Page 26 of Mysterious

“So where were you if you weren’t in rehab?”

Mia takes a deep breath in and holds it in her lungs for a long moment before letting it out slowly, almost as if she’s afraid to tell me the truth. “I was at a place where they handle depression. My mother thinks the entire world will turn away from me if they find out I’m not one hundred percent perfect all the time. It’s the reason she touts me as a classical pianist when I’m really more just someone who can play the piano pretty good if I practice a lot. She’s sure if the world finds out I’m bipolar that I’ll suddenly be an act no one would ever want to see.”

She stops for a moment before adding, “Even though I take medication for it.”

Her sadness makes me wince. After seeing her perform, I can’t believe her fans would abandon her for anything.

“I’m sorry.”

That gets me a smile I think is genuine. “For what? You didn’t make me like this.”

“Not for that. Just that you have to deal with worrying you’d lose your career if people found out the truth. Maybe you could go live on social media and let your fans hear you talk about it instead of having them hear about it through the media.”

Mia shakes her head. “I don’t go on social media anymore. I couldn’t take the horrible things people would say when I’d post, so we hired someone who looks and sounds exactly like me to handle all of that. Some of the things they said were so cruel that I’d want to curl up into a ball and disappear. I guess to many people because I’m in the public eye, they think I don’t have feelings or I couldn’t see what they wrote. But I did, and it hurt.”

I hate seeing her so down, so I force a smile and say, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’d lose a single fan if they found out.”

Mia raises her glass and lets out a heavy sigh. “For what it’s worth, I don’t either, but my mother has a different opinion about this. I’ll fight her on most things, but I can’t find it in me to risk that she’s right and I’m wrong on this one.”

As I watch her down her kamikaze, I can’t help but think about how Andrea has a huge effect on her daughter’s life. She likes it that way too. No wonder she looked utterly stunned when I confronted her after the show that night she brought Michael back. She assumed things were going to be the way they’d always been—with everyone thinking Mia was the villain and she was the selfless hero in their story. She never thought anyone would dare to question her motives, least of all me.

But I know the truth now. I was so wrong about Mia in the beginning, but even more, I was wrong about her mother.

I don’t knowhow she does it, but two pitchers of kamikazes later, of which I only had four drinks, Mia doesn’t even seem slightly drunk. Afraid she might want to try for three pitchers, I suggest we hit another bar and step away from where she’s sitting to encourage her to follow me.

Somehow, in those few seconds I’m not at her side, a fight breaks out right next to her between two guys who’ve had far too much to drink tonight. I step back to get in front of Mia to protect her, but I don’t reach her in time. One of the guys gets pushed into her, and she falls to the floor, covered in the drunk’s beer.

I spring into action, rushing over to pick her up before one or both of them fall on top of her. As I lift her into my arms, her blond wig slides off her head. Behind me, I hear someone say, “Hey, that’s Mia,” and then it’s like the crowd suddenly can only focus on her and her alone out of the hundreds of people in the bar.

Hands shoot out from all directions to touch her, grabbing at her dress and her hair. She looks up at me with pure terror in her eyes, curling up into the fetal position in my arms. Never before have I seen her so frightened, and all I want to do is protect her.

I shoulder check half a dozen people as I push through the crowd toward the door. By the time I reach the street, she sobbing in my arms with her face buried in my chest.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

Her terrified voice muffled by my shirt, she says, “I want to go back to the hotel, Liam. Take me back there, please.”

“Okay. Just hang on to me and I’ll take care of everything.”

She clings to my neck like a drowning woman, but she doesn’t have to fear anything now. I won’t let anyone hurt her.

With each step I take toward the hotel, regret fills me for letting my guard down. If only I didn’t step away from her, none of this would have ever happened.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see blood on her bare shoulder. Someone scratched her skin when they were trying to get to her, and now she’s bleeding. Anger mixes with regret, and it’s all I can do to not march right back to that goddamned bar and beat the hell out of everyone I recognize.

“Are we almost there?” she asks in a tiny voice.

I come out of my haze of rage and see the sign for the hotel right in front of me. “We’re almost there. Don’t worry. I’ve got you, Mia.”

The guy at concierge I thought had a pretentious way of speaking when we arrived sees me walk through the front door with her in my arms and rushes over to us. Whatever affectation he had earlier has disappeared when he frantically asks in a heavy southern accent, “What happened? What do you need, Mr. Jackson?”

“She’s okay, but I need to get her up to her suite immediately,” I say as I hurry to the bank of elevators across the lobby.

Mia lifts her head from my chest and smiles up at me. “Would you ask him to send up something to eat? My stomach feels weird, like it needs food in it right now.”

Happy to hear her sounding better, I ask, “What do you want? Whatever it is, either he’ll have them make it or I’ll run and get it.”

Tears fill her eyes. “I’d like a pizza.”

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