6. Weston

The guys driving the moving van obviously don’t care that they’re being followed. They haven’t switched lanes or increased their speed, made no evasive maneuvers, haven’t tried to shoot out our tires even once. They’re just driving.

Come to think of it, they might not be aware that they’re in a chase scene.

We pass mansion after mansion as we head toward Beverly Hills. “Wow. Carrington is a rich boy, ain’t he?” Hunter whistles.

The final stop is a stucco palace with a Spanish tiled roof, ornate accents at the doors and windows. But it’s the yard that’s over the fucking top. The shrubs are cut into ridiculous shapes—swans and shit—and spaced too close together in a line winding up the circular driveway. The driveway is paved and painted—painted, my god—to look like glass.

“Oh, look. It’s a baby mansion.” Hunter laughs. “It’s like the mansion you get when you’re almost wealthy, but not quite. You’re like… starter wealthy.”

It’s still pretentious. Still gauche. Still ridiculous. And I can’t believe this is what Renee is choosing for her life.

The little voice in my head—which sounds a whole lot more like Sutton than I’m happy about—reminds me that maybe she didn’t choose this. Maybe it’s been forced on her.

By me, specifically.

I hate Sutton’s voice. Especially when it’s stuck inside of my head.

“You think this little twerp has a bird fetish?” Hunter muses as he looks around at the shrub cutouts and water features. “Or that he likes the peeing kid in the fountain? Oh, gross, are those gargoyles supposed to be watching the little kid pee? Kinda creepy. Dude might be projecting some insecurities, if you ask me.”

He’s having fun, but my guts are in a twist. I can’t breathe—because I’m pathetic enough that I’m just hoping for a glimpse of her.

I push open the car door and walk across the street. I duck down by one of the flamingos stationed at the entrance. Hunter takes up a spot next to me.

“What exactly are we doing?” he hisses.

“Just looking around.”

“For what?” He can’t whisper for shit, but thankfully, the movers are making enough noise that there’s no way anyone could hear us.

I shoot him a STFU glare and move up the drive. This time, I act as if I belong here, as though I’m not skulking around looking for the woman of the house so she can tell me to get the fuck out of here and leave her alone.

Hunter stays beside me as we check the garage for her. There isn’t a car inside. There isn’t anything inside, actually. It’s weirdly empty and untouched. The door at the far end is pristine.

“You going in?” Hunter asks, jerking his chin toward the door. “Quiet in here, but she could be upstairs.”

I shake my head. There’s only so far I can go without it becoming a legal matter. HOCKEY STAR CAUGHT TRESPASSING is a pretty ugly headline, too, and I don’t have much wiggle room with Hud’s good side right now.

But as unpleasant as trespassing sounds, “breaking and entering” sounds a whole lot worse. I motion for us to head back to the car. Hunter shrugs and walks away from the garage much the same as we walked into it. Neither of us are going to go down in spy history.

What a huge waste of time.

By the time we get back to the apartment, I’m so pissed off at Sutton I can’t even see straight. She told me Renee was suffering. That I destroyed her. The house hardly looked like a prison cell.

Instead of exiting the elevator and heading straight into my place for another bout of drinking until I can see four of myself in the mirror, I walk to Sutton’s unit and pound on the door. Hunter shakes his head, but he doesn’t stop or try to drag me away.

Sutton wrenches the door open. “What do you want?”

“You said I destroyed her life, but I saw her life and it doesn’t look too bad from where I’m standing.”

“What did you do? Follow the moving truck?” She shakes her head and scoffs. “Pathetic.”

“Don’t fucking worry about what I did.”

“You’re so pathetic, Weston. Can you not just leave her alone? Is it not enough that you broke her and cost her everything?”

“I cost her an illegal sublet. That’s what I cost her. And it didn’t look to me like she had a hard landing when she fell out of here.”

“She was housesitting for me, asshole! There was nothing illegal about it. And you don’t know shit about what she’s going through.” It looks for a second as if she wants to say more, but she clamps her lips together instead. “If you can’t see more than what’s right in front of your fucking face, you never deserved her anyway. I don’t know what the hell she ever saw in you.”

“I didn’t come here for a lecture,” I mumble stupidly. I hate how lame it sounds even as I say it.

Sutton knows it, too, but to my surprise, instead of ripping me yet another new asshole, she sighs and folds her arms over her chest. “Look, you want to see for yourself what’s going on? She’ll be at the Hollywood Hotel tomorrow night for one of those political fundraisers that masquerades as a charity event. Go there. Watch the shit that you forced on her in real time. Maybe then you’ll see what you’ve done.”

Then, for the second time in as many days, she slams her door shut in my face. I don’t bother trying to stop her this time.

I stomp back to my penthouse and get halfway through my first beer when Hunter’s phone rings. His muttered “Oh, shit” barely registers until he passes me his phone. “Look, bro.”

On the screen is a picture of Renee with the yuppie douchebag. She’s smiling—or rather, she looks like she’s smiling, but it’s fake as hell. Anyone who knows her would know that.

What I also know is that I don’t like his arm around her, or his smarmy, fucked-up smile, or the fact that the headline calls them a “power couple.” It says they’re “reemerging” and “rekindling” their romance.

If her relationship with the yuppie is in any way romantic, I’ll eat my damn shoe. And tomorrow night, she can bet her ass I’m going to be at that charity event.

I’m going to see her for myself.