Anything but Love

“Opposite end of town, about five miles from city limits. Nothing fancy, but it has a great view of the mountains.”

“I love the mountains,” Rae said. She unplugged her phone from the charger and tossed it in her purse. No doubt there were several messages. From her lawyer. That anchorwoman at Vermont Today.

Just then Luke’s phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, then glanced at Rae with a raised brow while answering. “Hey, Sam.”

Rae reached for her coat, hoping Sam had called to make peace.

“No,” Luke said. “Flew back last night. Yeah. Me, too. Dad’s had some tough knocks.” He nodded, cleared his throat. “I appreciate that, Sam. Thanks. Rae? She’s right here. Ah. That’s because she turned off her phone last night and I’m guessing has yet to turn it back on. No. Why?”

Rae looked over and caught Luke’s gaze as she slowly zipped her coat. He didn’t look happy.

“Huh.” He looked away and snatched up his own jacket. “That’s fucked. No. I … What’s Harper’s advice? Yeah. Okay. I’ll let you know. Thanks, Sam.” He signed off, brushed a kiss over Rae’s mouth, then passed his phone. “Call Len and tell him we’d like to be escorted out the back.”

THIRTY

Luke asked Len to wait with Rae while he jogged to the side parking lot and drove his car around to pick her up. He didn’t want to risk walking her a good distance in plain view. Aside from the yahoos waiting in the lobby, who knew how many lurked outside? Luke didn’t have any personal experience with the paparazzi, but he’d seen enough in the news to know they were aggressive and upon occasion dangerous.

He didn’t want to risk an ambush and he sure as hell didn’t want one of them asking for a response to her mother’s attack before Luke had a chance to give her a heads-up. Maybe he should’ve told Rae in the hotel room, but his gut said to get her the hell out of Dodge and away from the media first.

Luke pulled up to the back door of the inn and Len hustled Rae into his car. Two seconds later, he peeled out and away from the Pine and Periwinkle like a thief in the night. “I guess this would be considered a standard getaway in Hollywood.”

“Except we’re not in Hollywood and I’m not a celebrity.”

“You are, however, a person of interest.”

“What did Sam say?”

Rae’s tone was as fierce as her expression. In light of what he was about to tell her, Luke welcomed this side of the woman who torched his senses. The lion as opposed to the lamb. Her duality was perplexing and fascinating at the same time. Not just hormones, he thought. Rae was still finding herself. He thought back to when he was twenty-five. She was juggling a lot more responsibility than he had at that age. Not to mention her life was more complicated. Impending parenthood alone was a bitch.

“Harper called Sam because she got a tip from a colleague,” Luke said. “Unfortunately the tip came five minutes before the story broke.”

“What tip?”

Luke consciously split his mind. Half dealing with the icy road. Half dealing with Rae. It wasn’t easy, but he focused on both dicey slopes. “Olivia released a statement basically pegging you as a troubled soul. A warped child of a Hollywood star. A needy, pathological liar desperate for attention.”

When Rae didn’t respond, Luke glanced over. She was sitting ramrod straight in her seat. Staring out at the on-coming salt-and-snow covered cars, no expression. “Go on,” she said.

“Olivia focused on the fact that you told her you’d spent the last year struggling in a remote and repressed area in China, working with underprivileged children when in fact you’d been hiding in a quaint, thriving town in America.”

“I can’t argue that,” she said. “I misled her. But in my defense I wanted to retreat to somewhere unreachable. I needed to get away. Far away. I only made it as far as Sugar Creek. But I didn’t want to be accessible, so I lied. I said I was in a remote region of China. Olivia wouldn’t go to the trouble of trying to contact me, especially since I said there was little to no cell or Internet service. She wouldn’t have any interest in visiting a place like that or any interest in what I was doing. I know it was extreme, but the situation warranted it.”

“How so?” Luke said. “That’s what those reporters will want to know. How are you going to defend such an extravagant lie, Rae?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose as if warding off a headache. “I wanted to disappear. I was tired of dealing with Olivia’s BS. She looked down her nose at my career aspirations. Why would I want to waste my youth and beauty working long hours in what she perceived as a thankless job? Why did I want to work at all when I was financially set for life? I got tired of her trying to match me up with men I had nothing in common with. And I resented the way she and Geoffrey kept harping on my upcoming inheritance and trying to influence how I should manage those funds.

“I felt hounded and manipulated in every way possible,” she went on. “The pressure mounted on my twenty-fourth birthday and I knew it wouldn’t let up. Maybe I flipped a little, some sort of life crisis, but I suddenly wanted to be anyone other than me. One year clear of my name and ties. One year to prove that I could make it on my own, living by my wits and doing what I love—working with children. I don’t understand why that’s so horrible!”

“It’s not.” Luke flexed his fingers on the wheel, rolled tension from his shoulders. He couldn’t remember ever disliking anyone as much as he disliked Olivia and Geoffrey. “Why did you stay in those circumstances for so long to begin with? Why subject yourself to Olivia’s company at all? Hell, I would have flown the coop and severed the cord once I turned eighteen.”

“I just kept hoping things would change. I don’t have a big family like you, Luke. I have, had Olivia. It’s hard not to want to be adored or at least loved by your only parent. It took a long time, but I’m over it. I know now we’ll never have the relationship I always craved. If she thinks I’m going to allow her to taint the life I’m working toward.…”

Luke looked over and saw Rae turning on her phone. “What are you doing?”

“Surfing the Net. I want to see what she put out there.”

“I told you.”

“I need to see it for myself.”

Luke blew out a breath. He was no stranger to drama—between patron mishaps at the Shack, occasional flare-ups with former girlfriends, and assorted sagas within his only family—but this took the cake. Publicly trashing someone, a family member no less, via the media? “Why would Olivia want to hurt you like this?”

“I’m not sure. She’s always been insensitive, but never spiteful. Nothing like this.”

“What are you seeing?”

“Pretty much what you told me. Her tone … It suggests she feels sorry for me. But she spins it in a way that puts the spotlight on her. The suffering mother of the rich-kid-gone-wrong.” Rae made a disgusted sound. “The attention. She did it for the attention.”

“It can’t be as simple as that,” Luke said.

“There’s mention of her potentially starring in a new reality show. I’m telling you, Luke. She took advantage of the media’s interest in me, added fuel to the fire by introducing something scandalous, and then spun the attention on to her. I haven’t commented on anything. I haven’t given any interviews. She will!”

“Sam said Harper’s advice was not to respond in anger, so whatever you’re thinking—”

“I’m thinking I want to hire Harper.”

“What?”

“Olivia will milk this for all it’s worth. I’m out of my league. I can’t sit by and let her ruin my reputation. It will reflect badly on the Cupcake Lovers and how will the parents of Sugar Creek feel about their children being taught by a pathological liar?”

“Good point.”