by Magan Vernon
HeartBreaker
Heart Duet #2
Magan Vernon
Text copyright© 2019 by Magan Vernon
All rights reserved
www.maganvernon.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form by or any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
For information visit www.maganvernon.com
Summary: I’ve broken my fair share of hearts.
They don’t call me a former teen heartthrob for nothing.
Now, I’m a single dad, and things are finally looking up for me in life and love for that matter.
But then the ghost of Hollywood past showed up at my doorstep. Now I have to decide if it’s time to go back to my old life, for her, or if I keep it all in the past...for her...
First Edition, May 2019
Cover Design by Kassi Snider at Kassi Jean Formatting and Design
Cover Photo by Depositphotos
Edited by Tera Cuskaden
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Magan Vernon believes that no matter what your story is, everyone deserves a happily ever after and tries to include that in all of her stories. She's had top 100 stories in everything from YA aliens to angsty New Adult tales.
When not writing, you can find her on her Texas ranch, trying to wrangle two kids, two dogs, and a colony of whatever other kids or animals ends up in her yard.
You can find her online at http://www.maganvernon.com
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Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/authormaganvernon
Twitter: www.twitter.com/maganvernon
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Dedicated to Dallas Street Dog Advocates
For helping me find another dog to keep me from writing and to help add some of my favorite characters (yes, the dogs).
Playlist for HeartThrob and HeartBreaker
(Don’t judge. You know you love some 90s Teen HeartThrobs)
I Want It That Way by Backstreet Boys
Wonderwall by Oasis
Iris by Goo Goo Dolls
Livin La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin
MMMBop by Hanson
Give It To You by Jordan Knight
It’s Gonna Be May by NSync
All or Nothing by O-Town
Every Other Time by LFO
The Hardest Thing by 98 Degrees
What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction
On The Way Down by Ryan Cabrera
Crazy For This Girl by Evan and Jaron
One Time by Justin Bieber
What A Girl Wants by Christina Aguilera
IDOL by BTS
Back Here by BB Mak
Stitches by Shawn Mendes
Sucker by Jonas Brothers
Boys In The Band by New Kids on The Block
Prologue
Sixteen Years Earlier
The curtain finally closed on the show I’d been on since I was eight years old.
Which meant now I had more freedom to do movies or whatever the hell else I wanted.
That is, if someone would fucking hire me.
But since I wasn’t working and had a nice cash pile to sit on, the last six months without an acting gig was full of a lot of everything I didn’t know I was missing in young Hollywood until the velvet rope opened for me.
Maybe a little too much, if my headache and the fact I was sleeping on my sofa in nothing but my boxers, a pair of wool socks, and some mystery sticky substance on my chest.
I ran my fingers over it, sniffed them.
Okay, just chocolate syrup.
How the hell did that get there?
As if the pounding in my head and sticky chest wasn’t enough, my phone had been ringing nonstop.
With my eyes still closed, I reached for the cordless on the table next to me, turning it on, only to realize I hadn’t charged it.
Fuck. The other phone was all the way in the kitchen.
Dodging empty bottles and crumpled papers, I made my way through the living room of my L.A. penthouse and to the large kitchen that wasn’t used for cooking anything unless my mom came out. Which she hadn’t been since I bought the place as soon as I turned eighteen.
First and last time she cooked in it.
I pulled my arms into my chest, my hands shaking as I thought about her.
Was this a call coming from Dallas that something was wrong back home?
Glancing at my caller ID, I let out a small breath when I saw my agent, Steph’s, number flash across the screen.
Maybe this was finally my call back on the superhero movie.
Standing up straighter, I cleared my throat before taking the phone off the receiver and putting it to my ear. “Hey, Steph, got good news for me?”
“Where the heck have you been? I’ve been calling all morning,” her thick Southern accent practically spat through the receiver.
“Uh, you know, slept in a little and got a workout in. I was in the shower when you called.” The lies slipped quickly off my tongue. Almost too easily.
I guess that’s what acting since I was in the womb got me: excellent lying skills.
“Well, get your tail down to my office. We have some things to discuss. Brent’s already here waiting, and Trish is on her way.”
I froze, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.
Brent was my entertainment lawyer, and the last time the three of us sat down together was when the network announced the cancelation of my show.
But that didn’t include Trish, the woman who played my mom on the sitcom for the last ten years.
The one who I may or may not have gotten dirty with at the final cast party.
So, she was twenty years older than me and had played my mom; she was still pretty good-looking. And with all the booze and whatever else was getting passed around backstage, I’m sure we weren’t the only ones hooking up.
