I shook my head, wondering what on earth he was talking about. A letter? What letter? He’d never had anything delivered to me. Perhaps he was just embellishing the story of our failed relationship to the cameras because it made him sound all wounded and brooding, which would surely give him even more appeal to our viewers. Yes, that had to be it.
“What a bitch!” Emily declared. “I bet she regrets doing that now that you’re a big NFL champion.”
Troy looked right at me again, and I could’ve sworn that a sort of hardness had entered his usually-sparkling blue eyes. He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think she regrets it at all.”
He kept staring at me, and my stomach dropped.
Was there a chance that everything he’d just said was true? Was there a letter, and I just never got it? Shit, if that was the case, then that meant I’d been a total bitch to him when he arrived for absolutely no reason. It would mean that it was essentially my fault that he never contacted me after he left town….all because he thought I didn’t want to be contacted.
I broke eye contact with him and looked down at my feet, my heart pounding as I figured out my next move. I needed to get to the bottom of this before it was too late. Or maybe it already was too late.
There was only one way to find out.
Chapter Nine
Troy
The plane ride ended about fifteen minutes after I told my story to Cailin and Emily on camera, and I noticed that Eden had been flushing the whole time I was speaking. By the time I’d finished, she was as red as a tomato. I felt bad for bringing it up while she was around, but to be fair, they’d asked for a story about being hurt by past loves, and Eden was the one and only love I’d ever had. Besides, no one else knew who I was really talking about, so it wasn’t like I’d embarrassed her in front of everyone.
Only the two of us knew our little secret.
We disembarked at the small airfield near the ranch, and a black car was waiting to take us all back to the main set at the mansion. We rode in what was mostly silence, punctuated by the occasional comment from Cailin about the beautiful scenery on the Palomar property as the sun began to dip low on the horizon, and when we got out at the mansion, Eden called out to me as I strode to the entrance.
“Hey, Troy!”
I turned and arched a brow. “Hey. What’s up?”
She crossed her arms, which I supposed was meant to be an angry gesture, but only served to push her tits up so that her already-bountiful cleavage spilled out of her shirt even more. “What’s up?” she repeated. “How about whatever the hell that was back there? What were you talking about?”
“You, but I thought that was obvious enough.”
“It was. I meant the letter. What’s that about?”
I frowned. “Huh?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Troy, if that story you told back there was true…I never got a letter from you.”
What the hell?
“It was true. Everything I said back there,” I replied. “You really didn’t get it?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide. “This whole time, I thought you just left without a word. You never called or wrote.”
“Neither did you,” I said. “Although I guess that’s understandable, considering you thought I just left you like that.”
“And you thought I didn’t show up at the bus station because I didn’t feel the same way,” she said softly. “That’s why you never called me.”
I nodded slowly. “I didn’t want to harass you after I thought you’d made your feelings pretty clear,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “Shit, Eden…”
“What exactly did the letter say?” she asked, staring up at me. “I mean, I know it probably doesn’t matter anymore, because it was so long ago, and you aren’t….” Her voice trailed off for a second. “Well, I guess I’m just curious,” she finished.
I filled her in on what the letter had said, scavenger hunt and everything, and by the time I was finished, tears were glistening in her mesmerizing eyes. “I can’t believe that all this time, I thought… I missed out on…”
Her voice trailed off again, and I nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty fucking astonished myself, to tell the truth. This whole time, I thought you didn’t want me back then. I wonder what the hell Blair did with that letter?”
Eden had been staring down at the ground for a second as she wiped her eyes, but her head snapped back up at that. “Huh? What about Blair?”
“It was her who was meant to deliver the letter. I was going to deliver it to you myself, but then I ran into her, and she said she was on her way to see you while you got your hair done at the salon. So I asked her to pass it on to you.”
Eden’s face was no longer red; she was turning rather pale now, and her hands were starting to shake. “Blair had it? She kept it from me?”
I nodded and held my hands out to calm her down. “I guess so, yeah. But that’s not important now. What’s important is that we both know the truth now. And hell, Eden, I don’t care that it’s been seven years. I still care about you, and I want to see if we—”
Eden held up a hand and cut me off with a grim look on her face. “Troy, sorry, but please hold that thought. I really need to go and find out why my so-called friend would betray me like that. I’ll be back, and we can talk then. I promise.”
With that, she spun on her heel and strode into the mansion, and I watched her go with a mystified expression on my face. I couldn’t believe it. All these years, and it was all just a big fucking misunderstanding. If only I’d called her back then to find out why she never showed up that morning; if only she’d called me to find out why I’d seemingly left without a word. Granted, we both knew why we hadn’t called—we both thought the other didn’t want to hear from us. But shit, I wished I had.
I guess I really had made the right decision in coming on this show. If I hadn’t, I never would’ve discovered the truth, and I might never have had an opportunity like this with Eden ever again. But now…now things were different, and my face lit up with a grin at the thought of all that’d just transpired.
