to try the Shaggy defense?”
His forehead creased. “Do you mean like Scooby-Doo?”
“No. I mean like the 2000 R&B Pop classic ‘It Wasn’t Me’.”
He still looked confused. I should’ve known never to trust someone that didn’t know any 90s and 2000s R&B and pop music references. It was the best era of music ever.
Ignoring my non-verbal boundary that I didn’t want him coming any closer, he took another step extending his arm. “I love you. And whatever you think you saw—”
I stepped back and blocked his touch. “I am not going to have this discussion if you insist on lying to me. You cheated on me. That’s a fact. Just like it’s a fact that instead of calling me to talk about it privately after you knew you’d been caught; you went on a press junket playing the victim and badmouthing me.”
“You were the one that made this public by making out with some hick in bumfuck nowhere!” he yelled, his temper coming to the surface.
I’d always known it was there, but I’d done my best to avoid it. I realized in that moment I should check my feet for eggshells because I’d been walking on them for so long around him. But not anymore.
I knew that it must’ve been a huge blow to his precious ego when the news hit. Which was why I was so surprised to see him there today. But I wasn’t about to be yelled at in my grandmother’s home by a man that was cheating on me. Maybe I hadn’t handled things in the best way, but at least I’d broken up with him before, over text but still, before I’d kissed someone else.
“You can leave now.” I opened the door.
“I’m sorry.” He tried to backtrack. “I just…I never expected you to do something like that to me.”
“I didn’t do anything to you. You cheated on me. When I kissed Beau, we were done.”
“Beau?” I could see that he really wasn’t upset but he was trying to work himself up into righteous indignation. “So it’s Beau now?!”
“What does that even mean?”
“Listen. Forget about Beau and everything else… That’s all in the past. This was just one week in our lives. We’ve been together for five years. Are you really going to throw that away, throw us away, over one week?”
I recognized the technique he was using as one that my mom had used on boyfriends and husbands. She was always the one to mess up, but she’d turn it around on them as if they were to blame for the relationship falling apart.
“I’m not throwing us away, Drake. You did that when you decided to sleep with Janika.”
“I’m sorry.” Drake dropped to his knees. He tended to overact and now was no exception. He reached behind him and for a split second I thought he might be proposing.
“What are you—” I stopped talking when he held out a stack of papers.
I looked down and saw that it was my contract.
“Here.” He handed me the papers. “I know this doesn’t make up for what I put you through, but I got everything you wanted. The pay, all of the stipulations, everything.”
I started reading it and it looked like he was being honest.
“How did you…why do you have this?” Hannah had been negotiating all week, and as of end of business yesterday hadn’t reached any sort of agreement.
“I told them I’d leave the show if they didn’t give you everything you wanted. That you deserved everything you were asking for and more.”
“You did?” I’d never known him to do an unselfish thing in his life.
“Of course I did. I love you, Sash. And I know I fucked up, but I want to make things right. They sent me to come get you. I have the jet, come back to California with me.”
“The jet?”
“Jan Henson’s private jet.”
Jan Henson was the top of the food chain. She was the head of the studio that owned Sunset Bay. I’d only met her a handful of times over the ten years I’d been on the show.
“She wants to meet with us to have dinner with her tonight in Malibu to celebrate. Come back with me.” He held out his hand.
My phone dinged and I pulled my phone out and saw it was a message from Beau. He was just checking in to make sure I was okay. I wanted to call him back and say no, no I was not okay. All I wanted to do was be in his arms.
“You