He's the One (19 page)

Now he seemed rattled, angered by her apparent calm resolve. He had probably expected her to beg and plead, to say it had all been a mistake, that she hadn’t meant it.

‘And how exactly are you going to support yourself
and Brooke? I’m telling you now, you won’t find work in LA. Your career here is finished. No one will hire you, I’ll make sure of that. And I’ll make sure Brooke doesn’t get work either.’

She had expected this as well, had thought he would most likely turn vindictive, and knew that other people in the industry wouldn’t employ her if they believed it would anger him. He was too powerful. He didn’t understand that all his threats were only making her more determined to be free of him, once and for all. The door of the gilded cage was finally open.

‘I understand. We won’t be living in LA, so it won’t matter.’

‘You won’t survive without me. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?’ He sounded increasingly desperate.

‘I’ll send you the address once I know it.’ She had no intention of telling him until she and Brooke were long gone and out of his reach.

‘Is there someone else? You owe me the truth after twelve years of marriage.’

She shook her head, desperate now to get away from him.

‘I don’t believe you! Did you think I never knew about Cory? He wrote to you, did you know that? Some sappy letter about how much he still loved you, in spite of everything.’

Liberty felt herself pale at the words. How had Zac known about Cory? When had he written to her? She longed to ask, but knew she would be playing straight into her husband’s hands and then he would be pulling the strings, yet again. And she couldn’t deal with this now. It would have to wait until she was away from here, then she would think about what he’d told her.

With a huge effort, she kept her voice level. ‘Well, that’s all in the past. Goodbye, Zac.’

Sensing he had lost his power over her, he shouted, ‘I’ve made you into a star and this is how you repay me?’

She had nothing else to say. She was halfway across the room when Zac let out a roar and hurled the ashtray towards the wall where it shattered the huge silver-framed mirror. Liberty carried on walking. She didn’t look back.

Chapter 22

Brooke

‘Bastard! I don’t believe it!’ Brooke exclaimed, checking her Facebook page on her phone and seeing the picture Christian had posted of him and Taylor kissing – or rather eating each other’s faces. Eww!

‘Bastard!’ It was all she was capable of saying right now.

‘Well, at least she’s sucking his face and not his …’ Kelly stopped talking when she saw the look of anguish on her friend’s face.

‘Why didn’t I dump him last night?’ Brooke wailed. ‘Now it’s going to look like he dumped me! And I was so going to dump the fucker! Ahhh! What did I ever see in him?’

She shot out of bed where she and Kelly had been lounging in their PJs, taking advantage of the Saturday morning to have a lie in. Brooke was so agitated she couldn’t stand still, but paced up and down the bedroom. She felt totally humiliated as she thought of Taylor and Christian laughing at her behind her back. The gruesome twosome.

‘He’s very good-looking,’ Kelly replied. ‘But, babes, it was only ever about him being hot, admit it? You weren’t interested in him for his conversational skills and his emotional depth, were you? And you
hated
his music.’

As usual Kelly knew her so well and was absolutely right, not that Brooke was quite ready to admit it.

‘We talked about stuff all the time,’ she replied defensively, while trying to remember what exactly they had ever talked about, apart from how his baseball game was going and about the latest song he’d written. The lyrics of which always sucked … not that she ever told him that. God! She had been such an idiot! Totally infatuated by the pretty-boy loser.

‘Yeah, right.’ Kelly shot back. ‘Forget about him. You are a hundred per cent better off without him.’

Brooke stopped pacing and sat back down on the bed. ‘I know, I know.’ She picked up her phone. ‘So should I send him a message saying he’s dumped, or what?’ She was itching to type out something rude.

Kelly shrugged. ‘No point having any contact with him.’

‘How about I post something under the picture, like, “Hope you’ll be very happy together, douche bags!”’

‘Girl, you are totally going to occupy the moral high ground and say nothing at all. Anything else will just make them post up something nasty. Ignore them. That will be so much better. It says you don’t care. You are the stronger person.’

Brooke put her head in her hands. ‘But I’m a wreck. I need to eat a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Me Up, watch
The Notebook
, and cry.’

