Untamed: (Heath & Violet) (Beg For It)

by Callie Harper

  Like when my mother had had her breakdown. That was the first time I remembered guys popping out of alleyways with cameras, when my mother and the rest of her Upper East Side clique had discovered my father had had an out-of-wedlock lovechild. She’d taken to wearing large dark Jackie O sunglasses even around the house and started jumping with fright anytime anyone entered a room.

  “Leave us alone!” I remembered my mother shouting, mascara-drenched tears staining her cheeks as she battered some camera hound with her Chanel handbag. I’d only been nine at the time, too young to understand fully what was going on. Then the cameras had come back a year and a half ago, after dad had died, honing in on his funeral with telescopic zoom lenses.

  Now they were outside my cabin in Vermont. Was Ash in town for a visit?

  I grabbed my phone from my back pocket. I’d shoved it in there, but hadn’t checked. Must have had my ringer off. I saw I had five text messages and four missed calls, about a week’s worth from just this morning. Huh.

  Before I could click on any of them, my phone rang right in my hand. It was Nelson, the Kavanaugh family attorney. That never meant anything good.

  “What’s up, Nelson?” I asked, getting right to it. Had someone died?

  “We have a situation,” he began. I sat down. Situations that required explanations from family attorneys were best taken sitting with a drink in hand. I didn’t have a drink, but I did have a chair.

  “Tell me.” I didn’t want him to mince words.

  “It seems a TV network has plans to feature you in an exposé. They ran a promo earlier today.”

  “Huh.” I still didn’t connect the dots. My mind was moving too slowly.

  “They’re known as the Fame! Network?”

  “What?” I stood up.

  “They’ve run a 30-second promotional video. You may as well view it. I’ve texted it to you.” I scrolled over to my text messages and clicked on the video he’d sent.

  A voiceover began with a montage of footage, blending shots of me in my workshop with photos of my family, from my past. “Hot Off The Grid,” the cheesy narrator voice began, flashing footage of me wielding a blowtorch, or shirtless and sweaty from a workout. “Heathcliff Kavanaugh. Heir to billions. Royalty. Brother of rockstar Ash Black.”

  I swore and wanted to throw the phone across the room and smash it into bits, but that wouldn’t change any of this. And I needed to watch it and see just how bad it was.

  “He’s hidden himself away in a tiny town in Vermont. What does he have to hide?” The promo continued with a few images from Ash’s scandal days, and then the real kicker: the headline from a newspaper announcing my father’s death. Implying I was somehow linked to his untimely passing. From stomach cancer.

  I wasn’t holding a drink, but if I had been I would have smashed it to the ground. As it was, I banged my fist so hard on the table I heard a crack. Might have splintered one of the legs. I’d deal with that later.

  First I had to Hulk smash whoever was responsible for this shit. It couldn’t be Violet. Could it? Fuck all, this was a fucking mess.

  “Get it the fuck down!” I yelled, kicking the wall for good measure.

  “Yes, I filed a cease and desist approximately two minutes after the video was brought to my attention.”

  I nodded. Good man.

  “But apparently you’ve signed a consent form,” Nelson added. “So it’s going to be somewhat more difficult.”

  “I what?”

  “You’ve signed a consent form for them to do the show.”

  “No!” My voice thundered out in protest. I’d never head of such bullshit. I’d never have done that.

  “I’ve scanned and sent the image of that as well,” Nelson added calmly, apparently having anticipated my response.

  I clicked to open and damned if I didn’t see the fucking papers fucking Violet had fucking given to me the night before she’d flown back to L.A. The papers she’d told me the Fame! Network needed to air footage of the shop downtown. They wanted to feature the local artwork, she’d told me. I roared like a lion shot with a gun.

  “I’m assuming from your reaction that this was not your intent when you signed the papers.” Nelson was British, through and through, and as such he kept calm and carried on even in the face of violent outbursts.

  “I had no idea I was giving them consent to film me,” I growled.

