“What are you doing here?” I asked calmly, trying to contain both my incredible rage and the very real fissure of fear that were swirling inside me. Even though Hawk had told me how she manipulated those documents, I still had a visceral reaction to seeing her, afraid that she was here to ruin my life.
“Me?” she asked, her voice shrill. “What the fuck areyoudoing here? I thought I had made things very clear when I paid you off. You and your little bastard were to stay far, far away from Hawk.”
“You don’t get to talk about Cooper like that,” I said, taking a step toward her. She continued to stare, her eyes narrowing as she took me in. I didn’t know what she saw when she looked at me, but I was starting to realize that I didn’t care, either.
“All you had to do was stay the fuck out of my way,” she said, her eyes widening dramatically. Over her shoulder, I caught sight of Cooper making her way down the stairs, and I raised my eyebrows as subtly as I possibly could. She took the hint, thank goodness, and as I watched, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, typing furiously as she crept back up the stairs where she crouched on the top step, nearly out of sight.
“I had a plan. I had everything under control,” Victoria raged, her voice getting louder and louder. “I had it all planned out. It was going to be perfect.” Putting her hand to her forehead, she let out a huge breath, her entire body seeming to deflate. For a moment, I thought she was going to cry, an expression of devastation on her too-perfect face. But before a single tear could escape, she used the back of her hand to dash at her eyes angrily, then continued.
“Those assholes wouldn’t have gotten anything done if it wasn’t for me, you know? Between the four of them, they couldn’t even find their own asses with both hands. I was the one who took care of them. I made sure they had their stupid drinks, and the fucking snacks they wanted. I got the sheets they preferred on their hotel beds and the right shampoo for their stupid rock star hair. I did it all, and not once did I get so much as a thank you. They were all oblivious, treating me like a fucking waitress. I have a degree from UCLA, for fuck’s sake!”
She was pacing now, her anger burning bright as she released what looked like years of pent-up aggression and dissatisfaction.
“All I wanted was for him to notice me, you know?” she railed, and I frowned, not understanding why she was tellingmethis, of all people. “I just wanted him toseeme. And for a while, I thought he had. We started sleeping together—between all the groupies and threesomes, that is. We’d fucked, on and off, for years. Even if half the time he was only doing it to piss off Lewis, I didn’t mind. He was finally noticing me, and it felt good. I figured if he’d just get therock starout of his system, then when he was ready to settle down, he’d do it with me.”
Taking a deep breath, Victoria turned, a sad smile crossing her face. “But he never did. Not once, in all the times we were together, did he ever look at me as more than a quick lay. Not once did he let me stay the night, throwing me out as soon as we’d finished, like all the other girls he used and then threw away.”
Listening to her talk about Hawk this way was making my stomach turn. I’d known, of course, that there had been other girls. I’d seen the fan sites and the photos, and I had read all the blogs. But hearing it again now, from Victoria’s firsthand account, was more than a little upsetting.
How had she stood it? How had she sat on the sidelines and watched as the man she supposedly loved behaved that way?
I don’t think I could have done the same.
“And then,” she continued, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “Then he stopped fucking me altogether. It was like he was actively avoiding me. I needed to fix it. I needed to tie him to me in a way that could never be undone.”
Turning to face me, Victoria threw her hands up in the air in exasperation.
“So yeah, I arranged for the pills to be delivered to Hawk’s dressing room that night. A little Rohypnol added to the mix was just supposed to make him...pliable.” She shrugged, as though using the date rape drug was something that could be easily dismissed. “I made sure the other guys would be busy with a hand-picked legion of groupie sluts,” she went on, my rage increasing with every word she spoke. “And I poked holes in every fucking one of his condoms.”
Frozen, I stood there, shock probably painted all over my face as she confessed, spilling her secrets on to Hawk’s kitchen floor.
“Youwhat?” I asked before I could stop myself. Whipping her head up, staring at me as though she’d just remembered that I was there, Victoria scowled, her pretty face contorted with disgust. “That night, on the bus. You were in the bedroom when we arrived.” Frowning, I could feel the shock showing on my face as I remembered Hawk’s outrage at finding her in the bedroom, and the way she’d brushed it off as her just doing her job. “You poked holes in the condoms? What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you do that?”
“I did what I had to do!” she snarled, slamming her hand down on the counter. “I did what I needed to do to get what I wanted.” Looking at me, Victoria shook her head, a wave of sadness sweeping across her features. “It was supposed to be me. I was the one who was supposed to have his baby. It was supposed to be me that he was tied to. Not you! Some random girl from a no-name town. He meant everything to me! All you wanted was a meal ticket.”
“Meal ticket?” I asked, shaking my head. “I never wantedanythingfrom him.”
“Sure,” she replied, her laugh maniacal. “You keep telling yourself that, honey.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I ever wanted was to get to know him. The real Hawk, not the posturing celebrity he was in public. I wanted the man I met when we were on that bus.”
“Oh, don’t give me that sob story bullshit. You can say you only cared about him, but you were pretty fucking quick to jump on the money when it was offered, weren’t you? Fifty thousand must have looked like a goddamn fortune to a gutter rat like you.” Victoria looked me up and down, taking in my wind tossed beach hair and cotton sundress. It was a far cry from whatever designer number she was wearing, not to mention the sky-high heels she was standing in.
“You lying—” I started, unable to fathom her accusations. “I took that money because you convinced me that it was the only thing he wanted to give me! That he was denying our daughter and would sue me if I ever told anyone! I was twenty years old, practically homeless, and terrified. So, yeah. I took the money. What the hell was I supposed to have done?”
For a moment, Victoria looked almost remorseful, but the flash of emotion in her eyes was gone just as quick as it had arrived.
“You’re still trash, no matter which of his houses he puts you up in.”
“Maybe,” I conceded, my heart hammering in my chest. “But I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to let my past define my future.” All my life, people had judged me by my family’s worst mistake. It didn’t matter what I did or how hard I worked to better my life for Cooper and myself. To everyone who knew me, I would always be the daughter of the man who bankrupted the town. My father’s bad decisions became a lode stone around my neck, one that I could never seem to shake off.
Looking at her now, standing like a raving lunatic in the sunny kitchen, I realized that while I may have let the people of Grand Rapids walk all over me, I’d be damned if this bitch was going to have the opportunity.
“You don’t get to come in here, screaming at me like I took something from you, when it was your actions that caused all of this in the first place. If you hadn’t been so desperate for the attention of a man who didn’t want you—if you hadn’t let Hawk’s shitty behavior make you into the kind of person who tries to baby trap someone—then none of us would be here. Because it was your sabotaged condoms that resulted in my pregnancy, Victoria. You caused all of this, and now you’re paying the price.”
Chapter ninety
Hawk
