Starfire (Peaches Monroe #3)(20)
Author: Mimi Strong

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I have to be somewhere, and I need a break from LA.”

“I’m sorry to hear about… everything.” I really was sorry that reporters had discovered his past, but even more sorry he’d been denied a normal childhood. One of the stories I’d read about him revealed that when he was four years old, he’d woken in the night and wandered out of his room to find a film crew and an orgy in his living room. The actress who spoke to the reporter said it used to happen all the time, and she felt sorry for the kid, but they had to shoot when and wherever they could. She’d hoped the money his parents were making would eventually build a better life for the kid, and everything would be worth it. But then he ran away from home as a teen, changed his name, and made his own life, without them.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Is that all?” Dalton replied.

“What else is there? Congratulations on buying the cabin. How’s that going?”

“I thought you might actually apologize for what you did,” he said.

My pulse started to hammer in my ears. The way he was looking at me—it wasn’t his usual flirty expression.

“You’re scaring me,” I whispered, because he was.

“You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone. You promised me.”

I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t go down.

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Are you saying the video of the curvy blonde at the tattoo shop isn’t you? Because it sure looks like you. I only watched it once, but the video’s up to a couple million views.”

My mouth dropped open.

Thunder rumbled outside, the rain picking up fury.

A lightning bolt punctuated my sudden realization.

The person who revealed Dalton Deangelo’s secret past was me. I’d been worried about this. It must have happened during the night I couldn’t remember clearly. My friend Mitchell wouldn’t have betrayed me, so it must have been one of the model guys we were out with who’d recorded me on his phone. Then again, maybe Mitchell had betrayed me. People did that. After all, I had betrayed Dalton.

“I didn’t know,” I said, looking down at my shoes, away from his cold expression. “This is the first I’ve… oh, Dalton. I’m so sorry. I could literally die right here from how sorry I am. I never meant to hurt you.”

“You haven’t seen the video?”

“No! I didn’t want to read all those terrible things people were saying about you. All those horrible people on the internet. I mean, I looked once, but just for a few minutes.”

He sighed, and his tone softened a bit. “To be fair, you didn’t say everything, but you dropped some huge hints, and that reporter, Brooke Summer, put the clues together and figured out where to look.”

“This is all Brooke’s fault.” I still couldn’t look up at him. Please let him agree it’s Brooke’s fault.

“Peaches, look at me.”

“I can’t. I’m too ashamed.”

“Brooke Summers didn’t sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but you did.”

My mouth went dry. “You’re going to sue me?” I glanced up, meeting his gaze. To my surprise, he looked amused, like he was making fun of me. My guilt morphed quickly into anger. “Good luck suing me, especially since I don’t have anything. Not compared to you.”

“You didn’t read the NDA before you signed it, did you?”

“Why?” I crossed my arms.

Dalton pulled out his wallet, put some bills on the counter, and tucked the book under his arm. “I should get on my way. It’s getting stormy out there.”

He turned and walked toward the door, but slowly, like he wanted to be stopped.

I called out, “What do you want from me?”

He stopped at the door, his back to me. “Dinner on Wednesday?”

“I might have plans.”

He grinned. “Bulldoodle.”

I nearly cracked at the silly word, but I wasn’t about to be thrown off by him so easily.

I said, “I might be able to see you Wednesday, but you’re not the boss of me.”

“I have a notarized document that says otherwise.”

“WHAT?”

He opened the door to the rumbling storm. He transferred the book to the interior of his leather jacket. “Vern will pick you up at your house at seven.”

“Wait, Dalton. Enough of your mysterious crap! I’m really sorry about what I said, but this is my town, and this is my bookstore. Stop coming into my life and f**king shit up. I demand a copy of that stupid thing I signed!”

Bells jingled. The door closed behind him as he disappeared up the street in the rain. He probably hadn’t heard a word after “wait.”

After picking my jaw up off the floor, I phoned Shayla and told her everything.

“Plot twist,” was her reply.

“That’s all you’ve got? Never mind. Why am I talking to you? I’m pissed at you for not telling me I was the one who blabbed Dalton’s secrets. You could have warned me.”

“You made me promise to keep you from reading terrible things about you online. After that bombshell dropped, half your rabid fan base turned against you. It’s like World War Three on the Team Peaches forums.”

“Shit.” I hadn’t considered how Dalton’s bad press would spray back onto me. My heart sunk as I connected all the shitty dots to a shitty future where the underwear line with my name on it would lose so much money they would sue me rather than paying licensing royalties.

“Still there?” Shayla asked, her voice tiny. I’d dropped the phone away from my ear, as though a few inches would lessen the pain of the news.

“Just having a f**k-my-life moment.”

“Why don’t you see what Dalton has planned? Maybe you guys can salvage both of your reputations.”

“You’re good at this stuff, Shay. You’re more sensible than me.”

She sighed. “Fine. You beat it out of me. I’m f**king the dish washer.”

“What?”

“I’m f**king the dish washer.”

“I don’t understand. The dishwasher? You renamed your vibrator, or are you actually going after bigger appliances? Shayla, be honest. What exactly happened with our old refrigerator?”

“Not the dishwasher appliance. The person. From work.”

“Wait. The funny high school kid?”