One Last Time(75)

So dramatic he is. Once the cup is done, I grab my coffee and laptop before making my way to the counter. I try not to think about the fact that Kristin’s bare ass was right here while I had her legs over my shoulders, but the mental image is too good to suppress.

“Noah?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I groan.

The link loads and the headline causes my head to spin. Across the top of Celebaholic is the headline: Noah Frazier: Hollywood Heartthrob or Teenage Killer?

My head jerks back, and I blink, waiting for this to be an optical illusion.

There has to be some mistake.

This can’t be what she wrote about.

Not after everything. She wouldn’t do this to me. There’s no way.

I scroll the page, reading Kristin’s name as the author, followed by the story I’ve spent twenty years burying. It’s like a slap in the face.

There in black and white are photos of Tanya and me at prom, and then all the gory details regarding her death. Then the information about how I moved shortly after, changed my name and started a new life.

Everything I told her.

My chest aches with each word I read. This is a dream, a nightmare that I’ll wake up from, it has to be because the woman I love wouldn’t sell me out for a fucking headline.

“Noah?”

“Shut up,” I bark back and read more. When I see the line about being an average Joe, I know it’s her. There’s no other explanation. “I-I—” I stutter, unable to get my words to come out. “She . . . Kristin is here . . . I can’t believe this.”

“I’ll call Catherine and get her there.” Tristan’s voice is full of pity.

“No.” I stop him. “Kristin wouldn’t do this. This is a joke or something.”

He sighs. “I don’t know what to say, but this is a PR nightmare, and I need to get out in front of it. I’ve already called Celebaholic, and I’ll do what I can, but it’s out there, Noah.”

This is what I pay him for, but I can’t believe this is happening. Not after everything she and I have shared. I would know if she was playing some game. It would mean all of this was for nothing.

I think about that night I told her, how she cried for me. There has to be some sort of explanation.

“I need to talk to her first,” I tell him.

“Regardless, I’m on your side, and it’s my job to put this fire out.”

“Do what you have to do, but I’m . . . I don’t fucking know.”

I’m not sure how to deal with the intensity of the betrayal rolling through me. How the hell could she think this would be okay? How could she take something I told her in complete confidence, with complete trust, and post it?

My hand grips the mug, and I start to shake. Nervous energy fills me, and I need to make sense of this. Tanya’s parents received a large sum of money when I got my first big payout as a donation to the scholarship in her name. My lawyers handled it all very quietly with a lot of ironclad rules regarding what they could say about my involvement.

They forgave me many years ago and wouldn’t betray me, would they? I can’t see why, they knew how much I loved her. Her mother was relieved when I told her about Kristin and me. She said it was time I moved on and stopped living in the past.

I start to go down a list of people who never believed it, but why now? Why after all this time? And how the hell would any of them know about Kristin?

At the end of the day, it doesn’t fucking matter, it’s Kristin’s article. It’s her name on that post. I trusted her, loved her, gave her my heart, only to have her destroy me. And for what? Why keep going once she got the information? Why is she in my bed?

I need to talk to her before I lose my goddamn mind.

Each step I take has my heart beating louder. My emotions are all over the place, and it’s impossible to get my thoughts in order.

Placing the laptop on the floor, I sit on the side of the bed, staring at her face, and do my best to ignore the stabbing pain in my chest. My throat constricts as I reach to touch her. Once this happens, there’s no going back, and if I could rewind right now, I would. I’d stay in yesterday and pray that today never happens.

“Kristin?” I gently squeeze her shoulder. “Kristin, wake up.”

She rolls onto her back and smiles when her eyes meet mine. “Hi.”

The way she looks at me breaks me. This isn’t the look of a girl who just fucked my entire career. She’s looking at me like I’m her savior. I need her to give me a reason so I can find a way to fix it.

“Kristin, the article published,” I say.

“Oh? I thought it was posting tomorrow. Did you read it?” She sits up, pulling the sheets over her naked body.

“Did you?”

“Well, yeah, I wrote it.” She shrugs.

“You wrote it?” I ask. “No one else helped you?”

She tilts her head and laughs. “Of course I wrote it, silly. I emailed it to my editor a week ago, and we went over the edits a few days ago. You didn’t like it? I thought . . . I wasn’t sure if you would, but I hoped . . .”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath through my nose. “You thought I’d be okay with this?”

“Noah?” She touches my arm, and I pull back. “Why aren’t you? I don’t . . . you’re angry?”