  “Yes, I assumed as much.” Nelson gave a slightly disapproving tut tut. “I must urge you, Heathcliff. Never sign any documents without giving them to me first for a thorough review.”

  “It wasn’t…I didn’t…” I rubbed my forehead in my hands, knowing I had only myself to blame. I’d let myself get sucker-punched. There was no other way of looking at it.

  “Never fear, I will find a way,” Nelson assured me, unflagging in his placid determination. “There’s absolutely no question of them filming that exposé. As for the promo video…” I could almost picture him giving a subdued shrug of his British shoulders. “That is out in the world. I can get them to remove it from the network’s website, but it’s making its rounds through social media and there’s no stopping it now.”

  “Fuck!” I drove my palm into the wooden wall, making a couple of books fall off of a shelf.

  “Yes, well. I’ll leave you to it,” Nelson prepared to sign off. “Speak to no one. Sign nothing. And call your mother.”

  The first two directives I had no problem with. It was the third that got me. I winced. If anyone hated the spotlight more than me, it was my mother. Publicity had been the straw that broke her back, the cause of her midlife breakdown. Without the paparazzi, she would have simply had a broken heart when news of her husband’s infidelity broke. Caught in the spotlight, her sadness blew up into full-scale nuclear meltdown. Unable to even parent her children, she’d sent us all off to our grandmother in England for two years. She hated, absolutely loathed, how Ash had turned that spotlight back onto our family. Now I’d done it, too.

  “I’ll be in touch by the end of the day,” Nelson said, ending our call.

  Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck. I checked my call log. I’d missed one from Ash, one from my mother. One from Dave, which might be about the upcoming hockey game but probably wasn’t. Word was probably getting around town even out here in the wilderness. Someone had seen that promo and sent it to someone else and the news was passing, growing, multiplying like a disease.

  The fourth and final call, just twenty minutes ago, was from Violet. And my phone went sailing across the room. It crash-landed on the couch cushions and I guessed maybe later I’d be happy I didn’t break it, but just then I wanted the satisfaction of it bursting apart into tiny splinters.

  I’d trusted her. I’d let her in. I’d held her and loved her and had been counting the days until I could see her again, either me visiting her or her coming back to me.

  Guess she had plans now to come back to Watson, Vermont. So she could exploit my family, somehow try to implicate me in my father’s death, and completely ruin the life I’d taken years to build here. Hot Off the Grid. Apparently I was what was being served up hot on a platter. As for off the grid? Not so much anymore. I had guys with cameras waiting for me outside my front door. Nothing would be the same again.

  I grabbed a drinking glass near me and hurled it at the wall. There, that smashed and crashed the way I wanted. But it didn’t make me feel any better.

  §

  I didn’t go out the whole day. Instead, I played an endless game of twenty questions. No one had any fun at all.

  “Were you ever going to tell me?” Dave kicked things off, arriving at my doorstep, wondering who the hell I really was. I hauled him inside before the cameramen feasted on him like tigers on a wounded gazelle.

  “Can I get you a beer?” I asked, figuring most conversations went better with one in your hand.

  “No Dom Perignon?”

  Ah, so it was going to go down that way, was it? I grabbed us both beers, but Dave didn’t stop looking
at me like I was an alien. I did the best I could to explain it to him, but he still left looking as confused as when he’d first arrived. I couldn’t tell him any of the shit he’d seen on that promo wasn’t true. I was the heir of the late billionaire Richard Kavanaugh. My British grandmother did have a title. My brother Ash was a world-famous rockstar. All of my protests about how it didn’t matter to me and wasn’t who I really was just made me sound more like a grade-A twit.

  Minutes after he left, my phone rang with Harriet wondering where that free PR windfall she’d thought had come her way had gone to.

  “Did you know the whole time the show was going to be about you instead of the town?” she asked.

