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Stop.
I can’t. Not now, at least.
Instead, I stand still, watching him walk away, my heart aching with each step he takes, wondering if I’ll survive the day he walks away for good.
42
Paxton
@Stargossip: I have it on good authority that not only is Mallory Reynolds doing the devil’s tango with Paxton Ramsey, but she’s got the battle wounds to prove it. That’s one hell of a tan line on her neck, or should I say hand mark? Daddy must be so proud.
@Coolcat4: Does she give it up for clients, too? If so, I might have to change careers.
@Ilovebrad: As long as she’s not banging Brad, I don’t care.
@Meangirl12: She’s fugly. What’s he see in her?
@Coolcat4: Shut it @Meangirl12, Your jealousy is showing.
@Deathtothesystem: The end is near. ;)
“Wake up.” I shake Mallory, trying to get her up.
I know she’s in pain from the sunburn, but stuff is going down right now, and despite her exhaustion, she needs to be awake.
This is bad. Really bad.
“Come on, Mal.” I shake her again, to no avail. She’s like a rock—rigid and unmovable.
I sit back and sigh. It’s like trying to wake a sleeping bear who’s been hibernating for a long winter.
Impossible.
“Mallory,” I say softly, almost in a whisper. “It’s time to get up. We need to talk. You can sleep when you’re dead.”
Or, in this case, I’m dead, because when I tell her what I need to tell her, she will most likely kill me.
To my surprise, she stirs slightly and murmurs something incoherently. I take a deep breath—it’s a start, at least.
“I hurt.” She groans.
My eyes rake over her small body, and I can’t help but wince. She’s seriously toasted.
“I know, princess, but we need to speak. It’s bad.”
Slowly, she blinks away the sleep. She sits up and looks around, confused for a moment.
“Pax?” She rubs her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s out.” I blurt out the words with no finesse. Panic is mounting, and I don’t have time for anything but ripping off the Band-Aid.
Mallory shakes her head in confusion. “What’s out?”
“Us.”
Mallory shoots up. “What do you mean us? What are you talking about?”
I take a deep breath. “There were some tweets.”
Mallory looks at me with disbelief, and then anger slowly creeps in. She pushes the blanket back and moves to stand.
“What tweets, Paxton? What are you talking about?” Her voice shakes with fury.
I can feel the tension building in the air as I start to explain what has happened. “That gossip influencer. They leaked a story about us—that we’re . . .”
“We’re what?”
“Fucking.”
Mallory’s eyes grow wide, and she’s ready to explode. “That’s impossible. Nobody knows, and we haven’t been caught. We’ve been careful, Paxton.”
She’s on the edge of hysteria. Her hair’s a wild mess of tangles from sleeping like the dead, and her bright red skin somehow glows as if she were roasted on a stick in hell.
There might be a need for a priest and an exorcism soon.
I shake my head. “I know, and I’m sorry. But someone knows. Someone saw something and talked. The tweet references the handprint.”
Mallory is livid as she paces back and forth in front of me, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She stops and looks at me, her eyes burning with anger. “Who leaked it? Who told them?”
I shrug my shoulders helplessly. “Hasn’t that been the mystery of the month?” I rake my hand back through my hair. “I wish I knew. I’d strangle them myself.”
Mallory’s face contorts in rage, well past what I’ve seen so far, and then she slams her fists down on the table, making a loud thump.
She screeches a string of curses at the sky, and my eyes fly wide. I’ve never seen her so incensed. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone this livid. It’s almost as if she . . .
“It was Teagan,” she grits out through clenched teeth, breaking into my thoughts.
I’d just been thinking she had an idea of who it was. But Teagan? That is not what I expected. She has to be wrong.
“You need to calm down. You don’t know that. It could have been anyone.”
“No. Pax, it was her.” She strides over to me. “Show me the tweet.”
As much as I don’t want to give her the phone, I do.
The moment she sees it, her face pales before the blood rushes back in, turning her the shade of a beet. She reminds me of a cartoon character where smoke blows out of their ears.
“It was her.” She taps her fingers on the side of her leg.
I grab Mallory’s arm, pulling her hand to my mouth and kissing her knuckles. “Calm down, Mal. Let’s not jump to conclusions here.”
I have to believe she’s making this accusation because she’s tired, confused, and out of her mind. This is Teagan. Her Teagan. The girl she’s gone to bat for over and over. Surely, she couldn’t have betrayed Mallory so horrifically. It’s inconceivable.
