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“Can you elaborate, please?” The words leak from between my teeth as I try to keep myself from lashing out. With everything I have, I contain the stinging whips of my emotions.
She peeks at me, then straightens out. With a sigh, she takes my hand. Like every time before, when she touches me, I just don’t have the strength to stay away. She tugs me to the couch, and I sit. She sits next to me, tucking her legs under herself, and my gaze falls on her stomach, the bulge so much more noticeable now.
“I’ve never lied about who I am, Zeke. I just want that to be known right upfront. I only edited out certain details of my life because I enjoyed the anonymity. To not be the daughter of my mother, or the influencer, or the spoiled, rich bitch. To just be me and be here with you has been so refreshing. Especially these last few days.” Her cheeks flush, and she looks to her lap.
I run my palms along my thighs and hate how easily she can bend my emotions. How quickly she gets under my skin and makes me want to wrap her up and keep her forever in my arms.I’m mad at her,I remind myself forcefully.
“I’m less concerned about who your mother is and more about why these people think you’re missing.”
Nova rolls her eyes. “My family knows I’m safe. If I go home pregnant at nineteen, the press will hunt me down for this story. The gossip blogs will make shit up as they see fit, and my stress levels will be a thousand times what they are right now. Believe me. I’d rather be here baking cookies with your sister than back home.”
“And this Country Music Princess thing. What’s that about? And the YouTube?” I ask.
“My mother runs a record label in Nashville. She was raised in Alabama—her family is old money. Richer than anyone ever needs to be. Mom bought out a competitor label. She’s trying to merge them and restructure, and she’s having a hell of a time bringing it all up to date with the whole streaming thing. She’s struggling because the board feels like she’s too out of touch to pull it off. She’s too far removed from the average country music fan.”
“Small-town hillbillies?” I ask, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“I know, right? Talk about looking down on your audience. But anyway, Mom wants me to work with her. Take my place in the company.”
“And you don’t want to?”
She looks to her lap and twirls a strand of hair around her finger. At this moment, I know I’ve made it where I’ve been trying to go since the first time I suspected she was hiding something from me. My heart races knowing I’m getting her story.
“I didn’t, no,” she starts, meeting my gaze again. “I run one of the most popular wellness vlogs on YouTube. In the last video I posted, I said some real stupid privileged things that the internet didn’t like. They completely dragged me for the same reasons as Mama. I’m completely out of touch with how ‘real people’ live. My bullshit made my mother’s life harder because now her parenting was coming into question. I took off for a while. Let her handle her thing and take some time to think about my thing.”
She lowers her gaze and picks at her fingernail, which is a pretty clear indication that I’m not getting the whole story.
“Nova, I’m not the quickest guy, but I’m also not a complete fucking idiot. You said yourself that this was your life. Being criticized, followed around, and photographed. Why is this the thing that made you take off?”
She hangs her head in defeat.
“I’m being blackmailed.” It falls out between us, and the echo of her words rings through my ears.
“Um, what?” I ask.
“Blackmailed. I take total responsibility for the spoiled and privileged things I said. But someone used my mistake to launch a full-scale attack on me, which is now bleeding over into real life.”
She takes a big breath, which gives me time to catch up. The hiding, the jumpiness, the rock through my window. I’m curious about what she said but get the feeling she’s never going to tell me. I’d have to look it up on my own.
“I have been perfect my whole life.” Her voice cracks, and she looks up as if trying to keep tears inside. “It is so much pressure. Every single move I make is analyzed and scrutinized. Put under a microscope and dissected.”
Her pant leg is a mangled, wrinkled mess as she twists it in her fist. I put my hand over hers to stop the fidgeting and let her know I’m here. I’m listening.
“I got a note along with part of a video of me drunk, stumbling around, kissing people, and saying some pretty nasty shit about the college my parents were paying tons of money for me to fail out of. The note said that the video was evidence that what everyone was saying about me was true. A bitch who deserves to lose it all. As time has passed, I’m starting to think that slowly they’re taking it away. Forcing my hand until I’m the reason I lose everything I care about.”
She meets my gaze, and in an instant I understand. The secrets. How she’s pushed me away and kept me at a distance these past months. She’s been trying to keep me out of it. To protect me from whatever has come for her. But I’m involved now. The baby, mostly. But the strange text. The window.
“The rock through my window?” I ask, and she seems to understand.
“I think they found me.”
“They?”
“I don’t know how many, or gender, or anything. I thought it was someone on the board, but it can’t be. They wouldn’t have time to put this much effort into keeping me quiet.”
“This is about more than what you said, then? It’s not just about your mistake?”
“I think it’s revenge. But Zeke, there are so many people who secretly hate me that I couldn’t even begin to figure out where this is coming from. The world I live in isn’t like this one. It’s not tight-knit families and warm Christmases. It’s deception, lies, and betrayal to get ahead. That’s the world I belong to. The one that only cares what we have and who we control and how we look.”
