Small Town Girl (18 page)

“That’s Ava Fox for you,” he said as he
physically shuddered. “Crazy bitch.”

“And you just stood there and let her say
those things!” I yelled.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said. “I’ve got a
reputation around here. I’ve got a business to maintain. She could destroy
everything I’ve ever worked for in this town. She knows a lot of people. She
has a lot of influence…”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Fine. But still.
She’s such a bitch!”

“Yes, she is,” he agreed. “I hope you
don’t believe a word of what she said today.”

“She’s very believable, I’ll say that,” I
replied.

“She’s an actress,” Alec snipped. “That’s
what she does for a living. That’s why they pay her the big bucks. She is just
jealous of you.”

“Jealous?” I yelled. “Of me? What for?”

“Because you have the one thing she
wants,” he said. “Hudson.”

“She can have any other guy she wants,” I
said. “Why does she want him?”

“Because she can’t have him,” he said
with a laugh. “Are you really this dense, girl? Do you really not know how
these people operate?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Look, I’ve worked in the industry for a
lot of years,” he said. “I was pulling outfits for Alicia Silverstone when you
were still in a training bra.”

“What’s your point?”

“Celebrities are just people like you and
me, only they’re attention starved, insecure, and desperate for love and
admiration,” he said. “It’s just that simple. No need to complicate it. The
sooner you acknowledge that, the better off you’ll be.”

“Even Hudson?” I asked.

Alec said nothing but his look said
everything. It was all starting to make sense. Hudson was desperate to keep me
around. He always wanted me to himself. He was constantly craving my touch, my
company,
my
presence. Maybe he was nothing more than a
simple man who needed my attention and admiration? His sweet, charming little
obsession with me was beginning to fit Alec’s template.

“They are all the same, honey,” he said
before pulling into Hudson’s driveway and punching in the code to the gate.
“Every last one of ‘em. But I didn’t tell you that.”

I climbed out of his car, my mind going
crazy. “We’ll have to do this another time.”

“For sure, doll,” he said.

“You don’t think I have anything to worry
about the next couple weeks, do you?” I asked. “With Hudson and Ava?”

Alec scrunched his face and shook his
head no enthusiastically.

“Nothing’s ever a guarantee,” he said.
“But I’ve known Hudson a long time, and the guy is crazy about you. The things
he’s done for you, I’ve never seen him do those things for anyone else. He
truly wants you to be happy, Brynn. I don’t think he’d fuck that up. But what
do I know?”

I nodded to Alec as I turned and made my
way inside the house. I was met with a startled Hudson who was standing by the
back door with his keys in his hand.

“Brynn,” he said. “Why are you back so
soon?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but instead I
just broke down in tears. Every time I tried to speak, only sobs came out.

“Brynn, talk to me,” he said as he pulled
me close. “What happened? Take a deep breath. Talk to me.”

I wiped the tears from my cheeks and
tried to gather my composure.

“Did Alec upset you?” he asked.

I immediately stopped crying and laughed
at the thought.

“No,” I said. I took a deep breath. “We
were at this little boutique and next thing I know, Ava Fox is tapping me on
the shoulder.”

Hudson’s face morphed from concerned to
angry as he took a step back and placed his hands on his hips. He was growing
more livid by the second.

“What did she say to you?” he demanded to
know.

“What didn’t she say?” I replied. “She
said I was a nobody. She said not to believe a word you say. She said you were
going to get bored with me and move on. She said your career was going to fall
apart and you’d go running back to her. She said you two were going to be
spending an awful lot of time together these next two weeks. She put a lot of
lovely visuals into my head.”

His breath grew labored as his nostrils
flared. I’d never seen him so upset before.

“Yep, that sounds just like something
she’d do,” he said. “She has no class. She’s fucking crazy. You’ve just
experienced it firsthand. There’s a reason I ended things with her. You know
that.”

I nodded.

“Look,” he said as he glanced at his watch.
“I’m running late for a meeting. I really don’t want to leave you here, like
this, but when I get back, we can talk some more, okay?”

“Okay,” I sighed.

“I can’t miss this meeting or else you
know I would,” he said as he cupped my chin with his hand. “I’m going to make a
few phone calls though. I’ll make sure she never bothers you again.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Hudson, it’s okay,” I said. “Really. She
wants a reaction. That’s why she said those things. She wants to upset you.
It’s not about me. It’s about you. Don’t do anything. Let’s just forget it even
happened.”

He sighed and his shoulders fell.

