Well aware he could fail, Brendan ignored the loud cheer that went up.
He started to turn from the bar, but Hannah waved a hand to catch his attention. She dug her phone out of her pocket, punched the screen, and slid it toward him across the wood Piper had spent a week sanding to perfection, applying the lacquer with careful concentration.
Brendan looked down at the screen and swallowed. There was Piper. Blowing a kiss beneath the words “The Party Princess’s Triumphant Return,” followed by an address for a club in Los Angeles. Tomorrow night at nine p.m.
Five-hundred-dollar cover.
People were going to pay five hundred dollars just to be in the same room with his girlfriend, and he couldn’t fault them. He’d have given his life savings to be standing in front of her at that moment. Jesus, he missed her so much.
“Technically, she’s not supposed to be back in LA yet or I’d tell you to try our house first. She’s probably staying with Kirby, but I don’t have her contact info.” Hannah nodded at the phone. “You’ll have to catch her at the club.”
“Thanks,” he managed, grateful she wasn’t punishing him like he deserved. “I’d go anywhere.”
“I know.” Hannah squeezed his hand on the bar. “Go make it right.”
Brendan paced toward the door, pulse ticking in his ears, but Mick stepped into his path before he could walk back out into the cold. “Brendan, I . . .” He bowed his head. “When you track her down, will you apologize for me? I wasn’t too kind to her earlier tonight.”
A dagger twisted between Brendan’s eyes. Christ, how much heartache had his Piper been forced to deal with since he boarded the boat on Saturday? First he’d left, then her stepfather had canceled. No one showed up to her grand opening—or so she thought. And now he was finding out Mick had potentially hurt her feelings?
His hands formed fists at his sides, battling the fierce urge to break something. “I’m afraid to ask what you said, Mick,” he whispered, closing his eyes.
“I might have implied that she couldn’t replace my daughter,” Mick said in a low voice, regret lacing every word.
Brendan exhaled roughly, his misery complete. Ravaging him where he stood. “Mick,” he responded with forced calm. “Your daughter will always have a place in my heart. But Piper owns that heart. She came here and robbed me blind of it.”
“I see that now.”
“Good. Get right with it.”
Unable to say another word, unable to do anything but get to her, get to her by any means necessary, Brendan strode to his truck and burned rubber out of Westport.
Chapter Thirty-One
Oh, she’d made a huge mistake.
Huge.
Piper sat astride a mechanical unicorn, preparing to be elevated through a trapdoor onto a stage. Kirby shoved a puffy princess wand into her hand, and Piper stared at the object, lamenting the fact that she couldn’t magically wish herself out of this situation.
Her name was being chanted by hundreds of people overhead.
Their feet stomped on the floor of the club, shaking the ceiling. Behind the scenes, people kept coming over to her, snapping selfies without permission, and Piper imagined she looked shell-shocked in every single one of them.
This was exactly what she’d always wanted. Fame, recognition, parties thrown in her honor.
And all she wanted now was to go home.
Not to Bel-Air. No, she wanted to be in the recharging station. That was home.
Brendan was home.
The chanting grew louder along with the stomping, and Kirby danced in a circle around Piper, squealing. “Savor the anticipation, bitch! As soon as they start playing your song, the hydraulics are going to bring you up slowly. When you wave the wand, the lighting guy is going to make it look like you’re sprinkling fairy dust. It looks so real. People are going to shit.”
Okay, fine, that part was pretty cool.
“What song is it?”
“‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ remixed with ‘Sexy and I Know It.’ Obviously.”
“Oh yeah. Obviously.”
Kirby fanned her armpits. “Try and time your fairy flicks with the beat, you know?”
Piper swallowed, looking down at her Lhuillier dress, her black garters peeking out beneath the hem on either side of the unicorn. Getting dressed had been a fun distraction, as had primping and getting her hair professionally styled, but . . . now that the time had come to make her “triumphant” return, she felt kind of . . . counterfeit.
Her heart was in smithereens.
She didn’t want to enter a club on a hydraulic unicorn.
She didn’t want to have her picture taken and plastered all over social media. There would never be anything wrong with having a good time. Or dancing and dressing how she chose to dress. But when she’d gone to Westport and not one of these people had called or texted or been interested in the aftermath of the party they’d enjoyed, she’d gotten a glimpse at how phony it all was. How quickly the fanfare went away.