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“Blaire?” he asked in confusion.
Wherever he was, it was loud. It was a two-hour time difference to LA. He shouldn’t have been anywhere that sounded like a nightclub.
“Hey,” I said weakly.
“What’s up? I’m at work right now, and it’s not a great time.”
“I…” I said, stumbling at the dismissive tone of his voice. “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. Can it wait until I get off work? I’ll call you back.”
“Sure,” I lied. I was going to be bleeding for the next four hours. Passing his baby from my body. What else did I have to do? “Sure. Yeah. Call me back.”
Maybe things would have been different or at least better if he’d called, but he hadn’t. Not that night or the night after that or the night after that. He didn’t call again at all.
The miscarriage was the absolute worst thing that had ever happened to me.
But the one word that I’d never used to describe it, that the doctor hadn’t even used, was abortion.
I’d wanted that baby with every fiber of my being.
I still wanted that baby.
And now, I stood before some asshole reporter, spitting that word in my face for a headline, and all I could do was return to that eighteen-year-old girl who had felt like she was dying. All I could do was retreat.
36
Campbell
Rage filled my chest.
All week, it had been creeping closer and closer to the surface. I’d almost lost it on Michael at the studio. I’d almost come apart at the seams when Blaire was mobbed on Hollywood Boulevard. But now—now—it was here. A fire-breathing dragon like I hadn’t seen in years. Not since I had been in high school and taken it out on my dad for how everything had happened with my mom.
I slapped the camera away from Blaire even though that was breaking rule number one of dealing with the press. “Get the fuck out of her face!”
The reporter took a step back. I’d never made a scene with the press in all my years in the public eye. I’d kept it all carefully put together. The look of shock on her face said she hadn’t expected this to elicit that sort of reaction from me.
It would be the talk of the evening. Fuck if I cared. She was out of line, and she had to fucking know it.
“How dare you,” she began.
“No, how fucking dare you,” I snarled at her.
I turned my back on the rest of the interaction. There were cameras everywhere. And half of them faced the commotion I’d just made. Blaire stood frozen, as if she’d turned to stone at the very question. She’d lost all color in her cheeks, and fear crossed her face.
“Blaire?” I said tentatively, reaching for her.
She jerked backward out of my grasp. Sheer panic hit my stomach. She couldn’t look at me. She didn’t want me to touch her. What had that goddamn question triggered?
I needed to get her out of here. Even if we stayed at the event, I couldn’t have her here, in front of the cameras, a second longer.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I told her soothingly. “Do you want to stay?”
She shook her head. Yeah, I’d expected that.
“Okay. Okay. We’ll go. Let me text the driver to come back around.”
I gently touched her elbow. She flinched but let me direct her away from the rest of the cameras and inside the hotel. Security was tighter inside, and there were no cameras. I could already see everything spiraling out before us. This was going to be on TMZ in minutes.
The driver confirmed a new pickup location, and I shot off a message to English as well as my publicist, Barbara. No one was going to like this. I certainly fucking didn’t.
“The driver is coming around. There’s a side entrance we can take,” I assured her.
There was no response. She just stared off, as if she were caught in some nightmare. Her hands were around her stomach. Honestly, she looked sick.
“Blaire, are you okay?”
Her cerulean gaze met mine, and she swallowed before glancing away and muttering, “No.”
I gritted my teeth. I hated this. I couldn’t do anything to fix this. Everything was a mess. Here we’d thought we were going to control the narrative, and then, fucking somehow, the world had found out that she’d been pregnant. I hadn’t even thought about mentioning that to English. Fuck, we were so stupid.
A few minutes later, the limo pulled up to a side entrance, and I hustled a catatonic Blaire into the backseat. Luckily, no press had gotten wind of our retreat. So, we were in the clear as we drove through Beverly Hills.
English called once we were in the car. “Blaire isn’t answering.”
I glanced at my girlfriend. She’d scooted away from me in the car. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“She isn’t speaking.”
“Oh Christ. Is she okay?”
