Irresistible Desire (A Savannah Novel) (10 page)

I repeatedly yell into the
phone for her to say something and she does, “I’m so sorry, so, so
sorry Savannah. I would have never pushed for you two to be
together if I had known he was like this. He always seemed like a
responsible, respectful, intelligent young man.” She sobs. I hate
that she was hurt, Logan didn’t realize that he was not only
hurting me but everyone around us.

“Mom, please don’t cry.” I
beg her. It’s tearing me up inside hearing her cry for me. I sit on
my bed and trace the zebra stripes on my comforter with my finger
tip, trying something…anything to keep me from falling apart again,
the last thing I want to do is shed more tears over him. I’m all
cried out and my eyes feel like they need to be iced because they
ache so much.

“I’m sorry honey, the last
thing I want to do is upset you. Your father is pulling in from the
meeting with our tour manager… we leave Thursday for NYC to kick
off the new tour. Oh no, that’s in two days, I hate to leave you
while you’re trying to deal with all of this.”

She continues to sob into
the phone and I can hear her trying to calm her breathing to a
regular rate. Tears begin to run down my cheeks, don’t cry… don’t
cry, I plead over and over in my head as I squeeze my eyes shut. I
mimic my mom’s deep breathing pattern, trying to calm myself down
too.

“I have to go, are you
going to be okay Savannah? I’ll talk to your father for you so you
don’t have to rehash this all over again. I’ll call Juliette in the
morning and have her prepare a statement to release to the press
for you. I love you honey, if you need anything just call
me.”

I can hear my father
talking in the background, asking her why she was so upset. I
quickly say goodbye and get off the phone. I’m grateful she would
handle telling my father, I just want to forget this ever happened;
explaining to people just reopens wounds I’m trying so hard to
heal.

I take Monday and Tuesday
off work, having explained everything to Eloise on Monday morning,
she told me to take all the time I needed. Everything she needed me
to work on she emailed to me. It was nice having the distraction to
help keep my mind off Logan.

*****

Chapter 7

*****

My first, post break up day,
back at work went smoothly, although I felt like I was just running
through the motions on autopilot. I worked with Eloise on
The Most Influential Man of 2012
issue. We had to organize photos, get the
interviews edited and write them up the way she wanted. We were so
busy that I didn’t even realize when it was time to head home. We
had gotten a good chunk of the issue completed today, ahead of
schedule, which made Eloise very pleased.

When I get home in the
evening there’s a bouquet of flowers sitting on the marble counter
top in the kitchen. It’s an exquisite posy of bright tulips, sun
flowers, daisies, roses, and hot pink lilies. They remind me of
springtime. I know they can’t be from Logan as Brooklyn would have
tossed them in the trash before I got a chance to see. I’ve been
receiving flowers from friends, family, co-workers, basically
anyone my parents know or have known. Each bouquet comes with a
similar note, explicating their deepest apologies for my break-up
with Logan. I have a magnificent display throughout my apartment;
it looks more like a florist than a home.

I finger the card, twirling
it between my fingers as I walk outside and dip my feet into the
warm water of our pool. It’s finally a warm, sunny day in Los
Angeles, following days of rain. It felt like the universe had been
crying right along with me. I slide the card out of the tiny
envelope and am shocked when I read who sent it. The card
reads:

To Savannah, I hope these
flowers can bring a smile back to your angelic face. He is a fool
to let you get away. My deepest condolences to you during this
difficult time. - Kayden Knox

“Holy shit.” I mutter to
myself as I stare down at the note. Kayden Knox sent me flowers and
his condolences? I’ve only met the man once; I can’t fathom the
idea that he actually cares about what I was going through right
now. I guess compassion is another reason he won that number one
spot.

I pace alongside the pool
and stare i at the Hollywood sign in the distance, contemplating
what to do. What would be the polite thing to do? Call and thank
him? Email a quick thank you? I don’t have his contact info on
hand… I could call Eloise and ask for it. I decide to head inside;
I grab my laptop and head to the living room. Plopping myself down
on the sofa, I pull up my twitter and search Kayden’s account. I’m
not allowed to message him as we don’t follow each other, so I
decide to chance it and send a thank you tweet, if he sees it…he
sees it and if not, I’ll ask Eloise for his email tomorrow and
thank him then.

I type quickly,
@Kayden_Knox I received the flowers you sent,
they’re beautiful. I just wanted to send you a quick thank
you.
Hopefully my, oh so original twitter
alias, @SavannahLivingston, will make it clear who’s sent the
tweet. I scroll through his twitter images and tweets wondering how
many girls this playboy has sent flowers to. He has photos of
himself and friends on four-wheelers, plenty of him on the beach
and in lush parks. He also has pictures of himself riding horses,
reminding me of my childhood and making me miss my filly, Cheyanne,
back in Nashville.

He has a ton of photos of
friends, places he’s visited and random funny quote pictures but
nothing of him with other women. Of course it makes sense because
he doesn’t “
do
relationships”
. I finally understand why
now, relationships just make you vulnerable and open you up for
heartbreak and disappointment. This I’ve learned the hard way. I
wonder if he has too… is that why he is the way he is now? My own
heartbreak has helped me view things from another
perspective.

I decided to check my
@connect to see if Kayden has seen my tweet, heavily doubting that
he had. My jaw falls open when I notice not one, but two tweets
from him. Holy crap that was faster than I’d
anticipated.

@SavannahLivingston I’m
happy to hear you received your flowers today, and that you liked
them so much

@SavannahLivingston Also,
I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks at the Envy magazine
party. It’s going be a night to remember.

