CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Paige was more upset than Carrie was. The author was pacing back and forth, her face red against her blonde hair, muttering about horrible medieval torture methods she’d learned about doing research for a book. If Max had had the bad luck to be in the same room with Paige right now Carrie had little doubt he’d be singing soprano.
“Next time I see him, I’m going to knee him right in the balls,” Paige declared, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. She stopped and nudged Carrie, who had draped herself over the leather recliner in the impersonal LA condo. “Why aren’t you mad? He broke your heart.”
More than a few times in the last twenty-four hours, Carrie had asked herself that very question and each time the answer varied slightly. Mostly it was because she was too fucking exhausted to be angry. She’d been traveling round the clock since yesterday and she’d arrived at Paige’s condo needing a shower, a decent meal, and twelve hours of solid sack time. So far she’d had two out of three.
“I’m not sure it’s truly hit me yet,” Carrie replied, her brow scrunched up as thoughts of the last time she’d seen Max raced through her head. “But even if it has, how do I benefit from being mad? It just prolongs the hurt and I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
“I want him to hurt,” Paige said heatedly. “Just as much as he’s hurt you.”
Funny about that…
“I think he is hurting. That last night he appeared to be in great pain. You could see it in his eyes and the trembling of his hands. Even his voice didn’t sound like his own. Of course he thought I was fucking around with Tyler Gaylord so that was probably it.” Carrie sat up and tucked her legs under her. “Frankly I never thought I’d have enough power in Max’s life to make him feel that way. I didn’t walk away because he doesn’t care about me, Paige. I walked away because he doesn’t have a clue what to do about that. I think he was so scared he grabbed onto the first excuse to push me away even if it didn’t make any sense.”
Paige fell back into the couch cushions and huffed out a breath. “It’s no excuse.”
“No, it isn’t. That’s why I left. I think he would eventually figure it out but I can’t be around while he stumbles in the dark, taking a baseball bat to everyone around him. It’s not fair to me.”
Paige’s brows pulled down in a frown. “Why on earth would he think you were having an affair with Tyler?”
Another problem Carrie had turned over in her brain until it hurt. “I did run into Tyler at the movie studio after our meeting and we did go have coffee. Maybe a pap caught us?”
“It didn’t make the papers,” Paige reasoned. “If there was a photo you’d think we would have all seen it.”
Nate strolled into the living room and plopped down next to his wife. “Unless the pap brought it to Garrett and offered to sell it for a price.”
Carrie wasn’t sure why a photographer would do that. “I’m not following.”
Stretching out his incredibly long legs, Nate propped them on the coffee table. “Sometimes a pap can make more money offering an incriminating photo to the celebrity rather than selling it to a tabloid, depending on how dirty it is. I’ve got a call in to Garrett to find out. If Max never saw a picture of you and Tyler, why on earth is he accusing you of sleeping with him? That’s just daft.”
Nate was much calmer than Carrie had imagined. “Thank you for not flying off the handle, by the way. He’s your best friend and I don’t want to come between you two. This mess is mine and I’ll deal with it.”
Laughing heartily, Nate shook his head. “Darling, I am going to kill Max next time I see him. I’ve left several messages with him but he’s – not surprisingly – avoiding my calls. I warned him and he didn’t listen. He never listens.”
There was one more thing that was worrying Carrie. “Technically by leaving early I’m in breach of contract. You don’t think he’ll sue me, do you? Or throw me under the bus in some way? If he thinks I cheated on him with Tyler would he give the story to the tabloids? Because that’s all I need is to have my friends and family see something like that. The breakup photos were bad enough. I had to talk my brother out of catching a plane to London and beating the shit out of Max.”
“He’ll have to stand in line,” Nate said, his jaw tightening. “As for suing you? He better fucking not if he wants to look at this side of the grass. Honestly, if there was a story about you and Tyler it would already be in the papers. That’s what has me so confused. There’s no evidence that you cheated.”
Paige elbowed her husband. “Carrie thinks that Max was looking for a reason to end things.”
Nate exhaled slowly, his expression pensive. “That’s a real possibility. Max has, historically, had lousy taste in women so he doesn’t trust his own judgment. He’s skittish and jumpy when it comes to love. Then he finally gets a good one and he doubts himself. Thinks it can’t be this smooth sailing so he looks for reasons to run.”
Now that was hilarious. Nothing had ever been smooth sailing with Max.
Paige’s gaze darted from Nate to Carrie. “So where does this leave Carrie? What should she do?”
Carrie already knew exactly what she was going to do. She’d made her decision before her flight had landed at LAX. It turned out she had learned from her broken engagement with Mark.
“Nothing. I’m going to do nothing about Max. I’m going to move on with my life and be happy. Life is too short to be miserable because of love and romance. If Max wants to apologize and work things out he knows my phone number, my email address, my Skype handle, my Twitter handle, and he fucking follows me on Instagram. I think he can get me a message in this electronic age. If he’s forgotten all of those he can catch me at the coffee shop or the park. He can call you or Nate. He can literally sit outside the yoga studio I go to every Tuesday night and wait for me there. If he’s really desperate he could take out an ad in the London Times. He has no shortage of ways to contact me, but I will say that so far he hasn’t tried.”
Carrie didn’t expect him to either.
“That was definite.” Paige slapped the cushion she was sitting on. “I’m proud of you.”
“Don’t be. I have a feeling I’m not done crying over the asshole. I’m just too tired to muster up any more tears. Catch up with me tomorrow.”
And the next day, and the next. Max wasn’t someone Carrie was going to get over easily. This was going to take some time.