A California Christmas (Silver Springs #7) - Brenda Novak Page 0,32

keep her voice steady. “Have you talked to him?”

“I have. I told him I could never trust him again and that he had to get the hell out of my apartment. I kept worrying that the little bastard was filming me in the shower or getting dressed or whatever. It’s creepy.”

Poor Tommy. Beyond a cursory hello or goodbye, she didn’t know him that well, had only spoken to him a handful of times. But her impression of him was so different from the picture Ethan was painting. She wished she had Tommy’s phone number. He might be able to tell her something that would disprove Ethan’s version of events. “And he said...”

“He claims he didn’t do it—swears on his life. But who else could it be?”

You! It was you! Emery wanted to scream into the phone, but she felt Dallas touch her arm—a reminder not to lose her composure.

“Do you have his number?” she said. “I’d really like to give him a piece of my mind.”

“No, I deleted his contact information from my phone as soon as he moved out. I don’t ever want to talk to him again.”

That was convenient. The expression on Dallas’s face suggested he was thinking the same thing. “That anyone could do that... Well, you’re right,” she said. “It’s unconscionable, and I hope whoever recorded and posted that video burns in hell.”

“So where are you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been by your place a hundred times. Your car is never there.”

She heard Dallas swear under his breath and pulled the phone away so that Ethan wouldn’t realize she was with someone. “I’m visiting a friend,” she said. “I couldn’t stay in LA, not with everyone watching that video.”

“Then where are you?”

“Silver Springs.”

“Even though your parents are in Boston these days?”

“I have friends here.”

“Who?”

“No one you’d know.”

“Are you looking for another job?”

“Right before Christmas? No.”

“When will you be coming back to LA?”

“At this point, I can’t say.”

“I hope it’s soon. I’d really like to see you. I’ll even come there, if you’ll give me an address.”

She shifted her hold on the phone. “Maybe if you admitted that you were the one who recorded us and then put that video up on the internet, we could make up, Ethan, put this all behind us. But the fact that you’re trying to blame it on Tommy, when Tommy would have no motivation to do it, makes me realize that you’re a liar on top of everything else.”

“I’m not lying!” he cried.

“Tell me the truth, and maybe I’ll be able to forgive you.” Dallas had suggested she let Ethan do the talking, but Ethan wasn’t saying anything that would help her. He was using this call to try to rewrite history. And soon it would be too late to press him; he’d know she wasn’t going to forgive him—she was going to sue him. “You did it, didn’t you? You wanted to hurt me, so you posted that video.”

She was hoping he’d say something like, “You hurt me first!” But he didn’t. He fell silent.

“Ethan?”

“What?” His voice was now morose.

“Why did you make that video? Had you recorded us before?”

“You’re such a bitch,” he snapped, instantly vicious, and hung up.

Emery threw her phone on the bed and covered her face. “Damn it!”

Dallas tugged her hands away. “Don’t let him mess you up again. You did the best you could,” he said, and pulled her into his arms.

Contrary to what it probably seemed to Dallas, she wasn’t all that emotional. Not normally. But her helplessness in this situation created so much frustration it surfaced in the way of tears. “I hate him,” she whispered, trying to choke them back.

“He’s obsessed with you. You heard him, right? He’s driven past your house a hundred times. Consider yourself lucky to be rid of him, and that it only took a leaked sex video.”

“Only?” She could feel the solidness of Dallas’s body, the strength in his shoulders, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she felt better now that she was in his arms.

“He could’ve done a lot worse.” He smoothed the hair back from her face, like one might do with a child. “He’s so removed from reality that I wouldn’t put it past him to turn into some kind of stalker. Maybe you got out when the getting was good.”

She’d never thought of it that way. “You think he might be dangerous?”

“I’d hate to accuse him of that, because I don’t really know. But he’s definitely missing