Page 28 of Hearts Adrift (A Texas Beach Town Romance #4)

The noise is growing louder outside the bungalow.

Two news vans. Or is that a third one across the street? Crowd of onlookers with their phones out like they’re front row at a concert. Each time I move toward the window, I swear I see cameras stir and flash even in broad daylight.

Hope they’re catching my pretty side.

“No, that doesn’t help me or my client at all,” snaps Anya on the phone, pacing the hallway.

“Get me Elijah. Get me Kumar. Did you hear me before? I sent the link and article to both of you. Yes, CC’ed to Diana.

Oh, really? Is that how incompetent they’re pretending to be today?

Then get me her number and I’ll do it my damned self. ”

She’s taking a note from Cissy Sees , from the sound of it. I should give that show a fair chance when I’m right in the head. I was serious that that actor is primed to explode the industry apart come the awards season.

And I don’t mean exploding in the way I am right now.

For every wrong reason in the damned book.

“Wait, say that again?” Anya listens intently. Then she turns my way for half a second, eyes wide, before darting over to her tablet at the table. She sighs. “ Fuck me …”

I come to the archway between the living room and the kitchen, arms crossed. “What? They dig up my high school senior portrait? Those braces did me no favors …”

“Finn Hopewell,” she reads, then looks at me, her eyes hardening. “Your ‘island lover’.”

My stomach plummets through the floor. I rush to the tablet, side-by-side with Anya.

Actor River Wolfe Escapes to Texas Beach Town for Island Lover Amid Hollywood Scandal .

First thing below the headline: the familiar pic of Finn leaving the bungalow, squished next to a totally new shot of us at that secluded beach, him straddling me, the side of my face visible as it’s emerging from underneath his shirt.

It was such an intimate, beautiful moment between us.

And now it’s ripped out of the privacy of Cottonwood Cove and pasted over the front page of this filthy article.

For everyone to fucking see.

“Riv?” prompts Anya, worried.

I rush to the kitchen sink and immediately un-eat every bit of my breakfast. Then every bit of my lunch. Until I’m sure there is nothing left inside of me but heartache. And as far as I know, there’s no way to un-eat your heart.

Finn.

What he must be experiencing right now.

“I did this to him,” I mutter, barely coherent. “My … My selfishness. I ruined everything.”

“Stop,” says Anya, suddenly at my side—and with a grimace she turns on the sink to let everything wash down. “This is the media monster. Not the River monster.”

“His face, Anya. His fucking face. And us …”

“I know.”

“He’s gotta be so wrecked. He has to be so …

so …” I push away from the sink with a sickening thought.

“His … His sisters. His dad. His house is probably …” I hurry to the other room and snatch my phone off the coffee table.

It is an absurd fact that the only numbers I have in my phone for the Hopewells are the guest line and Brooke.

Not Finn. “Pick up, pick up, pick up …” I groan, foot tapping on the floor like I’m jackhammering concrete.

Anya has meanwhile gone back to her own phone call, lifting her tablet and scrolling through it frantically. “Yeah, Jane, I need you to connect me to Roland. Situation just got even more fucked up the fuckin’ fucker.”

Brooke answers. “River??”

“Brooke! I’m so sorry. I just saw the article.”

“Me, too. I’ve been trying to call you, but everything here’s really …” A woman is shouting in the background. Heather, most likely, though I can’t make out any words. “… interesting ,” she decides on. “Cats are out of the bags. All the cats. All the bags.”

“News vans and crowds outside your windows, too?” I ask with a peek through the glass, then inching away when I see phones lift up, likely noticing me.

“And just when everything online was turning around,” she complains.

“Now we’re back in the other direction. All the comments saying how insincere you seem, ‘chasing ass on the Texas coast’ instead of facing the music, I think was the wording.

Entitled coward this, horny runaway that.

Oh! Sorry. It’s likely a tad insensitive of me to be reporting all of that to you like this. I have a mouth. It runs.”

“Don’t worry, I have heard a hundred times worse,” I assure her, “but it isn’t me I’m concerned about. It’s Finn. Is he okay? Can I speak to him?”

