Beyond Famous (Famous #3) (48 page)

The phone stopped then rang again immediately: again and again it raged at me until I couldn’t take it anymore. Reluctantly, I dragged myself off the bed and over to where it lay on the carpet by the wall. The screen mocked me with Denise’s name. My heart fell with a sickening thud to my stomach, but I grabbed the phone and slid down the wall until I was a crumpled heap on the floor.

“Yeah?”

“Cade?” she asked.

My voice was hoarse and thick; my throat raw. “Yes.”

“Honey, are you okay?”

Tears pushed from my closed eyes. “Do you
think
I’m bloody okay?”

“A lot of people are worried about you. Your family is going crazy wondering where you are.”

“I need to be alone. I can’t be around anyone right now.” I sucked in my breath. “Just… tell them I’m fine.” Was she going to mention Brook? I hated that part of myself that still needed to know she was okay.

“I have.” I could hear the hesitation in her voice and sat up in panic.

“Did Brook hurt herself?” I asked anxiously. Despite everything, I couldn’t bear anything to happen to her. Even if I never saw her again, I’d accepted that I’d love her forever no matter what she’d done. I couldn’t fight that part of me that she’d become.

“No, other than refusing to eat and crying until she pukes. Cade, I need to tell you something.”

I relaxed to a sitting position against the wall, both of my knees drawn up. “I don’t want to know anything else. I’m going through enough hell, Denise.” My nose was running and I wiped it against my sleeve. I didn’t fucking care.

“You need to know this. I don’t want you to be blindsided. Brook said she left a message about it, but I know you haven’t heard it or you would have stopped her.”

“No, I haven’t listened to any messages.” But it was all I could do to resist.

“She had Jeanne call People Magazine and issue a statement.”

“What?” I yelled, sitting up away from the wall. “Why in bloody hell would she do that now?”

“Because Sheldon was going to talk. But mostly, because you wouldn’t take her calls and she’s more desperate than I think I’ve ever seen anyone. She loves you, Cade.”

I needed those words and the comfort they were capable of, but I wasn’t sure I believed them. “If she loved me she wouldn’t humiliate me publicly,” I huffed in disgust. “Or screw that stupid fuck.”

“You know she didn’t screw him.” Denise’s voice was matter-of-fact and a little reprimanding.

“I don’t know shit!” I tried to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a sob. And hating myself, I asked the question. “What’d she say?”

“That she’s sorry that she hurt the person she loved more than anyone else. You. She finally said she loved you to the world, Cade.”

“Now? After she fucked me over?” I asked angrily, welcoming the return of the fury. It felt better than the pain. “If Brook really loved me, none of this would be happening. It’s probably just Jeanne on damage control.”

“No, it isn’t. Jeanne and I were both at the house telling her not to do it. It’s career suicide. We told her to ignore it and it would die down eventually. But, you know Brook. She’s stubborn, and she was desperate to get through to you. She knew if she made a public statement, you’d hear it at some point. And being public was what you wanted most.”

I inhaled deeply and pressed the heel of my hand to my eyes. “Bloody hell! She’ll be butchered by haters. They’ll eat her alive for admitting to shagging that bastard the entire time.”

“Cade!” Denise hollered back. “She said it was barely a kiss he forced on her, and then she kneed him in the nuts. I believe her.”

I should have laughed, but I felt defeated. “Even if that’s true, she may as well have slept with him. How many times does it have to be proven? People don’t give a rat’s ass about the truth,” I said tiredly. “They want a story and the dirtier, the better. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt in the process. And besides, it’s Sheldon Richard’s reputation to plow through one woman after another. Jeanne shouldn’t have let her do a film with him in the first place. She should be nowhere near him.”

I didn’t know what I believed. Why did I care how the world saw someone who cheated on me? My fingers splayed across the front of my shirt as my chest tightened again. I fucking hated my weakness.

“The only opinion Brook cares about is yours. We have to do some damage control of our own, Cade.
Now
.” Why was she talking about business when all I could think about was that Brook and I were done?

I shook my head with a wry grimace. “I don’t care about anything right now, Denise. Everyone and everything can go straight to hell! I don’t give a shit if I never work again.”

“Stop it!” she shouted. “I won’t let you do something you’ll regret. I think Brook should move out of the house, but we can let her know it’s just for show right now.”

“Maybe I don’t want it to be for show.”

“You mean… you’d actually leave her?” she asked incredulously.

“Look, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing! I’ve just been gutted from the neck down. I never thought Brook could do anything like this.”

“You need to talk to her before you judge her. Jeanne and I have been hard enough on her. She’s young and impressionable. People make mistakes.”

I swallowed at the lump in my throat. “I saw the photos.”

“Cade,
why
?”

“Because I’m a stupid asshole that’s glutton for punishment! Why do you think? Because they’ll be around for fucking
ever
and I’ll have to deal with them at some point. I might as well get it over with, for Christ’s sake!”

I ran a hand through my hair and went into the bathroom intending to splash cold water on my face. I looked like hell. My eyes were red-rimmed and the lower half of my face was covered in fur. My hair was a dirty mess.

“I gotta go,” I muttered into the phone.

“Should I tell Brook to move out?”

“No, I’ll tell her.” I hung up the phone before giving Denise a chance to answer, set it down on the vanity, and turned back to the running water. I splashed more on my face, then turned on the shower and peeled off my dirty T-shirt. It was one Brook had been photographed in ten times. I sucked in a painful breath and hesitated as the internal struggle with what to do came to a head. I grabbed the phone and punched out a text before I could stop myself.

I need you to move out of my house. And get rid of that fucking car.

