He scoffed. “You might be a good actress, but you’re a terrible liar.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, though it nearly killed me to say so. “I shouldn’t have tried to hide the truth of who I am and why I’m here.” I shrugged. “I thought it might be easier to befriend Brandon first before bringing up the topic I came here to discuss.”
Jack didn’t look swayed, but I took another step, and he didn’t back away. The guy might’ve been an insufferable know-it-all, but he was Brandon’s best friend and clearly his self-appointed protector. I didn’t stand a chance if I couldn’t get past Brandon’s very own bodyguard. “Look,” I said. “I’m not here to stir up trouble. I promise.”
He made another scoffing noise that spoke volumes. My promises meant nothing to this guy.
I licked my lips and tried again. “I just need to talk to him. That’s all.”
“Well, he doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Brandon’s voice interrupted my next plea. “Who doesn’t want to talk?”
I spun around and saw him approaching. Or rather… I saw a horse coming toward me. A very large horse.
I hated horses. I always have. It was sheer panic that had me scrambling backwards, not stopping until I bumped into Jack’s hard chest and his arms wrapped around me. “Whoa, easy,” he said.
I was pretty sure he was talking to me, though it could have been aimed at the horse.
Brandon squinted down at me, amusement turning his handsome features welcoming and warm. “You all right, Lila?”
I felt Jack’s chest move against my back as he tried and failed to stifle a laugh.
I jerked away from him, barely refraining from throwing an elbow into those hard abs of his as I half turned so I could face them both.
They were laughing at me. These hillbilly morons were laughing at me.
Awesome. This was going exactly as planned.
“You scared of horses?” Brandon asked as he climbed down. “Or just nervous to face me, Delilah Devereaux?”
I pressed my lips together and studied the two guys who faced me with nearly identical smirks. “I’m not afraid.” Brandon’s horse took a small step in my direction, and I stumbled backwards a little too quickly. “I just have a healthy respect for large animals.”
“Mmhmm,” Jack said.
Brandon wasn’t saying anything, and his boyish smile had faded fast. I felt a stab of guilt and just a smidge of regret that the guy I’d had such a fun time hanging out with yesterday was eyeing me now like I was some sort of Disney villain. Cruella De Vil in the flesh, ladies and gentlemen. All I was missing was a fur coat.
“Can I talk to you for a moment?” I said to Brandon.
“No way, Devereaux,” Jack said.
I cut him a quick glare. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Jack took a half step in front of Brandon as if to protect him from my evil vibes. “He has nothing to say to you.”
“Then he can tell me that himself,” I shot back.
“Haven’t you and your family done enough?” The anger in his voice made me hesitate but not for long.
I’d been a Devereaux my whole life. I was used to the mixed reactions it inspired. This wasn’t my first run-in with a victim of my father’s harsh ways, and it wouldn’t be my last. I drew in a deep breath and lifted my chin. “My family, maybe,” I said. “But what horrible thing have I done to Brandon that you’re afraid to leave me alone with him?”
“Other than lie about who you are and why you’re here?” Jack said.
I opened my mouth and slammed it shut again. He had me there. But I wasn’t leaving here without a fight. Jack might not like me, but I was facing something far worse—my father’s disappointment.
That thought alone had me begging. “Just one minute.”
One of Jack’s brows hitched up in surprise at my pleading tone. But he recovered quickly, and I could see him preparing yet another round of insults and threats to get me off this property.
Brandon stopped him with a hand on his arm. “It’s okay, Jack. I’ve got this.”
Jack looked like he was going to argue, but Brandon shot him a meaningful look. “I’ve got this,” he said again. His tone was so solemn that I fought the urge to call Jack back when he started to walk away.
Sweet, chatty, loveable Brandon of the day before I could handle in my sleep. But that look of sad disappointment when he turned back to face me?
I chewed on my bottom lip, shifting from one foot to the other, feeling for all the world like I’d just been sent to the principal’s office.
“So,” he said, crossing his arms. “What exactly was your plan here, Delilah?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Only my father calls me Delilah.”
“So, Lila really is your name?”
I swallowed. I deserved that, I guessed. “That’s the name I go by.”
“And Baker?”
“That’s my sister’s last name,” I said. “We thought it might be best if I didn’t announce that I was a Deveraux.” I gestured to the spot where Jack had just stood. “For obvious reasons.”
Brandon’s eyes moved over my face, studying me intently. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”
I took a small step forward, awkwardly clasping my hands in front of me. “I wanted to apologize—”
“I meant here,” he interrupted. “In Pinedale.”
Oh. I licked my lips and took a deep breath before diving in headfirst. “I want you to come back to L.A. with me and audition for the lead role in the reboot of Love on the Range.”
He stared at me, not even a blink to help me understand what was going on behind that blank slate expression of his.
I edged closer. “I know acting isn’t your big dream, but think of the money, Brandon.”
