Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Try not to lean forward too much,” Tyse instructed. He watched Anna Evans do another lunge as she winced. “That’s better. Keep your knee right over your ankle, no further.”
Anna finished her set and paused. “God, it hurts,” she exhaled with a tiny laugh. She took in another deep breath of air as if trying to breath through the pain.
“You’re doing awesome,” Tyse praised her. “You’re actually further than I expected. Just make sure you’re cooling down enough and take care of yourself when you get home. You still need to do your light stuff at home everyday.”
“Yes, boss,” she joked with a smile. “I do everything you tell me to.”
“Good,” he nodded.
Anna automatically headed for the treadmill to cool down. Tyse was about to sit on a yoga ball next to her and ask if she’d changed her mind about her surfing career, but he heard loud voices in the hallway. He stepped toward the door just in time to see his grandfather enter the room, an angry scowl on his face. He had a newspaper or something in his hand and he slammed it down on the counter.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked in a low voice.
Thinking that something was seriously wrong, Tyse headed for the counter to see what had been so important that his grandpa had to interrupt a therapy session. When he saw that it was actually a tabloid disgracing the white surface, Tyse scoffed.
“Whatever it is, I don’t really care,” Tyse told him.
“Oh, well you sure as hell should,” Neil growled at him. “Look closer!”
At that point there were a couple of employees in the hall, confused as to what was going on. They were either waiting to see what Tyse was going to do about the unwelcomed visitor that wasn’t supposed to be in the private therapy room, or they were too scared to remove The Neil McCallan from the building themselves.
“I don’t care what a damn tabloid says about me,” Tyse said again. “And this is a private facility. You’re not allowed back here.”
Neil raised his eyebrows like he couldn’t believe a person would actually say that to him. He even said, “I hope I didn’t just hear you correctly. I am your grandfather, goddamn it. This is family business.”
Tyse sighed to keep his composure. “Bringing me tabloid stories is not a matter of life and death.”
“It sure the hell is,” came the pissed off retort. “Look at the fucking front page, Tyse,” he added through clenched teeth.
Tyse grabbed the paper off the counter forcefully. He looked at the cover and saw a picture of him with his arm wrapped around Sarah as they walked. From what he could tell, it was after he’d taken her to dinner a week ago, a few days after Thanksgiving.
The caption read: McCallan Do-Over For the Douglas family. The sub-caption added: Is it love, another publicity stunt, or revenge for a scandal cover up?
Tyse took a second to compose his thoughts and said, “I don’t care about this shit. It’s never going to stop.”
“If you would open the damn paper and read the article, you might care a little bit more,” Neil narrowed his eyes. He stood there and actually waited, like he expected Tyse to comply right then and there.
“I’m working and don’t have time for this right now,” he answered. “We can talk later if you’d like. I’ll be at the studio in—”
“Read the goddamn article, Tyse,” Neil spat as quietly as his anger allowed. “I suggest you put off your appointments for today and take care of your family’s business instead. You at least owe us that.”
Tyse was ready to flip his shit. Anna was grabbing her things, finished with her cool down and no doubt wanting out of the war zone. She spoke a quiet goodbye to him and slipped past them through the door.
He looked at his grandfather and paused briefly before saying, “Why do you care about whatever’s in there? I thought you were opposed to tabloid news.”
Neil reached over to the door and slammed it shut behind him so they had privacy. “If it’s one outrageous article, I don’t really give a shit. But it’s come to my attention that it’s spreading everywhere all of a sudden. I want you to explain what the hell is going on! You’ve been dating this girl? Even when I advised you not to?”
Tyse bit his tongue and flipped open the tabloid paper. If it got his grandpa the hell out of his business, he’d get it over with.
After twenty seconds of skimming the article that contained “inside information” from several “undisclosed sources,” Tyse had read enough. It was filled with speculation made to sound like fact, although the subject matter was pretty much spot-on. It brought up the incident with Olivia Douglas and the McCallans five years ago, suggesting that Max and the McCallans had covered up a “scandal,” and then Olivia shied from the public’s eye for the next few years after most likely being paid off to keep quiet.
“I wouldn’t blame Sarah one bit for wanting revenge for something they got away with because of their money and notoriety,” an undisclosed source stated. “That family is full of secrets and lies and I’ve been victim to them, too.”
Tyse furrowed his brow. He was sure a lot of people had been screwed over by the McCallans, but that “victim” caught his interest.
He looked at his grandpa and shrugged. “What exactly do you want me to say? This is stuff that was in the tabloids four or five years ago, right?”
“Back then there was no mention of the word scandal,” his grandpa answered. “Why the hell is this coming up now? And a payoff?”
