Second to None, page 19
‘You’re a good lay, but that’s it.’
Words. Just words. They couldn’t touch me.
I leaned against the gatepost and fought to keep breathing. Not a single car passed on the road, just the distant sound of birds and the geometry of rooftops and trees sprawling out below. I’d never felt more alone.
Frank arrived, pulling up just outside, and I clambered into the backseat.
“Want me to get your suitcases?” he asked.
Did I? Hard to focus on even just that simple question. I shrugged, shook my head. Nothing had been packed yet, and I needed to get away from here. “Can you get them later?”
He turned around in the driver’s seat, eyebrows pulling together. “Cass?” he said softly, and no, I wasn’t okay. So I answered a different question.
“Just drive me somewhere. Anywhere.” I cleared my throat against too many words that wanted to spill like a waterfall, trying to wash myself clean. “The airport, I guess. I’ll wait there.”
He opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. With a simple nod, he started the car, the engine’s rumble vibrating through me. Back on the road. Home, or something like it. As we pulled away, I cast one last glance at the villa, mostly hidden behind trees and high hedges—no sign of Levi. Just a silent house perched in the sunlight.
I closed my eyes and willed down my stomach’s sickening lurch at each bend of the winding road. The taste of salt hung in my head.
‘Get the fuck out.’
Something snagged in my mind. Faint at first, just a tremor.
Levi. Emily.
‘Someone leaked the surveillance footage.’
‘It’s trending.’
I sat up sharply. “Frank.”
He made a questioning noise, eyes meeting mine in the rear view mirror.
“I’m gonna need you to stay here.”
“‘Here’ as in…?”
“With Levi and Emily. There’s—Simone called me. There’s footage of…” I swallowed. “Of us. The three of us. And it’s trending.”
Frank cursed under his breath. “Why didn’t she call me?”
“She called me first.” And was probably still waiting for me to call her back. Right. Later. “So, anyway, you’ll have to stay here with them. Make sure they’re all right.”
“And let you travel alone?” Frank shook his head, expression shifting into a frown. “I can’t do that, Cass.”
“They need it more than I do.” It felt abruptly essential, something to anchor me. Even if Levi had kicked me out, even if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore, even if I’d been a fool to believe we could be—stop. Even then, it was my job to protect them. I’d dragged them into this mess, and I would get them through it.
“Debatable,” Frank said, “but either way, I’m staying with you.”
“But—”
“Let me finish,” he said. “This is a bit of a celebrity spot, so there are private security companies around here. And I got in touch with a couple of them already, just in case. I’ll arrange something.”
“And for when they get home?”
“I’ll reach out to some contacts,” Frank said, “see who’s good in Manchester. I’ll take care of it, okay?”
Oh. Good.
“Thank you.” I sagged back into the upholstery, felt a bit like a puppet with its strings cut. What next? Simone. A statement. Okay, yes. That’d keep me busy for another minute. And then—something else, anything. Check into the plans for next year’s tour. Look through the final candidate list to replace my guitar player, who was about to have a baby. Reschedule the songwriting sessions my assistant had canceled so I could be here. With Levi. My mind skittered away from his name like a cockroach evading the light.
I’d just… I’d stay busy, and eventually, I’d remember how to breathe without choking up.
I’d done it once. I could do it again.
CHAPTER 17
Levi
Porto Cervo, Saturday, August 30th
Footsteps, fading.
Then silence.
It pressed in with the weight of a thousand moons, a shipwreck between my ribs. I stood alone in the bedroom, my head filled with the echo of my own voice tossing ugly accusations at him, the soft lilt of his words just an undercurrent. ‘I’m still in love with you.’ As if. He just felt sorry, trying to rewrite our history with apologies and empty declarations.
No take-backs.
Each time I blinked, the walls crept closer—like a crowd surging forward, like being trapped in a car that wouldn’t move, strangers’ hands flat against the windows. Not my life anymore. Still Cass’s, though. World tours and magazine covers, countless voices chanting his name. Incompatible with a kid and a cat and a job that came with a fixed salary at the end of the month.