“Okay,” I said, swallowing hard, trying to ignore the sickening feeling crawling through my stomach. “I’ll be there ASAP.”
We hung up, and I quickly showered whatever sticky substance was off of me before throwing on a T-shirt and jeans, then jogged down to the parking garage where my Lambo was parked.
God, I hated that thing.
I wasn’t a guy who was really into the spotlight, but a rapper made a big deal about me needing something flashy in L.A., so I gave in to the pressure and bought the lime-green monstrosity, complete with vanity plates reading “HrtThrb.”
What a fucking tool I was.
I could see it in people’s eyes as I drove down Rodeo Drive and they got a glimpse at the tinted windows. The curling of their upper lips and muttering the same things I was feeling under my breath.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, when I pulled into the gated parking lot, large droplets of rain smattered my windshield.
If this were a movie, right now would be the black moment for the hero.
Swallowing hard, I tried not to think on that as I darted out of my car and made a beeline through the large glass doors.
Bypassing security with a wave, I made my way up the elevator to Steph’s office.
She was a formidable woman in size and voice. I was a decent height at six fo
ot two, but in heels, she could stare me down at eye level. Which she did as soon as I opened the doors to her office; those dark green eyes were narrowed right on me.
“Finally.”
“Sorry, traffic was backed up,” I muttered, not caring if she knew my lies at this point.
I slunk down into one of the leather wingback chairs, my lawyer, Brent, in the other, his briefcase on his lap, adjusting his glasses as he kept his gaze on the ground.
Steph sighed, shaking her head as she sat down then looked up to the ceiling. “Bless your heart, and sometimes you’re such a good actor that if I didn’t know you were full of crap half the time, I’d believe you.”
I swallowed hard, a sick dread rising in my throat.
Brent coughed once then opened his briefcase, setting a few documents on the desk in front of me.
“Stephanie has already looked over the documents I received earlier today, and I’ve spoken to Trish’s lawyer. We think we’ve come to a reasonable agreement, but need to go over the particulars first.”
I raised an eyebrow, leaning forward and staring at the black letters on the stark white paper. A heading for a law firm in Santa Monica stood out in bright gold letters before the next words.
Blood test.
Paternity.
All of the feeling drained from my face as a cold chill washed over me.
“Apparently,” Steph’s thick accent broke through my frozen wall.
But before she could finish her sentence, the glass door of the office swung open and there stood Trish.
Her eyes were wide and her pupils so large I could barely see the brown of her eyes. But it wasn’t just the look on her face.
It was what she had rounding the front of her skin-tight dress.
“You’re pregnant?”
A memory hit me like a sucker punch to the gut.
How I didn’t have any protection, and for the first time I felt a woman without anything between us.
I’d grown up with this woman but never thought of her as a mother.
More like the hot, unattainable babysitter.
When she started giggling and flirting with me backstage, I thought it would be our last time together so why not try something?
“No shit, pendejo, and we’re going to hope that even though it’s been a long time since I’ve had any other action, that this very drunken mistake in a back room with my barely legal costar that created an even bigger mistake.”
Fuck.
How could I be so stupid?
I winced, looking down at the marks on my arms. The ones I usually covered up with a sweatshirt but ran out of the house so quickly I didn’t think about it. I’d let sadness take hold of my thoughts instead of dealing with them.
Now…
“I’ll sign whatever papers I need to. Own up to my fuckups. I’ll be a dad. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, Trish.”
I turned toward her as she blinked slowly then took the empty seat next to me, her hand on her stomach. “Oh, honey, no. I just want the blood test to know there isn’t anything in your family history. Other than that, this baby’s mine.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I tried to control my emotions. “So that’s it? Just a blood test?”
“If you stopped using it won’t show anything you don’t want anyone else to know,” Trish muttered, flipping her glossy black hair over her shoulder.
“Trish and her lawyers have agreed to keep this quiet if you just go through with the blood test to find out if you’re the father,” Steph interrupted.
“That’s it?” I asked, my tongue numbing in my throat.
“I don’t need your money or your sympathy, Len. I just want the blood test and the NDA my lawyer prepared,” Trish said.
“But we can negotiate whatever you want to add,” Brent added.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. “NDA?”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “We all want to keep this quiet. Could you imagine if this rocked the tabloids? TV Mom and son get dirty and have a kid? It would ruin both our careers.”
This was the moment I could break down.
I was well off enough from those ten years of working on the show; I could walk away from Hollywood and fight for this.
