PART ONE:
NEW YORK
CHAPTER ONE
The driver pulls us to a stop next to a sidewalk, and Dash opens the door and gets out. I follow him, but he catches my arm and halts me at the door.
“We don’t work. I was selfish to think we worked, Allie. Go home. It’s better that way. Neil will watch over you until this Allison thing is figured out. He’ll call you. Answer when he does.”
My eyes burn and my chest pinches. “Don’t do this,” I plead. “Don’t let him blaming you for something that wasn’t your fault divide us.”
“How do you know it wasn’t my fault, Allie? How do you know anything about me when you don’t know that?”
“Don’t go and fight, Dash. Brandon and your father, they’re watching. This was all planned. They want to take you down. Don’t fight. Please. I’m begging you.”
“Go home,” he says again, and with that bitter command, he releases me, turns, and starts walking. I round the door and intend to follow, and I try, but I make it half a block and he’s just gone. I can’t see him anymore.
I’m trembling when I climb back into the SUV and shut the door. “Where to, ma’am?”
Where to?
Home, Dash said. I don’t even know where that is right now, but it seems fairly obvious that Dash just broke up with me. I give the driver my apartment address.
I’m sitting on the bed of my tiny New York apartment, my “home” where I’ve been sent, tears streaming down my face, as I desperately try to pull myself together. I don’t live with Dash anymore. I never really lived with him. I was just staying with him. That much is clear. But as to why this happened, well it’s all about my ex, Brandon, and Dash’s father, plotting against Dash, trying to hurt him. Trying to set him up.
“Oh God,” I whisper as I pull this all together. Brandon taunted Dash about fighting. He has to know about Dash’s habit. And what did Dash do? Push me away and clear a path for them to come after him.
“Because he’s going to fight,” I whisper, standing up and pressing my hands to my face. His fighting started after his brother died. During the confrontation with his father, his father made it clear that he blames Dash for his brother’s death. Dash is going to fight. I search anxiously for my phone and find it in my jacket pocket, punching in Dash’s number. It goes straight to voicemail and a sound of utter frustration rips from my lips. There’s a beep to leave a message and I spill out a plea. “Don’t fight, Dash. Brandon and your father are together, two people who want to hurt you. They’re watching. They’re coming for you. I beg of you, fight the need. Please. I’m here and—”
The machine cuts off. I call back again and it goes to voicemail. I quickly type a message that matches my voicemail and then start to pace. He’s going to fight. I know this in my gut as sure as I know my own name. He’s going to fight. I halt abruptly and stare at my phone. I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but I have no choice. I dial Tyler.
“Ms. Wright. What can I do for you?”
“Allie,” I say. “I need to be Allie right now, Tyler, because I need you to act like a friend. To me and to Dash. Because I’m probably about to ruin my relationship with him by coming to you. I know I am.”
“Oh fuck,” he murmurs. “What the hell is going on?”
“This has to be between you and me, Tyler. Promise me. I need advice. I don’t need you to go off the deep end.”
“He’s fighting,” he assumes far too easily for my comfort.
“That’s not a promise,” I chide.
“I’ll protect you, Allie. And him. Is he fighting?”
“He’s going to,” I dare to confess. “I know he’s going to. Do you know about the signing?”
“What about it?”
Obviously, he does not know and at the risk of putting Bella on the spot with him I say, “My ex is an agent who is now agenting his father.”
“Holy hell. This is clearly going no place good.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Were talking a cesspool of hate. Dash’s father hates him. My ex hates me and so he went after Dash. I should have seen it coming. I should have warned—”
“What did he do?” he demands roughly.
“He turned the signing into a father-son event.”
“What? That makes no sense. Dash would never allow that to happen and neither would Bella.”
“Brandon got it out to the press, so if either man backed out, they looked bad. They were both cornered to go through with it for the betterment of the charity.”
“I assume they both showed up.”
It’s more a statement of fact but I answer anyway. “Yes.”