Chapter Twenty
Once she started reading, Pippa couldn’t stop.
#getyourfactsstraight #askpippawhatshesaid #justiceforpippa were trending all right. God, how could she have been this stupid? All the positive tweets had been lost amongst the deluge of scorn and outright derision.
@bigboy wanted to know, “How did the Kool-Aid taste as you rammed it down your throat?”
@jenniferkearns went with a simple but effective, “fuck you, Pippa bitch”
@christyroth suggested she go into politics if she wanted people to believe her bullshit
@graeme_parker thought #justiceforpippa meant being stripped naked and paraded through LA.
From one tweet to the next she went, the nausea growing with each one, as if the venom seeped out of her Twitter feed and sank into her bones. Her chest tightened, and she went into the yard. Breathing deep, she dragged much-needed air into her lungs.
Her wobbly legs dropped her ass onto the side of the water trough fountain. Damp seeped through her jeans, but she didn’t care. This was so much worse than before. She should never have believed she’d hit rock bottom because where she was three days ago was a long way up from here.
Like the instrument of her deliverance, Matt’s truck cleared Phi’s “verdant thicket” and entered the yard. Until he drove up, Pippa hadn’t known how desperately she wanted to see him.
Strong and sure, he came toward her.
She walked straight into his arms. The world stopped spinning as his steady heartbeat drummed against her ear.
“Are you okay?” His voice came from above her head.
Pippa shook her head. She was far from okay. Suddenly she was all of thirteen again, watching her dad load his packed bags into the family station wagon. Lost. Alone. Terrified.
Matt tightened his arms about her. “Man, I needed this,” he said.
So did she, and the idea terrified her enough to get Pippa out of his embrace. “Bad day?”
“I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.” A ghost of Matt’s cocky smile flitted across his mouth.
Pippa crossed her arms over her chest, as if she could contain the screaming pit inside her. “I pretty much killed my already dying career on Twitter. Now your turn.”
Matt frowned and stepped closer. “What?”
Not really wanting to say the words out loud, Pippa handed him the phone.
“Fuck.” Matt’s thumb scrolled from one screen to another. “How did this start?”
“Someone tweeted me.” Her stupidity crawled like a poisonous spider all over Pippa. “I responded. I was desperate.” Matt kept scrolling. “I wanted people to know my side of the story. Everywhere else I went was a dead end. I thought . . .” She shrugged, because she pretty much hadn’t been thinking, otherwise they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“But you told me to leave it alone. That the less you said, the sooner it would die,” Matt said.
“I know that.” It sounded too much like a criticism and she didn’t need it right now. Everything she’d worked for, ever wanted was even deader than before and it had been barely twitching before this.
“Look.” Matt pushed his hand through his hair. “This looks bad. I don’t know much about this stuff, but this isn’t pretty.” He cupped her shoulders and pulled her closer. “But I know you, Pippa. You’re tough. A fighter. You can recover from this.”
“How?” Pippa blinked at him, staggered by his naïveté.
“I don’t know.” He dropped his hands. “What I’m trying to say is it isn’t the end of the world.”
“It’s the end of my world.” Pippa’s voice rang across the stable yard.
“No, babe, it’s not.” He tried to take her hands but Pippa evaded him. “Look.” He frowned. “I seem to be saying all the wrong things today. Why don’t we have a beer, and talk about how to fix this.”
“This can’t be fixed.” Pippa crossed her arms over her chest. Part of her knew she was being unreasonable. Matt didn’t come from her world. He had no idea what the repercussions of this would be, but she was so fucking scared. “And you’re not the person who could fix it anyway.”
“Okay.” Matt’s eyes went hard and cold. “That certainly put me in my place.”
Damn. She hadn’t meant to sound that harsh. Pippa opened her mouth to correct it.
Matt slashed his hand through the air, silencing her. “No, it’s fine,” he said, but it clearly wasn’t. She’d hurt him, and guilt mixed uncomfortably with all the other rioting emotions inside her. “It seems to be everyone’s day for telling me to butt the hell out of their lives. I’ve got the message.”
