Betrayed: A Love Letters Novel Read online

  Betrayed

  A Love Letters Novel

  Kristen Blakely

  Copyright © 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Contents

  Betrayed

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Crushed

  Love Letters

  About the Author

  Betrayed

  A Love Letters Novel

  I can turn every man’s head…except his.

  I command attention on the haute couture catwalks of Milan, Paris, and New York, but whenever I’m face-to-face with Drew Jackson, I feel like a gawky thirteen-year-old again—in love with a superstar who will never see me as anything more than his younger brother’s ex-girlfriend.

  I tell myself Drew’s no longer a superstar. A long-ago car accident shattered his knee and destroyed his football career. What is he compared to the celebrities who whirl me through one-night stands or Tyler, the brilliant and witty social media maverick who is determined to win my love?

  Drew’s just…Drew. All logic and rationality aside, I want him.

  When betrayal knocks me off my supermodel pedestal, it’s a long way to the bottom. Will my tenuous friendship with Drew survive my career, my fame, and the rocky transition to love?

  Chapter 1

  Maggie fixed an expression of cool boredom on her face as the limousine glided to a stop in front of her condominium complex on the Upper East Side. Outside the vehicle, paparazzi jostled, knocking each other off the sidewalk and into the road. The light from camera flashes pierced the darkened glass windows and pulsed shafts of pain through her skull.

  Maggie sucked in a deep breath. Her faint smile held, barely.

  The strobe-light glare of the camera flash always gave Maggie a headache. For most people, it might have constituted a mild annoyance. For a model, it was a career hazard, although one she had successfully navigated since her days as a cherub-faced putto, modeling diaper rash cream and teething toys. Few baby models continued as child models, and even fewer went all the way to the top. Maggie, however, had hit the stratosphere—the haute couture catwalks of Milan, Paris, and New York. Along the way, her chubby, kissable cheeks had thinned into the slash of high cheekbones, and her clumsy toddler gait conceded to an arrogant strut.

  She was a rising star, and therefore, an irresistible lure to other celebrities craving the spotlight.

  The man seated next to her in the limousine shifted slightly. “They’re like rabid dogs,” Leon Kinrath muttered, but he was smiling, already preening for the camera.

  Actors. Maggie managed not to roll her eyes. Newly famous actors were the worst. Their desperation to prove they were part of the celebrity scene made their social interactions particularly high maintenance. She had spent all evening listening to Leon rave about the dozen or more casting calls he had received in the past year. None had led to a role yet, but if his confidence had been shaken, she could not tell from his brash tone.

  Cameras flashed again. Maggie held her smile steady through the glare and looked at Leon. “Thank you for a wonderful evening, Leon.”

  “Let me walk you in.”

  She waved her wrist. “No need for the two of us to squeeze through that horde.”

  “But I insist.” His smile emphasized his boyish good looks. “I could not let a beautiful woman face the rabid masses alone.”

  Maggie paused for a moment to allow his smile and his words to sink in. Her smile deepened on a trained social impulse, but her mind snapped out a single word, Nope. Her pulse was not fluttering. Her heartbeat was not racing. Leon Kinrath wasn’t doing it for her.

  The chauffeur stepped out of the driver seat and opened the car door. Leon exited to a flurry of questions and microphones shoved in his face. The glare of the camera flashes exploded like supernovas, plunging the area beyond the light circle into pitch black. Half-blinded, Maggie was forced to accept Leon’s hand for support. She stepped out of the limousine onto three-inch black stilettos. The flowing skirt of her black dress brushed against her thighs.

  Leon’s arm slid across the low back of her dress to grasp her hip, drawing her closer than she wanted. She would have shaken him off, but it would only incite the paparazzi into a feeding frenzy. Far better to play along and take Leon to task in private rather than in front of tabloid reporters.

  Leon looked straight into the cameras. “We’d like some privacy, if you don’t mind,” he said, but the encouraging smile he wore made a lie of his words.

  Bastard. Maggie kept her pace steady. The swarm of people blocking her path folded back to avoid getting run over.

  Leon’s hand tightened on her hip. He leaned in close as if to kiss her cheek, but his voice whispered in her ear. “What’s the rush, babe? Can’t you see they want us to play it up?”

  She placed her hand on his hand, her gesture casual, even friendly, but her fingers pried his fingers off her hip.

  Surprise and alarm flashed across his face. His hand dropped away, but he stayed close as she pushed her way through the paparazzi and into her condominium complex.

  Leon shot her an assessing glance as they stepped into the elevator together. He kept his voice casual. “Thank God, we’re rid of that bunch.”

  She tilted her head. “Really? That’s not the impression I got from your flirting with them.”

  “My what?”

  “You’re playing up to them, Leon. You want the attention, fine. I don’t, and I don’t appreciate being used to attract the spotlight.”

