32
Luke
My phone started ringing as I drove home from practice. Bye weeks usually gave me extra time in the film room. I had spent the past four hours watching the Wranglers. I was tired. My eyes burned. My shoulders ached. I was ready to get home and drink a cold beer.
I pressed the button on the steering well.
“What’s going on, Linc?”
“Have you heard the news? Where are you?”
“What news? I was in the film room all day. I can barely see straight.”
I heard him sigh. “Listen, I’m with Charlie. I think I should put her on.”
“Charlie? What the fuck are you doing with her?”
I groaned. If my brother was fucking the hot PR specialist, I was going to kick his ass. That was the last thing we needed. I should have seen it coming. It was written all over his face every time he saw her.
I heard her smooth voice on the phone before I could snap at my brother again. “Hi, Luke. It’s Charlie.”
“Yeah. Linc says there is something you need to talk to me about.”
I gripped the steering wheel thinking of all the ways I was going to lay into my big brother. What the hell was he thinking getting involved with her? Yeah, she had a nice little ass, and she was pretty. But she was trouble. And she’d done nothing but bust my balls since the minute we met. I didn’t like she was in McCade’s pocket. This was fucked up.
“It sounds like you might be driving.” Her voice was crisp as usual.
“On my way back from practice and film day.”
“Maybe you should call us back when you’re at your house.”
This was total bullshit. Now she was calling them an “us.”
“I can talk now.”
“All right. There is a story that just broke. I thought I should ask you if Alexa talked to you about it beforehand, because I would have appreciated a heads up.”
“What are you talking about, Charlie? I’ve told you everything Alexa and I have planned for the red carpet. I’m not keeping shit from you.”
I was tired of her riding my ass. I’d been transparent with her since the DC fuckup. Alexa and I had brought her in on everything so that she could use the awards show as a launching point for our relationship story.
The only thing I hadn’t brought up was the possible pregnancy, but that wasn’t any of her damn business. Alexa was stressed out about it enough. Her schedule wasn’t regular. She didn’t keep track of it and her birth control was all over the place. The only way we were going to know was when she took that test together.
“Then you don’t know about Mandy Brown?”
“Who the hell is Mandy Brown?”
Charlie exhaled. “We have a problem, Luke.”
“Spit it out.” I was on the verge of calling her the same names I used on the field for some of the guys. I was close.
“Mandy Brown is Lexi Wilde. Before she was a country star apparently she was an escort in Nashville.”
I almost missed the turn for the ranch. I thought I heard what Charlie said, but it didn’t register.
“Luke?”
“Yeah. What did you say?”
“Lexi used to work for an escort service as Mandy Brown. I don’t have all the details, but I’m going to have to advise you right now that we have no choice but to call off the red carpet appearance. You can’t be seen with a former hooker.”
“Hooker? Escort?” She wasn’t talking about my Alexa. “Some loser is probably trying to extort money from her. This has happened to me.”
I was angry enough to split the steering wheel in half. The rage pumped through me in jolts of adrenaline. Someone was going to pay for this. Ruining my reputation was one thing. Someone trying to take Alexa down was something else.
I pulled into the garage. I needed to get Alexa on the phone.
Charlie kept rambling. She was in def-con five mode. “I’m not prepared to reorganize our plan until I see how the optics fall out. It would help if I could talk to Alexa. For now, please don’t leave Austin, Luke.”
I ignored her. There was no way she could keep me here if Alexa needed me in Nashville.
“I’ve got to go, Charlie. Tell Linc I’ll call him later.” I hung up before she had a chance to shove another recommendation down my throat.
I dialed Alexa’s number.
“Baby, you ok?”
She choked out a sob. “Luke.”
“Hey, what the hell is going on? Are you ok? Talk to me.”
We were all in on this thing. She knew she could trust me with her life. I always had her back. I’d do whatever it took to take care of her, especially with fucking vultures coming after her like this.
Her life had been anything but easy. She had gone through hell with her parents. She had survived so much on her won. They weren’t here for her now, but I could be. I could be that man in her life. I was strong enough for both of us if she needed me to be. I’d fight like hell for this woman. Nothing could stop me. My emotions ran deep and wide.
And it hit me like a fucking brick to the back of the head. I loved her.
I loved Alexa Wilde. It was fierce and overpowering. The kind of love that was brutal. I had held her closer and tighter than any woman. I had memorized every delicious morsel of her body. I missed her when she wasn’t near me. I listened to her damn music in my truck. I knew the words to her songs. I knew the songs she hadn’t recorded yet. I wore the damn sunglasses she had shipped to me. I kept pictures of her on my phone. I was fucking in love with her. Damn it.
I heard her suck in a breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know if you’d call. I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me.”
“I can handle this. Shit, Alexa. I’ve been accused of worse.” If she hadn’t met me at a charity event I wondered if she would have taken the chance she did. Did that one sliver of good she saw in me lead us here? This was my territory. I knew how to roll with the punches of bad press. I could get her through this fuckup.
“It’s mostly true.”
It was as if someone had jammed a blade between my ribs. What did she say? No. It wasn’t true. No fucking way was it true.
“It’s true?” I sat in the cab of my truck, dumbfounded. Shocked. Broken.
I didn’t know how quickly my emotions could be strangled with one confession.
She sniffed. “Jake said he was going to release the information, but I didn’t believe him. I never thought he’d actually go through with it. He’s been saying it for years.” She cried so hard, none of her words made any sense.
“You used to be Mandy Brown?” I didn’t even know who the fuck that was.
“Yes, but let me explain—”
I cut her off.
“Stop it. It’s a fucking lie.” I couldn’t let her destroy me. The longer I hung around to hear excuses, the longer my heart was still in it. The more I bled. The more I physically reacted to the words in my ear.
“Luke, I wanted to tell you all of this before, but there was never a right time to tell you.”
My stomach clenched in repulsion.
I didn’t need an explanation. I had been played. I was no different than the fans. The millions of people who fell in love with an image.
I thought she was someone different. The woman who had brought something deep and powerful from my soul. She could move me with her voice. Rock me with her body. Love me with her heart. And the entire time she was a whore. A whore.
My eyes narrowed. My heart hardened.
“Luke, please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
What could she say? What could undo the lies and deceit? What would erase the images flashing through my head of other men having her the way they wanted? Of her reaching for the bedside for piles of cash after she had been fucked. God. I cringed. I beat the steering wheel.
“You have to know I was trying to make it on my own, and the real story isn’t the one you—”
The rage consumed me. The pain tore through my veins. I hung up and hurled the phone in the back of the truck. I didn’t want to be near it if she called or texted.
I walked inside and went straight for the bottle of bourbon.
I didn’t bother to find a glass. I popped the top and touched the bottle to my lips. It had been a long time since I had spent the night drunk, but I was about to change that.