“What?” I whirled around and screeched at her, and then found my manners. “I’m sorry, it’s just been—”
“I understand.” She smiled warmly at me. “Believe me I’ve been there.”
“Oh, that’s right. You also think it’s fine to have your publicists plant a bunch of fake shit.”
Ronni’s face froze into a fake smile.
“We’ll be right out, Ronni,” Ty said, never taking his eyes off me.
“Katherine has been trying to get you, she just called me. I just wanted to give you your phone.” Ronni handed it to Ty. “Zoey, Sienna said she has something for you to approve before she sends it out. I’ll leave you both alone, I’ll be in Connor’s suite across the hall.”
“Ronni, I’m sorry. I’ve been rude to you, it’s not personal. I just—”
“Don’t worry about it. Everyone has the same reaction the first time something like this happens, then you get thicker skin.” She smiled and pinched her arm before exiting the bedroom, and then the suite.
Well at least Ronni did seem nice.
“I need to call Katherine back,” Ty implored. “Then I need to talk to you, It’s important.”
“Fine. I’ll go see what Sienna wants to show me.”
The poignant look on Ty’s face made me stop. “No matter what happens, we’re in this together, Z. If you want to go home and hibernate, say the word. You are the most valuable part of my life. Nothing is more important to me than making sure you’re okay. I’m going to fire them as soon as I get off the phone.”
I sighed and left Ty in the bedroom and shuffled out to see the enemy, who was sitting on the windowsill waiting for her prey. Andrew was nowhere to be seen.
“What is it?” My voice was weary. Defeated.
“Ty never told you about us, did he?” Sienna’s cold gaze narrowed as I approached.
Walking out into the living area, I thought I was at the bottom of the well. What happened next closed the lid on top of it.
Sienna turned her tablet around to a video of her giving Ty a blowjob. Red lips suctioned the same magnificent cock that I’d memorized every millimeter of. Despite the jerky motions of the camera, his face was slack with pleasure. I couldn’t look away, which meant that I saw her suck him off to completion. My mind felt like a vortex of agony. A million icepicks pierced my body at the same time that a billion shards of glass cut me to shreds.
My stomach lurched. I turned and ran for the door, knowing I was going to throw up. I had to get far away from this room and Ty or I would literally implode. Bursting into the hallway, I bolted for the elevator. I could hear Sienna’s laugh trail behind me when the door slammed shut. I must have taken Sergey by surprise because I was already inside the elevator, pressing the button for the lobby when he figured out that I was doing a runner.
I turned and glared at him, hoping he didn’t dare follow.
He ignored me but stood on the other side of the cab. We rode down in uncomfortable silence. The second the door opened, before he could grab me, I sprinted into the lobby where I was besieged by a swarm of camera flashes. Desperate to get away, I whirled around, saw a side exit, and made a beeline for it.
I knew Sergey was close behind, but I managed to escape to the street where I hoped to blend into the crowd and disappear. Even I should have known it was a terrible plan. More paparazzi accosted me, closing in and screaming my name. Fighting my way through the crowd like a panicked mustang, I found an opening and burst through. My momentum carried me into oncoming traffic. The last thing I remember was a taxi barreling toward me.
Because after that everything went black.
Chapter 30
TYSON
A couple of hours out of surgery, my fragile butterfly lay in her hospital bed, sedated and sleeping. Sergey was in the room down the hall. He’d taken the brunt of the impact of the taxi and suffered a fractured hip, but he’d saved her life. Zoey tore a ligament in her shoulder, broke her arm and three ribs, and suffered pretty gnarly road rash. Thank God they expected she’d fully recover, but the nurses and doctor wouldn’t tell me much about her condition other than that.
They wouldn’t let me sit with her. Or even see her. According to the hospital, I was technically nothing to Zoey. The doctors and nurses recognized me from the band but, apparently, my insistence that she was my live-in girlfriend needed verification. Destroyed and helpless, I had to make do by pacing the waiting room and peering into the glass panel of her door.
