CHAPTER FORTY
Hunkering down into her seat, Carrie silently looked out the airplane window as the lights of London faded into the distance. She’d ran out of the charity event and straight home, throwing some clothes into a suitcase so she could catch the next flight out of London. She didn’t much care where it went. As much as she’d learned to love this city, she couldn’t be in it right now. Every place she went, every corner she turned would remind her of Max.
How he’d ripped out her heart and then stomped on it.
However, his behavior tonight had been bizarre even for him. Max was a pompous asshole. That was a given. A judgmental bastard? Yep, that too. Spoiled and arrogant? He had his moments. But this evening at the party he’d shown a side of himself that she’d never seen before. Cruel. Callous. Insensitive. Primitive, even. His slick veneer of civilization had been stripped away and all that had been left was fury. The hopelessly polite Brit who drank tea had been taken over by an alter ego who didn’t care about the social niceties.
It was almost as if he’d wanted her to slap the shit out of him. Something, by the way, she’d been more than happy to do. Carrie could only hope it knocked some sense into that hard head of his. After a little more than three months in his company she could understand why he was single.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” the smiling flight attendant asked. “Pretzels?”
“Soda. Anything with caffeine. And make that a yes on the pretzels.”
She was going to need it to stay awake. The first plane she could get out of Heathrow had been to Rome. From there Carrie had a connecting flight to New York and then a final leg to Los Angeles. She’d be traveling the better part of the next twenty-four hours but it was worth it. She was out of London.
She’d sent a text to Paige from Heathrow that she was on her way and would explain when she got there, not mentioning any reasons. She didn’t want to get into it on the phone. This was a face to face conversation that required tequila. Lots of it. Paige sent one text in reply.
Max is going to wish he was never born.
Ah, friendship. It was kind of funny that Paige simply assumed it was Max that had driven Carrie out of England.
She had learned something tonight, though. The reason Max had turned angry and cold was that he thought she’d slept with Tyler. Why he thought that was a mystery. Carrie knew Tyler would never tell him a tall tale like that. He had enough women begging for his attention that he didn’t need to brag about females that weren’t.
Max should have just talked to her about it. Like adults do. But then she remembered Max’s parents and realized he didn’t have much of an example there. They weren’t acting much like mature human beings so it wasn’t a shock that he had no idea what to do. They’d raised him to be a famous actor. Teaching him to be a good relationship partner? They’d dropped the ball on that one.
He might love her. But he didn’t trust her. Without that, the love didn’t matter much.
Carrie couldn’t try and make a relationship with a man work if he constantly thought she was out messing around. Alana had hurt him deeply but she was not Alana. Carrie wasn’t willing to take her predecessor’s punishments when she’d done nothing to deserve them. If Max didn’t get his head out of his ass he was going to die alone.
She’d be hard pressed to feel sorry for him.
* * *
The pounding on the front door woke Max out of a dead sleep. After Carrie had left the party last night he had gone on a drinking binge that would have made a college student wince. He was paying for that act of stupidity now. His skull felt like there was an ax splitting it in two, his mouth was as dry as cottonwool, and his stomach was tumbling and twisting. One look in the mirror as he stumbled to the door told the whole story.
What wasn’t pasty gray on Max was puke green.
“Just a fucking minute,” he mumbled as his hand wrapped around the doorknob. “Stop the bloody hammering.”
His publicist Garrett stood in the doorway holding a giant coffee and a stack of newspapers. Max only had interest in one of those items so he grabbed the coffee and turned around, assuming Garrett would follow him into the house.
“You needn’t look so chipper this morning, mate,” Max said as he collapsed into a chair wearing nothing but his tuxedo pants from last night. Apparently he hadn’t had the manual dexterity to unbutton his trousers.
Garrett dropped the stack of papers next to Max on the couch and then took a seat opposite. He had that look on his face…the one Max hated. Like a disappointed father. Garrett needed to remember who worked for whom. Max was the client, not the employee.
“Are you still drunk or have you finally sobered up?” Garrett’s voice seemed overly loud in the quiet room. “I waited until later in the day before I came over hoping you might have slept it off.”
The coffee was rich, dark, and scaldingly hot. Just the way Max liked it.
“If I were still drunk I wouldn’t feel this awful, so I think it’s safe to say I’m sober. Now what do you want on this fine Sunday morning?”
“It’s afternoon.”
“Fine. Afternoon. What do you want?”
Garrett stood and walked over to the front window, peering out. Were the paps still there? Those vultures were waiting for him to do something newsworthy. From Garrett’s presence here, Max had a bad feeling that he had finally done just that. Fleet Street must be celebrating.
