Chapter 64
Mina
On the phone, Chase said, "I'll tell you why. I thought she was you."
It was just before dawn, and fifteen minutes ago, I'd sent Chase a text asking if he was still awake. And when he'd replied that he was, I'd called him almost immediately to ask what had happened.
As I listened, he'd explained that after he'd dropped me off at my parents' place, he'd gone not to his condo, but straight to his office in order to change vehicles and sort through some paperwork.
While up in his office, he'd glanced out the window and spotted my car parked along the same street where I used to park, back in the beginning, before Chase had gotten me an assigned spot in his underground parking garage.
Because he hadn't realized that I'd been loaning my car to my sister, he'd assumed that I was the one driving it, so he'd walked over to investigate.
Listening, I could only imagine what he thought he was investigating. But I was touched just the same when he explained that he'd arrived just in time to see my sister getting jumped from behind by – in Chase's words – some drunken barfly.
I asked, "But how'd you know she was drunk?"
"She smelled drunk," he said. "Acted it, too." He went on to explain that the woman had slugged him after he'd pulled her away from my sister.
Earlier, at the kitchen table, my sister had said pretty much the same thing – except she'd gone on to explain that the woman's two companions had joined in the fight.
On the phone, I asked, "But what about the two guys? I heard they jumped you."
"Eh, they tried," he said. "But they were drunk off their asses. Trust me. It wasn't a big deal."
He was wrong. It was a big deal. A very big deal. Maybe Chase didn’t see it that way. But I did. And so did my family.
I asked, "And the woman?"
"She was just as drunk," he said. "But I couldn’t exactly hit her back, could I?" His tone grew speculative. "Now, if you were there…"
"What do you mean if I were there?"
"I mean," he teased, "you could have totally kicked her ass."
In spite of everything, I laughed. "Seriously?"
"Hell no," he said. "I wouldn't have let you near that psycho. And the same goes for your sister."
Hearing this, I was beyond touched and more than a little ashamed, especially when I recalled all of my uncharitable thoughts when I'd seen Chase's car pulling into my parents' driveway.
Softly, I asked, "But what about the blood on your shirt?"
"Like I said earlier, it wasn't mine."
"So whose was it?"
"One of the guys," he said. "I think I broke his nose."
"But you don't know for sure?"
"Nah. When they ran off, I figured the most important thing was getting your sister home."
And he had. In fact, he'd driven Natalie himself rather than letting her drive home alone when she was obviously upset. As far as my car being left behind, I figured that was a problem for tomorrow – or today, considering that the sun would be rising soon.
Still, there was something I didn't understand. "But how'd you know she was my sister? Did she tell you?"
"She didn't have to tell me," he said. "She was driving your car. And I recognized her from the pictures."
I wasn't following. "Which pictures?"
"Those festival pictures," he said. "The ones you showed me during your sales pitch."
I smiled. Already, that seemed a lifetime ago. And yet, during the whole time we'd been together, Chase had never met my parents except for tonight, unless I counted the time they'd caught us making out along the roadside.
But all of this was my doing, not his. For weeks now, my mom had been urging me to invite him to dinner.
And even though I appreciated her efforts, I'd been putting it off – partially because I'd seen the friction between Chase and my dad, and also because, well, to be honest, I didn't think that Chase and I would be together long enough to justify such a thing.
This, too, was making me feel just a little ashamed. No wonder there was so much friction. I'd done nothing to make it better.
On the upside, I knew one thing for sure. My dad wasn't feeling quite so hostile to Chase now. With this in mind, I asked, "So when you drove Natalie home, why didn't you stick around?"
"Because it seemed like a family thing," he said. "I figured you'd want to be alone."
I tried to laugh. "So it wasn't because of the hammer?"
"You mean your dad's?" he said with a laugh. "Nah. It'll take more than a hammer to scare me off."
Now this, I believed.
And speaking of believing things, I decided right then and there, I was going to forget everything I'd just read in that book.
I didn't know Angelique. But I did know Chase. And in spite of his reputation, he'd been nothing but wonderful – well, ever since becoming my boyfriend, anyway.
It was time for me to return the favor – to give him the benefit of the doubt and to defend him the way he'd defended my sister.
Unfortunately, after the book's release, this became more difficult than I ever would've imagined – and Chase wasn't making it any easier.
Chapter 65
Chase
I fucking hated this.
The book had been out for nearly two weeks now, but the media storm wasn't dying down. For myself, I didn’t give two shits what the reporters thought of me.
But for Mina's sake, I cared plenty.
By now, it was early July, and Mina had spent the last two weekends fielding questions that had nothing to do with the campaign or the festivals. Instead, the reporters had been asking her about orgies and harems and fuck knows what else.
For this, I had no one to blame but myself
I should've known better. I should have never taken up with someone like Angelique Delmonico in the first place. But that wasn't why I was kicking myself tonight. I was kicking myself because of my own asinine idea to make Mina the campaign spokesperson.
Yeah, she was doing a stellar job, but I still hated to see her hassled, especially when I was the one who'd thrown her to the wolves.