‘You need to forget about Christian. So do you want to come to the beach today? I’ll buy you a frozen yoghurt. You are not going to eat Ben and Jerry’s and calorie load because of that dickbrain. And I can lend
you a bikini, to save you going home?’

It was a tempting offer as she had no plans, but then again Kelly was bound to be meeting her boyfriend Ray, and Brooke didn’t know if she was ready to be around a happy couple.

‘I think I’m going to head home. I should check on Ozzy. And my mom’s left loads of messages, saying she needs to speak to me urgently.’

‘Well, if you change your mind, just text me. And promise me you’re not going to waste any more time thinking about Christian? He
really
isn’t worth it.’

‘Who?’ Brooke joked back, though she knew she was still bound to go over and over what had happened.

‘Atta girl!’

A scene of complete chaos greeted her when Brooke let herself into the house. Half-filled suitcases, plastic bags overflowing with clothes, framed photographs of her and her mom stacked up against the wall … and in the middle of it all, Rosa, looking uncharacteristically flustered.

‘What’s going on?’ Brooke asked her in bewilderment.

‘You’d better ask your mom,’ Rosa replied. ‘She’s upstairs.’ She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. She’d obviously been crying.

‘Are you okay, Rosa?’

The housekeeper shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Brooke.’

She raced upstairs and found Liberty in her bedroom, surrounded by yet more piles of clothes. Her mom was dressed in sweat pants and a vest, her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she looked as if she had been busy packing for some time.

‘Can you please tell me what’s going on?’ Brooke demanded.

Liberty dropped the pile of clothes she was holding on to the bed and walked over to her. ‘I’ve left Zac. Our marriage is over.’ She reached out and rubbed Brooke’s shoulder. ‘I know it might come as a shock and you’re bound to be upset, but it’s for the best, I promise.’

‘What!’ The news completely derailed her. She knew her parents hadn’t been getting on for a while (okay, years if she was honest), but she’d never thought they would break up.
Never
.

‘But … it’s so sudden. Are you sure? Isn’t this just, like, a blip?’

‘I’ve never been more certain of anything. And, no, it’s not a blip. We’re getting divorced.’

‘But this is our home, where are we going to live?’ Brooke could feel tears welling up in her eyes.

‘I promise I’m going to sort everything out, honey. We’re going to stay with Kelly’s family for a few days. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

Her mom seemed incredibly calm. In fact, Brooke would go so far as to say Liberty had a new sense of purpose and energy about her. She seemed confident and determined.

‘Was it your decision, or was it Zac’s as well?’ She knew that for all his faults her stepdad really loved her mom.

Liberty bit her lip. ‘It was just mine.’ She hesitated. ‘He’s very angry with me at the moment, which is why I want to get packed up as quickly as possible. We need to be gone before he gets back.’

‘Will I see him?’ Brooke might not have been that close to Zac, but he had been a part of her life for the last fourteen years. The way her mom was talking, it sounded as if they were never going to see him again.

Now Liberty looked uncertain. ‘Yes, sweetheart, just
not straight away. Give it a little time. It’s all a bit raw right now. So if you could make a start on packing, that would be great. You’ll need to pack a suitcase of the clothes you know you can’t do without, to last you a couple of weeks. Rosa will pack the rest of your things once we’ve gone and send them on to us.’

‘And what about her? Will she be coming with us?’

‘I’m afraid not, honey. She’ll stay here in LA, she wouldn’t want to leave her family. But I’ll make sure I give her brilliant references and a good pay off. Unfortunately Zac doesn’t want her to carry on working for him. He’s firing everyone and replacing them with new staff.’

‘What!’ Rosa was part of Brooke’s life. How could she not see her every day? Liberty went to say something else but Brooke bolted out of the room and slammed the door. Just when she thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, she discovered a new level of complete crap!

‘D’you want to go to the beach?’ Kelly asked. The two girls were lying by the pool, attempting to do some homework after class. Brooke and Liberty had been staying with Kelly and her family for the last week, while Liberty tried to sort out somewhere else for them to live. Brooke adored Kelly and her mom, dad, and three younger sisters, but their perfect happy family where everyone got along was too much of a reminder of the way her own small imperfect family had been ripped apart and set adrift.

