Page 26 of Wild Infatuation (Rebel Rockstars #3)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Shawn

THE SHUFFLE OF MY socks over the hardwood is the only sound that interrupts my pacing.

Kitchen to living room to windows. Windows to living room to kitchen.

Back and forth like a metronome counting measures.

Every time I return to the windows I scan the streets below as though I can spot Seth’s black SUV among the traffic.

When the knock finally comes, I almost leap out of my socks. I rush to open the door, and Seth hauls Terrance inside like he’s a stray dog who snuck out of the house.

“This the guy?” Seth says.

My heart somersaults around my chest. When I texted Terrance this morning, I didn’t have ulterior motives; I truly wanted to see him.

But things slid out of control the moment I went online and encountered the chatter.

Somehow, the world knows. They know I’ve been with Terrance.

They don’t have pictures of me and Terrance, but they do have that image of me pulling away from Olivia, and someone, somewhere, somehow has added to that the speculation that there’s a man named Terrance claiming to be in a relationship with me.

The betrayal threatens to carve me open, but I fold my arms and hold my ground.

“Yes, that’s the guy,” I say.

Terrance blinks, looking between me and Seth.

To all appearances, he’s as confused as a fish plucked out of a river.

I can’t allow myself to fall for that wide-eyed innocence, however.

He told someone. He clearly told someone.

None of this would be happening if he hadn’t told someone.

All of that work we did to build hype for the music video teeters in the balance because he told someone .

Bile stings the back of my throat when I think about him going out there and breaking my trust like all the rest.

I should have known better.

“Were you followed?” I say to Seth. “Are they out there?”

The lone paparazzo stalking my apartment has multiplied since the news hit social media. At least one discovered where Terrance works and accosted him at his job. The feeding frenzy is on.

Seth looks between me — stony, tight-lipped, clenching my hands as I fold my arms — and Terrance — still blinking in confusion — and grimaces.

“I’ll go check,” he says, and I have to wonder if it’s mostly to escape the tension flooding my apartment.

My gut turns when Seth leaves and it’s just me and Terrance and the cavernous silence.

Despite everything, despite what he’s done, part of me wants to rush up and touch him, soak up the comfort of his body against mine.

It’s hard to square his betrayal with what he’s been for me until now.

One moment, he was the person I ran to to escape all this; the next, he was the source of all my frustrations and fears. The contradiction leaves me queasy.

“Shawn, what’s going on?” Terrance says.

I pry my teeth apart to speak. “Who did you tell?” It comes out as a rasp, barely above a whisper.

“What?”

“ Who? Who did you tell?”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” he says. “Not a soul. I wouldn’t.”

I want to believe him. God, how I want to believe him. But the evidence of his lie is flooding every social media feed even as we speak.

“Shawn, please tell me what’s going on. When I woke up, I thought we would see each other tonight. Then I got to work and some guy was harassing me, and now I have no idea what’s happening.”

It sounds so real. It sounds so genuine. But, then, he always sounds genuine. That’s probably why I fell so easily for him, even knowing I shouldn’t.

I play along regardless, flinging the facts in his face like they’re bullets.

“They know, Terrance. Somehow, they know. They know about us. About … about what we’ve been doing.” I can’t call it a relationship, can’t say that word out loud. Not now that it’s so irrevocably broken. “Have you gone online at all today?”

“No, I woke up and headed right to work. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I hold my phone up for him, scrolling without looking. Post after post speculating about us. Post after post that pits the picture of me pulling away from Olivia against a blurry picture of Terrance on the set of the music video. Thankfully, that’s the only image they have of him.

His brow furrows as he takes in the rapid-fire deluge of incriminating evidence, yet somehow the confusion doesn’t pass. Maybe he’s a phenomenal actor. Maybe he’s that appalled to see his deception on display.

“They know,” I say again. “They know about us, and I didn’t tell them.”

I tuck the phone away. Terrance looks up at me. He’s closer now, having drawn in to peer at my phone, and his wide eyes and parted lips melt the edge off my anger. I steel myself. I can’t allow that to happen. I can’t afford to fall for his earnest appearance yet again.

“I didn’t tell them, Shawn,” he says. “I didn’t say a word, I swear.”

“Then how did this get out? It doesn’t make any sense unless you told someone.”

“I…”

He looks around, eyes going distant as though he’s searching his memory.

Again, I get that overwhelming sense of wanting to believe him, but this must be his fault.

If he revealed the relationship, it wasn’t an accident.

It couldn’t be. He told someone on purpose. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Suddenly, he blinks and straightens. When he looks up at me, his gaze is clear.

“Penelope,” he says.

“What?”

“My friend at the salon, Penelope. I talked to her one time. Only one! But … but we were alone. We went out for lunch. I don’t even think I used your name. It was just…”

The anger flares up, hot as a geyser. It feels good; it feels right.