  He frowned. “What’s the problem? We’re celebrities. You know this is part of the deal, the price of fame.”

  She sighed. Leon was right. He was no different, really, from most of the other celebrities she had dated—actors, singers, athletes, even some models, like herself. The spotlight was the key to staying relevant, and there was no worse sentence than being a non-relevant celebrity.

  For now, for all that she despised the spotlight, she was still relevant. At some point, she would not be—female models had notoriously short careers—and then what would she do? The flicker of panic over an undefined future grew stronger every day.

  Maggie stopped in front of her door and turned to face Leon. “Thank you for dinner.”

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in? A nightcap, or something more?”

  “I have an early morning shoot tomorrow.”

  “Just a quick drink, then, to round out the evening.”

  “I’m not in the mood for it, Leon. Thank you for bringing me home. Your chauffeur is waiting.”

  “Hang the chauffeur.” Leon waved a hand at the front of the building. “The paparazzi’s camping out there—not just the tabloids, but mainstream media too. I walk out now, and they’ll know I didn’t bed you.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened. “Is that what’s bothering you? You want people t
o think you slept with me?”

  “Of course. How many hits do you think my reputation can take? I haven’t done a movie in a year. I’m fading out of the spotlight, Marguerite. If people learn that you turned me down, it’s going to make the headline news.”

  She shook her head wearily. “No, not really. No one cares that much who I sleep with.”

  “Yes, they do. If you don’t think so, then you haven’t been reading the news enough. Let me in. I insist. You owe me.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Dinner doesn’t buy you access to my apartment or to my body.”

  Leon’s eyes narrowed, and then he inhaled sharply and seemed to relax. His tone came out wheedling instead of belligerent. “You can’t send me away. Those piranhas out there will eat me alive.”

  He did have a point. Maggie walked down the corridor and peeked out of the window overlooking the front entrance. The paparazzi showed no inclination of leaving. Darn. She thought hard for a moment, and then reached for her smartphone and dialed a number.

  Vera Rios picked up the phone on the other end moments later. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Vera. It’s Maggie Ferrara.”

  “Hey, Maggie.” Vera’s voice warmed. “You’ve called my cell phone. Did you want to talk to Rowan? He’s in the living room—”

  “No, I wanted to talk to you. I need a favor.”

  “Okay?”

  “There’s a bunch of paparazzi camping outside my condo. I need to lure them away.”

  “And you’re hoping Rowan will volunteer for the job?”

  Maggie grinned. That Dr. Vera Rios was a smart cookie.

  Vera continued. “You know he’s not fond of the paparazzi.”

  “I know, and that’s why I’m calling you, not him. Do you think that maybe you could convince him to take a walk by the front of my condo? They’ll follow him. He’s hotter news than I am—supermodel, new baby, all that stuff.”

  Vera laughed, a sparkling sound. “So now you want to use my daughter as bait too?”

  “Babies are pretty bait. Please, Vera. I really need this favor.”

  “Well, Brianna’s fussy tonight, and a walk usually settles her down. I suppose I can convince Rowan to take a stroll outside.”

  “You won’t tell him, will you?”

  “And now you want me to lie to my husband?” Vera’s tone had an edge of mock sternness. She laughed again. “No, of course I won’t tell him, but it won’t take him too long to figure out that you’ve sicced the paparazzi on him. Hang in there. We’re on our way.

  Vera was as good as her word. Less than fifteen minutes later, the paparazzi in front of Maggie’s building scurried across the street to accost a couple pushing a stroller and the little girl skipping alongside them. The man swept the little girl into his arms, his stance protective. Maggie flinched guiltily. She could not hear the buzz of conversation from behind the glass, but as she had predicted, the reporters followed Rowan Forrester, no doubt peppering him with questions about his wife and his two daughters.

  Maggie waited until the crowd vanished around the corner. She turned to Leon. “The front’s clear. You can leave now.”

  He flashed a smile that had charmed thousands of women. “You’re not going to send me off now, are you? Not after you went to so much effort for me.”

  That time she could not disguise the eye roll. He was missing the point. She went through all the effort to get rid of him, not keep him. “Please, go.”

  Leon frowned. “You’re not serious, Marguerite.”

  “Deadly serious. I want you to leave, Leon.”

  He gripped her upper arm. “You can’t just send me away. You knew, when you accepted my dinner invitation, we would end up in bed.”

  She gaped at him. “A dinner invitation is a dinner invitation. Did you think you could buy me with steak and wine?”

  “Can’t I?” Leon stared at her through narrowed eyes. He slid close to her. His warmth stifled her; his cologne assaulted her senses. He caressed the back of his other hand against her cheek. “You take a different man home each night of the week. You’re such a tease.” His hand glided down along the length of her neck and traced the upper curve of her breast. His voice thickened; its husky edge reeked with lust.

