She pulled off his T-shirt, grabbed a bra, and fought to snap it into place with her fingers shaking.
“First of all, you shouldn’t be yelling,” he said, his tone measured but brimming with frustration. “It’s not good for your head or your voice. And second of all, that’s not true. Everyone knows what happened in the caves—it was front-page news. They know you were hurt. Chad and Brook will be covering you with explanations. No one but you—you and Chad—expect you to be at meetings now.”
She finally got the bra clasped and reached for a blouse, desperate to get out, get space, find level ground. She had too many voices ricocheting around her head. Too many emotions twisting her heart. Too much pressure inside her gut. She felt like she was going to explode.
“And how much are you going to continue to sacrifice, El? At what point do you stop sacrificing? At what point should your career start giving back? After all you’ve given to it, what does it give you now? Stress, stress, and more stress?”
Fear and fury turned her vision red around the edges. “You’ve been back in my life two weeks, and you think you know what I want, what I need, how I feel?”
A familiar sense of claustrophobia settled in. The same type she’d experienced in the cave, where she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t breathe, just needed to get out.
Out, out, out.
She picked up her phone, opened her taxi app, and requested a cab to her location. “I can’t fight about this now.” She dropped her phone on the bed and looked around, trying to think what she needed to gather up for her trip back to Las Vegas. “I need to get this mess straightened out so I can think. So I have direction…”
But nothing here was hers. Even the clothes she’d come in were still in the washing machine.
“Don’t go, Ellie.” His words weren’t a request or a plea. They weren’t even a demand. They were a warning. A warning that lifted her hackles. “Yes, I hid your phone because I was being selfish and I wanted a few uninterrupted days with you. But I also did it because you needed it—for your health, for your sanity. No one knows you like I do, and I knew those messages would have you doing exactly what you’re doing right now—jumping right back into the insanity too soon. You’ll work yourself into the ground unless there’s someone around to be your voice of reason.”
“Voice of reason?” she said, her voice a harsh whisper. “You think you’re my voice of reason?”
“Well, it sure as shit isn’t Chad. Not when he’s getting a portion of every dollar you’re out there busting your ass to earn. And Brook, God, I think that girl would do anything you asked of her, which makes her a great friend but a lousy source of true reason, because all she wants to do is see you happy, so she’s going to tell you whatever she thinks you want to hear.”
“Stop. Twisting. Everything.” She picked up her phone and slid her credit cards and ID off the dresser, pushing them into the back of the case. “This is about you deceiving me.”
“Because I love you, Ellie.”
His conviction vibrated inside her. Her heart reached for him. Her soul begged her to pull down the walls and let him in. Believe him. Trust him.
“I don’t give a fuck about your money,” he said. “I couldn’t care less about your fame. I care about you. I care about your health and your happiness. And if you stopped long enough to really look at your life, you’d see you don’t have either.”
“Excuse me?” She pulled back, crossing her arms. “Who the hell are you to pass judgment on my life. On what I do or don’t have in my life. Just because I’ve struggled, just because I’ve gone through a rough time does not mean…” She stopped and collected herself. “I’m not doing this. I’m not going to stand here and justify myself or my work or my lifestyle or my choices to you.”
She cut a wide path around him and exited the bedroom.
“You’ve got a ton of money,” he continued, so close behind her she could feel his breath on her neck, “which you don’t even use. You’ve got the power of a celebrity, which you neither use nor want. You’ve got the hip and fast lifestyle of a musician on the road, which has done nothing but left you lonely and haggard.”
That made her spin on him with rage boiling in her veins.
But he kept talking. “Have you ever sat down and even thought about what you really want from your singing?” His extremely direct question surprised her. Confused her. She lost her focus. Her direction. “Or have you been blindly following the path where it led the past seven years the way you did all the years before that?”
When he stopped talking, the silence seemed to smother her. “What…gives you the right…to judge me?”
He ground his teeth and dropped his gaze to the floor.
“What makes you think…you have the right…to make decisions for me?” She had to stop and draw air every few words. “Decisions that reflect poorly on me…both as a person and a professional? Without ever once…talking to me about it first?”
His gaze lifted from the floor, his eyes liquid, dark, filled with desperate emotions. “I love you, Ellie. I love you, heart and soul.” He jabbed a finger at her. “That’s what gives me the right.”
/>
A double honk outside cut into their fight and put a chill on the room. Troy’s gaze flashed toward the window and hardened to rock. Giselle looked at the floor, searching her mind, her heart for the right solution. For the right thing to do.
“Goddammit, Ellie,” he said, voice vibrating with tension and hurt. So much hurt it stabbed at her heart. “Don’t you dare walk out that door.”
Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together.
She met his eyes. “This is my career, Troy. This is what I’ve been working toward for as long as I can remember. You know this is what I was meant to do. You know how much it means to me. If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to set it aside the same way I would never ask you to end your stunt career.”