More Than Famous (Famous #2) (3 page)

I felt the anger drain out of him, as tears dripped from my eyes. I felt sad that he was so hurt, sad that it had come to this and angry as hell that he would do what he just did.

“Brooklyn, please come back to me. I’ll forgive you for being unfaithful to me with him. Just please come back to me and we’ll forget any of this ever happened.”

We were arriving at the theater and the crowds were screaming everywhere around. I shoved him from me roughly after his grip on my flesh lessened.

My eyes flashed at him and I lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “Don’t you
ever fucking touch me
again! Do you
hear
me?” I rasped out.

I angrily moved to the other side of the car as far away from him as possible.

I struggled to wipe the tears from my face. I was so upset my body was shaking and my voice trembled.

“You bastard! I was never unfaithful to you, David! I wasn't with Cade until after we broke up!"

“You fucking expect me to believe that? I saw how he mooned over you!”

I tried to calm down and get control of my emotions. The crowds screaming outside the car reminded me that I had to go out there and act like a star, despite my inner turmoil.

"Look, I never wanted to throw it in your face, but you leave me no choice now. I
love him
, okay? More than I've
ever
loved anyone! Nothing you say or do will ever change it! Now, I have to step out of this car and put on a happy face in front of thousands of people. I fucking
hate
you for doing this right now!”

He sat back in his seat like I had slapped him, and I ran a trembling hand through my hair, trying to take some calming breaths.

Jesus… what was Cade going to think?
It wasn’t like I was going to get a chance to talk to him about it before all of the bullshit started. David hurting me didn't even matter compared to what Cade's reaction to it would be.

I took out a mirror and wiped the smudges of mascara from under my eyes and retouched my lip gloss, but my face was pale as hell. Martin was already waiting beside the car for me to join him, along with Ruth, my publicist, but thank God, Cade hadn’t arrived yet.

David tried to reach for me again, but gentler this time. He’d seen this side of me before and he knew I was dead serious. I flinched away from him, my eyes glaring.

“I want you off of the red carpet. I want you as far away from me as possible, so the fucking minute I get out of this car and join Martin, you will exit and the guys will escort you out. You wanted this to stop, well, it’s stopping. I’m done!” I took another shaky breath.

“Brook, I’m sorry…,” he began and I put up my hand to stop him.

"Fucking save it,” I said. "I’m so over this bullshit."

His expression hardened as he stared at me, dead calm replacing his desperation. “You know, I could totally fuck you up. I could tell the media everything I know about you and Cade, blow this shit wide open. That’s what I
should
do. What will the world think of their golden boy, then? They’ll think you’re a two-timing whore.” His face was livid.

“You know what? Go ahead, David. You'd probably be doing Cade and me a huge favor.” Deep down I was scared shitless, but I couldn’t let him see that. “Do your fucking worst.”

I was shaking as I grabbed the door handle and pushed open the car door. As I stepped out onto the red carpet, I ran my hand through my hair and tried to steady my legs all the while the fans were screaming around me. It took effort not to fall apart.

I felt myself literally crumbling, not ready for any of this; especially after the scene in the car.

Martin came to me and put his arm around me. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" He could see the stress on my face as I struggled not to cry. I bit my lip and nodded, feeling tears threaten again, and shoved my hands in the pockets of the black leather jacket I wore over my dress.

I inhaled deeply, blowing it out as Cade's car pulled up on one side of me, while David was being escorted out on the other.

Talk about fucking irony
.

The minute Cade opened his door the screams increased by a hundred decibels, and my hungry eyes sought him out. He was as gorgeous as ever, and my aching heart screamed for me to run into his arms.
God, I need him right now
.

I stepped back with Martin to wait as he cleared the car and tried to get control of my emotions.

I hadn't seen him in ten days. It felt like ten years, especially when I was feeling so fragile. I wanted to feel his strong arms around me, and his passionate kisses on my mouth, but knew that couldn't happen for several more hours. At least I'd have him standing beside me.

We had to get through the movie and the interviews before we'd be allowed to retreat to the hotel, when we could finally be alone and I could tell him about what happened with David. My stomach lurched as I worried over his reaction. He would be outraged.

His eyes searched for me and he smiled when he saw me, but it quickly faded when he saw the look on my face. I knew he could see the angst in my features and he visibly tensed.

Cade's hand ran through his golden hair again and again as he talked to some of the press on the carpet lined up to interview him, a sure sign that he was agitated as well. He walked a few feet toward me, and put his arm around my waist.
Finally.

He pulled me closer to his side and leaned down to speak in my ear as the cameras began to flash all over again, and the fans increased their din of screams and chants.

"Brook, are you okay?

We were both trying to smile for the cameras and I was extremely shaken.

"Not really. I just had a big fight with David in the car. He threatened to out our relationship to the press. We are
so fucked
!"

I smiled stiffly as his arm tightened around my waist as the cameras flashed a million times a second.