He turned and stalked over to his truck.
Pippa stood and watched him back out of the yard. Part of her wanted to stop him, and another part knew this was how it always was. This was what she knew. Pippa standing alone against the world.
Her phone rang as she walked back into the kitchen. Chris Germaine’s number flashed up on her screen. She let it ring, and then changed her mind. Might as well see what else her day had in store for her. Her finger shook as she accepted the call.
“Hi, Pippa.” Chris Germaine’s robust, husky voice vibrated down the line. “You’re a difficult lady to get hold of.”
Not hard enough, apparently. “I’m hiding.”
“Yes.” Chris lingered over the s in that one word. “You’ve had a rough time.”
That was one way of putting it. Pippa shut the kitchen door. “Some days are better than others. Today is probably the worst.”
“Uh-huh.” Chris spoke to someone on the other end of the line, her words garbled. “So, let’s put our cards on the table.” Her voice came back, stronger and with less background noise. “It seems your producer has been a very naughty boy.”
Pippa stopped dead. As far as she knew that little secret was still inside the show’s bubble. “You know about Ray?”
“We know all about Mr. Ray Brightly.”
Pippa needed to sit down before she fell down. “Oh?”
“There were some members of your crew who were not at all happy about what went down,” Chris said. “They have been very active on your behalf.”
“Really?” This was news to her.
“That’s when they came to me,” Chris said. “Allie wasn’t too happy about what aired either and she’s also stepped forward.”
“Allie?” The same Allie who wouldn’t take her call?
“Actually, Allie is royally pissed off,” Chris said. “It seems she’s considering a lawsuit against the show.”
Pippa tried to picture that, meek and sweet Allie getting mad about anything was far enough of a stretch. Thank God she’d sat down already, because her knees had melted.
Phi slapped open the baize door and paused in the doorway. She caught sight of Pippa and dropped the pose. Her stage whisper was loud enough for the back row of any amphitheater to hear. “What is it?”
Pippa waved her to silence, trying to concentrate on what Chris Germaine was saying.
Chris kept talking public apologies and shows being taken off the air. Past tense. As if they’d already happened.
“Are you still with me?” Chris sharpened her tone.
“No.” Pippa shook her head to clear it.
Phi was making faces at her, trying to find out what was going on.
Pippa dropped her eyes to the kitchen table and drew in a deep breath. Then another, and her mind slowed down enough to process. “I didn’t hear anything after you told me Allie was considering a lawsuit,” she said. “This is rather a lot to take in.”
Chris chuckled. “Right. Pull up your big girl panties and listen. I am going to say it all again.”
“Okay.” Mental check on the big girl panties.
“With Allie threatening the lawsuit, and your cameraman still holding the original footage, the show agreed to a public apology. Ray is not producing anymore, and that woman they hired to replace you has gone back to serving cocktails.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded at the table.
Phi banged her knuckles on the table, her eyes bugging out of her head.
Pippa caught her hand and held it, twisting her fingers with Phi’s for support.
“The public apology aired last night,” Chris said. “Along with the real footage of what happened. Given a few editing bits and pieces for dramatic effect.”
“Right.” Because if the public really saw the hours of boring that happened to get the forty-five minutes that hit the air, they’d be asleep already.
“Now.” Chris cleared her throat. “You and I both know that even with all that, this is going to take some time to die down. There will still be some people who insist on believing the worst.”
It was the God’s honest truth. It came with the job description and Pippa made a noise of agreement.
“But something you said on that last show got me thinking. Just a second.” Chris spoke to an unseen body on her end. “I’m back. I have a million things going on. Where was I?”
“Something I said on the last show intrigued you.”
“Right. You were talking about how it takes more than a pair of shoes to turn a life around. I agree with you. It’s part of why I find these makeover shows so facile. No, I can’t come now. They are just going to have to do it without me.”