  Trembling with anger, she shoved him away. His vice-like grip on her arm gave way, but not without tugging painfully against her flesh. She clutched her handbag to her chest. “You will leave now or you’ll be in the headlines tomorrow, and it won’t be good.”

  Like a petulant child deprived of a favorite toy, Leon’s handsome face twisted into a scowl. “Tease is too good for you.” He bared his teeth in a mocking grin. “You’re a slut. Can’t believe I wasted my time on you.”

  He stalked away. Maggie did not turn her back on him until the elevator doors closed behind him. Her hand shook as she slid her key into the lock and pushed open the door to her condominium. Darkness, warm and comforting, enveloped her. She kicked off her high heels and sank down on the couch.

  The heavy pressure against her chest caused her eyes to sting.

  Damn it. She pressed her lips together to hold back the tears.

  Drew Jackson’s familiar face flashed through her mind. Her pulse jolted. Her heartbeat raced. She clung to the image—his unyielding expression, his firm, unsmiling mouth, and the kindness in his brown eyes that made a lie of his stern façade.

  At least he doesn’t know. That thought gave her comfort.

  Or care.

  That thought wrecked her.

  Chapter 2

  The smartphone on the bedside table rang a distinctive tune that combined the persistency of a toothache with the intensity of a migraine. Drew Jackson snapped awake and lunged for the phone. He swiped across the screen to turn off the sound before it woke Felicity. He stared at the screen and stifled a sigh; it was another Google search alert on Marguerite Ferrara. Between Maggie’s predictable behavior and Google’s ability to report on it with unerring punctuality at six forty-five each morning, he no longer needed his alarm clock.

  Careful not to jostle his sleeping lover, Drew sat up in bed and scrolled through the linked article in the Google search alert. His jaw tensed, and his fingers tightened in the bedsheets. Marguerite Ferrara and Leon Kinrath’s date had concluded in her condominium.

  Drew dragged in a deep breath. He was losing count; Leon was Maggie’s eighth…no, ninth guy this month, and it was only the middle of the month. At least Maggie had excellent and expensive taste in men, he reflected ironically. She did not date anyone who wasn’t good looking, famous, and rich.

  Scratch me out on all three counts.

  He flung the blanket aside and swung his legs to the side. He extended his left leg and tested its strength before placing any weight on it. His crippling injury was ten years in the past, but his leg still ached, and some days he felt it more than others.

  A vicious spasm tugged along the length of his leg. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he leaned down to massage his thigh. Today, he could tell, would be one of those days; he would need an ice pack and a heat pack by the end of the day.

  By the time he got out of the shower, Felicity was awake and dressed in the clothes she had worn to his apartment last night. Her beige blouse was rumpled, as was her dove-gray skirt; both had been hastily discarded as they tumbled into bed together. She draped her matching jacket over her arm, looked up at him, and flashed a smile. “I’ll see you on Friday, as usual?”

  Forcing Maggie from his mind, he nodded.

  “Is it your turn to pick the restaurant or mine?” she asked.

  “Yours, I think.”

  “Okay. I’ll e-mail you.” She brushed a kiss over his lips and darted to the door, pausing long enough to pick up the high heels she had kicked aside last night.

  Drew followed her to the door to wave goodbye. She headed to the stairwell; walking two flights of the stairs to her fourteenth-floor apartment was faster than waiting for the elevator. Felicity tossed an absentminded
glance over her shoulder and smiled. He waved at her back.

  For a moment, he stood in his open doorway, looking out upon an empty corridor filled with closed doors.

  Darkness teased the periphery of his vision, encroaching in on him. He shoved it back. Focus on the future. Keep moving. He could not afford to get sucked into the downward spiral of depression. After all, Maggie was no longer around to pull him out of it.

  Client meetings kept Drew occupied through the day. He discussed investment, retirement, and wealth transfer plans with people who earned more money in a month than he did in a year, but he enjoyed his job as a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley. He was good at managing other people’s money, including Maggie’s.

  As the day wound to a close, Drew glanced at his watch. He had enough time for the hour-long round trip into Chinatown. His leg hurt like hell; if he tacked on another twenty minutes to compensate for his slower walk and more frequent pauses to rest, he would have just enough time to make it there and back in time for his final meeting of the day.

  His mind mocked his idiocy and challenged him. Why are you doing this?

  He refused to answer the question. He knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

  Drew braced himself and set off. Five years into his relocation to the city, he had grown accustomed and resigned to the maddened swirl of activity bordering on chaos that was New York City. It did not mean he enjoyed it. The subway at rush hour was unquestionably the eighth level of hell. Chinatown, with its decibel-shattering chatter and the smell of pork lard greasing the air, had to be the ninth. Careful not to breathe too deeply, he stopped at the Jade Palace restaurant and purchased a half-dozen roast pork buns, before turning around for the return trip to his office.