Falling Into Love with You (The Hate-Love Duet Book 2) by Rowe, Lauren (grave mercy .TXT) 📕

of awkward, uncharacteristically personal questions to get him to mention any of what he just said. But, no, right off the bat, I’ve hit a grand slam homerun.

Laila’s plainly furious with me. It’s not hard to see. Which makes sense, since I’ve just outed her as a liar, unless, I suppose, Charlie is a bisexual adulterer and Laila the kind of girl who’d have a tour fling with a married man. But, come on, I think we both know, in this moment, the jig is up. Her lie revealed. Yes, I was the one who jumped to the wrong conclusion in the first place about Charlie and then went on and on about my theory backstage at the awards show. But Laila confirmed her fling with Charlie and stoked my jealousy, mercilessly. So now, as far as she’s concerned, I’ve just figured out the truth about all of it.

“Hey, you know what, Charlie?” Laila says, peeling her blazing blue eyes off my smug face. “Savage didn’t know this when he invited you here to surprise me, but I’ve got plans this morning I can’t reschedule.”

“Oh, no,” Charlie says.

“Yeah, it’s a bummer. Hopefully, we can do this another time. But you two go ahead.” She looks at me, her blue eyes homicidal. “I’ll have Mike come get me now and come back for you later.”

And that’s it. Before I’ve replied, Laila turns on her heel and strides toward the exit of the gym.

“Wait!” I shout, my heart thrumming wildly in my chest. I feel panicky. Like I’ve made a misstep. Something is off. Laila was pissed the minute she saw Charlie. Yes, her anger seemed to escalate when Charlie mentioned his stepdaughter and husband, thereby proving her a liar. But I can’t shake the feeling there’s something I don’t know at play here. Some land mine I’ve stumbled into that just blew my arms and legs off, without me realizing it. “Laila, wait!”

To my surprise, she turns around in the doorway, her blue eyes blazing and her cheeks on fire. “What?” she says.

“Maybe we should . . . do another live video to let people know you made it into the gym.”

She smiles, making my stomach twist. That wasn’t a happy smile. That was a murderous one. “Great idea,” she says. “Record it now. We’ll tell everyone you got exactly what you wanted this morning.”

I grimace, unsure what to do.

“Go on,” she prompts, motioning. “Wouldn’t want to keep everyone in suspense.”

Fuck. She looks genuinely enraged. Capable of murder. And not for show.

“Uhh . . .”

“I’ll do it myself.” She grabs her phone out of a side pocket in her leggings, trains the camera on herself, and plasters a huge, fake smile on her face. She says, “Hey, guys! You did it! You convinced me to get in here and work out! I’m in the gym with my boyfriend now. He’s right there. Say hi, Savage.”

I wave feebly, feeling the hair on the back of my neck standing up.

“And that’s Charlie Ford right there. The world’s most amazing personal trainer. Say hi, Charlie!”

“Hey, everyone!”

Laila returns the camera to herself. “I’ll put Charlie’s links below so you can follow him. He’s amazing, guys. And easy on the eyes, too. I can honestly tell you there’s not a mean, selfish, self-centered, thoughtless, hypocritical bone in Charlie’s body. Which is more than I can say about the other guy in this room. Man, don’t you hate hypocrisy? When someone says one thing and does another? I especially hate it when the thing that person said was deeply meaningful to me. When I relied on it, totally. And in fact, needed it to be the truth, or everything else would fall apart.” With that, she trains the camera on my astonished face and shouts, “That’s the face of a hypocrite, guys! Not so pretty, is it?” With that, she lowers her phone, flips me off, and stalks out of the room.

“Whoa,” Charlie says, obviously taken aback by what just transpired. “What just happened?”

My heart is crashing. “Hell if I know,” I say. And, unfortunately, it’s the truth. For a second there, I thought Laila figured out what I was trying to do and played along, a little too well. But the look in her eye at the end there felt all too real. Like genuine white-hot rage, the likes of which I haven’t seen from Laila since the tour. “That had nothing to do with you, Charlie,” I choke out. “Laila and I were having an argument before you got here, and I guess I didn’t read the situation right.”

“You should go.”

I take a deep breath. “No. Let’s work out. She obviously needs a little ‘alone time.’”

Charlie shakes his head. “No, I think you should follow her, Savage.”

My heart wants to run after her. To take her into my arms and tell her I did this for her—to get her into character for today’s shooting day. But my head tells me that’s exactly what I shouldn’t do. “No, trust me,” I say, “it’s for the best if I leave her alone to stew and get as angry as possible at me. Let’s work out. I’ll talk to Laila about everything tonight, when we get home from work.”

Charlie looks at me like I’m crazy. “I realize I don’t know Laila nearly as well as you do, but we got to be pretty good friends during the tour. And I think she wanted you to follow her, Savage. Did you see the way she lingered in the doorway for a minute? It seemed like—”

“You need to trust me on this, Charlie. The best thing I can do for Laila is leave her alone, let her get pissed as hell, and throw myself on her mercy later tonight after all shooting has wrapped for the day. Now come on. I want you to really make me sweat.”

Eighteen

Laila

“Where the hell is Savage?” Nadine barks at no one in particular.

It’s Draft Day at Sing Your Heart Out. And all the