Pippa figured that last part was not aimed at her. “I believe that,” she said.
“And you’re right. It takes a total transformation to make any real change in a life,” Chris said. “Which is why I’ve been stalking you. I have a show in mind, with you as the host. We take a woman for a year. Give her the tools to make real changes in her life, part of them cosmetic but the bigger part internal.”
Pippa opened her mouth and a strange squeaking noise came out. It was like Chris Germaine had reached inside her head and plucked out a dormant idea that had been lurking there for the last few years.
It must have been the right sort of noise because Chris kept on talking. She went on about financial backing, selection processes. A lot of it washed right over Pippa.
She met Phi’s intense green gaze. Her eyesight wobbled as a wash of tears filled her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. Dreams did not, as a rule, come true. You made them happen. You hustled, you fought, and you hung tough and made them happen. You didn’t get phone calls out of the blue that handed them to you.
“Damn it.” Chris’s sharp bark dragged her back to the present. “I have this all written down in a proposal for you to look at. Let me courier it to you and you can have a few days to look it over before we speak again. Yes, I’m coming now.” Chris near bellowed that last part. “I have to go, but I want to know that you’re interested. Before I go any further, let me hear you say yes or no.”
“Yes.” It came out whisper soft and silly.
“Great.” It sounded good enough for the formidable Ms. Germaine. “I have to go, before they lose it over here. We’ll speak in a couple of days. And Pippa—I said I was coming now—stay off Twitter.” Chris hung up.
Pippa had the phone pressed to her ear for a while as she listened to silence.
“Merciful God our Father.” Phi exploded from her seat. “Tell me what the hell is happening before I have a shit fit.”
Pippa shook her head, trying to make the words come out. “That was Chris Germaine.”
Phi’s eyes widened. She didn’t need to be told who Chris Germaine was. The most powerful woman in television needed no introductions. Starting as a talk show host, Chris has grown her brand on the principles of inner growth and authentic living, leveraging that into a massive industry. “And?”
“I need a drink.”
“Darling.” Phi spread her fingers over her bosom. “You’ve come to the right place then.”
“Make that a few drinks,” Pippa said.
“This calls for whisky.” Phi got to her feet and did a quick double take out the window. “And look, here is dear Matt.” She raised a brow at Pippa. “Again.”
Pippa swung round to see Matt getting out of his truck. His face looked drawn and tired as he let himself in the kitchen door.
“Hey.” He jerked his chin at her, and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets.
As pissed as she was, he was still the person she wanted to share her news with. And he shouldn’t be. “Hey, yourself.”
Phi’s head swung between them like she was watching a tennis match. “I sense a little malcontent,” she sang out.
“Can you give us a minute, Phi?” Matt managed a smile for her grandmother.
“Indeed.” Phi patted his cheek. “A man should always know how to grovel. And once you are done, Pippa has received some stupendous news.”
She bustled out the door in a cloud of patchouli.
Matt jammed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “Stupendous, huh?”
“You here for anything particular?” Pippa wiped her damp hands on her jeans. Still sweaty from how tight she had been holding the phone. The fluttering in her belly was all Matt, though.
Matt tilted his head. “Yeah, I’m here to grovel. Dick move on my part storming off like that.”
“Gee, Meat.” She played it cool on the outside. Inside, total mess. “That’s big of you to admit.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” His shoulders dropped a bit. “It’s been a helluva day.”
“What happened?”
He shook his head, as if clearing his head. “Tell me your stupendous news instead.”
Pippa tucked away the part of her that wanted to pry and gave him her news. Telling Matt brought the excitement bubbling to the surface again.
“That’s great, babe.” The big grin he gave her filled her cup to the brim. He waved his fingers at her phone. “Will it fix the other thing?”
“Not right away.” Pippa took another mood swing to the dark side. “But it does mean my career isn’t dead.”
“Then, you’re golden. Back on track.”
That was exactly what it meant. Back on an even better track than before. So, why wasn’t she doing a victory lap of the kitchen. “Yeah.”