“I’m not even going to yell at you about the way you bungled that question from the reporter about your careers. That’s the least of your damn worries.” Garrett’s lips flattened into a straight line. “You and Carrie had a fight.”
Hungover, Max didn’t have the mental wherewithal to lie.
“We did. So?”
Max tried to push away the image of Carrie’s tearstained face as she’d left him at the party.
“The contract wasn’t supposed to end for another two weeks but it looks like things are over. Was it supposed to be so public? Is that what you and Carrie intended? Because if so, you really need to run this stuff by me first. The press is all over this and you are not coming out well, Max.”
Gingerly, as if it might bite, Max lifted the top newspaper from the stack. Photos and lurid headlines dripped from the pages. He hadn’t meant for this to happen but it looked like he’d dragged them both through the mud. Pawing through the papers, every picture was more damning than the last. Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to see the tension and hostility between the two of them from the time they’d exited the limo all the way down the red carpet. One lucky pap had captured Carrie’s face as she was leaving the venue, looking heartbroken and miserable, tears streaming down her face.
Max should have felt proud of himself but he didn’t have the energy. The photo caption called him a bastard, a title he couldn’t argue.
“It wasn’t planned.”
Garrett’s eyes widened. “Not planned? So you’re telling me that you and Carrie had a real breakup last night? As in…the romance was real and now it’s over? When did that happen?”
“Does it matter? It’s over.” He couldn’t stop himself from asking, his mind already thinking about the next time he’d see her. If ever. “Have you talked to her about the tabloids?”
“She’s not answering her phone. I left her a couple of voicemails but I didn’t hear anything back so I stopped by Nate and Paige’s place but there’s no one there either. Do you know where she is?”
His sluggish brain was beginning to work. “No one there? That’s strange.”
“My next step is to call Paige and Nate and see if they know where she is. I can’t let her walk into this paparazzi mess without preparing her. The papers smell blood, my friend, and they aren’t going to give up easily. After the way Carrie looked when she left the party last night, you’re being cast as the villain in this one.”
Remembering last night, Max took another gulp of hot coffee. “I am the villain.”
Garrett shook his head, his gaze taking in Max’s disheveled appearance. “I’m not sure which of the two of you is more stupid. You or Nate? Both of you don’t have any common sense when it comes to women which is ironic considering the way they chase you. Carrie is an amazing person and I doubt you could do better.”
“Thank you for those kind and supportive words.” Max put as much sarcasm into his tone as possible. “Now what do we do? Lie low? Call a press conference? Pretend last night never happened?”
Snorting, Garrett settled back into a chair. “Make believe isn’t an option after last night. These photos tell a bleak story, one that we need to spin. I’ll put out a press release that the two of you are reluctantly and regretfully parting ways. The usual stuff. It’s a painful and emotional time but you hope the press can give you the privacy you both need to heal and move on. You’ll always respect and care for one another and you’re sad that it didn’t work out. Then you do need to lie low. Don’t date anyone else for awhile. Be boring.”
Sad was a weak word for what Max was feeling. As for dating another woman?
There were no other women in the world.
“I cannot believe that I pay you for this.”
“And quite well too,” Garrett grinned, slapping his knee in what appeared to be glee. “A huge part of public relations is common sense. You know…the stuff you didn’t use any of last night. Now I come in and clean up after you. It’s that simple.”
Everything was complicated.
“I do have to ask you one question before I run off and start giving statements to the press. Is there any chance of a reconciliation? Because if there is, that changes everything.”
Max had literally no idea what he wanted or hoped for. He missed her dreadfully, thought about her all the time, but he couldn’t be with her if she wasn’t going to be honest. He had to be able to trust her. He understood her ambition. If only she’d just told him what she wanted when they’d signed the contract.
An image of her furious expression, stubborn chin, and stormy eyes flashed in front of him and his fingers automatically brushed against his cheek where she’d slapped him.
And rightly so.
“There’s no chance of a reconciliation. I’d wager, in fact, that Carrie might never speak to me again. At least not of her own free will.”
Whistling and rolling his eyes, Garrett tapped a note into his phone. “You must have had one hell of a blowout last night. I know it’s none of my business but what did you argue about?”
Max liked Garrett. The man was a PR genius and he’d helped get Max out of some sticky situations since marrying and divorcing Alana. He’d also helped Nate as well when the shit had really hit the fan. But there was a difference between a professional relationship and a private one. They had the former, not the latter.
“The usual,” Max replied, the lie bitter on his tongue. “You know how it is in this business, Garrett. The girl gets too attached and starts to plan a future while I’m thinking we’re just casual fun. I’m not looking to fall in love and make a huge commitment. Carrie is the marrying kind.”
He’d be alone. Because while Max didn’t trust Carrie to tell him the truth about the role there was one person he trusted even less. Himself.