He blinked this time, but other than that, he gave nothing away. I tried to think of all this from his point of view. I flinched inwardly. I shouldn’t have used the word audition. That had a tendency to terrify even the most stalwart stars.
“Don’t think of it as an audition,” I said. “It’s more of a formality than anything. Everyone wants you to have the role that your father created.”
“You want me to play my father?”
“His role,” I said quickly. God, I was making a mess of this.
He stared for another long moment before giving his head a little shake and then running his hand through his hair with a huff of humorless laughter. “I can’t believe this.”
I let him have a moment. Clearly, that wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
His gaze clashed with mine. “And this was your father’s big idea? Send his daughter here to… what? Seduce me?”
I shook my head. “No. No, of course not.”
Although, my father probably wouldn’t have cared as long it worked.
“Befriend me, then?” His tone held a hint of mockery that made me feel like dirt. “Why would you even agree to do this, Lila? What’s in it for you?”
“Um…” How to explain that my own success was contingent on me bringing him back? Preferably as my boyfriend. Nothing created better publicity than a starring couple dating in real life. Whether or not it actually was real hardly mattered.
This was probably not the time to mention any of that. Instead, I focused on a different truth. “It wasn’t like this was anyone’s first choice,” I said.
At his questioning look, I explained. “You must know that my father had people reaching out to your mother for months now.”
His expression went totally blank, and I realized my mistake.
He hadn’t known that.
Crap.
“Your father has been pestering my mother?”
Yup, that was anger tingeing his voice, make no doubt about it. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I wouldn’t say pestering.”
He crossed his arms as his expression hardened. “What would you say?”
I hesitated only briefly before taking a leap of faith. Tess and her “
source” might not have verified the info, but I had nothing else to go on. “I’d say he was reaching out with a way to make all your money problems disappear.”
His eyes widened. “What did you say?”
“Uh…”
“What do you know about our money problems?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I mean, not much.”
He muttered something about me and my father under his breath, but I couldn’t quite catch it. Probably for the best. By the way he was glaring, neither my father nor I was in his good graces at the moment.
But I noticed that he hadn’t tried to deny their financial issues.
Interesting.
I made a mental note to thank Tess for that little tidbit… or at least have her thank her sources. While I applauded the mysterious nature of the term “sources,” I had a hunch her deep throat was one of my father’s interns toiling away for minimum wage somewhere.
Still... Good find, deep throat, wherever you are.
“Come back with me,” I said. Even I could hear that I was begging. Was I pathetic? Yes. But at this point, my pride was nothing compared to the fear of facing my father as a failure. “You don’t have to commit to anything. Just come back and let us convince you that following in your father’s footsteps might not be so bad.”
I realized my mistake the moment the words came out. The moment his eyes flashed with pain.
“You want me to follow in my father’s footsteps,” he repeated. He gave another short humorless laugh. “You know where those footsteps led, don’t you? Right to the grave.”
I swallowed. Way to go, Lila. Remind him exactly why he hates Hollywood in the first place. Great work. “Brandon, if you—”
“Just go,” he said.
“But—”
“Go!”
I blinked and took two steps back at the shocking sound of Brandon’s anger. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. And then he was walking away, his back to me as he stormed off toward the house, his horse following behind him.
I watched him walk away, along with my hopes and dreams for the future. There went my chances of having the kind of fame and success I’d always dreamt of. There went any hope that my father might actually treat me like I had some use in the world.
There went any hope of being free.
Nine
Brandon
I should have waited longer to confront my mother. I’d gone inside and tried to calm down. When that didn’t work, I went for a long walk, and then I went to the barn to do some chores. When I came back to the house, I found that Jack’s truck was gone and I was out of excuses to avoid facing my mother.
In hindsight, though, I wished I’d given it more time.
I found her in the kitchen, and she glanced up with a smile as she stirred some vegetable in a skillet. “There you are,” she said. “Jack told me you’d had a visitor, and then we lost all track of you.”
I forced a smile to match hers, but it felt brittle. My mother was a beautiful woman. She always had been, but her beauty had taken on a fragile quality ever since my father died. There was something about her that seemed to scream breakable. At some point over the years, it had become second nature to treat her with kid gloves, like she was a skittish pony who might get spooked if I raised my voice or showed any signs of irritation.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and forced my anger deep down inside. “Why didn’t you tell me that Devereaux had been reaching out with a job offer?”
She stilled, and despite my best efforts to keep my voice cool and my demeanor calm, her eyes were wide with fear. “Devereaux never reached out.”
She was lying. I knew her tells well.
Everyone did; that’s why she was such a terrible gambler.
“Mom,” I said, arching one brow in a look that probably would have seemed patronizing if I hadn’t been taking care of her like she was the child these past eight years.
She looked down at the floor and fidgeted with her apron. “Devereaux never personally called,” she clarified.
I waited her out.
She glanced up with a sheepish look. “Maybe some of his men had been calling.”
I stifled a sigh. I was not in the mood to have to tease this out of her. “What did they want, Mom?”