Done. I’d ripped off the plaster before the wound could fester, like some twisted form of mercy. No tears, not this time—I wasn’t that guy anymore. So. Out of the room and down the hallway, towards the kitchen. I’d grab a coffee like this was normal, keep moving because I had to.
My mum was there.
Somehow, my brain tripped over the laugh lines around her eyes as she measured coffee grounds, the way her reading glasses slipped a little down her nose. Normal. Right. But this morning, it hurt because maybe a small, stubborn part of me had expected the world to sit up and take note. Of course not.
“Mornin’,” I managed, slightly scratchy.
She sent me a smile. “Hi, honey. You’re up early.”
I gave some noncommittal grunt and moved to the counter, half-turned away to evade close scrutiny. Briefly, I thought she might let it go.
Then: “Did I just see Cass walking down the driveway?”
“Yeah.” I pretended an intense interest in the pattern of the tiles. A swirl of teal and cream. Waves, maybe, like the unsteady rise and fall of my thoughts. Hard to grasp at anything in particular. “He, uh. He left.”
Two words—he left. They sounded so simple for something that was distant thunder and rain, a faraway storm through frosted glass. Not quite real as long as the windows stayed closed.
“Already?” Confusion wound through my mum’s tone. “He didn’t even say goodbye.”
I busied myself with checking whether the coffee was ready. Not yet.
“And,” Mum continued after a moment, “he didn’t have his suitcase either.”
My spine prickled. “He’ll sort it out.”
“Honey,” she said slowly, as if feeling her way along the words, “what’s going on?”
I pressed my lips together, tongue against the roof of my mouth, and shrugged. “Like I said, he left.”
“Why?” Her tone was gently puzzled, like it didn’t make sense for him to do that. I kept my shoulders loose, attention on the coffee bubbling up in the moka pot.
“I asked him to.”
“You asked him to leave?” She sounded like someone working on a puzzle that didn’t fit.
“Yeah.” I forced another small shrug, tension curling my muscles tight. “Remember how he promised to keep Emmy out of the spotlight? Well, surprise—there’s a video of us out there. It’s all over the internet. Emmy’s in it, and now people are bringing up Jess, too.”
“Jesus.” Mum inhaled sharply and leaned back against the counter, shock melting into disbelief. “Cass put it out there?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. Too harsh—still defending him, second nature even now. I softened my voice. “No. Some store’s surveillance feed got leaked—that tourist trap where we bought Emmy’s bathing suit. They must’ve sold the footage. Good for business, I guess.”
“So it wasn’t his fault?” She sounded relieved, like it somehow made all the difference.
“It wouldn’t have happened if not for him.” I opened a cabinet just for something to do with my hands, ran my fingertips along cool ceramic. “If he wasn’t, you know—who he is. Famous.”
She took the moka pot off the stove, hands moving with steady purpose. “I get what you’re saying, darling. But is that entirely fair?”
I straightened, eyes narrowing. “Maybe not. But is it fair that I’m gonna have to discuss the security protocol with Emmy’s school?”
It wouldn’t be an entirely new topic—we’d chosen her school partly for its security measures and their experience with kids of Manchester United players. But immediate media interest was a different kind of beast. At least the UK had decent protection in place for children of celebrities.
Fuck. I’d never wanted this for her.
“No,” Mum said. “Honey—”
“I’ll handle it,” I cut in. “May need to contact a private security company. Emmy will be fine at school, though. And as for me—not my first rodeo. I know how to plan around this kind of thing.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.” She said it quietly, handing me a cup of coffee with the kind of smile that made me feel about ten years old, with a scraped knee and a trembling lip.
