CHAPTER SIXTEEN
VERONICA

Alyssa loops the golden yellow silk fabric through the last loop, securing the back of my dress and spins me around so I’m looking at myself in the three-way mirror we set up last night to make sure every detail was exactly like the portrait sketch. “Sketch Girl are you ready?” she asks with a soft smile on her face.

I take a deep breath and smooth the fabric over my waist softening a few rogue wrinkles that popped up while she was lacing up the back. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” A burning sensation floats up from the pit of my stomach, lodging itself in the back of my throat.

“Guys!” JT bursts through the door and waves his phone over his head with excitement. “Did you see the feeds this morning?”

Alyssa shakes her head. “Not yet,” she admits. “We’ve been a little busy in here.” She grabs the device out of his hand. “Let me see that.”

“You look gorgeous, honey,” he says, leaning over to give me a gentle hug while being careful not to smudge my makeup. “He’s going to fall at your feet tonight.”

I don’t need him to fall at my feet. “I just want him to give me sixty seconds to explain what happened that day.” I take a deep breath, forcing the lump in my throat back down as I focus on the reflection staring back at me through the mirror. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“What are you talking about?” JT screeches. “You look incredible. We’ve been planning this for two weeks.”

“I know.” My nerves can’t take it. I need to just give this fight up. “He’s gone. I screwed up my career and my love life. Now, it’s just time to pick myself up and start over… again.”

“Don’t start that self-defeating shit again,” Alyssa groans.

JT shakes his head defiantly. “No. We’re not stopping now. You’re too far and it’s going too well.”

“Excuse me?” I love my friends, but they don’t get to tell me when I can throw in the towel or not.

Alyssa puts her hand on her hip and gives me the don’t-you-dare look. “You’re going.”

“I don’t want to go anymore.” That’s a lie. I want to go, but I’m terrified. It’s crippling.

“You have to go!” JT says, grabbing his phone back from Alyssa’s hand.

“Why?” This better be good because they’re starting to really cross the line.

He shoves the phone under my nose and points to the screen. “Because it’s working.”

“Huh?” I scan the social media feed he has pulled up. It’s full of individual posts and disappearing videos sharing our links.

“You’re trending.”

Alyssa nods her head with a smirk curling her lips. “The fans are eating it up!”

JT claps his hands together and jumps in place one time. “There’s a whole movement happening around it. It’s beautiful!”

I love how excited he gets when something goes according to plan, but this is my life and I’m not sure…

“Look at the website stats.” She hands me her tablet, which has our site metrics pulled up. “#AmaryllisBlooms is trending on all social channels.”

It’s working…

“That’s all because of you,” she reminds me. “You got the fans to listen. They’re paying attention. You did that.”

I shrug. “But what’s that mean in the long run?”

“It means that you helped them get the message out they needed people to hear, and it means you can do hard things; even this one.” She tugs just slightly at the golden silk fabric of my dress.

My phone dings from its spot on the dresser. I swipe at the screen to read the message.

Carly: How are you?

Me: I’m okay. I think.

Carly: Are you coming to the ceremony?

Me: I don’t know…

Carly: That’s too bad.

Me: I’m just not sure if I should after everything that’s happened. I don’t want to make things worse.

Carly: I actually wanted to tell you this in person, but since you’re not sure you’re coming. I’ll tell you now. I’ve seen everything you’ve been putting out.

Me: I hoped you would see it.

Carly: I guessed you designed the social media campaign that way. Well done.

Me: Thanks… Has Travis seen it?

Carly: I tried to show him. Several times. He’s not ready, yet.

Me: *cringe emoji*

Carly: He’ll come around. He’s just being… Travis, right now.

Me: Even if he doesn’t. I put it out there because I wanted you all to know how much the experience of meeting you all meant to me. I hope it helps with everything you’re trying to accomplish.

Carly: Don’t start with me.

Me: What?!