I’ll send someone for Lucky.

I couldn’t bring myself to ease her pain when I was still dying inside. Even though I wanted to hate her, I knew I still loved her or I wouldn’t want to stop breathing. I didn’t know what the whole truth was and I wasn’t sure I wanted to drag myself through finding out. I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to face her and I wasn’t big enough to let her stop suffering when I was in such hell. Just when I stepped in the shower, my phone dinged as a new text came in. I stepped out to glance at the screen, my heart rammed into my ribs when I saw her name. Would she still plead with me, or would she finally let go?

Okay, if that’s what you want.

But I’ll love you until I die… it will always be you.

I turned back into the shower with clenched fists as I leaned on the wall, fresh tears forcing out from under my closed lids. Everything hurt. I hated my weakness, but I loved her. I needed to believe those words because they defined the reason for my very existence. I wanted them to be true because even though my head told me to, my heart wasn’t ready to walk away from her completely.

I REREAD CADE’S
messages ten times.

I need space, Brook. I’m a mess.

I’m sorry, Cade. Just let me explain. I’m begging you.

I’m not ready to hear it & can’t promise I ever will be. If I want to talk, I’ll call.

I stared in disbelief at my phone, the words starting to blur, my head aching and my eyes so tired. Two weeks. It had been two weeks since he’d sent the last text and God, it killed me but I’d left him alone.

I moved out like he’d asked and I donated the car to charity, clinging to the hope that if he wanted the car gone it meant there was a chance. I went to the gym to train for my next movie. My dad said it would help take my mind off of Cade and make me feel better to get back in the swing of things. It didn’t, and I didn’t.

I told the studio to put my next film on hold indefinitely. If they sued me, they sued me. I was doing everything in my power to show Cade he was the only thing that mattered. I missed him like I never had before because then I was sure he’d come back to me. This time, he might not.

I tried not to listen to the bullshit news or surf online, but I needed to find out as much as I could, even though most of it was pure speculation and lies. Cade’s fans hated me more now than ever, because now they thought they were justified… Even I hated me. Jeanne said he wasn’t in L. A. but that was all Denise had shared with her. I wondered if he’d gone back to London and my heart fell at the thought. How would I ever face his family again? They’d hate me now and who could blame them? I prayed they didn’t think I’d been cavorting with that bastard the whole time I was working with him. I spent a lot of time with them so I prayed they’d know better.

No one knew where Cade was, or at least, they weren’t talking. I did my best to breathe in and out every day, to get out of bed, to go through the motions and not cry every single second that I didn’t hear from him. I tried not to scream, “Just leave me alone!” at the top of my lungs whenever anyone asked how they could help me. No one could help me, except Cade. Didn’t they all know that?

The seconds felt like years; each one eating away another small piece of me that I’d never get back again. It all seemed so surreal, like a world where Cade and I weren’t together just couldn’t exist. I was alone and hardly coping.

The paparazzi were stalking me and camping outside my parent’s house, so I had to get out of there. My brother barely spoke to me as he dumped me in the trunk of a rental car so that he could take me to Jennifer’s without being followed. He was wearing a disguise and sunglasses, but in my mind I could see the disgust in his eyes when he looked at me. Nate and Cade had become fast friends; the brother neither of them had.

My lips were dry and cracked, and I tried to moisten them with my tongue. My eyes were swollen and felt bruised from rubbing and wiping away the endless tears.

So, I waited and prayed. I barely ate; my appetite vanished. I got up to turn on the Blu Ray before flopping back down on the bed. I ignored the sandwich my friend had placed on the nightstand and stared at the TV through the inky darkness. I never wanted to leave the room again.

The Future of Our Past
had just come out on DVD and I watched it over and over every night until the copy I had started to skip. I was grasping at some small shred of peace… part of Cade… clinging to happier times when I hoped he loved me even though I had no right to want him. Yet, it was there; always there. We both felt it in every glance and the slightest touch
.
It screamed on the screen.

God, I need him
. My heart seized. I loved him more than ever. He’d been so kind and helpful at the beginning of all this, so amazing, loving, and consuming.

I railed at myself. This was my own fault because I didn’t tell him the night it happened. That stupid meeting was the only secret I ever kept from him, besides those days when I loved him but couldn’t tell him because of David.

“Please, he has to forgive me,” I cried into my pillow. My chest was hollow, yet tight. I couldn’t breathe. I fought sleep because I didn’t think I deserved the solace it would afford. I deserved to suffer every cutting edge of every word Cade hurled at me; of the world’s scorn and my own hatred of myself. But did I deserve to lose him? I couldn’t lose him or I’d lose myself.

The credits started to roll and my burning eyes began to droop; my arms empty. The sharp, stabbing pain in my heart had reverted to a dull, ever-constant ache.

The phone I’d clung to for hours rang in my hand and I startled. It was Cade’s ringtone but my brain registered it as just another nightmare where I’d say hello and he wouldn’t be there or his voice would be saying
“I’m through with you, Brook. I don’t love you anymore.”

“Oh, God!” I rolled over onto my stomach and cried and cried. “Caaaaaadddddeee!” I screamed into the mattress as the last notes of the Ryan Cabrera song,
I will Remember You
faded and the screen turned black. I was so tired; barely able to hold my eyes open as I lay there torturing myself.

The phone rang again, but this time I pulled it up and looked at it. Cade. Cade. Cade. His name blinked at me over and over as if it were mocking me, daring me to see if he were really there. I scrambled into a sitting position and flipped the phone on.

“Cade?” I sniffled. Breathless; I waited for his words; words that would save or destroy me.