrified and lashing out because he’s scared of getting hurt again. I clutched the pillow to my chest. “Taylor, even if he is scared, he hurt me. It reminded me of Aaron. I won’t ever let someone rip me to pieces again while I sit back and do nothing. I’m not sure I can ever forget what he said.”

  She hugged me close and ran a reassuring hand down my head. “No one said you had to, honey.”

  Too exhausted to move from the couch after my talk with Taylor, I had covered up with a blanket and curled up while she went to the guest room. Stephen finally showed up around four in the morning. He tried to be quiet as he walked through the living room, but his foot caught on the coffee table as he walked by. I reached up and flicked on the lamp. He looked down at me sheepishly. When he saw my red, puffy eyes he sat down next to me.

  “So your day was as bad as mine huh?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier. I’m a shitty friend. You should get rid of me.”

  “I’m sorry I pouted.”

  “I know a text wasn’t enough, but I’m dealing with some stuff,” my voice shook and tears rolled down my cheeks again. I dug my face into Stephen’s shoulder as I sobbed.

  “Hey, calm down. I was upset before, but not because you didn’t call and check on me. I’m fine, really. It‘s just a bump. I was being stupid.”

  He stroked my hair softly as I cried. We sat there for a few minutes while I tried to pull it together. All I wanted was to go back twelve hours and change how I handled everything.

  “Can we talk about it tomorrow? I need to calm down and get some sleep. If I tell you about it now, I’ll just start crying again. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day and I already know it’s going to suck.”

  “Sure. Come on.”

  “We’ve been so disconnected lately.”

  “I agree. For some reason I feel like this movie is going to change everything for us.”

  I followed him up to his room and climbed into his bed. He stripped down to his boxers and slid in next to me. My head rested on his chest and his arms wrapped around me; just having him near helped sooth me. We needed to talk, but it could wait until the morning.

  No one would believe we’re just friends if they saw us like this, but Stephen and I had never once tried to push our friendship into something it wasn’t. I loved him like a brother, nothing more. The sound of his even breathing and the comforting support of his arms lulled me to sleep within minutes of lying down.

  Luckily, I had a later call time than the guys. When I woke up, Stephen had already left for the day. I was determined to go onto the set with a good attitude. Unless I had lines to say with Jaxon, I planned to pretend like he didn’t exist. Offense was the best defense.

  The next step in my plan of action was recruiting Amanda and Stephen to help keep Jax away from me. Amanda could tell there was something wrong, but she didn’t push for an explanation. Stephen threatened not to help if I didn’t tell him, but I put him off for a while by promising a full recap later. I debated how much to tell him while we were in front of everyone, because if he got mad it might get ugly. He frowned, but thank goodness he agreed to help.

  It wasn’t a secret that I preferred to film with Jax, and as much as I tried to hide my discomfort at working with him today, the tension surrounding us was obvious. The beach scenes were supposed to be carefree and fun, but my mood appeared somber and pissy. Jaxon tried to keep making his way over, but Stephen and Amanda kept their word, heading him off at every pass. Even Gage seemed to help keep him away from me.

  Everything was awkward, which was completely different than our normal days on set. The crew seemed at a loss on how to make things better for everyone. Thank goodness we were a small group today since we were filming out in the public and we were trying not to draw much attention from tourists.

  To make matters even worse, the director recast one of the other characters and today was his first day filming. I didn’t know who the replacement actor would be, but I had a sinking feeling I wouldn’t like the decision the director made. It was a kind of karmic balance thing that I was certain would bite me in the ass. Sure enough, my ex-boyfriend Scott had been cast in the role. I groaned as he walked up; being worried had been totally warranted on my part.

  Scott and I had a nasty, public breakup about a year and a half ago. He had been the first guy I attempted a relationship with after my divorce, and like most of the men in my life, he ended up cheating on me and lying about it. My track record with men was on
a downward spiral to hell.

  Scott knew how Aaron had treated me throughout our marriage. He’d heard all about the cheating, the lying, the drinking, and the sleeping around. He heard every sordid detail. Yet when we started dating, he still cheated on me. Deciding not to date after our brief relationship seemed like the most logical thing. I hadn’t even seen Scott since our breakup, but now I got to go running into his arms and act like I was excited to see him.