Her tone changes. “Wait, what? He’s not with you?”

If my stomach couldn’t drop further … “Uh, no …?”

“ Shit! He went to the gym earlier. On foot! He’s not picking up his phone, either. I hope he’s hunkering down there. He knows the owner. There are lots of weird people outside our house right now. We can’t step out if we tried.”

“Don’t try to. Stay inside and safe —all of you.”

“For a second, I thought the worst news was you being spotted here in Dreamwood. Then I saw my brother’s face and the articles about your illicit ‘island lover’ and, phew , I about shat my—”

Her sister’s voice cuts in like a knife. “That him? That River Wolfe? The asshole who’s been fucking my brother behind every nook and cranny on this island? Hey! You!”

Brooke whispers, “Stay safe yourself. I’ll keep trying to get ahold of Finn.”

Then she hangs up in the middle of Heather shouting out another pleasant term of endearment.

My back slams against the front door. I nearly drop my phone, breathing heavily, slumping in despair. Anya’s loud words from the kitchen as she speaks with all her industry contacts encircle me like a fog of gnats. I crumble down to the floor in pieces, feeling absolutely fucking hopeless.

“Hey, don’t do that,” snaps Anya to me, cupping the phone. I’m literally hyperventilating. “None of that. Get up and call your people.”

“People?” I ask, like it’s a word I never heard before.

“The whole world knows where you are now. Only a matter of time before your own people show up. Might as well call them for the first time since fleeing that big press meeting that never happened. Daddy Agent is likely mad .”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think this would happen.”

“No paradise lasts forever, bub. Up on your feet.”

“I’ve been such a selfish moron. I’ve ruined his life. Is it just what I am? A ruiner? Do I destroy everything I—?”

Anya is in front of me so fast, it’s like she teleported.

“You know what I find to be the most annoying trait about you? As an actor, you have the power to inspire worlds into existence. And yet you abandon that power the second you leave the set. Why hasn’t it occurred to you to use that gift in your day-to-day life? ”

“Because I’m a fraud,” I mutter, deranged. “I only got my first gig because I lied and said I could sing opera in Italian. I faked it. Looked up videos online and sang Figaro in the shower every night, mimicked it all, faked it all.”

She pats me on the cheek firm enough to shut me up, halfway to a slap.

“Wanna hear the big midseason twist of Cissy Sees ? They lied about their profession to impress the parents of their fiancée, said they were a surgeon, but in fact they’re a struggling painter holed up in an old studio apartment.

Fake it ‘til you make it, huh? And boy, if you could see the ‘picture’ they paint by the end of episode 8. The murderer dad doesn’t see it coming.

No one does. Like painting with a scalpel and zero fucks.

I shall say no more, I’ve spoiled enough.

But Riv …” She draws close. “You can still turn this around. For everyone. Just use your gift .”

My gift.

Inspiring worlds into existence.

Everyone around me always thinks so much higher of me than I do. Ironically, the exact opposite notion is what made me successful: everyone’s constant underestimation of my abilities, writing me off, dismissing my talent.

Maybe this moment is no different.

Finn needs me.

“You’re right,” I finally say, rising off the floor with Anya’s help. I lower my phone. “Absolutely right.”

“So you’ll make some calls?” she asks, lighting up.

“I’m gonna go out there and find Finn.”

Her face drops. “Uh … no. Not the advice I was giving you.”

“I need to find him before they do.” I pocket my phone and head for the back door.

Anya’s on my heels. “Uh, Riv, hold your dick. No, no, no. I did not mean for you to go out here into that madness in search of your boy t—of Finn ,” she corrects herself.

I’m not even mad about it. She can call him whatever she likes.

“I was firing you up to make phone calls . To speak to your asshole agent . Not to … fucking kamikaze into a street full of reporters and rabid teenage influencers.”

“You told me to choose between my career or the boy toy,” I remind her, swiping my jacket, hat, and shades off the back of the wobbly chair. “I choose the boy toy.”

Then I’m out the door.