Starstruck - Book Four (7 page)

I loved my new life. Every day felt like vacation in
paradise. I loved being with Hudson and I hated giving him an ultimatum, but I
was going to fight for what I wanted. I may have been just some country girl
from the Midwest, but that didn’t mean that Ava got to stomp all over me.

“Hey,” I heard Hudson say as the sliding door opened behind
me.

“Hi,” I said, cautiously, as I tried to gauge his mood. He
seemed to be in better spirits as he took a seat next to me with a steaming cup
of black coffee.

“It’s nice out,” he said, making small talk.

“Very,” I replied.

I hated the tension between us, but I was beyond thrilled
that he was making an effort.

“Have you given any more thought to what I said last night?”
I asked, addressing the elephant in the room.

He took a sip from his mug and then pursed his lips before
staring deep into my eyes.

“It’s you,” he said. “It’ll always be you.”

My lips curled into the biggest smile as I leaned over and
kissed his coffee-flavored lips.

“Thank you,” I cooed. I kissed him again. I couldn’t stop.

Half of my problem was fixed, now I had to figure out a way
to get Ava out of our lives for good.

“I’ll be right back,” Hudson said as he stood up. I couldn’t
help but notice he’d left his phone sitting right next to his mug on the table.

With watchful eyes and a tiny bit of crazy in me, I grabbed
it the moment he was out of sight and searched for Ava’s number. I air-dropped
it to my phone and sat his phone down before he had time to come back and catch
me red handed. It was a little risky, and maybe a little irrational, but I was
going to call her. I wanted to meet with her, woman to woman, and put an end to
her nonsense once and for all. I didn’t see any harm in having an adult
conversation with her.

The slider opened once again and Hudson returned. I thanked
my lucky stars he didn’t see what I’d just done. It was so unlike me, but it
was necessary. It was just something I had to do.

“So what’s your plan today?” I asked him. He looked so damn
sexy with his bedhead. I could’ve jumped him right then and there.

“My trainer’s coming over in a little bit,” he said. “Should
be here any minute actually. Nothing after that. You?”

I shrugged. “I feel like getting out. I might go do some
shopping or something. Maybe I’ll call Alec and see if he wants to go.”

I raked my fingers through my hair and tucked it back behind
my ears. Hudson watched me as if I were some sort of mesmerizing creature. He
loved me even when I had unkempt hair and without an ounce of makeup. I loved that
about him. I loved everything about him really, which was why I had to talk to
Ava.

“Oh, looks like he’s here,” Hudson said as his phone
vibrated on the table. He stood up and kissed my forehead before heading
inside.

I waited until Hudson and his trainer were deep in the midst
of their session before heading to a quiet spot in a seldom used room in his
house. My fingers shakily dialed Ava. I blocked my number, not wanting her to
know it, and astonishingly she still answered.

“Ava,” I said. “It’s Brynn.”

“Brynn?” she said with an evil laugh. “Oh, God. What do you
want?”

“I want to meet with you,” I said. “I want us to have a
civilized, woman to woman conversation.”

She was quiet, probably calculating which words she could
use to get under my skin in that moment.

“Okay,” she said, much to my surprise. “If that’s what you
want.”

“I’m serious, Ava,” I said, trying to keep my voice stern.
“Completely civilized. No name calling. No lies. No games. Woman to woman.”

“Okay,” Ava snickered. I didn’t quite believe her, but I had
to take a chance.

“I’ll reserve a private tea room at the Grandeur Hotel for
one o’clock,” I said.

“How chi chi of you,” she said with rampant sarcasm in her
voice.

“See you then,” I said before hanging up.

I wanted to throw up a little, but I swallowed my fear and
stood up. I wasn’t going to allow her crazy antics to run my life anymore.

                                                        ***

Under the guise of a late lunch with Alec, I drove to the
Grandeur Hotel to meet with Ava. My hands gripped firmly on the steering wheel
as I drove. I was a girl on a mission. I was determined to put an end to Ava
and her scheming, and I was prepared to go head to head with her.

I pulled up to the valet and climbed of my Mercedes. My
linen pants blowing in the light breeze as the ruffles on my pale pink, silk
blouse danced about. With an air of newfound confidence, I pulled off my
sunglasses and handed my keys to the attendant before heading inside. With each
step, my heart raced. And with each step, I reminded myself that I had the
upper hand. I had Hudson.

“Hello,” I said to a pleasant front desk clerk who greeted
me with a smile. “I’m Brynn Dawson. I reserved the tea room for one o’clock.
Can you point me in the right direction?”

The front desk clerk pointed down a hallway. “It’s the
fourth room on the left. There’s a sign out front that says Ballmer Tea Room.
It’s all yours.”

“Thank you,” I smiled graciously. I was determined to
maintain my composure. I wanted to be the spitting image of elegance and grace
under fire. I wasn’t going to let Ava get to me. Not this time.

Ava was already seated by the time I walked in. I erroneously
assumed someone like her would’ve been at least twenty or thirty minutes late,
if only just to mess with me.

“Ava,” I said as I walked over to the table. She stood up
and kissed my cheek, but I knew the gesture wasn’t genuine. She was onto me and
my game, but I didn’t care.

We sat down across from one another, her icy, platinum
blonde hair pulled back into a low bun and shimmering diamond earrings dangling
from her perfect little ear lobes. She wore a navy blazer over a gauzy tank
top, skin tight jeans, and sky high heels. Her red lips were bold and her
impossibly long eyelashes were even bolder.

“So,” she began. “You called this meeting because?”

She stared hard at me from across the table, unflinching,
unaffected, and unwavering. I did my best to match her demeanor as best I
could, but it was hard. She was good. She was really good.

