Page 50 of Playing With My Heart Strings
dusty
Playing With My Heart
My mind swarms with disbelief over Aspen’s revelation that Baylor was a setup, a plant.
That she was the mystery girl because the production company chose to have her come on the show.
Even if I thought Aspen was lying at first, trying to get her fifteen minutes of fame, I couldn’t ignore the response from the crew.
If she was just trying to get attention, I have to believe they wouldn’t have panicked like they did.
The minute the director yells cut and the live broadcast shuts down, I push past everyone on stage and walk off, pressing my hands against my temples, willing it all to be some kind of sick joke.
Maybe this was all a prank and I’m on Punk’d right now.
I know it’s been a long-ass time since the show ended, but maybe they’re bringing it back.
The camera crew out there was all fake and the real crew will jump out at any moment.
Fuck.
“Dusty! Wait, Dusty, please, just hear me out.” Baylor runs off stage after me, grabbing my forearm.
I spin around to face her, tearing my arm out of her grip. “What, Baylor? What is there to hear out?” My eyebrows draw together as I back away from her. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time!”
“I know. And I’m sorry. This truly isn’t what I had intended to happen.” Her lip trembles, and I have to force myself to look away from her deep-brown eyes. Eyes I’ve looked into so many times, seen them brimming with lust and what I thought was love. I’ve been a damn fool.
I clench my jaw and through gritted teeth force out the question I’m scared to ask. “Was any of this real to you, or was it all a game?” I don’t give her time to answer before I fire another one. “How long have you been playing with my heart, Baylor? Tell me the truth.”
She’s silent, her head hung and shoulders slumped, and that should be all I need.
The lack of a response should be enough for me to leave and never look back, tell Colette St. James that I want her gone.
But I can’t. I want—no, need —an answer from her.
Something. Anything but what I heard out on that stage.
“Tell me, dammit!” I feel awful for yelling at her, but fuck , I thought I was falling in love with her.
No, I was falling in love. Just not with the person I thought she was.
“It was never a game to me, Dusty. Yeah, in the beginning I didn’t want to be on the show, I was doing it to save my job, but that’s not the case now. Please believe me.”
Fuck. That’s how it was for me in the beginning, too, wasn’t it?
I didn’t want to be here either. But how am I supposed to continue this, not knowing if every connection I’ve made so far has also been a lie?
What does it mean when the one woman I can actually see a future with has been lying to me for weeks?
Sure, there’s still Katherine and Valerie, but with Baylor it is—was—different.
Everything in me is screaming to grab her, pull her close, and crash my lips to hers. Forget everything that happened out on stage and believe her over Aspen.
But. I. Can’t.
Pain over her betrayal and yearning for her war against each other in my brain, but the betrayal wins out, cutting like a knife.
“I’m sorry,” I grit out. And then I do the cowardly thing and walk away. I don’t look back as I leave her standing alone in the middle of the hustle and chaos of the film crew.
I don’t look back as I call a car to take me to the hotel, and I sure as hell don’t answer the door to my room when several people knock on it throughout the night.
I need time. Space.
I guarantee that’s not what the producers want, but it’s not about them. It’s never been about the fucking TV show. I know it, and they know it.
Tomorrow, we’ll fly back to Nashville.
I need to make a decision, a decision that will determine how the show proceeds, but I need a clear head to do that.
I know exactly who I need to talk to when we get back home.
He’s already waiting in the conference room when I arrive, but the moment he sees me, he gets up from his chair.
“I saw what happened. Are you okay?” The question is almost enough to bring tears to my eyes, because the first thing Craig wanted to know was if I was okay.
Not what I’m going to do about the situation, not what the production company has done to handle it, not what the label is going to think.
He’s always had my best interests at heart. That’s why he’s my manager.
When I don’t answer right away, he pulls me into a hug, patting me on the back like I’m that eighteen-year-old kid again.
“I don’t know what to do,” I choke out. “She’s the one, Craig. I thought she was the one. But everything has been a lie.”
“Take a deep breath, kid.” Craig is shorter than me, but when he holds my arms like he wants to shake me, I’ve never felt smaller.
I close my eyes, inhale a long breath, hold it for a few seconds, then push it out through my nose, repeating the action until my heart rate slows and my head clears.
“What are your feelings toward the other two women you have? Do you see a future with them?”
I shake my head. “Not like I do with her. Sure, I could see myself in a business partnership with either of them if it comes to that, but I’m not in love with them. And I don’t think I could pretend to be in love with them.”
Craig simply listens, nodding and occasionally tapping his lips as though in deep thought.
“I opened up to her, told her about my family, about the media portraying me as someone who I’m not.
If I’m a lifeboat, then the feelings I have for her are the entire ocean, Craig.
There’s no limit to how she makes me feel.
But I can’t shake the thought of everything being a lie.
That she was just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear so she could stay on the show longer. ”
“You don’t have to make a decision right now. But if it came down to it, would you be willing to let her go?”
“I don’t know, Craig. I don’t know.”