The reporter grinned and nodded once at Janet, who waved me to her table, where she proceeded to douse me in powders and creams, pulling my hair from its clip and waving a blow dryer around me. A half hour later, I joined Gran on the back porch, where she was expounding on the history of our plantation. She particularly liked the less glamorous parts.
“What most people wouldn’t probably know about Tobias Walthen,” she was saying, “was that he was a man of great appetites, if you get my drift.”
The assembled crewmembers shrugged and shook their heads. They were not getting her drift. Jack patted Chessy as he listened to Gran.
“Well, he had four different wives at one point, but he was a nice guy, see? When Thomas Jefferson came down this way, staying at this very house while he picked up some tips on growing tobacco and cannabis back at his own place in Virginia, Tobias offered to share.”
“Share his …” One of the cameramen said.
“His women!” Gran confirmed, her voice shrill with delight. “And then there was the time Alexander Hamilton—“
“That’s probably enough history,” I said, giving Gran a meaningful look.
She shrugged and returned to her book, muttering about people getting all worked up about nothing. I took a seat at the table, and gazed out over the lawn. One of the photographers was standing near Ryan and Juliet, posing them in front of a huge old tree. Juliet was smiling at the camera. Ryan’s heated gaze, however, was focused on me.
Chapter Nine
Ryan
Tess wasn’t the kind of woman who needed makeup to look better. She was gorgeous in every incarnation I’d seen so far—when she’d stood uncertainly on the steps as we’d arrived, sweating out in the barn from moving tables and chairs, and covered in perspiration and dressed in workout gear when she’d nearly knocked me over on the stairs. Every time I saw her it felt like seeing her again for the first time, like some kind of epic revelation my brain couldn’t hang on to. But seeing her out on the porch after Janet finished touching up her makeup and hair … I’d honestly never been more attracted to anyone.
We stood just off the porch, and I looked up at her in amazement. Her dark hair cascaded around her gorgeous pale face, hanging in loose waves over her shoulders and down her back. Her skin glowed from within, the lightest blush touching her pale cheeks. And her eyes—always compelling and deep—had become endless pools of light, reflecting the mid-morning sun in the green and brown depths.
“Ryan,” the photographer called, and I snapped my head around to see Juliet and the camera crew standing on the grass waiting for me to follow. I’d been literally stunned still by Tess’s appearance, and realized much too late that I’d been staring.
Tess gave me a smile, one that seemed to say, “okay, creeper, move along,” and I came back to myself. I was never going to sell how into Juliet I was if I kept drooling over her sister. I jogged across the lawn to Juliet, each step away from Tess feeling so wrong it hurt.
“Tess, will you join us?” the reporter, Alison Sands, called to her. “And we need a few shots with your grandmother, too.”
I slipped an arm around Juliet’s waist, more conscious than ever that I was in danger of ruining the deception, that my hammering heart and distracted mind might give us away if anyone had the slightest reason to suspect Juliet wasn’t the cause of them. I didn’t turn to watch Tess approach, but I could fucking feel her draw near as we turned to look out toward the water.
“Hey, babe,” Juliet said, leaning into my side. Right. Juliet. Focus on Juliet. I owed her my best performance.
Alison grinned at us. “What a cute couple,” she said. “Would you guys be up for some sexier shots? I saw the airport footage and it’s trending so well online. I think people are up for seeing more of that intimacy between you.” She waved us toward the edge of the lawn, where it sloped down into sand at the edge of the river.
“Sure,” I said, still feeling a tether pulling my focus backward, where I knew Tess was just feet from me.
“Tess, why don’t you jump in here for now? We’ll get a few shots of you with the couple and the big house in the background, a few with Helen, and then a couple of the water. And then we’ll get to the sexy stuff.”
Tess let out a laugh that sounded uncomfortable, and it worked its way inside me. This had to be strange for her, having this odd interruption to her daily life, having these people here. I glanced at the enormous security guys who stood on the periphery, constantly vigilant on her sister’s behalf. The bigger one—Jace, I think his name was?—looked extremely unhappy as he stared at my arm around Juliet’s waist. I wondered for a brief moment if she might need to worry about her bodyguard turning obsessive. I’d heard stories about things like that. But Juliet had hired the best, she’d told me so when I’d mentioned the guys who’d been accompanying us everywhere since I’d met her in the town car to begin our charade.