While she was in the operating room, I’d made the horrific phone call to her parents letting them know she had been injured and that a chartered plane was waiting to get them here as soon as possible. I played the celebrity card and Seattle’s best orthopedic specialist was also on the flight. They’d all be landing soon. It was the least I could do. Zoey and Sergey were both injured because of me. It was my responsibility to make sure they both had the very best medical care here and back at home.
Zoey’s outburst at the hotel had shocked me with some cold-hard truth. It also snapped me out of abdicating responsibility for my life, yet again, to people other than myself. After my call with Katherine, I’d gone into the living room to fire Sienna. Zoey wasn’t there. Before I even got a word out, Sienna handed me a handwritten note claiming it was from Zoey.
Ty, I can’t take it. Don’t try to call me. Don’t try to find me this time. It’s really over.
Furious, I crumpled it up and threw Sienna out. I was repulsed by this disgusting person who I’d let manipulate me for years. She’d crossed every line to deliberately hurt the love of my life. I was angrier at myself because I’d let her. Raging, I tried to find Sergey to make sure she’d stay gone, but he was not at his post outside my room. All I saw was chaos. The rest of LTZ’s security guards were flat-out running out from the guys’ rooms for the stairwell. Right then, I knew deep in my heart something had happened to Zoey.
I had to get to her.
From where our rooms were on the 30th floor, I flew down the stairs, bursting through the door to an empty lobby, which shocked me. The press had been camped out there all night. That’s when I saw and heard the commotion outside. Then came multiple sirens. I didn’t have time to process anything, I just knew instinctively that I had to get to my girl.
Right now.
I managed to fight my way through the crowd only to see a glimpse of her crumpled on the pavement, her arm at a terrifying angle. She screamed in agony. The ghastly paparazzi swarmed against the band and hotel security, who were doing everything they could to hold them back. Luckily, police officers approached from all directions to help contain the madness.
Once I was recognized, the pap fuckers lost their minds in an attempt to get me to engage. It worked, I screamed and swore. It took every ounce of strength I had to fight my way to her. I didn’t care one iota about the millions of flashes capturing my reaction. Ever dutiful, Sergey was shielding Zoey as much as possible, despite the obvious pain he was in. I managed to break through and shelter her from the other side, clutching her good hand and trying to soothe her until the ambulance came.
Zoey was suffering so much that she was barely coherent. She wouldn’t look at me and kept trying to roll away. I was terrified for her to move because I didn’t know if she hit her head or had a neck or spinal injury. I begged her to keep still. Instead she just passed out. I nearly lost my mind and sobbed and begged for her to wake up.
When a sleazy photographer stuck his camera in my face to get a money shot of me weeping over her limp body, I whirled around to grab his camera like a wild, untamed lion determined to protect his lioness. Luckily, the police had arrived in full riot gear. Within minutes, they formed a circle around us and used riot shields to thwart the swarm until the ambulance could get through. When the EMTs finally had a clear path, she was still unconscious, and they expertly loaded her into the ambulance. They allowed me to ride with her to the hospital.
Now it was eleven p.m. I was sitting on a chair outside her room,
alone in the eerily silent hallway. I hated the sterile hospital smell, it made me feel sick. All I could do was think about how I’d failed Zoey and how I’d failed myself. Not just today, but every day for the past eight and a half years. From the day and hour I met her, it should have been my duty and privilege to cherish and protect her. I’d been selfish. I’d fucked it up.
You didn’t deserve her.
You never deserved her.
At some point, I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew Mike Pearson was roughly shaking me awake. “What the fuck did you do to my daughter?”
Olivia Pearson pulled him back. “Mike, stop it. Let him talk.”
I stood and relayed the days’ events, ending with profuse apologies. Mike wrapped a weeping Olivia into his arms while they listened, his face set in stern indignation. His eyes bored a hole into my head.
“Have you seen what they are calling her?” he growled.