  “Nope.” Either way, though, I was a tool. My choices were either I was the guy who’d gotten himself sucker-punched, duped by a cute girl with some great curves and a pretty smile. Or I was the asshole who’d worked himself out a sweet TV deal at the expense of the town. Oh, and by the way I was a mega-rich douche.

  Harriet’s best advice to me was that I lay low for a while. She’d gotten caught up in the excitement. Everyone had. People didn’t like the idea that I’d stolen the show—their show. Plus lied about who I really was. Maybe the best thing for it was to get out of town until it all blew over.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I reluctantly agreed, wondering how things had changed so quickly. A day ago I’d felt like everything was coming together, my life just the way I wanted it with an amazing woman by my side. Today, everything was coming apart.

  “What in God’s name were you thinking?” I’d put off following Nelson’s instructions and calling my mother. But there was no getting around it. My mother called me. I had to sit down for it, her words blasting through the speakerphone as I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands.

  “Heathcliff, I expected more from you.” She sounded so disappointed, resigned more than angry, as if she’d simply been waiting for me to join the ranks of those who hadn’t lived up to what she’d hoped.

  “I had no idea this was going to happen.” My words sounded hollow, even to me. I should have known the risks. My first instincts had been spot-on. A reality show in Watson was a bad, bad idea and Violet was nothing but trouble. Unfortunately, I’d quickly forgotten all of that.

  “Nelson said you signed a consent form?” She sounded both exhausted and incensed, a mixture only my mother could master.

  I rubbed my temples, the phone on my lap. “I didn’t know what I was signing.”

  “You should know better than that. Never sign anything until Nelson—”

  “I know,” I interrupted, all out of patience for more lectures. I was punishing myself plenty already.

  “Well, now what?”

  Her question hung between us, unanswered. Thankfully, Nelson’s incoming call gave me a reason to end ours.

  “That took more doing than expected,” he confessed, almost sounding winded.

  “You’ve stopped them?” I rose off the bed, though I told myself to keep my hopes down. I had signed a consent form.

  “They’re tied up nicely in legal tape. No more promos, for now. But they’re going to put up a fight.”

  Aggravated as all hell, I thanked him, ended the call and wondered what to do with myself, bristling with unreleased anger. Grabbing a couple of sheets, I busted my way out of the cabin and into my workshop, yelling the whole time at the cameramen to get the fuck away. They were waiting for me outside, like roaches congregating on an untended meal.

  Soon as I got into my workshop, I hammered those sheets up over my windows. I hadn’t put up curtains in there. I hadn’t ever needed them. Before Violet stormed into my life, no one had bothered me. I’d been my own man. Now, apparently, someone had been using a zoom lens to get footage of me, and that footage was now worming its way through social media all over the world.

  Once I’d sealed it off, I threw myself into a crazy workout for a couple of hours. Punching, lifting, hauling, climbing, I did it all and then did it all again until I was drenched in sweat, panting, my muscles spent from the exertion. But my brain didn’t slow down. My mind kept churning, circling round and round to the central problem: Violet.

  For a man known for his stoic reserve, who prided himself on maintaining a solitary life by choice, I’d really picked a winner. I hadn’t just fallen for a bad egg. I’d fallen for the one woman who could completely ruin my entire life. Everything I’d spent the past few years building, she’d knocked down like a tantrumming toddler smashing blocks. But as angry as I felt at her, I was most furious at myself.

  How had I let myself get screwed over so bad? I was usually a pretty good judge of character. Maybe a little overly suspicious when it came down to it. But I’d deliberately blocked my ears to all those warning bells, all those alarms and sirens blaring in my head warning, “Don’t trust her!” I’d known it the second I saw her walking into that bar.

  And then I’d gone and done exactly that. She was like kryptonite, only that would imply that I was Superman and I wasn’t feeling too heroic at the moment. I felt big and angry enough I could go toe-to-toe with him, but he’d kick my ass. I was mere mortal and boy did I feel it at the moment.

