“We need to talk.” Brandon’s tone is sharp.
“We sure as hell do.” Her venomous eyes clash with mine yet again. They fire poisonous darts in my direction, each one piercing a piece of me.
“Get the f*ck
out of here, you fat cunt!”
My chest tightens painfully. If Brandon used that filthy word, it would make me feel sexy and beautiful. She’s made me feel vilified. Ashamed of myself. Like nothing more than a lowlife whore.
Tears sting the back of my eyes. I fight them back. I’m not going to let her see me cry. No f*ck
ing way.
My eyes lock with Brandon’s. His expression goes from rage to compassion with a dash of lust and remorse. I face him squarely.
“Brandon, it’s best I leave,” I say in my calmest, most dignified voice. Inside I’m falling apart.
“Zoey—” He jogs over to me and puts his hands on my shoulders.
“Please.” My voice is a desperate plea. He releases me.
I march toward the door with my head held high. Truthfully, I’m a shuddering, spineless mound of goo. My bones are so liquid that only pure pride and willpower hold me up.
“Zoey, don’t go,” Brandon pleads.
Harnessing all the strength I have, I continue toward the door and say nothing because anything I say will be all wrong. And even worse, if I open my mouth, the tears may start falling. Stepping aside, Katrina keeps her evil eye on me. I look away and don’t look back.
I hear Brandon curse under his breath. “Baby, I’ll text you later.”
I barely hear the last word. The door to his suite slams behind me, and the dam holding back my tears bursts open. Waterworks flood my eyes. My walk a stagger, I make my way to the elevator, my heart more shattered than my battered body.
Brandon
“What the f*ck
is wrong with you?”
“f*ck
you, Brandon!”
An unexpected, devastating hurricane with winds gusting at a hundred miles an hour storms through my hotel suite.
Hurricane Katrina. Actually, Katrina is more of a tornado, a whirling dervish of hate, rage, and madness. There’s no calming her down. Rationality has no meaning with this insane force of nature. All I can do is stay out of the path of her wrath, and that’s virtually impossible. I should have fled the room with smart little Gucci, but I’m on major damage control.
“Goddamn it, Katrina. Stop it!”
There is no stopping her. She destroys everything in her wake, including the room service delivery, which showed up shortly after her arrival. I watch as she knocks over the tray table, sending everything crashing to the floor. The shot glasses shatter while the hot chocolate spreads like sludge on the cream-colored rug. After stomping on the truffles, she attacks the bar, hurling one bottle of alcohol at me after another. Within minutes, my suite is strewn with broken plates, lamps, bottles, and vases. Even framed artwork has been recklessly tossed to the floor. Thousands of dollars worth of damage. I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do to the hotel management, but right now that’s the least of my problems.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were coming?” I sputter, ducking a tumbler. She misses and it shatters against a wall. Thank God, Blake Burns and his wife, who are occupying the Grace Kelly suite next door, are downstairs and can’t hear what’s going on. Blake warned me my fiancée was capable of a lot of shit. But this? Katrina’s gone completely mental.
“I tried to call you, you prick, but you didn’t pick up.”
“I had my phone turned off,” I lie, clearly remembering her invasive call during my dinner with Zoey. “I thought you were visiting your father for a couple of days…shooting a segment of your series.” I don’t tell her that I tried to call her before I left for MIP because at this point it’s futile. Even if I’d broken up with her before the trip, there’s no doubt in my mind the psycho bitch would have caught the first plane here—even chartered one with my card if she had to.
“My plans changed.” With a grunt, she hurls a portrait of Sean Connery at me. It narrowly misses and crashes to the floor. “The penitentiary wouldn’t let my crew inside, so we turned around after I said hello to Daddy.”
She hurls another photo.
“For f*ck
’s sake, stop it, Katrina!” I yell at her.
“You f*ck
ing son of a bitch. How the hell could you sleep with that slut?”
Her toxic insult makes my blood curdle. I feel my face reddening with rage. “Zoey is not a slut.”
“She’s a f*ck