All I could do was hang my head in shame. It wasn’t the time or place to tell them that a new scandal would take the place of the old one. How could I when we were now worldwide breaking news? Hundreds of new photos of the accident and injuries were now circulating of Zoey and me. It all provided a backdrop for a new series of sensational but fabricated stories about us.
I didn’t have time to worry about that now.
After the doctors were consulted, the Pearsons signed a couple of forms and were led into her room. I tried to follow, but Mike wouldn’t have it.
“Tyson, we’ll take it from here. Go and get some sleep.” His voice commanded, not asked.
“Mr. Pearson, with all due respect, Zoey is my girlfriend. We may not be engaged yet, but we live together I need to be with her. I love her more than life itself.” I practically begged him on hand and knee.
Olivia stroked my back. “Ty, honey. Let us talk to her, we don’t know why she was running. In the photos she looked so scared. You have to understand as her parents we need to make sure she wants you to be with her.”
Oh, God. They thought that I did something to her.
“Olivia, I swear. I don’t know why she was running. I think our publicist said something to upset her, but I’ve been so overwhelmed with all of this that I just haven’t had the chance to get to the bottom of it.” I was frantic.
“We’re going to see for ourselves. Until then, you should go.” Mike dismissed me.
“I’m not leaving her.” I stood my ground. “After what we’ve been through you’ve got to know that I’ll never leave her.”
The door shut in my face without a reply. I peered through the window. Zoey was still sleeping. Her parents sat on either side of her, both looked broken. Like they had aged ten years since I’d seen them last. It wasn’t surprising, she was their only child.
The anguish I felt knowing the woman I planned to spend my life with was on the other side of a hospital door that I didn’t have the right to enter was indescribable. I had to be with her, she was my air. I was seconds away from barging into her room when Mike saw me staring at them through the window. He shook his head, stood, and pulled the privacy curtain around her bed, motioning for me to leave. Then she was blocked completely from view.
I was shut out of her life. Again.
Chapter 31
ZOEY
My mind was floating. My arm hurt so bad. Where was I? I could hear someone saying my name. Was that Mom?
“Mommmm?” My voice didn’t sound right. How funny. I could hear myself giggling but it seemed like the sound was above me.
More voices. I didn’t recognize them. Where was Ty?
“Tyyyy.” Where was he? I needed him.
My dad’s voice mumbled above me.
“Dadddyyy.” I could see him hovering above me, but he was so blurry. My arm hurt so bad and I could feel tears dripping down my face, but I couldn’t move.
Where was Ty?
Why did my brain feel so funny?
So much chaos around me and suddenly the pain went away, and I was soooo tired.
Chapter 32
TYSON
It had been nearly forty-eight hours since Zoey’s operation. Forty-seven hours, twenty-two minutes, and thirty seconds to be precise. I hadn’t left the hospital. Mike and Olivia hadn’t let me in to see her yet. All I knew was that she was on some serious pain medication, so she hadn’t exactly been coherent. Until they could talk to her, I was banned.
So, I was going out of my mind. Literally.
Well, maybe figuratively. Not literally. I didn’t want to be one of those douchebags who started saying literally literally all the time.
Who the fuck knew, I was losing my mind.
I hadn’t slept since the night before the concert. I hadn’t showered. I was a mess.
I was also so incredibly pissed that Zoey’s parents were interfering in our relationship.
I should be in there with my future wife. The love of my life. My best friend. My lover.
By the second day of being relegated to the waiting room and only being fed piecemeal bits about Zoey’s status, I was living with a silent rage. The only thing that kept me from knocking the shit out of Mike Pearson was Zoey. She’d already been through so much, and I wasn’t about to add to her pain.
So I tried to put myself in his shoes. If what happened to Zoey had happened to my daughter, I’d do exactly what Mr. Pearson was doing. Protect his baby. Luckily, Olivia threw me a few crumbs and would sit with me for a few minutes now and then to fill me in on Zoey’s status. She was being weaned off the heavy painkillers and would be able to have a more coherent conversation by the next morning. I was counting down the minutes because I knew Zoey wanted me with her, I could feel it in my bones.