‘No, thanks, I’m cool here.’ The truth was Brooke couldn’t face running into anyone they knew. School had been bad enough, where she was aware of other students looking at her when she passed them. News travelled fast and the ending of a high-profile marriage
like her parents’ was a major source of interest as people speculated about how nasty the divorce was going to get.

Brooke felt as if her world had been turned upside down and inside out. Nothing she’d thought about anything seemed to hold true any more. Last night Liberty had told her that she hadn’t been happy with Zac for the last eight years; that she didn’t even know if she wanted to live in LA any more. Not live in LA! The thought was unimaginable to Brooke. She was sure that her mom couldn’t mean that; after all, LA was where she worked.

There was nowhere else Brooke wanted to live unless it was New York. But then she imagined dividing her time between New York and LA when she was a successful actor. She would have an apartment in New York for all the times she felt like going under the radar and didn’t want the attention she was bound to attract in LA. But even then, she predicted, she would always prefer LA. It was her spiritual home.

She picked up her copy of
Romeo and Juliet
and half-heartedly tried to concentrate on the text. She failed to take in a word. But then, who wanted to read about a great love story when their own love life was such shit? She had done her very best to ignore Christian in school, but wherever she went she seemed to bump into him and Taylor, with their arms wrapped round each other, a pair of loved-up fuck wads. It made her want to puke. She was furious with him, but angrier with herself for the hours and hours she had wasted on him.

She abandoned her book and got up and dived into the pool. Swimming usually helped to clear her head, but with every length she found something else to worry about. Would Zac still help her with her acting
career? He had always promised to, but since Liberty had walked out on him Brooke hadn’t heard a word from her stepdad. Everyone knew how crucial contacts were in the film industry. It simply wasn’t enough to have talent. And where were she and her mom going to live? Brooke loved Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, and didn’t want to live anywhere else. She hauled herself out of the pool and saw that her mom had come out of the house. She seemed very pleased about something.

‘Hey, I’ve got some great news!’ she exclaimed as she handed Brooke a towel. ‘I think I might have found us somewhere to live. And you’ll love it, it’s right by the sea.’

Oh, thank God! They weren’t leaving LA after all. Nothing would have to change that much. She’d get to see Zac at weekends, which were pretty much the only times she got to see him anyway. He would still be able to help her.

‘Awesome!’ she exclaimed, caught up in her mom’s excitement. ‘So can we go and see it this afternoon? I’m through with studying for now.’

‘It’s a little bit too far away for that.’ For some reason Liberty seemed amused by the question.

‘So where exactly is it?’

‘Brighton.’

Brooke frowned; her mom couldn’t possibly mean Brighton in the UK, where she was born. It must be a part of LA that Brooke hadn’t heard of. ‘Is that beyond Malibu?’

Liberty laughed. ‘Just a little bit. Brighton, England, sweetheart! We’re going home! I know it’s going to be a big change for you, but there are so many positives. And we’ll be close to Nina …’

For a moment Brooke couldn’t quite take in what
her mom had said. She stood there with the water dripping off her body before she exploded with rage. ‘
What
are you talking about? LA is my home. I don’t want to live in the UK. Why the fuck would I?’

‘I know it’s a lot to take in right now, but it’s the best thing for both of us, I promise.’

‘No, it’s not! You’re only thinking about yourself. You’re a selfish bitch! I’m not going. I’m staying here with Zac. You want to go to the UK, fine, you go there, we can Skype. We’ll probably have a more meaningful relationship that way.’

‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to upset you. But I don’t think it would work out living with Zac.’

Brooke glared at her, desperately trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill out. ‘I don’t want to hear any more! I’m not going, so get over it. You can’t make me do something I don’t want to do. I have rights as well!’

And before Liberty could come out with anything else, Brooke sprinted inside where she hastily put on some shorts, a t-shirt and the first pair of shoes she could, which happened to be orange neon trainers, and raced out to her car. She would go and see Zac, say that she wanted to live with him. He would understand. She would promise to be more considerate round the house, completely abide by his rules, and not even sneak Ozzy upstairs. Everything would be okay.