Love on the Line (Beaumont Legacy #2)

40. Maya

Chapter forty

Maya

M aya heard a grunt and then her name. “Mayaaaaa,” the man called, and she was almost positive it was the reporter who’d been thrown out of the restaurant.

At some point in her shock, her phone had fallen to the ground, and at the muffled sounds of Cooper speaking, she ended the call. Then she set her phone on Do Not Disturb so it wouldn’t ring if he called again.

Maya hoped he would understand.

She heard things being knocked around in her room. “I know you’re in here,” the man called in an almost sing-song voice that made her heart still.

This was really it for Maya. She could feel it.

Her closet door creaked open, and she could just make out a stream of light through her clothes. Was she breathing? She didn’t think so.

When she heard her hangers being moved, screeching along the metal bar, she knew she wasn’t.

Get it together . Breathe .

She shifted the cover on the pepper spray, situating her pointer finger on top of it. Maya felt the tears streaming down her face but was too afraid to wipe them away in case any movement let him know where she was.

He took a step inside the closet. More hangers screeched until the light shone on her and she could just make out his face. He didn’t see her at first, and in the second Maya had before he did, she realized she’d been right.

The reporter who’d been bothering her for months was inside her closet.

And now he was scowling down at her. “Filthy little whore,” he spat. “You little shits got me fir—”

Maya didn’t wait for him to finish. Through watery eyes, she pressed down on the pepper spray trigger. His words turned garbled, and even as she felt the burn of it in her own eyes, she pushed him, hard. As fast as her shaky, adrenaline-filled legs would take her, she dashed out of the room and down the stairs, hearing screaming and pounding footsteps behind her.

The stinging of tears and the spray made it impossible for her to see straight, but she knew this house well, and she beelined for the front door, hoping one of her neighbors might be able to help her.

Maya slammed into something, hard, and when she felt arms around her, she struggled against them, smashing her head into the person’s chest and screaming. Maybe the guy had brought a friend. And if so, she was well and truly fucked.

“Shh, shh, I’m a police officer. You’re okay. It’s okay.” The words didn’t register, and she continued struggling. “Miss, please.” There was a crackling, like that of a walkie talkie.

All the fight left her when another man stepped beside them and yelled past her, “Police! Don’t move!”

There was a scuffle and a thump.

“Let me go! I didn’t do anything!” the reporter screamed.

Maya wiped at her eyes, taking in the uniformed man holding her gently. Behind her, the reporter glared at her.

What had she done to make this man hate her so much? Clearly he’d known her name and her address, so he hadn’t mistaken her. But she had no idea what he’d meant when he’d claimed she’d gotten him fired .

“Is there anybody else in the house?” the officer let go of her, but his words were quiet.

Maya shrugged and shook her head uncertainly. Did this man have an accomplice? He hadn’t been with anyone at the restaurant. “I’m not sure. I was alone, but he might have brought someone else,” she murmured. Her words didn’t sound like her own, so raw.

The other officer walked out, dragging the reporter with him. “I’ll read him his rights outside.”

When they were gone and Maya began to hear the blood rushing in her ears, the man in front of her started speaking. “Do you need medical attention?” Maya shook her head. Her eyes were already feeling better. “Okay. We’re having a photographer come out to take pictures of everything. We do need a statement from you and then we’ll be out of your hair, okay?”

Maya nodded wordlessly.

“Do you have any family or friends nearby you’d like to call to come be with you before we take your statement?”

Maya thought of Devi and her grandparents and nodded again.

“Okay. I’ll be outside to take your statement when you’re ready.”

She thought it would be useless to nod again, so she walked upstairs to get her phone. Maya texted Cooper that she was okay because she was sure he was worrying. Then she called Devi and shakily told her everything.

“Can you tell Nani and Nana? And my brothers?”

“Of course I will. And I’m coming over right now.”

Maya felt like grass, pushed and pulled in different directions by the wind. The officer asked her questions, and she answered to the best of her ability.

No, she didn’t really know him. She’d seen him outside her house once, and maybe at a press conference for her charity months ago. Then she explained what had happened at the restaurant.

Sometime during her statement, her grandparents and Devi had shown up. They’d held her until she needed to pull away to breathe.

It all felt like everything moved in slow motion and so quickly all at once. The officers told her they would call when they had more information, because it seemed this was a targeted attack. They took pictures, let her know the house was no longer a crime scene, and took the reporter into custody. She’d called Cooper and let him know she was unharmed and with family and that she would call again in a few hours when things had settled down.

Maya hadn’t wanted to worry him after all, and he’d been frantic when she’d first spoken to him.

She’d tried to eat something, some leftovers from her fridge, but she couldn’t remember what. Devi had put the TV on, and she’d stared at it wordlessly, her cousin on one side and her grandparents asleep in the armchairs beside them. Even when Devi finally fell asleep, Maya couldn’t.

It was like she was existing outside of her body, watching everything unfold.

Right around midnight, Maya jumped at the sound of the door opening, and there Landon stood like he’d forced someone to fly him out as soon as he’d heard the news .