“I hate that she said those things to
upset you,” he said. “I hate that I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“I’m a big girl,” I said as I forced a
smile. “I’m learning to grow thicker skin.”

He leaned in and kissed me tenderly
before heading out the door.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he called
out before the door slammed behind him.

The second he left, I slipped into some
comfy pajamas and vegged out in front of the T.V. A bit of mind-numbing
entertainment was in order.

I checked my watch every fifteen minutes,
hoping he’d be back soon. After a few hours, I’d stopped checking. He was
running late, but it was okay. It wasn’t like we had anything planned. I
shuffled to his bathroom where I drew the hottest, steamiest bubble bath I
could possibly stand. I wanted to soak away that awful day.

I managed to find a few candles tucked
away in the bathroom cabinets and lit a few of those too. I deserved to be
pampered, especially after everything I’d been through that week.

I splayed my hair behind the neck rest as
I settled in and let the water lap over me all the way up to my neck. The steam
filled my pores and I breathed it all in with several cleansing breaths.

“Hey, there,” I heard Hudson’s voice call
from behind me. He was finally home.

“About time you’re home,” I teased.

“Got room for one more?” he asked as he
began stripping down.

He climbed in behind me as water spilled
out around the tub. His wet hands slipped down around my waste as I made myself
comfortable in his lap.

Hudson’s hands moved my hair off my neck
as his mouth peppered my damp skin with sweet kisses.

“I’m sorry you had such a rough day,” he
said as he held me tight. “I’m here now.”

“Yeah, but you’re leaving tomorrow,” I
pouted. “For two weeks.”

“Don’t remind me,” he groaned. “I don’t
want to go.”

“Then stay,” I teased.

“If I could, I would,” he said between
kisses. “You know that.”

“I know,” I pouted some more. I closed my
eyes and focused on the sensation of his lips on my delicate skin as his hands
caressed my breasts.

“When I get back, I’ll take you on that
trip to Cabo,” he said. “The one we were supposed to take this week.”

“Okay,” I said with a grin.

His hands slipped down past my breasts
and down my hips before stopping between my thighs. He slipped a single finger
inside me as his palm massaged my clit.

I sighed and leaned back into him,
spreading my thighs a bit more for easy access. As his left hand massaged me
below, his right hand massaged my breasts and held me tight. I loved his hands
all over me. When it was just us, I was all his. Nothing outside of those four
walls mattered. We were in our own little world, just Hudson and me.

“Why don’t I cook breakfast for us
today?” I asked him Friday morning. “It’ll be my treat before you leave. You do
so much for me. Let me do something for you. Besides, it’s a Friday. Give Flor
the day off.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s a supermarket
down the street. I’ll drive myself there. Baby steps, right?”

Hudson looked pleasantly pleased at my
notion to suddenly become so independent.

“By all means,” he said. “Take any car
you want.”

I perused his collection of car keys
before settling on his Range Rover. I wasn’t ready for anything beyond that
yet. I’d freak out if I accidentally curbed his Porsche or dented his Aston
Martin.

“I’ll be back soon,” I called out as I
dashed out the door.

I climbed into his SUV and adjusted the seat
and mirrors about a million times. My heart raced as my sweaty hands gripped
the leather steering wheel.

“I can do this, I can do this,” I told
myself as I backed out of his driveway and out into the street.

I drove a few blocks before realizing the
supermarket was a lot further away than I thought it was, but I reminded myself
that it was a straight shot and I couldn’t get lost. I flipped on the radio to
distract me from all the traffic. It helped a little.

Before I knew it, I had arrived at the
grocery store. The parking lot was packed. I’d never seen this many cars in one
grocery store parking lot before in my life. Even the malls back home were
never this packed.

I found a spot and pulled his Range Rover
in ever so perfectly, patting myself on the back for a job well done.

“I did it!” I softly cheered.

I headed inside to grab a few items for
breakfast. I wanted to make him a good, old-fashioned Iowa breakfast of
biscuits and gravy, pork sausage patties, and hash browns. I hadn’t eaten like
that in a good month, and I knew I could stand to gain back a few of the pounds
I’d lost with my crash diet. One sinfully delicious meal never hurt anyone.

As I entered the store, which was easily
the
fanciest
grocery store I’d ever seen in my life, I
couldn’t help but glance over at the magazine racks on my left. Even before I
met Hudson, I was a bit of a tabloid junkie. I lived for that stuff. I longed
to hear all the juicy gossip and rumors. Now that I’d been on the other side,
my fascination with it had only grown by leaps and bounds. I had an unhealthy
infatuation, but I managed to hide it well from Hudson.