Because it is right. Part of me has been waiting for this moment since the second we kissed on the set of the music video.

Part of me has always known it was coming.

It was inevitable, and I should have known better.

I’ve gone through this three times, but apparently haven’t learned a single damn thing.

“She wouldn’t have told anyone,” Terrance says. “I trust Penelope. She wouldn’t have told a single soul.”

“Well, she did.”

“She didn’t,” he snaps with surprising vehemence. “We were in a sandwich shop. There were a couple other people there, but they didn’t seem interested in our conversation. I guess one of them could have overheard something, though. I’m sorry, Shawn. It was an accident.”

“Big fucking accident.”

“Does it really matter that much? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“It matters,” I snap, almost shout. “Yes, it matters. I did all that stuff with Olivia for the band, for the music video. Now it’s all ruined.”

“I didn’t know,” Terrance says. “You didn’t tell me. You said it was a publicity thing.”

“Publicity for the band!” My voice echoes around my apartment. I rub at my forehead. “Now none of it even matters. Fuck.”

“It still matters,” Terrance says softly, like he’s calming an animal. “Your fans still love you. This won’t make them love you less. I don’t get what Olivia has to do with the band’s publicity, but I know all of your biggest fans. They’ll support you no matter what.”

“It isn’t that simple.” A headache thumps behind my eyes, and the rubbing isn’t doing anything to smooth it away. “This was supposed to happen a certain way. Emmett planned the whole music video release around this, and now it’s ruined. God, I was such an idiot.”

A beat of silence falls. I look up to find Terrance clenching his jaw, eyes shining with hurt. I almost feel guilty, but he’s the one who exposed us. Maybe it really was an accident like he says, but the damage is done either way.

“I shouldn’t have done this,” I say. “I knew I shouldn’t have done this.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“ I did something wrong. I trusted you.”

The pain that flashes through his face nearly brings me to my knees.

He takes a halting step closer to me. He looks like he wants to reach out for me, but then settles for clasping his hands at his chest. For an insane moment, I want him to reach out, to not hold back, to assure me with his touch that the evidence in front of me is wrong.

“Shawn, this is an accident,” he says. “I’m sorry that someone found out, but I didn’t go out there to hurt you.

I was talking with a friend, and someone apparently overheard us and put the pieces together, but that’s all this is.

I didn’t try to hurt or betray you. I just made a mistake.

I only talked to Penelope because I was so …

so pathetic over you that it was interfering with work.

She could tell I was distracted and tried to talk me through it. ”

It all makes sense. It might even be true. Unfortunately, even if it is, it doesn’t change the result, or the fact that I can’t trust him anymore.

“We can’t be seen together,” I say. “There can’t be even a whiff of this. It’s all speculation at the moment, and Emmett says that might end up being good for the band. But this can’t happen anymore. I probably shouldn’t even have had Seth bring you here, but…”

But I had to know. I had to see for myself whether he betrayed me.

My anger and resolve on that point is beginning to waver, but I harden my heart, not allowing myself to fall for Terrance’s honest appearance.

Even if he’s telling the truth, he screwed up in a way that will have consequences for the entire band.

“I understand,” he says, “and I’m sorry, I really am. I never set out to hurt you. Can you at least believe that much?”

I swallow around the lump in my throat. I must be some kind of idiot because when I unclench my jaw, the words that come out are, “Yes, I believe you.”

We fall into a stalemate, eyes locked but bodies separated by a wall of hurt and confusion. Maybe he’s being honest, maybe I really believe him, but the damage is done, and I’m going to need more than a moment if I’m going to settle my feelings about it.

Seth reappears, slipping back into my apartment but stopping at the door.

His gaze takes in me, Terrance and all the quivering tension that’s built up between us during his absence.

He looks like he wants to be anywhere but here.

The man is the best when it comes to problems that require a physical solution, but when it comes to matters of the heart, he’s even more out of his element than me.

“Seth, would you mind taking Terrance home?” I say, breaking the awkward moment. “Make sure no one follows you and that he won’t be bothered at his apartment.”

“Of course. Anything else?”

“No, Emmett said both of us should lay low, and I think he’s right.”

Terrance is watching me, eyes shining with tears.

My chest constricts, but I can’t afford to soften my stance.

Accident or not, the situation is what it is now, and all I can do to salvage it is follow Emmett’s orders.

We need to stay away from each other, and that means this may very well be the last time we ever see each other.

Judging by the look in Terrance’s mossy green eyes, he knows that as well as I do.

I don’t wish him goodbye, and Terrance says nothing as Seth leads him out of my apartment.

I close the door after him, but stand there in the hall for a long time, looking at the place where he stood, replaying the look on his face when he plead that this was all an accident, that he would never hurt me.

Even after all this, part of me wants to believe him.