But as I looked down at the swollen marks on my wrists, I knew I wasn’t in the right place to be a dad. The right place to be something for anyone.
It was time I finally woke up.
“Just tell me where to sign.”
Chapter 1
Present Day
It had been a long time since I was comfortable enough to lay with a woman in my bed.
But it was different with Rachel.
She saw my faults and instead of running took me head-on.
But she didn’t know everything about my past.
Now she was standing in the middle of my kitchen, half-naked after jumping the fence and ripping her pants, begging for an answer.
One I didn’t even begin to know how to explain.
The moment the photo Rachel took went viral, I’d started fielding calls from my former agent and attorney. I made the agreement to stay out of the spotlight while things cooled down with Trish, but that was sixteen years ago. And I still had no desire to be back in the news, for someone to find out what really happened sixteen years ago before I went to rehab.
The real reason I’m not dead somewhere on Rodeo.
But how the hell could I explain any of that to Rachel? Not even my own parents or ex-wife knew about Trish and what happened that day.
When the doorbell rang, interrupting Rachel and my’s conversation, I didn’t know whether to be relieved or to let the dread that had been creeping in boil to the surface.
“Did you call the cops before this and now they’re here to arrest me for trespassing?”
I shook my head as my heart thudded hard. “No, but it may be certified mail from my lawyers. The joy of work on a Saturday.”
My words trembled. I’d already been laid out and vulnerable for her, but that was just the surface. There were so many other demons that could unravel. Then she wouldn’t be looking at me with lust.
It would be a pity.
“Oh.”
As long as I got these documents signed, then maybe I’d explain everything to her.
It was going to come out sooner or later, and now that she was standing in my kitchen, pantsless, it was probably time I did just that.
How the hell did I explain to the woman I was dating, or whatever we were, that the past she’d barely seen was even worse?
I ran my fingers through my hair, padding to the front door.
I froze when instead of a man with priority mail, a young teen girl with long black hair in a messy bun and mesmerizing blue eyes stared back at me.
Eyes I’d recognize anywhere because they were almost identical to mine.
I cleared my throat, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. “Hi, can I help you?”
She held out a shaking hand that held a stack of papers. “I’m Cheyenne, and you’re my dad.”
Staring down at the papers, I saw the DNA test results along with copies of the documents I’d signed in Steph’s office all of those years ago.
My words caught in my throat and I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare at this tiny girl in front of me with her wide eyes.
My hand gripped the door handle so tightly, and I was afraid I’d break it.
“I didn’t know you had company,” Cheyenne said, swallowing hard as she looked past me.
I stiffened then looked over my shoulder to see Rachel standing in the middle of the foyer, looking between the two of us.
She may have accepted me for some of my demons, but this was one that was going to be hard as hell to explain.
Especially since I was still coming to terms with it myself.
Cheyenne moved slowly inside; her eyes wide as her entire body shook.
“Hi, I’m Cheyenne. Len
nox’s daughter,” she said the last part in a voice barely above a whisper. As if the words were foreign on her tongue, but she had to get them out.
I watched the color drain from Rachel’s face, and I gripped the door handle tighter.
Not exactly the way I wanted to do this introduction.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Rachel shook her head, keeping it down as she spoke. “You know, I really have to get going. Um, I’ll see you later, Len. Nice meeting you, Cheyenne.”
She was still sans pants. Still had that look in her eyes.
The one I was afraid of.
She slipped past us, out the door and into her car.
Out of my life.
Which was what I wanted last time I saw her, wasn’t it?
So why did my fucking chest ache as she left?
Shaking the thoughts away, I sucked in a breath, focusing on the present.
I had the ghosts of my past standing in the middle of my foyer.
The one whose mother had made very clear all of those years ago that she didn’t want her to know about me.
I’d kept up with Trish through the grapevine and because it was hard not to pay attention to the writer/producer who owned Wednesday night prime time. She’d done just fine in her career as a single mom and building her empire.
While I spiraled in and out of rehab. Until, while getting sober, I met Ally. Then when Juniper came into the picture, she became my focus. Well, her and getting my financials in order since Steph had not so subtly screwed me when I wasn’t sober enough to know what was going on with all of my post-series money.
That’s how I got into my career in finance. I thought it was the answer to my problems.
Little did I know how close they were to bubbling to the surface.
Now they were very clearly staring me in the eye.
After watching Rachel pull out of the driveway, I slowly closed the door and turned around to face my daughter. My teenage daughter, I had never met.