“I’m fine, Mum.” I ducked my head, gaze sliding away, distant rain still pattering in my ears. “I’m not going to dive headfirst into a pool of booze and self-hate.” Not like last time Cass had walked away from me, when I’d sunk into a pit of bad decisions, so low I barely recognised the taste of morning air.
“I’m not actually worried about that either.” Her fingers skimmed the back of my hand. “Honey, you’re… I’ve always been proud of you. But I’m so, so proud of the person you’ve become.”
“Thank you, Mum.” I swallowed reflexively, tripped up by the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, a few silver strands escaping the hair she’d pulled back. She’d retire next year; my dad had already retired. They wouldn’t be around forever. With my emotions turned thin and fragile from tiptoeing along a mental ledge, the thought felt physical in its immediacy.
“I probably don’t tell you enough, do I?” my mum said softly and continued before I could reply. “But Levi, honey—don’t you think that maybe Cass has done some growing up, too?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told her, voice a notch too sharp.
“Doesn’t it?” Her tone was almost philosophical, a hint sad. It didn’t necessitate a response, and so I turned away, chasing the sour taste at the back of my throat with a bitter sip of coffee. The garden gleamed under an early sun, leaves stirring with an unfelt breeze—empty and silent, no trace of Cass. Already on his way to the airport, maybe.
I’d known it would end this way. So what if this time, I’d been first to pull the trigger?
Emily ventured into the kitchen a good while later, a disgruntled hedgehog in search of sustenance. I got her settled with some cut-up fruit and toast, then watched her jab at an apple slice with a fork, as though the fruit owed her an apology for the fact that mornings were a thing that existed.
Once my parents left to buy groceries for our last day here, Emily seemed to wake up in slow increments. It took about five minutes before she blinked around the kitchen, listened briefly, and then turned sleepy eyes on me. “Where’s Cass?”
I clung to a smile. “He had to go, love. Catch his flight.”
She put down her fork with a soft clank of metal on the wooden tabletop. “But he didn’t say goodbye!”
“He, uh.” My throat hurt. Everything hurt. “Something came up. He was in a bit of a hurry.”
Emily’s lips pursed. She didn’t look sleepy anymore, brows pulling together for a stormy, stubborn look. “But he said he wouldn’t make you sad again.”
When…? Oh. When he’d picked me up for our first dinner date, back in LA. Another broken promise, only it was my fault, too—I never should have handed him that much power over me. I should have known better.
And yet I didn’t want Emily to hate him.
“I don’t think he meant to,” I managed, words forced up from the deepest pit of my stomach. Still. Intentions mean sod all when the result’s the same.
“But he left,” Emily said, thick with indignation. “Why did he leave?”
“Because I told him to go,” I said, and it dropped like a stone in a quiet pond, sending outwards ripples along its surface. Fuck, I shouldn’t have told her. She was only seven, too young to understand that sometimes, life wasn’t bloody fair.
Except she knew. She’d learned that when Jessica died.
Emily absorbed that, the idea that I’d told Cass to go when I’d wanted—I… It didn’t matter.
“Did you get scared?” she asked slowly, like somewhere in her head, it was an idea that slotted into place and it all made sense. “Cass said he got really scared last time, but now he’s brave.”
Dammit, Cass. When did you say that?
“It’s not about being scared.” Air whistled through the gaping hole in my chest and made it just a little hard to speak. “He made a promise, and he broke it.”
“Oh.” She nodded, nose scrunching. “That’s bad. Promises are important.”
Like the promises I’d made to her mum. I inhaled around the raw ache, and God, I was doing my best. Wasn’t I?
“Yeah,” I said. “They really are.”
“That sucks.” Ah, kid wisdom. Emily picked up a slice of pear and turned it over with a subdued air, clearly still thinking it over. “So because he broke a promise, and that’s bad, you both have to be sad now?”
She made it sound much simpler than it was. I nodded anyway. “Yeah.”
“How do you know, like…” She stopped, a small world of heartbreak in her voice. “Promises are important. But isn’t it also important you’re happy? When Mum—” A catch in her breath, then she continued. “Before Mum left, she said, um...”