  Could this day get any worse?

  He looked just as shocked as I felt when I launched myself into his arms. The director called cut and cursed as he watched Scott put me down, take a step back and run his fingers through his short brown hair. Scott whispered, “I didn’t realize it would be this hard.”

  “What did you expect? Working with the girl you completely fucked over can’t be easy, but you took the role knowing you would be here with me.” I took a step back and fisted my hands on my hips, waiting for him to say something.

  “Is it going to be an issue working with me, Vi?”

  “I can be professional. Can you?”

  Scott frowned, but he nodded. I called out to the director to signal that we were ready.

  Jax scowled in our direction, obviously upset at our odd interaction. The death stare he sent our way definitely wasn’t acting. His body language said it all; he was jealous. The asshole deserved it. I was still pissed about how he had treated me the night before. My anger was still boiling right below the surface. When he asked me if he was the father of our baby, it was probably the worst thing he could have done.

  It was hard, but I pushed those thoughts out of my head, working hard to remain professional. I was already at enough of a disadvantage trying to deal with the Scott situation. We reshot the scene, and the director said everything looked good. Finally he called us in and said he wanted some natural shots of our characters interacting with one another. We had to hang around on the beach and try to act natural without direction for the rest of the morning. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but I was just waiting for this to go horribly wrong.

  After we had been there for a while, Scott came over to talk. Stephen walked over to intercept, but I waived him off. This was a conversation I needed to get out of the way. I looked at Scott expectantly, and he looked down at the sand avoiding eye contact. Sighing, I stood up and started to walk away, but he reached out and gently grabbed my arm to stop me.

  “Just let me get this out, please. Violet, I’m so fucking sorry. I know those words aren’t enough, but I’ve got to start somewhere. Everything I did to you was fucked up. I knew about everything Aaron did while you were married, and I still treated you awful. And what I did was worse, because you told me how horrible he made you feel. I hated him, but after you told me off about how I acted, I hated myself even more.”

  I took a deep breath. “Scott, I trusted you. We were friends for years and it’s hard for me to believe that someone who said they cared for me would hurt me the way you did. You used the media against me, just like Aaron. Tell me; was I just a publicity stunt to you?”

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. “God no! Violet, I don’t know why I did it. We never saw each other, and I was pissed off about some dumb fight we had. I got drunk and made some horrible choices. The more I tried to fix what I did, the worse it got. I shouldn’t have talked about our relationship to anyone. Like I said before, I’m sorry isn’t enough for what I did.”

  “I appreciate your apology. I forgave you a long time ago, but I haven’t forgotten.” Sighing, I continued, “We have to work together, so we might as well try to get along. Okay?”

  “I’ll be on my best behavior. Maybe we can even try to be friends again. Baby steps, right?” His hopeful smile pulled at my chest.

  He reached out to pull me into a hug. I resisted for a second, but I needed to fix at least one relationship in my life. When he pulled back, he tugged at my ponytail like he used to. I smiled, trying to break some of the tension surrounding us.

  My eyes drifted past him and I caught Jax looking like someone punched him in the stomach. He looked like a lost little boy. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the pain reflecting in his. There was no way I could watch him act like I had rejected him instead of the other way around.

  The crew packed up for the day and most of the cast had already left, but I held back waiting for Stephen. I didn’t want to leave by myself, just in case Jax tried to talk to me at my car. Stephen also wanted a better explanation of why I avoided Jax all day. He picked up on the fact that things were worse than what I originally told him.

  I was distracted by my phone when Jax came up beside me and pulled me tight against his chest. My hands pushed at him to let me go, but he only let me pull back enough so he could look into my face. His jaw was clenched tight and his eyes looked wet. He jerked back from me and I watched Stephen get in his face, screaming at him.

  “I don’t know what you did to hurt Violet, but stay the hell away from her. I’ve known her my entire life, and she’s never once asked me to keep someone away from her.”

  Jax shoved Stephen and yelled back, “Stay out of this, Stephen. She and I need to talk. I’m sure things are a hell of a lot different than you think they are.”

