Locked (PresLocke Series Book 2) (30 page)

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he pulled away from me. When he caught sight of my face, his smile dropped. “Ace? What is it? What’s the matter?”

I tore my eyes off the commercial playing, and when I found his gaze I opened my mouth to tell him, but in my periphery I caught the intro to the entertainment show and it was too late. Dylan had seen the direction of my stare and pivoted to take a look at what had stolen my attention from him, and as his spine straightened to the point where it looked painful, I wondered what was going through his mind.

“Sex, lies, and dirty secrets were unlocked this past week,” the announcer said. “We’ve got all the details on the mysterious man in Ace Locke’s love life. That’s right. Dylan Prescott, the other half of PresLocke, has been an enigma up until now. With Locke and his camp staying quiet on the whirlwind romance, not much has been learned about the sexy Calvin Klein model, other than he looks
muy caliente
in a pair of briefs. But we sent Holly to sit down with a woman who knows all about this young man. After all, who would know him better than his own mother…”

Oh shit.
 

Shit.
 

Shit.
 

Fucking shit.
 

My eyes darted to the man standing an arm’s length away from me, and as I went to reach for him, Dylan began to move. One foot in front of another, he tracked across the space between the kitchen to the couches like a robot with the single-minded focus of getting as close to the mounted screen on the wall as possible.
 

As the blasted show cut to another set of commercials, to no doubt draw out their thirty minutes of viewership, I watched Dylan come to a dead stop in front of the TV and wait.
 

Yep, they’d certainly succeeded in doing their job in this house. And while millions across the nation would wait, and sit through the ads for the top story they were keeping until those final few minutes, w
e
waited through commercial upon commercial for them to come back and reveal just how deep they planned to twist the knife to get the top scoop.

There was no other sound in the house except the sales pitches of every item that flashed up on the screen, which I doubted either Dylan or I comprehended. Yeah, the two of us were like goddamn zombies. We’d zoned out on all that was around us, including one another, as we waited for the other shoe to drop.

26

I AIN’T SAYIN’ HE’S A GOLD DIGGER

THIS IS NOT happening. This is
not
happening.
But as I stood with my nose practically glued to the screen in Ace’s—no,
our
—TV room, the urge to vomit told me otherwise. My hands had grown clammy as I’d crossed to the spot I’d now taken up residence on, and I was trying to remember if I’d taken a breath in the last five minutes, or if I needed to.
 

Before the commercial break, Brenda’s face had been splashed across the screen in HD, but the image that had been broadcasted to millions was definitely
not
the Brenda I knew. It appeared that dear old Mom had gotten tired of waiting for a phone call that wasn’t going to happen, and where we’d stupidly thought she had decided to take Ace’s advice and leave, she’d made a phone call of her own.

My hands shook by my sides as I ran through all of the words that’d been exchanged between us since she’d resurfaced from whatever hell pit she’d resided in after being released from jail, and I wanted to scream. I couldn’t begin to imagine what she planned to say next—who knew when it came to Brenda. But as my anxiety tried to chew itself free through the lining of my stomach, my gut ached at the thought of what was about to happen next.

I was vaguely aware of Ace moving behind me, probably coming closer, but I didn’t turn for fear of what I would find if I looked at him. What was he thinking right now? What a colossal mistake he’d made?
Fuck. Probably.

“And here’s the story you’ve all been waiting for. Who
is
Dylan Prescott? Don’t change that channel—this is the story that’ll be talked about around the water cooler on Monday. And you don’t want to miss out.”
 

The too-thin brunette who’d delivered that nauseating introduction to the happy downfall of my reputation then turned toward the wall of televisions mounted behind her as the show’s logo vanished and the camera switched to the interview.

There, framed within the confines of Ace’s television, were two women. One I recognized as a reporter for the show. She had blonde hair, and I’d guess her to be in her mid-to-late twenties. I’d seen her before, relaying the latest gossip on the rich and famous and even—I hated to admit it—waited for the breaking story at the end of the show if it involved someone I was a fan of.

