Surrender (Seaside Pictures #4) - Rachel Van Dyken Page 0,61

me. “Braden will know what to do. We’ll just talk to him. You know how some guys get, and Drew’s… He’s… different from normal people.”

“He feels too much,” I said through my tears. “What if this causes him to do something stupid? What if I’m the reason—”

“Nope. Not going there, Mom. He’s not a Ryan. He’s a Drew, remember?”

Last night’s conversation played over and over in my head. “He’s a Drew.”

“I’m gonna wait for a Drew, Mom.”

I hoped I still had mine.

CHAPTER 19

Andrew

Me: Help.

That was all I texted in the group text, all I could get out as I drove around in circles and finally found myself back at the beach, staring at the waves.

It was as if I was back to where we’d started—having to prove myself to someone I shouldn’t have to prove myself to.

My phone started ringing.

I nearly dropped it trying to answer and didn’t even look at the screen. “Bronte?”

“No. It’s Skye.”

I wanted to crunch the phone with my bare hands. “I already told you—”

“Did you like the pictures?”

“What?” I hissed. “What the hell did you do?”

“It’s time for you to stop ignoring me. Come back to LA, and we’ll talk. Promise. We were good together. You know it.”

I cringed. “Even if I did have any feelings for you — which I don’t — I can’t be around you, Skye, not when you’re using. I’ve done everything I can. I even helped get you into rehab again. I’ve been your friend, your sober buddy. I’d even been your everything a very long time ago. But I can’t, not anymore. I need someone who’s rooting for me to win, not someone trying to justify one little pill and then another and another.”

“So basically, you can’t handle the temptation both my body and beliefs offer you?”

“Are you hearing yourself right now?” I shrieked. “You need help, Skye! Real help.”

She snorted out a laugh. “Fine, see what happens if you reject me again. I’m just going to keep leaking pictures.”

“Old pictures.”

“Doesn’t matter. Still makes you look bad, and I’m a very reliable source. After all, I’m the poor young impressionable girl in some of those pictures. I think the next headline’s going to be, Drew Amhurst’s Dark Past and the Woman He Nearly Killed with his Addictions.” Her laugh was pure evil, hatred.

“Please,” I rasped, almost unable to find the strength to keep talking. “I’m begging you not to do that. Don’t push me this far, Skye. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to survive it.”

“Then you know exactly how I feel,” she spat, and then hung up.

“You should have told me,” came Will’s voice from behind me, and then his hands were on my shoulders.

I couldn’t find my voice, so I stared at the waves.

I couldn’t find my center, because she was back at the beach house.

I couldn’t find my heart, because I’d left it with her.

So, the darkness closed in.

Will was talking again, pulling me back from the deep, dark waves. “Yeah, this is Will. I need a cop to do a wellness check on Skye Amhurst. Drew just received a very concerning phone call. She may be overdosing or on the verge of it. I’m going to send her publicist and agent over as well to help.” He sighed. “Yeah, I know. Thanks, man.”

I listened in numb silence.

Skye was the reason I didn’t do one-night stands.

Because the last time I did one, I’d somehow ended up married in Vegas to a girl who woke me up with a line of coke on a mirror on my naked stomach.

I’d relapsed that day.

I hated myself for it.

She was poison.

And I’d hired an in-home therapist to do rehab, divorced her ass as fast as I could, and had my team keep it quiet.

She’d been given a million dollars to keep our past relationship a secret, and then she’d been required to sign an NDA stating she could never speak out against me because of the divorce.

So apparently, this was how she was getting around it, for revenge.

She was just like the demons— Hell, she was one of them.

Will sat down next to me and got on his phone again. “Yeah, I need you to send out a press release about the leaked pictures. They’re from at least three years ago from the looks of them.” He paused. “Because I know everything about him. It’s my job. And because he wasn’t wearing his red bracelet, which means he didn’t have his tattoos that show the dates of his last