  Why hadn’t I played it safe? There were any number of local girls trying to climb up my tree. Cute little organic farm hotties, ski bunnies. There was a crazy painter woman living up in Burlington. She’d just about unzipped my pants and had her way with me the last time I’d seen her. Maybe if I’d done more of that, I wouldn’t have acted like such an idiot with Violet.

  Because the way that woman felt in my arms, the sounds she made, the way she got so wet so fast and craved me, it drove me wild. I crushed my workout towel in my fist. Damn it.

  In my defense, Violet had played her part well. Over those few weeks she’d opened up like a flower, flushed and blooming. It was impossible not to be drawn to her. She’d lit up, enjoying herself so much. The way she’d clutched my arm at that hockey game or gotten so into sledding. It hadn’t just been the sex.

  But the sex. Goddamn it. I threw my towel aside and chugged from a gallon jug of water. Wiping my lips with the back of my hand, I closed my eyes from the memories, but they kept on coming. The way she’d come right in this workshop, right over on the lathing table. How good she’d felt, so tight and eager and ready for me all the time.

  Well, that was all over. I opened my eyes. She’d have no reason to come back to Vermont now. Nelson would work his magic. There’d be no exposé, I felt pretty sure of it. Hell hath no fury like the Kavanaugh family attorney. Much as I hated relying on my family network and connections, sometimes I had to do it. Especially when my family was the source of the problem. It was a tight web. I’d worked hard to untangle myself. But not hard enough.

  Gritting my teeth, I made my way back to my cabin through the dark night. There were fewer guys staking me out, but still a couple to curse at. They wouldn’t last the night in the Vermont cold, though. I took comfort in that. And soon they’d be gone for good.

  Until then, Harriet had told me what I needed to do. I agreed with her. After showering off, I grabbed my phone.

  Violet had called again. I deleted her message with more force than necessary. We had nothing to say to each other. It might take a while to get her out of my head. She’d gotten in there good. But talking to her would only prolong that, give me more grist for the mill. What was I going to do, listen to her half-assed apologies, her attempts to convince me to go along with the exposé anyway? Better to sever ties and make a clean, fresh start.

  Thankfully, I also had a text message waiting for me from Ash:

  How U doin big guy?

  It wasn’t as if he were little, but I did have a few inches on him. And some brawn. I cut right to the chase:

  You got a couch I can crash on?

  He texted right back:

  Thought you’d never ask. Get your bearded ass down here.

  All right then.

  My bearded ass. I barely even had a beard
anymore. But I was too preoccupied to text him back some smartass reply. When he’d last seen me at our family’s annual holiday party mid-December, I’d had a giant one. But gram had wanted me to get rid of it so I’d trimmed it right down.

  That needed to change. If I’d had a giant wild and wooly beard I might have scared off Violet. Yeah, I’d be growing back my beard. And it would be big. Have beard hear me roar.

  And it looked like I’d be spending some time with my big brother. He and his fiancé had a place in SoHo. Shaking my head, I guessed I’d leave tomorrow, or maybe the day after. I didn’t want to go. It felt like heading straight into the belly of the beast, avoiding paparazzi by heading into New York City to stay with a rockstar.

  But, honestly, if anyone could give me advice about all this exposé shit it would be Ash. He’d dealt with it for years now. And you didn’t get to choose your family. You could choose your friends. Until the girl you’d been falling for ripped your life away from you and then you didn’t even have them anymore.

  But, see, that kind of thinking only led to self-pity and that might be the quality I hated most in people. That and self-conceit. I refused to harbor either.

  I’d made my mistakes. I’d own them. And I’d move on from there, apparently beginning with a stay at my brother’s place. Relying on family. It was a strange concept. But maybe it was time to try it out.

  CHAPTER 19

  Violet

  Friday morning I woke up an assistant producer at one of the top-earning TV networks in the country with a doting, hotter-than-hell boyfriend. Saturday morning I couldn’t even say that I woke up. To wake up you had to have gone to sleep and Friday night that didn’t happen. So I’ll just say that Saturday dawned with me jobless and loveless.