“Well sometimes the truth has a way of coming out eventually,” Tyse replied angrily. “Max thinks he can run away from what he did. You and his dad think you can cover this up forever? What do you expect?”
“I would think that you’d have more concern about your family’s reputation,” Neil spoke evenly. “I told you this was not something you needed to get mixed up in and you did it anyway.”
“You used an innocent girl to gain publicity for a movie,” Tyse growled quietly. “That’s pretty fucking low if you ask me.”
Neil studied him long and hard. Tyse couldn’t tell if his grandpa was surprised or just surprised that he knew about it.
“Do you know for a fact what happened?” Neil asked. “Jesus Christ, Tyse! How well do you know this girl? Did you know that her sister Olivia demanded money from us? She told Max she’d keep her mouth shut for five hundred thousand dollars!”
Tyse remained still as the words rolled through his head. His grandfather looked believably serious after speaking such words, and Tyse wondered if he’d actually just admitted to paying someone off.
“I’m dead serious, Tyse,” Neil said quietly. “When Max broke things off with her, it wasn’t pleasant.”
“You should have thought about that before the little publicity stunt that was conjured up. What did you expect?”
Neil took a long, deep breath and exhaled. Tyse didn’t like how long it took for a response to come. He feared the pause was to build another lie.
“I had no part of that,” he finally replied. “That was Craig and Max, and although I knew of it, I let them deal with it because I was told the arrangement was mutual between Olivia and Max. Mutual. As far as I knew, they had gone in on it together. But when the shit hit the fan after their break up, it was Max’s career I was looking out for.”
Tyse pulled up a stool and sat down almost numbly. He didn’t know what to think so far, but he wasn’t quick to believe what he was hearing.
“So you really paid her?” he asked.
“Yes,” Neil nodded immediately. “She agreed to not say anything about the publicity stunt for half a million dollars.”
“Did you blackball her from the industry?”
Neil looked genuinely surprised. “God, no. Is that what she told you? I threatened no such thing.”
“No, I just don’t understand why she quit the industry so suddenly.”
“I don’t either,” Neil answered, his face softening just slightly. “I’m just asking you… Could you please realize that this is only going to make for negative headlines? I refuse to be a victim to blackmail again. This was a mess the first time; I just want you to be aware of what you’re doing this time and that it could be even worse.”
He turned without another word and disappeared out the door. Tyse didn’t know what to think with so much information to sort through, but when he finally glanced up into the hallway, he noticed Anna leaning against the wall.
“I forgot my phone,” she cringed, seeming embarrassed.
He motioned her into the room and she quickly headed for the cubbies in the corner. Tyse watched her for a second as she looked for it. Then she dipped her head lower to peer toward the back of the shelf.
“There it is,” she said, grabbing it quickly to head for the exit.
“I’m really sorry about all of that,” Tyse finally said. He didn’t know what else to say to her, but he had no idea what she thought of his grandfather barging into the end of her physical therapy session.
“Don’t even sweat it,” she smiled. “I know what it’s like to be in the middle of stuff like that.”
He slowly nodded, assuming it was true. He never asked anything about her personal life, or her situation with her family. Tyse kept it strictly to focusing on her recovery, but Anna hardly spoke much to him anyway. One of these days he might bring it up. He sensed that she really did want to talk about it.
“See you Monday,” she said on her way out the door. She was gone before Tyse could say anything in response.
With a heavy sigh he stood from the stool. Glancing at the clock he realized his next patient was ten minutes late. He traveled down the hallway just in case and paused, right as Dr. Michaels appeared from his office.
“I put your two o’clock with Helen,” he told Tyse.
Shrugging his shoulders, Tyse replied, “Why?”
“Well… I wasn’t sure how long you were going to be.”
There were no other patients after his two o’clock, so Tyse really had no reason to stay. Irritated was an understatement. His day had been going just fine before family drama spoiled it. He still didn’t know what to think about it all, but he knew he needed to speak with Sarah before it drove him crazy by jumping to too many conclusions.
He hopped on his motorcycle and went straight to her flower shop, knowing she was there. He’d texted her earlier about her plans for the evening but hadn’t received much of a response other than she “wasn’t sure.”
It was obvious she was surprised to see him when he walked through the door. Her smile was beautiful as always, but it seemed forced for some reason. Maybe he was just being hyperaware that there were problems hovering over them, but he just picked up that something was wrong. Rayne was in the room too and gave him a partial smile that seemed cheerless.
“What’s wrong?” he asked Sarah right off the bat. No point pretending everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t.
Sarah looked as if she were going to shrug it off and say everything was great, but she seemed to change her mind.
With a sigh she said, “I’m trying really hard, Tyse. I am. I don’t know why, but I just… I don’t think things are going to work out.”