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It was as if someone had jammed a blade between my ribs. What did she say? No. It wasn’t true. No fucking way was it true.
“It’s true?” I sat in the cab of my truck, dumbfounded. Shocked. Broken.
I didn’t know how quickly my emotions could be strangled with one confession.
She sniffed. “Jake said he was going to release the information, but I didn’t believe him. I never thought he’d actually go through with it. He’s been saying it for years.” She cried so hard, none of her words made any sense.
“You used to be Mandy Brown?” I didn’t even know who the fuck that was.
“Yes, but let me explain—”
I cut her off.
“Stop it. It’s a fucking lie.” I couldn’t let her destroy me. The longer I hung around to hear excuses, the longer my heart was still in it. The more I bled. The more I physically reacted to the words in my ear.
“Luke, I wanted to tell you all of this before, but there was never a right time to tell you.”
My stomach clenched in repulsion.
I didn’t need an explanation. I had been played. I was no different than the fans. The millions of people who fell in love with an image.
I thought she was someone different. The woman who had brought something deep and powerful from my soul. She could move me with her voice. Rock me with her body. Love me with her heart. And the entire time she was a whore. A whore.
My eyes narrowed. My heart hardened.
“Luke, please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
What could she say? What could undo the lies and deceit? What would erase the images flashing through my head of other men having her the way they wanted? Of her reaching for the bedside for piles of cash after she had been fucked. God. I cringed. I beat the steering wheel.
“You have to know I was trying to make it on my own, and the real story isn’t the one you—”
The rage consumed me. Th
e pain tore through my veins. I hung up and hurled the phone in the back of the truck. I didn’t want to be near it if she called or texted.
I walked inside and went straight for the bottle of bourbon.
I didn’t bother to find a glass. I popped the top and touched the bottle to my lips. It had been a long time since I had spent the night drunk, but I was about to change that.
33
Alexa
“Honey, please stop checking your phone.” Helena’s voice was sympathetic.
“He hasn’t called or returned any of my texts.” I turned the screen facedown. “If he were coming tonight, he would have called, wouldn’t he?”
Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “I’m sorry. But you’ve got to focus on this night. Look how gorgeous you look. And this dress is to-die-for.”
I didn’t care about the dress or my hair. Without Luke, it didn’t matter.
“I think I should skip the red carpet.”
“I realize Jake isn’t your manager any more, but I have to step in on this one. You’re doing the red carpet.”
I sighed. “So I can be humiliated, publicly?”