Something caught my eye as I walked by. A
girl on a cover of a magazine looked oddly familiar. I stopped dead in my
tracks and turned towards the magazine, my eyes fixated. The girl was
me
.

My heart sunk deep into my stomach as I
saw a picture of myself running from the boutique, tears streaming down my
face, with Ava in the background smirking victoriously. I didn’t even bother
reading the headline. I knew it wasn’t going to be nice.

I grabbed the magazine, slipped my
sunglasses on, and made a
bee line
for the checkout
lane. Screw breakfast.

I couldn’t get back out to the Range
Rover fast enough. The second I was safe behind its tinted windows, I tore the
magazine open and flipped to the article. There were pictures of Alec and I
shopping, happily, then pictures of Ava and her crew approaching us.
Photos of Ava with her hands on her hips talking to me followed by
multiple shots of me running out of the store in tears.

Supposedly someone who was there gave the
magazine the inside scoop. How convenient of them to leave out the parts where
I stood up to her and put her in her place. It had to have been Ava that leaked
the story. It was the only thing that made sense.

With tears streaming down my face, I
headed back home. I was in no condition to go grocery shopping. I would’ve died
of embarrassment had anyone recognized my face on those covers.

I pulled into Hudson’s garage a few
minutes later and whipped the magazine out once more. A glutton for punishment,
I re-read the article. It was just as awful the second time as it was the first
time. I shoved the magazine into my bag and headed inside, trying to hide the
fact that I’d just been crying.

“Do you need help carrying stuff in?”
Hudson asked, perplexed at my empty handedness as he stood in the kitchen.

“I didn’t get anything,” I said.

“Okay,” he drawled. “Want to go out
instead?”

“No,” I said. I leaned over the edge of
the marble island. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

He spotted the corner of the magazine
sticking out from my purse and yanked it all the way out.
 
His eyes scanned the cover and
frustration spread over his face.

“Why?” he asked as he slammed the
magazine down on the counter.

I removed my sunglasses and stared up at
him, afraid to answer. I didn’t have a good reason. I saw it. I bought it. I
read it.

“I wanted to know what was said about
me,” I replied. It was the honest truth. “And it was all a bunch of lies that
made Ava look great and me look pathetic.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t read those,”
he said as she shook his head. He was almost seething. “I thought we’d gone
over this before.”

“I know,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking. I
just did it. I’m sorry.”

“Does it make you feel good?” he asked.
“To read all those lies about you? About us?”

“No,” I shook my head. I couldn’t even
look at him, he was so angry.

“Then stop, Brynn,” he yelled. “For the
love of God. Stop!”

He walked up to me and grabbed my arms
with his hands. He’d never touched me that way before.

“I want this to work with us,” he
said
as he was mere inches from my face. “It’s never going
to work if you keep reading that stuff. You and I exist separately from all of
that.”

He reached over and grabbed the magazine,
ripped it in half and threw it down on the ground.

“I have to leave for a bit,” he fumed as
he left through the garage and slammed the door behind him.

I heard his car start up and back out. He
was gone. I’d made him so upset that he had to get away from me.

I crouched down and picked up the
tattered, glossy pages of the tabloid that were strewn across the floor at my
feet. I crumpled them up and threw them away. Hudson was right. I shouldn’t
have read those things. I should’ve walked on past, grabbed my groceries and
come home. I should be standing behind the stove right now making him
breakfast. He should be kissing my neck and rubbing his hands up and down my
back. We should be laughing and touching and playing. Instead, Hudson was gone
and it was all because of me.

“Flor?” I called out.

No answer. Hudson must have given her the
day off, just like I suggested. I had the entire place to myself, and I just
wanted to have a good cry.

Life with Hudson was a dream come true,
but it came at a price. Some days I really missed the simplicity of my life
back in Iowa. I missed the anonymity. I missed being able to go out on dates
without paparazzi cameras in our faces and fans begging for autographs.

I settled in on the sofa in the family
room and wrapped myself in a soft, creamy Merino wool blanket and let the tears
fall as I waited for Hudson to return. I hoped that we could salvage our last
few hours together before he left for two weeks, but that would be up to him.
He called all the shots. He always did.

***

I woke up on the couch a few hours later,
my eyes swollen from crying. I must have cried myself to sleep. The house was
still quiet. Hudson was still gone. I wanted to call him, but I wasn’t sure if
he’d even answer. I’d never seen him so angry before, and I had no idea where
he went.