“Oh, honey.” I was out of my chair and by Emily’s side in a second, pulled her into my arms and held on. She was breathing a little too fast, in small hiccups, and, yeah, wow, it was possible for my heart to break just a little more.
“She said,” Emily started again, stubborn, face pressed against my chest, “that she wants me to be happy. That’s all she wants for me.”
Oh, Jesus. I bit the inside of my cheek, focused on the sting of pain to force back the tears. It wasn’t that we never spoke about Jessica—I’d always wanted Emily to remember just how much her mother had loved her. But usually, Emily went quiet when I brought up a memory, things Jessica had said or done, her laugh, how much she’d loved squirrels, of all things. Emily always listened with rapt attention, eyes big and a little wet, but she was never first to bring up her mum. This was… new.
“I know, honey.” I wrapped my arms just a little tighter around Emily’s small frame. “She made me promise that I’d do everything in my power to make that happen for you.”
It wasn’t the only promise I’d made. But it was the one that mattered the most.
Emily was silent for a long moment, hands fisted in my T-shirt. “So,” she said then, almost inaudibly, “if it’s really important that we’re happy, right? Then isn’t it… You smile lots with Cass. And he’s really nice. So what if he says he’s sorry about the promise? Like really, really sorry? Can he come back then?”
My heart performed a slow, painful turn. “It’s not that easy, sweetheart.”
“Why not?” It was plaintive, not a challenge.
“Because he’s famous.”
“But you’re also famous.”
I shook my head, nudging her back just enough to see her face. “Almost not at all anymore.”
“People want your picture all the time,” she said, like that was the very definition of fame. While ‘all the time’ was quite a stretch, I let it slide. Really not the point.
“See, but Cass is a lot more famous than I am. That’s why everyone watches what he does.” I chose my words with care—yeah, I’d been bruised by experiences you could hardly even explain to someone who hadn’t lived through the same. Trapped in a hotel room because a mob had formed outside the building; people screaming in my face, trying to press in closer; a police escort taking us to the airport. Rumours. So many rumours. But no, this wasn’t like that. “So, the thing is that because of that, he kind of made you a little famous too, even though he promised that wouldn’t happen. So now you and I need to be a bit more careful.”
“Will people ask me for pictures?” She perked up at the idea, and yeah, so much for my attempts to teach her that when I got stopped for a selfie, it didn’t make me cool or special, and that I kept her out of it not in order to hug the spotlight, but to protect her.
“No, sweetie—it’s not really safe if strangers recognise you on the street, you see?” I combed my hand through her tangled hair. “Because some people are mean. Or they’re little idiots, like Joey, who thinks it’s weird that your…” Your dad? Emily didn’t really call me that, or only in reference to how others saw us. But she was my daughter. “That your dad likes boys, and now they’ll think that it’s not just any boy I like, but a famous boy like Cass. And maybe they’ll have opinions about that, even though it’s none of their business. And then maybe they’ll treat you differently because of that.”
Emily’s forehead wrinkled, the entire concept clearly just a little beyond her. “Different how?”
“They might try to ask you things about Cass and me. Or they might tell you that I’m not good enough for him. Or that he doesn’t actually like boys, that it’s just a mistake.”
“But he does,” she said, very reasonably.
“Yeah, he does.” I smiled slightly and stepped back a little, my hands on her shoulders. The villa was breathing around us, in time with my heartbeat. “Some might try to be your friend, just because you know Cass.”
“But I already have friends.” She hesitated, voice very small all of a sudden. “Are they gonna treat me different?”
“No.” I repeated it for emphasis. “Not your real friends, no. No one who loves you will treat you any differently—not your friends, not me, not your Granny and Grandad. Certainly not Alba.”
“She’s a cat,” Emily said with great dignity. “She doesn’t understand that Cass is famous.”