Well,
I thought wryly,
how do you like that…
Felt a little different to be on the other side, didn’t it? And wasn’t that the truth. Again, there was that need to regurgitate the breakfast I’d eaten earlier with Ace, and the need only intensified when the reporter began to speak. “Brenda, thank you for agreeing to sitting down with us today. We can’t tell you how delighted we were to receive your call.”
 

The cameraman then zoomed in on the attractive lady in her early fifties wearing a pretty coral blouse buttoned demurely to her collarbone, where a string of pearls—
fake, I’m sure
—rested against her skin. Her messy hair from last week had been straightened and pushed behind her ears, and where she’d had two gaudy hoop earrings there were now pearls to match the necklace.
Isn’t she the picture of motherly perfection.
 

“Thank you, Holly. I’m pleased to be here.”

As she aimed a smile at the reporter across from her, I knew the woman thought it was genuine, and I supposed it was. Brenda was probably thrilled to be starring in her own jacked-up reality show, but the sixth sense I had when it came to this woman had me searching every feature of her face until…
There it is
, I thought, as I took a step closer to the screen. I tilted my head to the side and zeroed in on the slightly narrowed eyes, and there, lurking in the green depths that were so like my own, was a calculation I knew was about to fuck me.

“First off, I have to point out,” Holly said, “it’s obvious as I sit across from you where Dylan gets his good looks from. You are absolutely beautiful.”

Brenda let out a fake laugh and brought a hand up to her pearls to finger them. “You’re very sweet. Thank you.”

“No. No. I’m serious. While we haven’t had the opportunity to talk to Dylan himself, that now-famous billboard of him in Hollywood, the national ad campaigns he’s been featured in, and those delicious photos that have recently surfaced with none other than Ace Locke have given us a glimpse of your handsome boy.”

Brenda nodded as she lowered her hand to place it on her lap atop the black pencil skirt she wore. “Oh, that’s my Dylan—”

“Is she fucking serious right now?” Ace finally spoke up from somewhere behind me. But I held my hand up, halting him, and he fell silent. I wanted to hear every single word that came out of her lying mouth.
 

“From a young boy he’s been a looker. A charmer, too…”

Brenda let the words linger in the air like bait, waiting for the fish across from her to bite. It took no longer than a heartbeat, or two, and then Holly was right there chomping down on that hook.

“A charmer?”

“Yes,” Brenda said, her smile stretching, pleased no doubt that her crumbs were followed. “I mean, as a child he was always getting into mischief. The usual kid stuff, of course. Some stolen candy here, a skipped class there, but by the time he was eight…or maybe nine? He was a master at talking his way out of the little things. And then you add in those dimples of his, and who could resist such a face?”

“Who indeed?” Holly chuckled along with Brenda, thinking she was getting a nice little scoop of a mother recounting her years with her young son.
Yeah, right.
“Not Mr. Locke, apparently.”

“Apparently,” Brenda agreed.
 

“So you know we have to ask: has Dylan brought Ace home to meet the parents yet?”

My hands balled into fists by my sides, and I clenched them so hard that my nails threatened to break the skin of my palms. God, Brenda was lucky she wasn’t close by, because I seriously would’ve contemplated murdering her right then and there. Damn the consequences.

“Unfortunately, Holly, things have happened in my past that have distanced me and Dylan, and though I’d hoped we would reconnect now that I’m here in L.A. I’m saddened to say that thus far, he has refused to see me.”

As one falsity after another rolled off her scheming tongue, the camera zoomed in on her face, and I was disgusted to see a sheen of moisture welling in her eyes.
No…she isn’t…

“Things,” Holly said ever so gently-—
because we wouldn’t want to hurt her fucking feelings.
“You’re referring to the time you spent in jail for drugs and prostitution?”

Brenda made a show of bringing the edge of her fingers up to under her nose, sucking back an elaborate sniffle, and there was Holly, leaning over with a tissue.
 

“Please, take your time. I know this must be difficult.”