Carly: As much as I appreciate a self-sacrificing soul, you and I both know you didn’t post all of that for us.  You posted it to get Travis to hear you.

Me: Maybe.

Carly: I can help.

Me: Why would you help me?

Carly: Because I know how stubborn these damn Miller brothers can be and I also know a good heart when I see it.

Ha! If anyone understands how difficult trying to reason with a Miller can be, it’s Carly. She is married to Adair, after all.

Me: I know what Travis thinks happened, but there’s so much he doesn’t know. It’s not what it looked like.

Carly: I already know that, or I wouldn’t offer to help you.

Me: How do you know?

Carly: Devon’s told us everything. I know it seems like I’m stand-offish and aloof, but I’m paying attention to everything happening around me. It makes it hard to connect, sometimes. While you were here, I was paying attention to you. I don’t believe you have a malicious bone in your body, and Travis just needs to hear the truth; but he needs to hear it from you.

Me: I’ve sent him several messages over the last two weeks. They’re still sitting on read, but no response.

Carly: He’s starting to come around. He just takes a little longer than some.

Me: What do I have to do to get him to hear me?

Carly: Get your ass to the event. Be in the second tier of the red carpet ready to talk. I’ll take care of the rest.

Me: I’ll be there.

Me: Thank you!

Gulp! “Okay, you win.” I look up from my phone to find my friends staring at me with wide eyes and anticipation seeping out of every pore. “I’m going.”

“Was that Travis?” Alyssa asks, her eyes growing even wider.

I shake my head. “No, but I’m going.”

JT is the first one to wrap his arms around me. “You’re going to be fine,” he reassures me.

“I know,” I sigh. I’m always fine. Whether it’s career, or life, or love… I’m always fine. “Maybe I just want something better than fine.”

“Then get your ass out the door and go get it,” Alyssa says, handing me my bag and the keys to our rental car.I take a deep breath to center myself and regain control of the swarm of butterflies flying in my stomach. I can do this, I tell myself.

---

It’s been years since I covered an event like this. I’m finding it difficult to not lose my focus in the glitz and glamor of the soiree, but I’m here on a mission and I can’t forget that. The last time I found myself in a place like this, I was there to investigate the press members who were selected to cover the event. My editor, at the time, was dedicated to exposing the cancers in this industry. She taught me everything I know about how to sniff out the real story, even when the subject is fighting it tooth-and-nail. She got fired just before they escorted me off the property. Apparently, her bosses’ paychecks were funded by the same people who were skewing the news and stories being told through the entertainment sector.

This might be my last chance to make it all right somehow…

“Isn’t your name Mischa?” a man asks. He’s been standing next to me in the press line, where we’re held back from stepping onto the carpet by thick red velvet ropes. I noticed him watching me out of the corner of his eye. I had just assumed it was because of the plunging neckline on this dress, but… Maybe I was wrong.

“No, I’m uh…” I swallow hard and wonder to myself how this person knows my alter ego. I haven’t used that name in years. “I’m…” I don’t want to give him my real name, since he’s throwing out such hard creeper vibes. “I’m Victoria.” Alan’s refusal to learn my name finally came in handy. “Do I know you?” I ask, trying to sound as oblivious as possible.

“No, you’re not,” he says with his jawline tightening. “You’re Mischa Garcia.”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I say, turning my focus back to the red carpet in front of us. Maybe he’ll take the hint and leave me alone.

Nope.

“You’re the one who got me, and my friends fired from our last job.”

“I’ve never met you before,” I remind him. “That’s impossible.”

He grabs my arm and forces me to face him. His eyes are glowing with hatred and they’re staring straight into mine. “It was right after your expose on checkbook journalism. You destroyed a lot of lives, and someone needs to make you pay for that.”

