“It’s not like that,” I cry, stepping toward him.
“No, don’t.” He holds his hands up in front of him to keep me back. “You think that leaving will keep me from loving you? From caring what happens to you?”
“It’s only for a couple of months, so we can… so I can adjust to my new life. I don’t know how to do this, Drew. I was wrong! I can’t handle all of it at once! Fame, a relationship, coming out of the hole I’ve been hiding in for the last twelve years! It’s all too fast. I’m trying to relearn how to do every single thing that I was avoiding. Every reaction I used to have is suddenly wrong. I can’t trust my instincts anymore!” I stand in front of Drew, begging him to comprehend my situation.
“That’s not what you’re doing, Sydney. You’re doing what you’ve always done. You’re running away.” He slips past me and into the bedroom. Moments later he emerges wearing shoes and his Red Sox hat.
“What are you doing?”
He gets to the door of the suite and speaks with his back to me. “I’m doing what you do, Sydney. I’m leaving.” He turns the knob and disappears, letting the door close quietly behind him.
I collapse in a heap on the floor and cry.
Chapter 13
A faint knock on the door stirs me from my fitful sleep. After Drew stormed out, I showered, crawled into the bed and cried myself to sleep. I’m contemplating getting out of the bed to see who’s knocking, when I hear someone swipe a keycard and enter the suite.
Now fully awake, I leap out of the bed and wrap up in a hotel robe, afraid.
“Drew? Sydney?” I hear someone call out from the other room. In all of the drama, I forgot about my visitor.
“Jane!” I cry and run into the living area, hugging the stunned woman as I break down again.
Jane Hardy is Drew’s longtime personal assistant. In her mid-forties, Jane is like a mother and a sister to Drew all in one short, intimidating, blonde package. Usually she’s completely unflappable, able to carry out any request quickly and without fuss. Right now, Jane is too confused to even hug me back as I clutch her and sob.
“Sydney, what the heck has been going on out here?” she asks from underneath my bone-crushing hold.
I release her from my grip so I can answer. “Everything’s all messed up. I messed it up, Jane. It’s worse than when I called you yesterday.”
She looks at me with kindness and maybe a hint of sympathy, taking in my red swollen face and haggard appearance, “It can’t be all that bad, Sydney. I’ve seen the photos and videos, and yes, it hasn’t been great. Well, and maybe Drew shouldn’t have attacked that guy on the street but…” She stops when she sees my face crumple and tears start down my cheeks again.
Tugging me over to the couch, she sits me down and brings me a bottle of water and a box of tissues.
“Now, tell me what that boy did this time.”
Shaking, I proceed to fill her in on everything that’s been going on for the last few weeks. I tell her about Drew’s unrelenting anger stemming from his fear of my being hurt, Kiera’s bitchiness and how she wants to break us up, my apparent unwillingness to keep myself safe, being on lockdown at the hotel, the studio wanting Drew and Kiera to be an item, and finally, I tell her that I’m leaving for London to remodel another Warren Hotel nightclub. The only thing I keep to myself are the articles on CelebCast. I don’t want Jane to give Drew anything else to worry about right now, especially if it’s just my imagination that we’re being spied on.
“Oh my, you’re right. It is worse than I thought,” she says after I finish speaking.
“I have to go to London, Jane. I need to work. I can’t just sit here in a hotel room worrying about people and situations that I have no control over.”
“Of course you can’t just sit here, Sydney. Drew hasn’t figured out yet that he has no control over any of those things; fans, panic attacks, you. It’s one of the reasons that he’s been single for so long. He likes to have full control over everything important to him. When that attack happened, all of those fears came true while he sat in a room fifty feet away from you, unable to stop it.” Jane sits back on the couch, choosing her next words carefully. “He’s like your dad in that way, I think. He’d rather give you up than keep hurting you.”
A silence stretches between us as I think about what she said.
“But I don’t want to give him up. Is that what I did?” Fear courses through my body as the reality of not being with Drew crashes down. “What have I done.”