  Stephen bristled, “What do you mean by that? I thought you were good for her dude. You promised me you would take care of her. You’re worse than her ex-husband and that stupid fucker that was here today.” My eyes shot back and forth between the two in confusion, and thoughts raced in my head. When had they talked about me? Better yet, why?

  Stephen never saw the punch coming. I wanted to rush up and grab Jaxon to keep him from punching Stephen again, but as soon as I moved a pain shot through my abdomen. The spasm brought me to my knees and a scream ripped from my throat. Jax fell to his knees in the sand next to me.

  “Violet!”

  I cradled my stomach as black spots filled my vision. My body dropped towards the sand, but Jaxon’s strong arms grabbed me before I hit the ground. Stephen’s shocked face filled my vision before the blackness overtook me.

  Slowly, I regained consciousness. My limbs felt heavy and my head throbbed. There were voices all around me and they sounded frantic. As I opened my eyes, the back of an ambulance came into focus. Stephen and Jax were somewhere near, but I also recognized Gage’s voice.

  Was he there when I passed out?

  There was another voice, feminine, but I didn’t recognize it. The secret of my pregnancy would be out before I even had the chance to decide what to do. No. Instinctively I knew I wouldn’t change anything about this pregnancy. I was kidding myself if I even thought I would consider terminating it. An EMT sat with her back to me, so I had a second to pull myself together.

  Jaxon’s worried face came into view, “Oh thank God! How are you feeling?” he asked. “Stephen! Gage! She’s awake.”

  “Vi, are you okay?” Stephen asked, rushing to Jaxon’s side.

  I tried to sit up, but three male hands all reached out to stop me; I would have laughed if I wasn’t so weak.

  “I think I’m okay, but my head hurts.”

  “Alexis is on her way.”

  “Can you guys get out of my way so I can check on the patient?” The guys ignored the EMT and their questions continued to fly.

  “Why did you call Lexi? What is she even doing in California?”

  Jaxon’s anxious gaze told me everything. He answered for Stephen, “I had to tell them. When you grabbed your stomach I thought the worst was happening. Gage came up just as you collapsed and saw the whole thing. He was the one that called 911.” Seeing my worried expression, he rushed to continue, “He won’t tell anyone.”

  The guilt on his face ate at me, but I wasn’t ready to talk about anything with him. He rubbed his face with his hands and continued, “I put you through so much last night. We were all scared you might be miscarrying. As soon as I told Stephen about the pregnancy he called Alexis.”

  “She was visiting some
of her friends from medical school, so she’s here this week,” Stephen added.

  I gaped at Jaxon. Here he was making decisions about my health and my baby’s health like a man who actually cared about our well-being, but last night he had made it crystal clear he couldn’t care less what happened to us. I tugged my hand from his grip and a pained look flashed across his face before he masked it with a blank stare. No matter that he had stepped up to take care of us, I was still royally pissed. As I turned my face away the same feminine voice from before came from behind Jax.

  When she got closer, I recognized her as Silver Cunningham, the co-star from Jaxon’s last movie. There had been rumors of a budding romance between her and Jax, but I had quickly dismissed them. That might have been a hasty decision on my part. Tears pricked at my eyes. Turning towards Stephen, I silently pleaded that he would make everyone leave.

  “What can we do to help, Violet?” he asked the EMT without breaking eye contact with me.

  “Let’s give her some space. I’ll sit with her until Dr. Davenport gets here. Stephen, you can stay with Violet. Jax, Silver, why don’t you go wait for the doctor outside. Please, bring her over when she gets here.”

  Gage leaned over to Stephen to talk to him privately, rather he was trying to keep what he was saying from me or from Jax and Silver, I didn’t know. As he walked by to leave the ambulance, he reached down and squeezed my hand. Stephen nodded at him once and turned back towards me. I looked questioningly at both men. Without answering my unspoken question, Gage turned to walk out.

  I saw the strain in his jaw every time he looked in Jaxon’s direction. Stephen leaned down. “He’s going to tell everyone you collapsed because you were dehydrated. Nothing else.”

  “Gage?” I choked out. He turned back. “Thank you.”

  He watched the tears role silently down my face. Leaning down, he gently wiped them away and kissed my cheek. “Anything for you, princess,” he whispered in my ear.