Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

And then she saw, just down the hill where the cars were parked: a redhead getting into a white Porsche and zipping into the sun-spangled afternoon back down into Angel City.

Emily.

CHAPTER 29

The media-circus response was swift and ruthless. Pictures of Tom and Maddy, along with a video of her covering her face as they ran down the hill and Tom threatening some of the photographers, sped across the internet and TV stations within minutes.

“Maddy Flies High with Pilot Hunk! Devastated Jack Sits at Home, Wings Clipped!” read the title of the post on TMZ, the first of eight that night. The media had already started doing background on Tom, pulling up everything they could find. Maddy was frantically looking at blogs on her phone while driving towards her house. Damage control was necessary. Very necessary.

She’d texted Jacks and called eight times. He hadn’t picked up, not once. All she could ask herself was, what had she done?

Maddy’s Audi squealed into her parking garage, and she quickly went to the elevator. Darcy was calling. Again. She didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t answer.

Once inside her apartment, she turned on the TV to check the damage. And it was bad.

A! was running a graphic of her face, with cutouts of Tom’s and Jacks’s faces on each side of it. “AMERICA’S SWEETHEART CAUGHT IN LOVE TRIANGLE!”

Ew.

She switched over to ANN and was met with commentary from one of the newer Angel “experts”, Colleen Theo, who was notorious for being extra sensationalistic. “Maddy clearly hasn’t been getting what she needs from fading star Jackson Godspeed, so apparently she’s looking elsewhere. And, frankly, who can blame her when she has a sexy decorated fighter pilot like Tom Cooper? He could take me to Mach 2 any day of the week.” Colleen creepily looked directly into the camera when she said this. Maddy had to turn the TV off.

She tried to call Jacks again. She paced around her apartment as the phone rang, walking back and forth over the white shearling rug.

Voicemail again.

I have to go and find him. Explain things.

Maddy picked her keys up from the counter. Opening the door, she almost ran into Jackson.

He was standing there in a blazer with a V-neck T-shirt underneath, his blue eyes piercing her with seriousness. Maddy held her breath.

“Going somewhere?” Jacks asked flatly. He was silhouetted by the hall light behind him.

“No – I mean – yes,” Maddy stuttered. “To find you,” she finally got out, defeated.

“Are you going to invite me inside or just stand there looking all guilty?”

“I’m not guilt— ” she started firing back, but held her tongue for the time being. She moved out of the way, keeping a watchful eye on Jacks as he came in.

“I had to hear from Chloe,” Jacks said coldly, shaking his head. “Maddy, what’s going on?”

“Nothing!” Maddy protested. “Jacks, I swear!”

“Why were you on a date with tha

t pilot then?”

“It wasn’t a date. . .”

“It looked like a date. The media seems to think it’s a date. You know what they’re saying about me!” Jackson was furious, his hands curling at his side in anger. “It’s . . . it’s humiliating!”

“Tom and I are just friends! You know that!” Maddy said.

“Tom,” Jacks said, scorn in his voice. “Friends? All you ever told me was that you’ve been training with a pilot to help with your flight skills. You didn’t say you were friends. And not that you were going on romantic hikes together.” The anger and hurt in Jackson’s voice filled it in equal measure.

Maddy moved to Jacks, pressed against him. “Jacks, don’t be like this.”

He wouldn’t look at her. She took his face in both her hands and turned his face to hers. “Jacks, look at me. Look at me. He’s been my tutor, and now he’s a friend. Tom’s just a friend. I promise.”