Page 95 of Always Red (Chasing Red 2)

“Go ahead. It was kind of funny, considering he ran out of the room naked and mad as a bull. All the way down to the lobby.”

“What?”

“I swear it’s true. You didn’t hear that on the news?”

“I don’t really watch the news.”

“Come on, everyone was talking about it. I remember my grandfather was happy. It was free advertising for the hotel. Good or bad, it was still advertising, he said. Anyway, a week later, the singer was already dating a different actress.”

She sighed. “I guess it wasn’t real.”

“I guess it wasn’t. Red?”

I wanted to keep the good mood going—I loved hearing her laugh—but I knew I had to tell her what I’d found out today.

“Hmm?”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

I heard the sharp intake of her breath, as if she was bracing herself. “All right, Caleb. I’m here.”

I smiled. I’m here. It was a simple sentence, really. But it held a lot of promise.

“Ben told me he saw Beatrice-Rose in Paris a few weeks ago. She’s sick, Red.”

“You’re worried about her,” she observed.

“No… Yeah. I don’t know,” I replied, frustrated. I sat up in bed, rubbing my face with my hand.

“It’s okay to be worried about her, Caleb.”

“I don’t want to worry about her,” I said a little sharply.

Sliding out of bed, I started toward the kitchen. “What I do know is that I’m not ready to forgive her or let her back in my life. She hurt you.” I made it to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, twisting off the cap harder than I intended. “And going by what you told me about when you saw her today, she doesn’t plan on stopping soon.”

I took a sip and walked to the small eating area.

“I can handle her, Caleb. She can’t say anything that will change how I feel about you,” she said softly, and I heard the apology in her voice. “She’s a manipulative liar. Nothing gives her the right to hurt and abuse people. You don’t have to subject yourself to that kind of abuse. No one deserves to be abused. Not even her,” she finished.

“I know.”

“My dad… He was the same. He nearly…killed my mom,” she choked out. “And me. He didn’t care as long as he got what he wanted. Tell me if that’s right. Tell me if you want to be around people like that. Tell me if you deserve to just take their abuse.”

She took a deep breath. “Beatrice-Rose needs help, Caleb. I feel bad for her, I really do, but it doesn’t mean I’ll stand by and do nothing when she decides to harm the people who are important to me. What she’s doing now… It’s a cry for help.”

“I know.”

I had asked for a bottle of aspirin from the front desk earlier, and when I found it sitting on the dining table, I sighed in relief. I shook two pills into my palm, swallowed them, and chased them down with water.

“The PI phoned me earlier,” I said. “He found something.”

“Did he find out who planted the drugs in your car?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “It was Justin.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath.

“There’s a warrant for his arrest now. They found footage of him in the underground parking lot of my building. He had keys to my car. That’s why the alarm didn’t go off.”

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