“Thank you,” Brenda said, delicately dabbing her nose. “It’s been a long journey to get clean and where I am today. I’ve made mistakes in the past. Many mistakes. But you have to understand I was doing what I had to do to get by. To provide food and a roof over my boy’s head.”

“Of course. That’s admirable. A mother’s love knows no bounds.”

If I hadn’t been standing two feet from the television screen, I wouldn’t have believed the shit I was hearing.

“It really doesn’t, Holly. And that’s why it’s so heartbreaking that Dylan… He’s…” Brenda stopped, sniffed, and then, yep, the crocodile tears started to fall down her cheeks. “He’s refused to see me and has even gone so far as to convince Mr. Locke I’m here to come between the two of them.”

“And are you, Brenda? Do you disagree with the relationship your son has entered into with Ace? Does it worry you that it’s changed him in any way?”

“It already has. Dylan has always been overly ambitious. He used to tell me he would do
anything
to get out of our humble…situation. Even going so far as helping me by using his considerable charms to lure in clients back in the day.”

Holly shifted uncomfortably on her chair, and I could tell she was getting ready to ask the million-dollar question. I braced myself for whatever was about to come, but never could I have expected the next words spoken between the two.

“So you’re saying that Dylan helped you to sell drugs when he was just a boy?”

The tears flowing over Brenda’s cheeks miraculously dried up as she took a moment to compose herself, and then she blinked and shook her head.
 

I held my breath, praying for some kind of natural disaster to take place so the television station would lose signal, or be swallowed up by the earth, but no such luck. A second later, Brenda set off a bomb that blew all of the years I’d spent honing my happy existence straight to hell.

“Oh no, dear. He helped me with the men.”

Even though Brenda hadn’t come right out and said the words, the silence in the room where the live interview was taking place, and the dumbfounded expression on Holly’s face, made it crystal fucking clear that the message had been received.
 

I could see tomorrow’s headlines, or the ones that would pop up later tonight: ACE LOCKE CONNED BY GOLD-DIGGING FORMER PROSTITUTE.
 

“Like I said, Holly,” Brenda said, and this time when the cameraman zoomed in on her, she turned to face the lens head-on, “Dylan was a charmer and always knew how best to use his
handsome
face.”

As the blood roared through my brain, the ringing in my ears became so loud I didn’t even hear what Holly said as she wrapped up the piece. It wasn’t until the television shut off that I realized the seven-minute segment was over.

* * *

I HAD NEVER seen Dylan so quiet or so still. It was as if I were standing in the room with a statue. And his immobility terrified me. I had stood behind him, watching the train wreck on the entertainment show play out, and with each question that had been asked, and every answer that had been given, my rage had intensified.
 

I wanted to scream, to curse the fucking roof off my house, and then get in my car, track that bitch down, and teach her a thing or two about just how charming
I
could be. But the eerie lifelessness of the man an arm’s length away from me kept my feet firmly in place.

Brenda’s intentions and motivations here had been clear. If I wasn’t going to hand over the dough, then she was going to go on air and tell a sob story to the first person who offered her a substantial chunk of cash for the goods. She’d laid the trap, and now she was going to sit back and wait for the first idiot dumb enough to pay her. And this town was not lacking in those.

I tried to bank my outrage on both my own and Dylan’s behalf, and would call my lawyer Logan ASAP, but first…first, I needed to wrap my arms around Dylan and make sure he was all right.

“Dylan,” I said, careful to keep my tone even as I took a step toward him. When he didn’t answer, I tried again. “Dylan?”

I lowered my eyes down to the fingers he still had curled into fists, and that was when I noticed the tail of his shirt moving. As I walked closer, I saw shivers racking his taut shoulders, and cursed beneath my breath. If I’d been feeling a blinding anger, I couldn’t begin to imagine the fury that must’ve been humming through Dylan’s body to have him so strung out he was vibrating.

I swallowed, trying to think of the best way to approach him. I’d seen many sides of Dylan over this past week when it came to Brenda, but this—this was on a whole other scale. I walked around him, stepping in between the wall where the blank TV was mounted and the man staring at his feet with great intent.