It was a mistake I was trying to correct, but Mina wasn't having it. Just now in the hotel room, I'd told her that it was time to consider bringing in someone else to field the questions.
She asked, "What do you mean?"
It was near midnight, and both of us were tired and ticked-off. Or more accurately, she was tired, and I was ticked. On the TV in our hotel room, we'd just watched Mina being grilled on the local eleven o'clock news.
The segment had been filmed earlier from the Ardmore County fairgrounds. And even though Mina had done a nice job of steering the conversation back to the festival, it hurt like hell to see her face whenever she was asked about the book.
It bothered her, which meant it bothered me.
In the hotel room, I told her, "It's time to bring in someone else, like I just said."
"But who?"
"I'll find someone. Don't worry."
She shook her head. "So…you're firing me?"
"No. You're being promoted."
She gave me a skeptical look. "To what position?"
"I don't know. I'll think of one."
"So it's not a promotion at all," she said. "Admit it. You just don’t like me doing interviews."
"No kidding."
She made a sound of frustration. "But if that's the case, why did you choose me in the first place?"
"Because I thought they'd be asking you about festivals, not my sex life."
"Oh, come on," she said. "That's not true. You remember back in the beginning, right? You told me up-front about the book. You even warned me that the going might get tough."
"Yeah, so?"
"So you can't exactly claim that you weren't expecting this."
She was right.
And she was wrong.
Yeah, I'd been expecting the tough questions, but I hadn't expected to feel so pissed off on h
er behalf.
I wanted to protect her. And now, to watch her trying to protect me, well, it just seemed wrong, that's all.
I told her, "Alright. If you don't want me to hire someone else, I'll handle the questions."
She shook her head. "But you can't. Remember in the beginning? We agreed that it was better to have the spokesperson deal with it, not you personally."
"Yeah, well, I was wrong."
"No, you weren't," she said. "Come on, Chase. Just think about it. You know I'm doing a good job."
She was right. She was doing a good job. The audience loved her, and not only because of her sweet face and honest blue eyes. Whenever a reporter hammered Mina too hard, the reporter looked bad, not Mina – which meant that I looked better by association.
If Mina didn't mean something to me, I'd say the campaign was working out perfectly. But I cared about her, maybe more than I was willing to admit.
Don't get me wrong. I wasn't in love or anything. That was for other guys, not me. Still, I knew what was right.
I told her, "Whether you're doing a good job or not, you're personally involved, which makes it a conflict of interest."
"So what if I’m personally involved?" she said. "That only means I'll work harder to defend your honor."
It was such an old-fashioned way to put it, and if I weren't so pissed-off at the reporters, I might have smiled. But I couldn’t smile now, not when I considered whose fault this was. "Trust me," I said. "I have no honor worth defending."
Mina frowned. "But that's not true."
She was wrong. The way I'd lived my life, it was nothing to be proud of, at least not on the personal front.
When I said nothing in reply, she said, "How about this? Just give it a couple more weeks, okay? By then, the media will be talking about something else, and I can go back to talking about the festivals." She reached out and took my hand. "Come on. Please?"
With any other girl, I never had a problem saying no. But Mina – whenever she hit me with those baby blue eyes of hers – well, let's just say my resolve didn't hold up so great.
In the end, I agreed to Mina's terms, not because I wanted to, but because I could tell it pained her to think of being replaced.
On the upside, she and I had been doing a decent job of dodging Angelique herself, until our luck ran out the very next week.
Chapter 66
Mina
I swear, my jaw hit the ground as soon as I saw the reporter from the Buckville Shopper. The little newspaper was a small-town publication filled mostly with classified ads and features about local events.
The reporter and I had been corresponding for days, and she'd given her name as Angie Love.
What a crock.
I knew I'd been bamboozled the moment I arrived at our designated meeting spot, directly in front of the Ferris Wheel, only to see not some local reporter, but someone I'd been trying to avoid.
Her name wasn't Angie. It was Angelique Delmonico, the ex-girlfriend from hell. She wasn't alone either. With her was a camera guy – some freelancer from the looks of him.
Talk about rotten timing.
Here it was, a beautiful afternoon in mid-July, and around us, everyone seemed to be having a terrific time. Not me. And if I had my way, Angelique wouldn't be having such a great time either.
I gave her a no-nonsense look. "Let me guess. You're Angie."
"Well, that's what my friends call me." She smiled. "But you can call me Miss Delmonico."
I didn't smile back. Oh, I wanted to call her something, alright. But this was a family-friendly event, so all I did was point out the obvious. "You lied to get the appointment."
"I did not," she laughed. "Trust me, the Buckville Shopper was more than happy to get my name on an article."
When my only reply was a stony look, she said, "Nice job avoiding me, by the way."
Until now, I had been doing a nice job of avoiding her. But of course, I'd been a fool to think my luck would last.
I snuck a quick glance at the camera guy. To my infinite horror, he was already filming us.
Well, this was just terrific.
When I looked back to Angelique, she gave me a nasty smirk. "So, how's lover boy doing?"