AFTER ALL OF
the screaming fans on the carpet and the film had run, we were then ushered into a huge auditorium for the interview session of the premiere.  Brooklyn was still visibly shaken and I was worried about her. I'd never seen her so upset, other than the times we'd had to say goodbye.  I knew crowds made her uneasy. Maybe as much as they did me, but this... well, I knew this was something else.  This had to do with the way David disappeared.  When I'd gotten out of the car, I saw Brook's bodyguards walking away with him, but that was all I knew of what had happened.

During the photo calls, I wasn't near her alone and couldn’t ask questions. I was going crazy not knowing what happened. Being unable to talk to her was maddening and then the interviews created the same problems.  I was very happy to see her, but the look on her beautiful face scared the hell out of me. 

She’d been crying and was struggling to calm her breathing for the first twenty minutes on the carpet. I felt her mood as if it were my own.

When she told me she'd had a fight with David and he was planning on going to the press, I felt a mixture of relief and trepidation.  Maybe it would be a good thing if we didn't have to hide anymore.  I was very private by nature, and didn't feel the need to parade the truth around, but I was sick of the lie. We needed the chance to be together quietly, without having to sneak around, yet not being overly anxious to expose the details.

 Now, I had this new worry. 

Was she more upset about us being exposed or was she more upset about her fight with David?  Given the fact that she'd devised the little bracelet ploy to let out little hints about us, I doubted it was the former. 
Shit, maybe it was both. 
Damn it,
I wouldn't be able to find out until after the interviews were finished.

I glanced at Brook as they sat us down on some black leather chairs in front of thousands of screaming girls. I should be flattered by the attention, but really it struck me as annoying. These women didn't even know me and I was the same person that I was when I was in my other films, so what was all the fuss about?

Brook was shrinking in her chair, visibly cowering from the crowds and the noise. Maybe she was sick. She put on a good front, but it wasn't impenetrable and I could see she was crumbling in the way her shoulders slumped, the paleness of her pained features, and the way she kept running her hands through her hair.

They had us put on some headphones so that the translators could give us the questions as the crowd asked them.  It all became sort of surreal, a blur of sorts as the questions passed between the three of us and the crowd’s roars rising and falling.  The standard questions were always asked, you know, “What's it like to work with Brook?”, “Have you read the books?", "Will you do the other movies in the series?"  For Brook they were “What's it like to kiss the hottest doctor in the world?", "What's it like working with Caden?”, and the same sort of mindless inquiries.  It wasn't fair really, how most of the questions were about me, even if they were directed at her.  Her contribution to the film was equal to mine, for God's sake.

I caught her glancing my way several times, and I longed to reach out and take her hand in mine, to give her reassurance, to take the pain off of her face. I didn't think she was really listening to the girl asking the next question, because her chin was bent down and she was playing with her hair.

"Cade are you anything like Ryan?  Are you romantic to the girls in your life? Is there one special one?"

Yes, she says I'm incredibly romantic, and that's all that matters
.

I took a breath and smiled as I considered how to answer the girl without giving too much away.

"Uh... sure, I can be romantic if I’m properly motivated.” I smiled as another blast of screams hit me. “I kind of have the, you know the whole attitude which Ryan has that…” I was stumbling a little bit, but I realized how true the words were that I was about to say. "If you're gonna make an effort with someone, then it has to be with that
one
person, and that's it. There’s only one true love."

Brook's head snapped up to look at me and I saw something like fear in her eyes. "What?" Her eyes probed mine for the meaning behind my words. 

The host of the event spoke and broke our little bubble.  "The next question will be for you Brooklyn."

Another girl from the audience stepped up to the microphone; "Brooklyn, what is it like to act?"

I saw her face twist as she searched for the answer.  The question was so obscure there could be any number of answers, and surely it was a very personal question.  She threaded her fingers through her hair and I heard the emotion rise up in her voice when she spoke.

"Um... it's natural. It came easy, sort of like breathing, I guess."  She turned it into a question.  Her face went down and she swallowed back the tears I knew were so close to the surface.  "Sometimes… it hurts a lot. I mean if you really immerse yourself and become the characters, you can’t help it, and I think that’s how we made it work so well." She made a gesture in the air with her hand to indicate she really didn't know what type of answer they were looking for.

Sometimes it hurts a lot.
  Was she talking about the movie, the current situation or both?

Brook didn't look at me for the rest of the interview, which lasted another thirty minutes.  I was agonizing over what could be going through her mind; was she sad because she's realizing that she wants to go back to David? 

What the fuck happened in that car between the airport and the cinema?  I was going completely
bonkers
.

As they finally ushered us down the corridor to the waiting limos, I watched her closely as she walked in front of me.  Her resolve was shot, and I guessed the minute we got into the car she'd lose hold of the delicate control she'd maintained for the last four hours of this ordeal.

Martin was with us and I silently prayed that he'd be taking a separate car.

"Cade, Pinnacle wants Brook to ride with me, and we'll meet you back at the hotel, okay?"

This wouldn't do at all.  Screw the rules; I desperately needed to talk to Brook, and
now
.