I was finally on the road to getting her back.
Chapter Ten
Eden
“What happened to the letter, Blair?”
I stood with my arms folded in Blair’s bedroom doorway, my eyes narrowed. She was sitting on the bed reading a book, and her eyes widened as she heard me.
“What?”
I stepped forward and then closed the door behind me. I didn’t want anyone else hearing this, and I also didn’t want to risk letting Blair avoid the issue by leaving. I was utterly seething with rage at the betrayal—this whole time, she’d known about Troy. She knew for a fact that he didn’t leave me seven years ago, and she never told me. She let me cry all those tears and she let me refuse to trust other men all this time, all without saying a single word to admit her own culpability in the matter.
Some friend, huh?
“The letter, Blair. Don’t play dumb. Troy told me everything,” I said.
Her face visibly paled. “You…you spoke to him about it?”
I nodded. “Yes. And like I said, I know everything. So why don’t you tell me what the hell happened?”
Her eyes began to brim with tears, and I could see her hands shaking. “Oh god…” she said softly. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I never thought you’d find out.”
“Find out that my friend fucked me over? Yeah, well, I did find out.”
She vehemently shook her head. “No, no, no, Eden, I didn’t fuck you over. At least that’s not what I meant to do.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me what you meant to do?” I said. My own hands were shaking too; shaking with angry anticipation. I had no idea what Blair’s possible reasoning could’ve been for hiding something like this from me for so long, but I needed to know.
She swallowed hard and hesitated for a long time, and then she looked up at me. “Eden, I�
�m so sorry. Troy did give me that letter. At the time I had no idea he was leaving; he didn’t say all that much when he asked me to deliver it to you. I thought it was really cute and I just wanted to snoop on your relationship a bit because you didn’t tell me all that much while you were dating, seeing as you were always off with him. So I opened it and read it.”
“And?”
“And it seemed really sweet and all, but it was Troy. The same guy we all knew from school who’d screwed over half the girls in his grade and even a few from ours. I don’t mean screwed as in sex….I mean he screwed with them, broke their hearts.”
“I remember what he was like, Blair, but he wasn’t like that with me,” I said through gritted teeth.
She nodded. “I know, I know, that’s what it seemed like. But you guys were only together for a couple of months, and even though I liked him and I was happy for you, I never really trusted him. I always felt like I was just waiting for him to fuck you over as well. I didn’t want to see you hurt and brokenhearted like all the other girls. And then I found out from the letter that he was going to be away for so long, at college too…I could just see the writing on the wall. I pictured you moping around waiting for his next visit while he tried to stay faithful at college, but…well….it’s Troy. Girls were always all over him, and given his reputation and all, I figured it would only be a matter of time before he ended it with you and broke your heart like he did with all the other girls he dated, or you would catch him cheating. Something awful like that.”
“You had no idea any of that would happen.”
“I know. But I was seventeen, Eden. I was dumb and clueless, and I was looking out for my friend. I honestly thought the best thing for me to do would be to keep the letter from you, and then you’d be able to get over him and move on with someone who was less of a…”
Her voice trailed off.
“Less of a bad guy?” I asked, my voice softening slightly. As much as I hated to admit it, I partially understood where she was coming from. Troy’s reputation back in Ellis Creek had been pretty abysmal. Even my parents hadn’t approved of me ‘hanging out’ with him—I’d never been able to tell them that we were dating, because they probably would’ve killed him. Well, not literally, but you get the picture. He was the quintessential ‘bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks’ back then.
I guess he hadn’t done much to change that image in the last few years, either. His media reputation wasn’t exactly stellar with all the boozing, partying, and hordes of hot female bedroom buddies.
Blair nodded. “I thought you’d be better off. I had no idea that what I did would lead to everything else, like you getting so upset and refusing to trust men. I never saw that coming. I guess I thought it was just a high school romance, and you’d be over it soon enough. I honestly thought I was doing the right thing. But then you were so upset, and you’ve had so much trouble getting into long-term relationships since then. I’ve always felt terrible. It’s all my fault.”
“And yet you never thought to tell me once in the last seven years,” I said, my tone growing sharp again.
“I wanted to, so many times,” she replied. Tears were spilling over her cheeks like crazy now. “But every time I worked up the courage, I’d think ‘it’s already been so long, she’ll be mad for keeping this from her for so long’ and then I’d wimp out. It just got worse as time went on. And after we moved to different cities when school finished, I saw you less and less anyway, so there was just never a good time to bring it up.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. I get that,” I said. “But Blair...” Tears were filling my own eyes now, and I sniffed before continuing. “Troy gets a bad rap, and I guess he has done a lot of shitty things, but overall, he isn’t a bad guy. I know that now. And I know I didn’t tell you every detail of our relationship back then, but he was really different with me. I just knew he’d never treat me like he did those other girls.”