Deny. Deny. Deny. The words echo in my mind like they’re pumping through a PA system in an empty arena. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”

“I don’t have you confused.” His grip tightens on my arm as I try to wriggle out of his grasp. It’s no use. He’s much stronger than I am. “I’ve been waiting a long time—”

A hand grips the guy’s shoulder and holds him in place, putting pressure on his nerve so he’s forced to release his grip on my arm. “I’m sorry,” Devon says, glancing up at me with a wicked smile on his face. “Roni, is there a problem here?”

“Aren’t you the security guard for the artists over there?” he asks with a condescending tone in his voice.

Devon releases his grip on the guy’s shoulder after looking to make sure he had dropped my arm out of his grasp. “Mm-hmm,” he mumbles, crossing his arms over his chest and making a human barrier between me and the jackass on the other side.

“So, shouldn’t you get back to your job?” he says, motioning toward the carpet where Adair and Carly are standing against the heavily decorated backdrop. They’re smiling for the cameras, but I catch them glancing over frequently to make sure Devon still has the situation under control. It must be nice for them to have someone like him on their team who they can trust with everything.

“Nah,” Devon says, shaking his head and doubling down on the human blockade portion of the evening. “I’m good.”

“This is my good friend, Devon Smith,” I say, stepping out from behind Devon’s shadow. “He’s the owner of Amaryllis Security and head of security for the band. He can be wherever he wants.”

“Pfft,” the idiot says, leaning forward like he’s going to grab me again. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

“You want to say that to someone closer to your own size, bro?” Travis walks up and stands next to me, mirroring Devon’s stance who’s still on the other side. Well… this isn’t exactly how I pictured our first interaction since the misunderstanding.

“Be careful,” the guy says with a snarl. “If you spend enough time with her, you’ll get thrown out on your ass too.” Travis and Devon don’t move an inch as they keep their eyes trained on the guy as he shoves his way back through the crowd of press and media who are getting every single bit of this on live television, camera, and recorded audio.

Damn it.

“That’s not even close to what I was trying to do,” I say defending myself. “I wrote under the pseudonym Mischa Garcia. My job was to uncover the hypocrisy and the overreaching arms in the industry to give the journalists more freedom to write the stories as they unfold instead of as they are forced to tell them.”

“You made a lot of waves in this industry. Did you find the answers?” one of the female reporters asks, shoving a microphone in my face.

I take a deep breath and remember that I came here to give Amaryllis the answers they deserve and to explain the truth to Travis. If I have to do it this way, then so be it. “I did.”

“Tell us what you found,” she says, narrowing her eyes like she’s assessing whether I’m a friend or foe.

Gulp! “There’s one franchise behind the biggest and most widely circulated media outlets. They allow smaller entities to buy space in their infrastructure in exchange for unyielding obedience to their demands for stories and breaking news.”

“You’re saying there’s one company designing the information being given to the public?”

I nod, glancing up trying to see through the flashing lights of the cameras. “Where mainstream entertainment is concerned, yes.”

“That’s a big accusation,” she acknowledges. “Are you prepared to give us the name of the company?”

My eyes connect with Travis’s. He nods and reaches out to take my hand in his. The light squeeze he gives it tells me he’s finally come around and heard my voice through the noise. His support gives me the extra kick I need to keep going. “The Machine,” I say, directly into the microphone. “If you follow the trail of money being exchanged for every viral piece of entertainment industry related news in the last decade, you’ll find their hands are in the pot in at least two places. The top of the pyramid and the boosts in sales after the news breaks.”

The reporter nods and takes the microphone back as she turns to face the camera being held up just behind her. “You’ve heard it here first, folks. I guess we’ll be digging into this story deeper as the days go by. Stay tuned.”

“Mischa Garcia?” Travis says in barely a whisper. “It was you, the whole time.”

I take a deep breath and try to remember the speech I had prepared, but I’ve run out of words.

“How could you not tell me?” he asks with pain in his eyes.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t have listened.” I don’t mean to sound so cold, but it’s the truth.

“Damn,” Adair laughs from where he’s still standing just behind us on the red carpet. He covers his mouth to hide his amusement from the cameras.

