Page 156 of Ever With Me

“That would mean you having to leave Brandywood. You don’t want that.”

“I . . .” She hesitated, swallowing hard.

For the past week, she’d ignored the thought. What if Brooks needed her to choose between him and her home? Her family? The place where everyone knew her, and she knew everyone?

And now, with Pops stepping back even further, her family needed her more than ever.

“I know you’re not ready for that. And you haven’t even decided about your grandfather’s business.”

“I-I’ll tell him no. That I won’t do it.”

“Do you have any idea how massively unfair that would be for me to ask something like that of you? Something you’ve barely had a chance to think about? You might hate me for it later.”

She hated him for being the voice of reason right now.

“Couldn’t we get security at a house here? Maybe build a gate?”

“Around Main Street?” He stepped back, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Or the lake, where you were attacked?”

“That wouldn’t have happened if I’d had a bodyguard with me.”

He nodded. “You’re right because I got careless. I got so comfortable being here, where no one knew how to find me at first, that I forgot I don’t get that privilege all the time. Mike implied he gained access to the lake house to put cameras in during the weekends when I wasn’t there. And your life was threatened, your grandfather was hospitalized, my niece traumatized. Enormous price to pay for my carelessness, wouldn’t you say?”

She shook her head. “Brooks, I know it won’t be easy, but I?—”

“You don’t know, though. You don’t know the half of it.” Brooks shoved his hands in his back pockets. “You have no idea what it’s like to be chased by the paparazzi in LA. To go out to dinner and be mobbed. To have the people you love threatened when they’re completely innocent. Mike pulled a gun on me. ..what if he did that to you?”

She gasped. “Mike held you at gunpoint?”

Oh my God.

Brooks could have been killed.

Brooks nodded, the strain on his face clear. “Why do you think I didn’t do more?”

He looked so tired, sosad. “I can’t show up anywhere without being photographed. My life isn’tnormal.And for a few weeks, you gave me normal again, Maddie. Fall festivals and making out in storerooms and getting breakfast at Bunny’s. Family parties. Almost enough for me to forget who I am.”

Her throat thickened. What scared her more than his descriptions of his life was that she didn’t seem to be changing his mind. “Brooks, listen to me. I’ll admit that I don’t know what any of that is like, but I’d still rather live that than be apart from you.”

“You could barely look at me after what happened to your grandfather, Maddie. Hell, I could barely look you in the eye—I was so ashamed. What if something like that happens again? It’s not just you and me involved. It’s your family. Any future kids that you want. Kayla and Audrey have the unlucky position of being my family and look at what happened there. Mike has been a plague to them both. Getting him to go away this time came at a high cost.”

“So we take him on legally?—”

“He still has access to those images. If I take him on legally, he’ll release them. I got him to sign a contract saying it’s a one-time deal and that he’d stay away from you, Kayla, and Audrey in perpetuity.”

“He’ll come back. He’ll continue threatening to release them.”

“Not if he’s convinced I don’t care about you. Those images will lose their power then.”

The weight of his statement made her want to throw up. To convince Mike of that . . . Brooks would have to convincethe whole worldthat he no longer had any interest in her.

“I’m changing my phone number after I leave. Getting rid of this one because it was hacked.”

“What do you mean? How? Didn’t you say you had a team to stop that?”

He nodded. “I did. They clearly didn’t do their job. I got a text that I thought was from you—it even went into our exchanged texts—asking me to meet you in the trailer alone. I thought you wanted a quickie, so I went. But it was Mike waiting there for me with a gun. He demanded I text you and tell you I was leaving.”

She gasped, horrified at the idea.A message from her?Mike lured her with a fake text from her? And she’d been right.Dammit, I was right. I knew it.The message from Brooks hadn’t been real, either.

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