Obviously, she meant Chase, but I refused to go there. Stiffly, I replied, "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm only taking questions about the festival."
"Perfect," she said. "So…have you and Chase ever done it on the Ferris Wheel?"
I drew back. "What kind of question is that?"
Her smile vanished, and she leaned in for the attack. "Or, do you prefer to copulate in barns?"
I sputtered, "What?"
"You know," she sneered. "Like livestock."
Embarrassingly, I knew exactly what she was talking about. And of course, it didn't help that yes, we had "copulated" in a barn. But that was only one time and nobody's business, anyway.
I snuck a quick glance around and didn't like what I saw.
It wasn't uncommon for people to stop and stare when an interview was going on, especially if cameras were involved. But this interview was attracting more attention than most, no doubt because everyone knew exactly who the so-called reporter was – and who I was, too.
Probably, the crowd was waiting for the inevitable cat-fight, or maybe a screaming match right here in the midway. But that wasn't going to happen, not if I could help it.
I told her, "That's enough. The interview's over."
"Aw come on," she said. "We're just having a little fun, that's all."
And I thought it would be fun to shove a camera up her ass, but we didn't always get what we wanted, did we? I turned to go.
She called out after me, "Do you know he's seeing someone else?"
I turned back. "What?"
"Oh come on," she laughed. "You can't think you're his one and only."
I did think that.
In fact, I knew I was his "one and only" because we'd both agreed to be exclusive. And foolish or not, I couldn’t imagine Chase sneaking around. If he wanted to move on, he'd simply tell me so. Wouldn't he?
At the thought, my heart clenched like it always did. But if Angelique thought she could rile me, she was dead wrong.
I crossed my arms. "I know what you're doing, and I'm not falling for it."
"Are you sure?" she said. "Because I've got pictures."
Now that made me pause. "Pictures?"
"Oh, yeah," she said. "You wanna see them?"
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
As if sensing blood in the water, Angelique prowled closer to say, "And they're recent, too."
I felt my eyebrows furrow. "How recent?"
She grinned. "Honey, if these were prints, the ink would still be wet." And with that, she reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a cell phone. She tapped at the screen and then turned it in my direction.
Silently, I stared at the image in front of me. She was right about it being recent. Today, we were attending the Buckville Carrot Festival. In the image, I saw Chase standing near one of the many signs welcoming attendees to this very same event. He was hugging a petite woman with long, auburn hair. I couldn't see her face, but I could see his. It was definitely him.
What the heck?
I was still staring when Angelique pulled the phone away and said, "Oh, well. Time to move on, right?"
I wasn't sure what she meant. Did she mean it was time for me to move on from Chase? Or time for us to end the interview for good?
Either way, Angelique was full of crap. And I might have told her so, if only she hadn't already flounced off as if she'd just scored a major victory.
She hadn't. But that didn't mean I was happy.
Chase had lied to me, but not in the way she thought. I pulled out my phone and sent him a text, asking where he was.
When I received no reply, I spent the next half-hour searching for him and his companion. But I saw no sign of either one of them, which frustrated me to no end as I waded throu
gh the crowd searching face after face.
But then, out of the blue, I saw a different face, one I hadn't seen in years. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared across the distance.
Holy crap. I was looking at Bryce, the guy who'd cheated on me all those years ago.
He was standing in line for cotton candy, and he looked just the same as I remembered. His hair was thick and blonde. His body was lean and muscular. He was clean-shaven with the same sort of tan he'd sported after returning from his impromptu Florida vacation – the one he'd taken with Emory Hawthorne.
Now that was a memory I didn't need.
Seeing him now was like traveling back in a time machine to seven years ago when he'd given me a lesson I would never forget.
Hot guys were not to be trusted.
Our eyes locked across the distance, and I felt a slow blush creep up my cheeks. The last time I'd seen him, I'd called him every name in the book, along with a few other names that I'd invented just for the occasion.
This, too, was a memory I didn't need.
I turned away, heading in the opposite direction. I'd taken only a few steps when Bryce called out, "Hey, Mina! Wait up, alright?"
Shit.
Reluctantly, I stopped and turned around. Already, he was wading through the crowd, heading straight in my direction.
Unsure what else to do, I waited with growing unease, wondering what the heck he wanted.
And when I found out, I was so surprised, I could hardly speak.
Chapter 67
Chase
In the small cinderblock building that served as the office for the fairgrounds, Cami was saying, "Oh come on. We want to meet her."
"Yeah," Arden said. "I mean, we didn't drive three hours just for the fun of it."
I looked at the two girls my brothers were planning to marry. They'd surprised me over an hour ago by showing up out of the blue and announcing they were joining us here at the Carrot Festival.
Us. Meaning me and Mina.
During the past couple of weeks, Mina had started hinting that she'd like to meet my family. She'd also hinted that I should get to know her family, too.
This was a bad idea on both fronts.
Mason was still a dick when it came to the topic of Mina, and Mina's dad still hadn't returned my hammer – the one he'd threatened to shove up my ass if I stepped out of line. So the way I saw it, the less we saw of our families the better.
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