“So, when do you leave?” He bunched his shoulders around his ears and dropped them on an exhale.
“Leave?” Pippa sunk into a chair. Of course she would leave. Chris Germaine’s offer meant she was out of Ghost Falls again.
“Sure.” Matt came closer. “Your future is out there. This town has always been too small for you.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “We didn’t talk about the details.”
“I’m very happy for you, Pippa.” Matt crouched at her feet. Grabbing her hands, he raised first one and then the other for a kiss. “You’ve worked hard for this. You deserve it.”
Beautiful topaz eyes stared at her, his sincerity clear for her to read. But lurking at the back, something she was afraid to acknowledge, a sort of resignation.
“I was never coming back for good,” she said.
“I know.” He squeezed her hands. “You never made any secret of that. I guess, I let that detail slip my mind.”
The elephant charged into the room and squatted between them. “But I’m not gone yet.” Pippa tried for perky. “We still have a bit of time.”
“Babe.” The regret in Matt’s gaze took the air out of her. “I’m happy for you, really I am, but I need to get real with you here. Earlier, the reason I stormed off was because I’d had a shitty day, and all I wanted to do was be with you. And you . . . you have your own stuff, and I’m not part of it.”
“My career is everything to me.” His life was Ghost Falls, hers was LA, and they were further apart than the miles that separated the two places. Stuck here, hiding from her world, Pippa had allowed herself to be pulled into a bubble of her and Matt. Their fairy tale had come to an end.
“We both knew what we were getting into. Nobody made any promises,” Matt said. “But I gotta level with you. I never expected to feel the stuff for you that I do. I think we need to call this one before either of us . . .” He grimaced. “Before I get in too deep.”
But what if both were already in too deep?
“Neither of us is naïve enough to believe we have a future. It wasn’t what we signed on for.” He shrugged. “I don’t want to ruin your big news, babe, because I really am happy for you. But the selfish part of me, the bit that needs to protect me, thinks it’s best for both of us to get out before we start wanting things we can’t have. The things we want, Pippa, they don’t mesh. Both our lives are too complicated.”
“You’re right.” Pippa managed to find her voice. It tore a strip off her to admit it, but he was right. She was leaving. He was staying where he’d always been. “We’re keeping this light, remember.”
His eyes called the lie for what it was, but he still managed a smile. “Sure. Keeping it light.”
“And you’re not the only one in danger of . . . feeling more.” Her voice wobbled and she cleared her throat. “It’s stupid to carry on and risk . . . more.”
“Yeah.” He rose and moved away from her, staring out the window through the heavy silence. “For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t change a thing. Getting to know you, Pippa, making love with you, one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
Tears gathered beneath her lids and she blinked them away. “Me too.”
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard to walk away from Matt. When she’d gone into this thing, she’d thought she could handle it. A quick, hot-as-hell affair with Matt Evans and then back to life as normal. Except, she had the sneaking suspicion that normal was never going to feel the same again.
“Whisky!” Phi swept through the door. She stopped with the bottle raised. Her gaze skittered to Pippa and Matt and back again. “Too soon?”
“No.” Pippa dredged up her voice. “But I really don’t feel like a drink anymore. I think I might be coming down with something.” Like a massive dose of heart-sore. “I think Matt has to get home anyway.”
Matt stared at her, silently asking all sorts of questions, and Pippa nodded. This was the only way it could be. They’d had their time. Short and sweet as it had been, it was over. She’d make a list, pros and cons, possible scenarios and solutions. Lists always helped her sort through the confusion.
“Mathieu?” Phi took a step toward him. “Have you done something you shouldn’t have?”
Matt met her stare, his eyes dark and unreadable but his face set in grim lines. “I’m more of a beer guy.”
Pippa got to her feet, her limbs clumsy and not working right. She was relieved she made it through the door without banging into anything. “I’ll see you around, Meat.”
“Take care, Agrippina.”