I’d fallen asleep with my hands clutching
my phone to my chest, just in case he called, but I awoke with not a single
text message or missed call. According to the clock, he’d been gone three hours
now. Those were three hours we should’ve been spending together.

Hudson had mentioned before that he’d be
willing to fly Piper out to stay with me while he was gone. I missed her so
much. I never realized how much of a security blanket she was for me back home.

My fingers hovered above her name in my
phone as I hesitated. I hadn’t spoken to her since I was home the weekend
before, and we didn’t leave things on the best of terms. Realizing I had
nothing to lose, I called her anyway.

“Hello,” she answered.

My heart skipped a beat. Piper answering
my call was a good sign.

“Hey!” I said. I tried to act like
nothing was wrong. Sometimes that worked with her.

“What’s up?” she asked. I could sense a
little discordance in her voice, but I ignored it.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye to you,” I
said.

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. Her tone was
flat, and I could tell she was hurt.

“So I was wondering if you wanted to come
out here next weekend and stay with me?” I asked
,
fingers crossed that she’d take me up on it. “Hudson said he’d fly you out here
to keep me company while he’s gone. I really want to show you around. You’d
love it here.”

She was silent.

“Free vacation!” I added. “All expenses
paid.”

“For how long?” she asked, breaking her
silence.

“As long as you want,” I replied.

Her tone seemed to improve. “I guess I
could do that.”

“Really?” I squealed. I couldn’t contain
my excitement. I wanted to bring a piece of home out there so badly.

“Yes, really,” she laughed. “I just have
to check with my boss and get the days off, but I should be able to make it
work.”

“Yay!” I squealed again. “I cannot wait,
Piper. You’re going to love it so much you won’t want to leave.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Piper teased. I could
tell she was secretly excited but didn’t want to admit it to me just yet.

“How are things?” I asked, changing the
subject.

“Same old,” she replied. “I saw your
latest, uh, tabloid mishap.”

“You did?” I asked.

“So Ava Fox cornered you in a store and
gave you a piece of her mind?” Piper asked. “What was that like?”

“Do you really believe everything you
read?” I asked. “She fed that story to the press. I know she did because she
left out all the parts where I sassed back to her and put her in her place.
She’s crazy, Piper. Truly.”

“The article seemed believable,” she
said. “I’m glad I asked.”

“Of course. They all seem believable,” I sighed.
“That’s why they sell so many of those stories.”

I heard the sound of the garage door and
the gentle purr of Hudson’s car pulling in.

“Piper,” I said. “I have to let you go.
Text me the dates you want and we’ll get the tickets arranged.”

“Sounds good,” she replied before hanging
up. Thank God things were back on track with us. I was worried for a moment,
but I never should have doubted her.

I smoothed my hair down and sat up on the
couch, tossing the throw blanket behind me and waiting for Hudson to come in. I
sort of wanted him to see that I’d been crying. I felt bad. I hated that he was
so upset with me he had to leave.

As he walked in, his eyes were fixed on
me. His body was tense, almost nervous, as he walked over to the family room
and sat down next to me. I sat in silence as I waited for him to speak first.

“Brynn,” he began. “I’m crazy about you.
I don’t know what it’s going to take for me to prove that.”

I turned and faced him, studying his
every subtle move. I wasn’t sure where he was headed with this.

He reached down into his jeans pocket and
pulled out a small box, the size of a ring box, and my heart began to beat hard
in my chest. There was no way he was proposing to me. We’d only known each
other a month.

He opened the box to reveal the most
gorgeous platinum eternity band encrusted with tiny canary yellow diamonds the
entire way around. It sparkled in the afternoon sun that spilled in through the
floor to ceiling windows behind us.

He pulled the ring out of the box and
held it out, gripping it right between his thumb and pointer finger.

“This isn’t an engagement ring,” he
prefaced it. “I don’t know what it is. A symbol I guess.”

Blinding sparkles danced around the room
around us.

“I want you to wear this every day,” he
said. “And any time you doubt something that I say or do or anytime you have
doubts about us, I want you to look down at this ring and know that we’re in
this together. I’m yours and you’re mine. That’s what I want this ring to
mean.”

I took the ring from him and slipped it
over the ring finger of my right hand. It fit perfectly, and it looked gorgeous
on my long, manicured fingers. I wasn’t sure how much he spent on it, but I had
a feeling it was probably the nicest thing I had ever been given in my entire
life.