“She’s got you there, dude,” Devon snickers, patting Travis on the shoulder and whispering something in his ear. If I didn’t trust Devon with my life already then, I’d be worried, but I’m pretty sure he’s telling him to pull his head out of his ass and just listen to the truth for a minute.

I steel my nerves and take a step closer to Travis, closing what little distance there had been between us. “I never meant to lie to you.”

“How did you see that as not lying?”

“I thought that if I just told you, Hey, I’m the girl you’ve been looking for, you would’ve thought I was just trying to force my way into your world. You needed to find out for yourself, but I was trying to tell you the whole time.”

Carly leans forward and whispers in Travis’s ear, but I overhear her. “It’s true. She was literally hitting you in the face with it the entire time. You weren’t listening. So we’re back to that.”

She’s not wrong.

Travis goes through a half-dozen expressions before his face finally softens and he lifts my hand up to his mouth, leaving a gentle kiss on the back of my hand. “I told you on the bus, that I didn’t have any expectations for my portrait girl. I only knew that she’d set my life off like a spark.”

I do remember him saying that.

“You’ve done exactly that. And just like I told you then, I don’t know what that means for us now that I’ve finally found you.”

“She found you dude,” Devon reminds him nudging him with his shoulder.

Travis chuckles under his breath and shakes his head. “Either way, I don’t know where we are going from here; but I’d love to find out with you.”

“Are you asking me something, Travis Miller?”

His cheeks turn a faint red as he blushes at my question. “I guess I’m asking if you’ll be my plus-one to the award ceremony tonight?”

“You want me to be your date?”

He shrugs and stuffs one hand in his pants’ pocket. “I mean, I am the only one without a date for tonight.”

“Is that the only reason you want me to join you?” I ask, reaching up letting my fingers trace his jawline, guiding his face closer to mine. My lips part, begging him to close the final bit of distance between us.

“I would like to spend this night with my soulmate,” he says, leaning forward and whispering in my ear. “Just say yes.” The warmth of his breath against my skin lights a fire inside of my core. I feel the heat rising through my entire body, from my toes all the way to my face.

I can’t take his teasing anymore, it’s already more than I can take. It’s time to be completely honest with him. “I think I’m falling for you Travis Miller.”

“Good,” he says, finally letting his mouth touch mine. His lips are soft and warm as they move against mine with a passion I’ve never felt before. He pulls back and locks his gaze onto mine. I could be happy staying in this moment for the rest of my life. “I’ve already fallen for you,” he admits. “There’s no turning back now.” He wraps me in his arms and dips me backwards, giving the press one hell of a show as he kisses me again. The electricity shoots through my veins and lights me up on the inside as my fingers twist in his hair, trying to get closer to him because even this isn’t enough. I need more of him. He stands me back upright and it’s everything I can do to pull back and not attack him right here on the red carpet, but I restrain myself, remembering we’re still in front of hundreds of people and probably millions more watching back at home.

“Did the cameras just catch every second of our first kiss?” I ask, suddenly feeling overly exposed.

He nods and tightens his grip around me as he gives his best showman’s smile and wave to the crowd. “They sure did,” he says, with a proud smirk on his face.

“What’s so funny?” I ask, trying to understand the amusement twinkling in his eyes.

“You said it was our first kiss.”

“It was our first kiss. As far as I can remember, we have never kissed before,” I say, looking up at him with confusion. I’m guessing I’ll never fully understand how this man’s brain works.

His smile widens. “That means there’s going to be more of them.”

“Oh, right.”

“If I have my way there will be many years of those,” he says, ducking underneath the red velvet ropes and pulling on my hand so I’ll follow him. “Come on. We’ve got an award to go claim.”

I bite the inside of my cheek as I process what this all means, but I follow him and take my place to stand beside him, with the rest of the Amaryllis family. For the first time in years, I finally feel like I’m where I belong.