She looked down at the bed. “I know. From what I’ve seen of him in the last couple of weeks on this show, he’s obviously grown up to be a pretty decent guy, aside from all the crap we hear about him in the media. I didn’t see that coming either. I fucked up so much.”
Suddenly she jumped up from the bed and dashed over to the walk-in closet, and I heard her sobbing from inside it as she rifled around.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my brows drawing together with confusion.
She emerged with one of her suitcases, clothes haphazardly spilling out of it. “I’m leaving,” she said. “You’ve done so much for me, Eden, getting me a chance to be on this show to help my business, and all I’ve done is lie and keep things from you. I should’ve just grown some balls and told you what I did years ago instead of keeping it from you for so long. I don’t deserve to be here, and I don’t deserve to be your friend anymore.”
I held my hands up as she leaned down and tried to stuff more things into the case. “Wait, Blair. No. Don’t go.”
She glanced up at me, her face stained with tears. “I have to. If I were you, I’d never forgive me for this. And you shouldn’t. I’m a fucking bitch.”
She grabbed a stray pair of shoes from the floor and put them in the case too, and I walked over and grabbed her by the shoulder before pulling her back over to the bed.
“Sit down,” I said. “We need to keep talking. You can’t just run away from this.”
She sniffed. “What else can I do?”
I sighed and sat down next to her. Then I hesitated for a long moment before opening my mouth to speak again. “Look, Blair, I’m really upset by what you did. I know Troy has had this media image of a partying womanizer during his career over the last few years, but I wonder if he would’ve been like that if I got that letter and we never split. But at the same time I wonder if maybe you were right. If I did get the letter, then maybe things would’ve gone badly between us after he left and we would’ve split anyway, leaving me just as hurt as I was when I thought he left without a word. There’s no way to know. So I don’t think it’s all your fault.”
“You don’t?”
I shook my head. “No. Don’t get me wrong—like I said, I’m still upset about what you did, but on the other hand, I get it. You were only seventeen, and god knows most teenagers don’t think about long term consequences of their actions. And considering his reputation back then, I’m actually not even that surprised you kept that letter from me, now that I’ve had some time for all this to sink in. I’m just hurt that you didn’t feel like you could talk to me about it all these years. I know we haven’t been anywhere near as close as we used to be for a few years now, since we live so far apart, but I still thought we were better friends than that.”
Blair chewed her lip and stared intently at the floor again. “I’m so sorry.”
My emotions finally began to spill out of me in full force, and I lay back on Blair’s bed and cried my eyes out for what felt like an eternity, still unable to believe the craziness of the day I’d had. There were so many unanswered questions about me and Troy, so many missed opportunities.
So many years wasted with me not knowing the truth.
Blair remained sitting next to me, her hand over mine, and she kept murmuring that she was sorry between sniffs and sobs. Finally, I sat up again and looked at her, wiping my eyes and cheeks.
“I should go,” I said. “It’s getting pretty late, and we have a really early day tomorrow.”
She nodded silently, but I could see a question in her eyes.
“Blair,” I said softly. “I understand why you did what you did, and I forgive you. I’m just going to need some time and a bit of space from you to get over it. Well, as much space as possible considering where we are.”
She gave me a watery smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Do you think…do you think you and Troy would ever get back together now that you know?”
I hesitated, unsure of what to say to that. I knew the truth now, and I knew that Troy wasn’t exactly the massive as
shole I’d thought he was over the last seven years, but did that necessarily mean we were going to run back into each other’s arms? Sure, when I spoke to him earlier he’d made it pretty clear that he still cared about me—he’d literally said that—but it didn’t change the fact that seven long years had gone by since we were last with each other. We’d probably both changed in many ways, so it wasn’t like we could just fall back into our old high-school dating habits. On top of that, there was the question of who Troy had become. Just because he wasn’t the horrible prick I’d thought he was didn’t mean he didn’t have any bad qualities at all these days. He was still a womanizer, and that DUI on his record spoke to his attitude towards drinking and partying.
Could I really go back to him, knowing how much he’d changed? Was there enough of the old Troy I’d known and loved left in him to warrant giving it a shot?
“I don’t know,” I finally said.
Blair nodded. “I guess it’d be hard.”
“Yeah,” I replied with a sad, wry smile. “Anyway, I better head out.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow during the shoot,” she said. “Goodnight.”
“Night.”
With that, I turned and headed out of her room and then out of the mansion. The night air was crisp and refreshing, and as I headed back to my trailer, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Crap. I’d just remembered how I told Troy that I’d go back and talk to him after I was done with Blair, and I knew I really needed to hash things out with him, despite how late it had gotten.
I turned back around and began walking back towards the mansion, and a familiar feminine voice called out to me a second later.
Daddy's Fake Bride (A Fake Marriage Romance) Page 51