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Sure, his phone was out of commission. Still, one would assume a person with million-dollar homes spread across the globe could handle the cost of shelling out a little cash for a new device.
Emotionally, she was all over the place. Her emotions swung from being grateful he’d given her space to spitting mad that he hadn’t even attempted to reach out.
And Aria?
The thought of the sweet sass-pot was enough to bring her to tears.
Luckily, Aria was spending this time with her grandparents, blissfully unaware of her aunt and uncle’s impasse.
She should have said goodbye to the little girl before slipping out the door into the pouring rain. But as she collected her tote from the housekeeper and glanced up the staircase leading to Aria’s bedroom, her wounded heart couldn’t handle it. Just seeing the kid fast asleep with the piano eraser clutched in her hand would have been enough to keep her at the villa and agree to hear Landon out.
And she couldn’t do that.
She couldn’t allow another person to sell her out. Even if leaving her name off the contract was a typo, what wasn’t a mistake was his feelings regarding her prospects as a recording artist.
While everything in her life seemed out of control, one thing remained constant: the ache in her chest.
But the pain was only part of her anguish.
She’d endured the blows dealt by her parents and Vance. She was no stranger to having her heart kicked around like a rusty can. She’d experienced emptiness. She’d been discarded and left behind like a half-eaten sandwich. But she’d never felt like a part of her was missing, like a thief had snuck in and stolen a piece of her soul.
She caught sight of a wrinkled envelope tucked beneath the empty pastry boxes, and another sliver of her soul slipped away.
Stop!
Teach the Bonbon Barbie lesson.
She sighed and gazed into the camera.
How was she back to square one?
She’d gone from being the definition of walking on sunshine to the poster child for eating your emotions. She’d become a bonbon fiend desperate for her next hit of cocoa, searching for anything that would distract her from the gaping hole in her heart.
And speaking of distractions, that was the reason she’d donned the feathery mask and hit the livestream button.
Was broadcasting to the world an insane thing to do under the circumstances?
Yes, absolutely.
In the high-tech world of instant messaging, everyone knew the rule about not texting while drunk.
There should probably be a second rule.
Never livestream after experiencing extreme heartbreak.
She’d be wise to take her own advice, but she wasn’t operating on wisdom. There was too much sugar and disappointment in her bloodstream for that.
The anguish that had consumed her since she’d listened in on Landon’s conversation with the Luxe lawyer was calling the shots.
She needed to do something that felt normal and reminded her of who she was before she became Landon Paige’s double-dog dare nanny-aunt-wife.
And then, there was the Italian press—the reason she and Carol had been spending so much time together.
She hadn’t thought about what would happen once she kicked the unsuspecting courier out of the taxi and demanded the driver take her to the nearest airport. The highly orchestrated villa photo ops had only given her a glimpse of Landon’s celebrity status in the country. She learned the hard way that by being his wife, the frenzied excitement extended to her, and without a pack of security guards, she was left completely exposed.
Seconds after she stepped into the regional airport, a crowd of travelers recognized her. They’d swarmed around her like amped-up bees. All she could do was raise the hood on her sweatshirt and zigzag through the mass of people. They’d snapped pictures and filmed her on their smartphones while peppering her with a barrage of questions in broken English and Italian.
Her only saving grace was that she’d arrived in time to catch a direct flight to Denver and had the funds to purchase a first-class ticket. Landon’s lesson on LookyLoo had garnered thousands of new followers and a few million video views, and the site had started paying her. She hated that the fresh infusion of cash came from riding Landon’s coattails, and she hadn’t made much. Still, relief washed over her when she checked her bank balance on her phone as the taxi pulled up to the airport.