A flicker of terror flashed across her features, and she was lost. Gone. For one horrifying moment, it was like those worst days of my childhood all over again—when my dad was dead, and my mother might as well have been.
I’d lost both my parents the day my father overdosed, and I never knew when my mother would leave again. Her eyes grew wide and filled with fear. “They’ll ruin you too, Brandon. I can’t let that happen.”
I took a deep breath and walked toward her slowly. “No one will ruin me, Mom.” And no one ruined Dad. I had no doubt that it was the stress of being in the spotlight and the scrutiny that came with it that led my dad toward pills. Maybe my mother’s hatred of the Devereaux name was warranted, and maybe Lila’s father’s manipulative ways helped push him over the edge. But my father had always taught me that a man was responsible for his own actions, so no matter how much the big bad wolves of Hollywood might’ve hurt him, my dad was the one who’d turned to pills. He was the one who mixed them with alcohol. And he was the one who’d taken too many one fateful night eight years ago.
“You’re just like him,” my mother said. “You’re soft like your father. Easily led astray.”
I stiffened at the cold judgement in her voice even though I knew by the vacant look in her eyes that she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to herself or maybe to the ghost of my father. She didn’t even see that I was standing right in front of her.
But that didn’t make her words sting any less.
My mom was religious when I was little—her father was a pastor, and she’d been raised in a strict Christian household. I didn’t know if she was so fanatical about it when I’d been little, and we’d spent more time in California than Montana, but I did know that since my father died, she’d turned to the church to help deal with the grief.
I had no problem with God and no beef with the church, but I hated the way my mother talked as though my father had turned into the devil himself. As though his human weaknesses had been a sign of moral corruption.
But even worse was the barely veiled judgements that clouded my mother’s eyes when she looked at me. The spitting image of my father, that was what she always said. She wasn’t just talking about my eyes and my hair. In my mother’s eyes, I shared his same propensity for evil.
The funny thing was, she didn’t even know the half of it. I mean, I knew my secrets weren’t really evil. I’d inherited my father’s logical mind, as well as his ability to withhold judgment—against myself and others.
But my mom? Well, if she thought that I was ruined now, just imagine if she knew the truth about me.
I squeezed her shoulders, willing her to look into my eyes. “Mom, we could use that money.”
She took a step back and turned her head away.
“Mom,” I said again, trying and failing to hide my frustration. “You should have told me that they were offering us a way out—”
“No!” She clapped her hands over her ears as she shook her head back and forth. “No, we don’t need them.”
I drew in a deep breath. Why was I even trying to reason with her? I didn’t know. Some days were better than others, and I’d thought—I’d hoped—that maybe I could get her to see something other than the past and her fears and the secrets she so desperately clung to.
I didn’t know what those secrets were, but I was a pro at keeping secrets of my own, and I could see it in her. I’d always seen it. The darkness that ate her alive, the veiled looks and whispered words, especially in the days, weeks, and years just after his death.
There were secrets she was keeping, and maybe that was her right.
Just like it was my right to keep secrets of my own.
But this… this
wasn’t just about her. Whatever her fears were about me, about my father, about the wicked world of Hollywood—it didn’t change one pertinent fact. “We need the money, Mom.”
She turned to face me then, and the flash of heat in her eyes was dangerously close to hatred.
It wasn’t. It was just anger, frustration, maybe the memory of her fights with my father. My mother loved me, I knew that. Still, the look in her eyes chilled me to the bone.
Maybe there was some hatred there. But if there was, I had to believe it was aimed at herself.
Sure enough, her guilt revealed itself in her next words.
“I won’t have you paying for my sins.” Her hair was falling out of its bun, and the stray hair framing her face gave her wild-eyed look a desperate edge.
“It’s not a sin, Mom—”
“Gambling is a sin,” she interrupted. “Don’t you try to sugarcoat my vile addictions.” She shook her head and muttered under her breath, “I’m no better than your father.”
“Mom, this isn’t about—”
“You deserve better.” She crumpled in on herself as her shoulders shook with sobs. “You deserve so much more, my sweet son.”
I sighed as she kept wailing, her words aimed toward herself—a sort of self-flagellation that was both familiar and annoying.
We’d been over this more times than I could count. Did it suck that my mother singlehandedly took the money my father had left behind and squandered it?
Yeah. Of course it did.
But no amount of wailing about it changed the fact that we were broke, bordering on bankruptcy, and frighteningly close to foreclosure.
No one knew the full extent of it—not even Jack, though he’d likely guessed at the state of things since we’d had to get rid of most of our help. He never commented on it, just showed up on his afternoons off at the shop to give me a hand with the running of this place.
“Okay, Mom. It’s okay.” I went to her and took her into my arms, wrapping her up in an embrace like I would a small child.
Her fingers clutched at my shirt. “Promise me you won’t go,” she said, her voice high-pitched and pathetic. “Promise me.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice. “Okay, I promise.”
All-American Princess (The Glitterati Files Book 1) Page 7