Maya stood and walked into his open arms. She stayed there until she remembered that he’d probably been awake as long as she had trying to get to her.

She grabbed him a water bottle, and they sat on the stairs, not wanting to disturb their sleeping family. Landon’s eyes kept straying to their grandparents, like he couldn’t believe he was seeing who he was seeing. Even though she had grown closer with them, Landon hadn’t been able to visit them the couple of times he’d come to see Maya.

“I’m glad they were here,” he whispered, leaning back against the stair and rubbing his chest, looking up at the vaulted ceiling of the foyer.

“Me too.”

“Do they talk about Mom a lot?”

“Only when I ask them to.”

“Do you think…Do you think they’d be open to me coming by more?”

Maya leaned her head against his shoulder. “I think they’d really like that. And so would I.”

Landon nodded. “I’m glad you’re safe. When Devi called and told me, I nearly dropped my phone. I called like twenty people I knew trying to find someone with a private plane, and then when I did, I pestered the crap out of them. I would’ve flown that shit on my own if I had to.”

“Thank you.” Maya knew how difficult it was for Landon to express his emotions. Not like either of her brothers had ever been big on talking about their feelings, but Landon especially had kept them bottled up for as long as she could remember.

“We need to get you a security system in this house. I’m surprised Dad doesn’t already have one considering there’s no one permanently living here to keep an eye on the place.”

“Yeah…” Though she hadn’t thought much about anything since the break in, Maya’s brain had certainly flitted across Cooper’s offer to live together multiple times. She hadn’t made much of a decision, or really one at all, but she kept it in her mind, continuing to mull it over.

At the very least, she needed a security system and to spend more time at her grandparents’ house or Devi’s apartment. But the thought of asking them to allow that made her insides turn. That was far too much to put on them.

“You can stay with me too sometimes. If you want. There’s a ton to do in the Bay Area, and you wouldn’t be far. I could show you Santa Cruz and all the silly sightseeing things in San Francisco.”

“That’s so sweet of you. Thank you.”

Maya wouldn’t take him up on his offer though. She already knew that. As badly as she wanted to spend more time with him, she would never be okay taking up that much space or time.

This whole situation was a nightmare. Without the adrenaline, Maya’s body felt like it was shutting down. And every single person in her life was offering for her to move closer to them so that she would be safe. She couldn’t do it.

Maya felt like she was twelve again, held together by Colton as her panic attacks ebbed and flowed. Taking up too much space in his life. In everyone’s life.

She had never forgiven herself for what she’d put her brothers through. They’d lost their mother too, and rather than having the space they needed to grieve, rather than being able to work through their own issues and get a good night of sleep after their father forced them to work harder than anyone else on the field, they’d had to take care of her.

Maya began to get choked up, and she sat up, putting her head in her hands.

Landon placed a hand on her shoulder, but before he could say anything, she said, “I’m sorry. That you and Colton always had to take care of me after Mom.”

Landon’s hand slid around to her other shoulder, pulling her into his side. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I wish I had been there more. Colton was always in your room, helping you, and I felt like shit for not trying to do something too. I didn’t know what to do, and you never seemed to need me, and I didn’t want to intrude on something that seemed to be between you and Colton. But you needed someone, especially after Colton went to school, and god knows Dad wasn’t there for you. You needed me and I didn’t step up. I’m sorry. That it maybe wasn’t enough.”

“You were there. That was enough.” She leaned into him a bit more. “I’m glad you’re my big brother. ”

Having him back in her life these last few months, more than since she’d been a kid, had meant the world to her.

They dozed off on the stairs after talking a bit more, startled awake by her phone vibrating, her father’s contact flashing. Maya stared at it groggily, noting it was almost seven in the morning, before looking at Landon. He was also frowning but shrugged.

“Hello?” she answered. Her father never called her first.

“Colton told me something happened at the house. Is there a lot of damage?”

The first words spoken to her since January, and they weren’t even to ask if she was okay. He only cared about the house.

“I…I don’t really know. Somebody followed me home and broke in through a window.”

“Did you lock everything?” he asked accusingly. Landon bristled beside her, clearly listening in. He reached for the phone, but Maya shook her head.

Landon’s relationship with their father was bad too. Maya didn’t want him making it any worse on her account.

“Of course I did. I double-checked the doors and the windows before I went upstairs.”

He sighed like she’d told him the worst news, not like she’d just said she’d tried her best to make sure this didn’t happen.

“Great. Well now I have to come out there and make sure I take stock of the damage. ”

A headache speared through her left temple, and she rubbed at it. “I can do whatever you need me to.”

The front door flew open, and dressed in a wrinkled sweatshirt and jeans stood Cooper, his hair in complete disarray and his beard longer than he usually allowed it. His eyebrows were drawn together like he was in pain.

Maya’s world stopped when she noticed him.

“Dad, I got to go,” she said. It felt good to be the one pushing him off the phone for once, rather than the other way around. She’d spent so much of her life waiting for him to care about her, to give a single damn about her, and over the last year, she’d slowly realized that wasn’t going to happen.

But Cooper did care about her. So she hung up and ran into Cooper’s embrace, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his chest.