At about five in the morning, I was stretched out on the sectional couch in the waiting area trying to get some sleep. Zane had snuck in earlier and brought me some fresh clothes on the way to the jet strip, the band was flying back home to Seattle. A nurse had taken pity on me and let me have a shower. I was ready to see Zoey, I was biding my time.
“Ty, honey.” Olivia’s gentle voice startled me from my catnap.
“Olivia, is she awake?” I popped up, adrenaline pulsed through my veins.
“Yes, she’s asking for you.”
I sprung up and raced toward her room.
“Ty, wait!” Olivia called.
“You both have kept me from her for days, I need to be with her.” I whirled around, my voice too loud for the early hour.
“I just wanted to tell you what to expect.” She crossed the room to me and took my elbow. “She’s still pretty loopy, the pain meds are strong. She doesn’t remember the accident.”
“Okay.”
“Ty, it’s pretty apparent that something really upset her.”
“Okay.” Dread filled my gut.
“Mike wanted us to stay in the room, but I think you both need some privacy.” Olivia squinted, assessing my reaction.
“I’d appreciate that, Olivia.”
“We will be right outside,” she warned.
When I pushed the door open, my heart was beating ten thousand miles per hour. Zoey’s sweet face tilted up at the sound. When she saw me, it wasn’t the reaction I’d been hoping for. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was having a hard time looking at me. I took a deep breath and pulled up a chair.
God, there was nothing that mattered more than Zoey. She was everything.
I took her good hand, brought it to my lips, and kissed it. With my other hand, I smoothed her hair and stroked her soft cheek.
“I’ve been going out of my mind to get to you. No one would let me in.” My tears spilled down my cheeks. “They thought I hurt you and you were running from me.”
She just cried.
“Why did you run, butterfly?” I sobbed, I couldn’t help it. “What happened?”
“I saw.” Her eyes were squeezed shut. Tears flowed like rivers now.
“What?”
“You and her.” She pulled her hand away.
She shook her head. “Sienna.”
“Did Sienna show you that old picture? It was so long ago and only one time when I was high. It’s why I got clean, babe.” I babbled but I couldn’t stop. “It’s what I wanted to tell you before all hell broke loose. I’d forgotten, Jace found the picture—”
“I saw a video of her sucking your cock.” Her voice slurred by medication and sorrow.
The room began to spin.
What the actual fuck.
“Butterfly,” I choked out.
“I need to go home.” She bit her lip, her eyes still spilling with tears.
Seeing her in anguish killed me.
“Yes. I’ll make it happen. You can heal at our house. We’ll get a private nurse—”
“No, Ty. I want to be with my parents. All of this is too much. Too fast.”
“We’re building our life together, we’re finally—”
“No, Ty.”
“No, what?”
“We aren’t.”
“We are,” I insisted.
“No. My life is ruined. I just can’t—” Her eyes fluttered and then closed. The painkiller dose was kicking in. Soon her breathing evened out.
Her words broke my heart anew.
I had ruined her life.
But I couldn’t leave her.
It was the first time I could really take in the extent of her injuries. Her shoulder was bound, her arm in a cast. Her ribs were broken. I couldn’t see, but I knew that her knees were covered with road rash. She was hurt because of me. Because of Sienna, a person who, with deliberate calculation, set out to crush the only woman who I’d ever love. And the band paid her for the privilege.
For the life of me, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Sienna filmed herself giving me a blowjob and kept the video for years. She was just waiting for the right time to use it. Using the band. Destroying Zoey. Obliterating me.
At least it made sense why Zoey had freaked the fuck out and ran. If I’d seen some guy doing that to her? Murder. I’d be in jail right now.
ENDLESS: A Less Than Zero Rockstar Romance: Book 1: Ty & Zoey Page 27