Page 163 of Between the Lines

I’d told my dad that I don’t go by the same name. Theywon’tput two and two together, when no one has in the past.

Mom’s eyes flash.The media always finds out. That company doesn’t deserve an ounce of your time, and certainly not your writing! Honey, what are you doing?

Nothing I said mattered. This was a dumb decision.Again. Mom used it as an excuse to pile on the guilt about wanting me to move back to Idaho. And Dad, he asked me to read the contract in case I missed something, some loophole in the fine print. They’re both trying to get me out of Titan Media’s clutches. Again.

Dumb little Charlotte, making another dumb mistake.

It’s hard to imagine how much worse this could have gone if I’d also told them I waslivingwith the CEO of Titan Media, not just writing a memoir in his favor.

Not to mention,sleeping with him.That the “boyfriend” they were so happy about just the day prior is the very same man. Now, they see him as someone who won’t let me out of an NDA, the villain in the story.

Anger takes the place of numbness. It seeps in slowly, and I have no way to let it go. It builds and builds until it spreads through every limb. Until I grip the wheel so hard, it hurts.

Maybe I’mnotmaking a dumb mistake.

Maybe I’ve grown.

Because I’ve realized Aiden isn’t intimately involved with the shows the network produces. He handles big-picture things. He only became CEOtwoyears ago, for Christ’s sake, and before that, he worked in Titan’s strategy department. He had absolutely nothing to do with my experience onThe Gamble.

I drive until the anger slowly seeps out of me. I likely speed, too, a weak parallel to the jogs I like to take. Maybe that’s what I should do instead. The LA air is much cooler at night.

I arrive back at Aiden’s Bel Air home. It’s late, almost midnight when I pull into the driveway. Maybe he’s already gone to bed.

But when I open up the front door, the lights are still on. Footsteps sound across the hardwood floor.

“Charlotte.” Aiden’s hair is a mess, like he’s repeatedly dragged his hands through it. His eyebrows are drawn low. “You’ve been out?”

“Went for a drive.”

“A very long drive,” he says. “Were you safe?”

“Yes. I’m always safe.” I pass him and head into the massive kitchen to pour myself a glass of water.

“What’s happened?” he asks. There’s a cautious note to his tone, one that I’ve rarely heard before. Like he thinks I’m seconds from exploding.

That’s just ridiculous.

I’m the picture of calm.

I set the now-empty glass down on his marble countertop a bit too hard. “I got a lecture today from my parents, after telling them about the memoir.”

He grits his teeth. “They don’t approve.”

“Approve is a nice word. They’re not the kind of people to express themselves that way. But yeah, they’re questioning my sanity, which is worse.” I close my eyes against a wave of guilt that punches through my frustration. “They’re worried that I’m back to making stupid decisions.”

“You’re not,” Aiden says.

That makes me smile. “You would say that, though. Wouldn’t you?”

His eyes narrow. He’s in a pair of dark slacks and a gray T-shirt that spans his broad shoulders, and I wonder if he’s been worried. If he’s been pacing the house waiting for my return. More guilt joins the already swirling whirlpool inside me.

“Maybe I should have been there,” he says.

I throw up my hands. “Oh my god, Aiden. What would that have done?”

“They could have been mad at me, instead of you.”

“They would have been mad at us both.”

---