What the hell just
happened? I didn’t expect to get any response, but two is just
insane. In the following five minutes I’ve gained over two hundred
new followers, most of them asking why Kayden Knox was sending me
flowers. I know that my name will soon be trending because of
this.

“Oh Crap! I didn’t think
this through at all,” I chastise myself and set my laptop down. I
begin pacing the living room floor, what did I just do? Why
couldn’t I just wait until tomorrow and write to his personal
email? In the space of a few weeks I’m going to go from the front
cover of magazines for announcing my engagement, to my engagement
being called off, and NOW to me being the “mystery woman” that
Kayden Knox is sending flowers to! I really didn’t think this
through. Damn you Logan, this is your fault, you’ve sent my entire
world into a whirlwind of gossip and speculation.

I decide the best way to
take attention away from me is to tweet Kayden back, I can just
imagine the headache he is going to have because to me. You can’t
even glance at someone in this industry without people speculating
about your sex life. “You gotta love Hollywood,” I mutter to
myself, shaking my head as I type a new tweet to Kayden.

@Kayden Knox I look
forward to the party, Eloise is thrilled with how the January issue
of Envy is coming along. Thank you again for the kind words. It’s a
difficult time for me, it means a lot.

There…hopefully that will
clear some things up and stop the rumor mill from going into
overdrive. My stomach flutters as I read the hunk is now my
follower, now we can communicate in private. As I admire his
profile picture a smile creeps across my face, he is beyond
handsome and I can only imagine the number of broken hearts he’s
caused with that mega-watt smile of his. Hell, if my heart wasn’t
shattered right now, I might actually be able to add myself to that
list. Nevertheless, at this moment in time I don’t ever want to
open my heart to another man. I don’t think I can cope with this
betrayal again.

I lie low over the next
weeks, trying to ride out the media storm. Thankfully Logan gave up
on trying to convince me to take him back, possibly due to the fact
my father threatened to snap his neck if he came near me again. I
spend every day in the same routine - going to work, going to the
gym and returning home; before I know it, the end of October is
already approaching. Brooklyn has started asking me to go out
dancing over the last few weekends, but I don’t feel up to putting
on a fake smile – it’s hard to act like everything is fine while my
life is falling apart around me. I can’t deal with the paparazzi
hounding me every time I step foot out of my house. There are more
important things they should be worry about, like our economy or
world hunger…not how I feel after discovering my boyfriend has
slept with half of Los Angeles.

My parents have been
touring the last few weeks, so no more Friday family dinners, which
missed, oddly. I could really use their wisdom right about now.
We’ve been trying to stay in touch, using Skype once a week to
talk. I thought people would have lost interest in the break up by
now, but boy was I wrong. The reporters from all those cheesy
magazines have resorted to harassing my parents, turning every tour
promotion into a question and answer session about me.

Thanks to a few of the
models at Logan's agency, interest has skyrocketed over the last
few weeks. They quickly realized they could make money off of my
turmoil by selling their stories to the tabloids and now the entire
world knows my ex-boyfriend had a vast amount of affairs while we
were together. Typically, instead of hurting Logan it’s actually
helped his career. This industry is so twisted, the more the media
talks about him, the more attention he gets. Megan’s career is
developing rapidly too, having Logan as a manager right now
apparently draws attention to all the right places.

I’m grateful for the
distraction that comes with my job, especially as Eloise is being
incredibly understanding. Having paparazzi camped outside our
building on numerous occasions, waiting to bombard me with a swarm
of questions, can’t be easy to deal with as a boss. Plus, I haven’t
exactly been the most entertaining person to be around; tending to
avoid any type of socializing as talking about things makes the
pain worse.

One good thing to transpire
from this break-up is that I’ve gotten myself into the best shape
of my life. I’ve always been skinny but now I have muscle tone in
all the right places. I took up kickboxing to help release my pent
up anger and it’s been really therapeutic. Who knew kicking and
punching things could make you feel so much better? I even
convinced Brooklyn to sign up and take the class with me and she’s
enjoying it too. It doesn’t hurt that her acting career has taken a
turn for the better as a result, she’s managed to get great guest
appearances as a “bad ass” chick and has even been approached about
being a stunt double in a huge blockbuster that starts filming in a
fortnight. She’s ecstatic.

Tonight is the annual
Halloween party at Vertigo and I agree to go with Brooklyn, feeling
bad for making her go out on her own the past few weeks. She’s
beyond thrilled that I’m actually getting out of the house and
attempting to have some fun. She buys a slutty little red riding
hood costume and I pick out a sexy cop costume, complete with
handcuffs. She tells me I need to find a guy tonight and fuck his
brains out to help me get out my pent up sexual frustrations. I
have to agree, it has been a long four weeks… that’s for
sure.

Brooklyn is applying the
last touches of her make-up in the bathroom when I walk in and slap
her on the ass. She giggles and jumps a few inches, “Savannah! You
almost made me poke my damn eye out,” She turns to look at me,
pointing her eye liner in my face.

“Well, be grateful you
didn’t.” I tease

“That cop outfit is smoking
hot, you going to test out your cuffs on a guy tonight?” She asks,
winking at me before turning back to finish her makeup.

“That’s the plan. I am not
bringing a guy back here though. I plan on taking him out to my car
and having wild, no strings attached sex.”

I walk over and sit on the
edge of the bathtub, watching Brooklyn work her magic. If she
wasn’t pursuing a career in acting, she would make an amazing
makeup artist.

“Well I’ll be sure not to
come a knockin’ if the car is a rockin’.”

She raises her eyebrow and
lets out a little laugh, applying her fire red lipstick before
rubbing her lips together vigorously and separating them with a
loud
POP.