“First off,” I said. “Thanks for coming. I thought after
everything that had gone on, that it would be good for us to meet privately.”

“Wait,” she said. “So Hudson doesn’t know you’re here with
me?”

Her lips curled into a salacious grin for two seconds.

“He does,” I lied. “He’s okay with it.”

“Wow,” she mused. “Okay. Go on.”

“Hudson and I are extremely happy together,” I said. “I’m
just here, asking you woman to woman, to move on. If he wanted to be with you,
he’d be with you. I gave him an ultimatum last night. I told him it was you or
me. He picked me, Ava.”

Her eyes burned into mine as her pouty red lips pursed. I
couldn’t tell if she was angry or if she was accepting my words as some sort of
challenge.

“It’s time for you to move on, Ava,” I told her again.
“Hudson has.”

“But he hasn’t,” she said with a straight face. “You just
think he has because he’s a good fucking liar.”

She sipped her tea like she was some proper lady, her eye
contact ever breaking mine.

“Why do you keep pursuing someone who has absolutely no
interest in you whatsoever?” I asked. “You’re beautiful. You can have any guy
in this town that you want. Why Hudson? Why not just move on?”

Ava rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to tell you, sweetie, you
hardly know Hudson.”

“I know him well enough to know that I’m crazy about him,
and I’m going to fight for him. For us,” I said.

“You don’t understand how he operates,” she said. A
smart-mouthed half-smirk covered her face. “He’s going to get bored with you.
He’s going to romance you and promise you the world and buy you diamonds and
take you on lavish trips. He’s going to make you feel like you’re the only girl
in the entire world. He’s going to say all the right things and if you ever
question him, his explanations will make so much sense that you’ll wonder why
you ever second-guessed him. He’s going to come across like some broken little
bird but at the same time he’ll dominate you in the bedroom and make you feel
like his dirty little slut, and you’ll love every minute of it. And when he’s
not busy saving the world, he’ll stare at you like you’re the prettiest thing
he’s ever seen. And when something better comes along, he’ll drop you like a
sack of potatoes.”

I stared at her, speechless. She had described him to a T.
She had practically described my relationship Hudson to a T.

“I just want what he promised me,” she said as she raised
her eyebrows matter-of-factly and took a sip from her tea cup. I almost asked
her why she cheated on him if she loved him so much, but I decided she wasn’t
worth it. I wasn’t getting through to her anyway.

“Stay away from us, Ava,” I said as grabbed my purse and
stood up to leave. I watched her face for any signs of a smirk or evil grin or
an indication that she was just attempting to get under my skin once again, but
I found nothing. For the first time, Ava actually looked human. She looked
hurt, and I was almost inclined to believe that for once she might not have
been playing games with me.

I returned to Hudson’s house with a bit of a guilty
conscious. I had to confess. I had to tell him what I’d just done before Ava
had a chance to.

“Hello?” I called out as I walked in and laid my keys and
purse on the island. “Hudson? I’m home.”

He came out from around the corner with a questionable look
on his face, his phone in his hand. I was clearly a day late and a dollar
short.

“You met with Ava?” he asked. His expression was nothing short
of betrayed.

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “I did. I was
actually just coming to tell you about it.”

“Okay,” he said. “So tell me.”

I wanted to call him out for still communicating with her,
but at that moment I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I had to do some damage
control.

“I just wanted to talk to her, woman to woman,” I said. “We
kept things civil. It didn’t get too crazy. I think I got my point across.
That’s that.”

“That simple, eh?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” I said, though I was still feeling a little
unnerved by her ridiculously spot on description of him and our relationship.

“I just wish you would’ve told me beforehand,” he said. “I
don’t like secrets, Brynn.”

I took a step closer to him and placed my hand over his
chest. “I just didn’t want you to talk me out of it.”

He said nothing, but his heavy breathing told me he was still
struggling with his decision to completely abandon Ava in her supposed time of
need.

“You said you picked me,” I reminded him. “So what does it
matter if I told Ava to get out of our life?”

“I do pick you,” he sighed. “But you have to understand, Ava
needs help. She has severe mental and substance abuse problems. She has no one.
She’s so crazy that no one will put up with her except her posse of girls, and
even then, those girls don’t give two shits about her. They just want status
and all the things that come along with being in Ava’s inner circle. They’re a
bunch of enablers.”

“Hudson,” I said, placing my other hand on his other
shoulder and forcing him to look at me. “You don’t have to save the world.”

“I’m not trying to save the world,” he replied. “I couldn’t
save my mom. But if I can save just one other person in her memory, it would be
worth it.”

He looked distraught, and suddenly I was left feeling like
some sort of monster. I didn’t mean to hurt him like that. I was just trying to
salvage our relationship so we could take things to the next level and move on
from Ava-gate. That’s all I wanted.

“I’m sorry I went behind your back,” I apologized. “I didn’t
do it to hurt you.”

“Okay,” he said, his eyes looking down at the ground.

“Hudson, hey,” I said, shaking his shoulders and trying to
get him to look at me. He refused.

I leaned in and pressed my lips against his, but my kiss
went unmet.

“I’m going to go lay down for a bit,” he said. “I’m tired.”

“It’s only two thirty,” I objected. “We’ve got the whole day
ahead of us. Let’s go do something. A hike. A drive. Anything.”

“I’m tired, Brynn,” he said. He slid off the bar stool and
shuffled down the hall to his bedroom and closed the door.

He hadn’t necessary chosen me over Ava. Not yet anyway. I
may have had his heart and his presence, but Ava had something else of his, and
I couldn’t quite figure it out.