The photographer arranged us, Juliet in the circle of my arms and Tess standing at her side, and we shot for what felt like hours, eventually adding Gran to the mix too. I hoped the shots were good, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had the wrong woman in my arms.
We moved around the property a bit, posing here and there, always me with Juliet, Tess on the side, and eventually, Gran seated in front of us, complaining loudly and plucking at the dress Tess had made her go change into. “This is why I only wear cotton,” she said. “Preferably Juicy Couture. Doesn’t bind. Plenty of give.”
Alison was scribbling furiously.
“You don’t need to include that,” Tess said, laughing. “Just pretend she’s being gracious and acting like any other ninety year old woman.”
“Damn it, you people!” Gran spit out. “I’m not ninety until tomorrow. For now, I’m fifty-nine, just like I have been for years.”
Gran lightened the mood, but it all felt so false to me. Still, nothing was worse than when Tess stood behind the photographer watching us as Juliet and I were directed to lay down in the grass with the water behind us. If only I did have the hots for Juliet, it would have been a dream come true—staking my claim publicly for all of America to see. Instead, it felt like the worst acting I’d ever done.
They took shots of her straddling me, her hair cascading down around us as she sat with her long legs bent on either side of my hips and I reached up, holding her. They took shots of me hovering over her, as if we were close to losing control and going for it right here on the ground with everyone around. They pushed us to be closer, to make it sexier, and they even got a few shots with Juliet’s leg up around my hip and my hand on her breast. It was veering out of PG territory, and I tried as hard as I could not to look at Tess, but it was impossible, especially with Gran at her side, occasionally heckling things like, “Get it, son!”
Tess was beautiful, even as she watched Juliet and me together. Her eyes burned and her skin flushed, and I wondered if she felt it too—this strange connection between us. I barely knew her, so why did I feel like I was betraying her somehow, out here touching her sister for the camera? She was practically a stranger, but I knew I couldn’t watch her rolling around on the ground with another man. It would potentially kill me. And Tess’s body language and darting eyes told me it wasn’t comfortable for her either. Or was I reading into the way her breath seemed to lift her chest in shallow breaths, the high red dots in her cheeks?
“I think we’ve got what we need for now,” Alison said finally. Relief washed through me and I practically leapt away from Juliet before remembering myself and stepping back a bit.
We thanked the crew and they packed up and headed for the van out front while we headed back to the house.
“I’ll get some lunch put together,” Tess said tightly over her shoulder, and then she disappeared into the house, leaving Juliet and me on the front step.
“I think that went really well,” Juliet said, stepping away from me and glancing nervously at the security guard who stood at the edge of the porch. She probabl
y worried he might overhear us—I assumed even her security detail didn’t know we were just pretending, though they must have been confused by my sudden appearance at Juliet’s side. They had to know I hadn’t been around the house prior to this trip, that we hadn’t needed them to check restaurants or hold off photographers around town at home. I pulled her farther down the long porch to a set of chairs, and we sat down.
“I think we should tell your sister,” I said. I hadn’t even planned to say it, but the feeling that I was lying to Tess was eating at me. Which made no sense, given that she was basically a stranger. But there it was. I wanted her to know, needed her to know that I wasn’t interested in Juliet.
Juliet’s eyebrows flew up and she widened her eyes at me. “I don’t know,” she said. “The more people believing we’re a couple, the better.”
“It’s just hard to keep it all up inside the house,” I said. “And she already knows we are sleeping in separate rooms. And the interview’s over.”
“That’s true,” she said, one finger at the edge of her lips. She lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “The reporters are coming back for the party, but I guess we can tell Tess. We’d better not tell Gran, though. You never know what she’ll say.”
“Gran seems pretty harmless,” I said, my heart swelling at the idea of telling Tess the truth and my head spinning with the possibility of telling her other things.
“Gran is many things. She’s not harmless, though.” Juliet looked wary and I wondered how dangerous a little old lady could really be. Though hearing her yell “go for it, Jules!” as we were instructed to grope one another on the lawn made me think maybe Juliet had a point.
When Tess came out to get us for lunch, I followed the sisters through the house, waiting for Juliet to say the words that would free me, to tell Tess what I needed her to know. I’d offered to tell her, but Juliet had looked at me like I was crazy. Of course it would be her place to tell her.
Lunch was quiet—everyone gazing out over the rolling green lawn and staying inside their own heads. Every time Juliet opened her mouth I hoped it would be to let the cat out of the bag, and my heart would climb just a bit up my throat. But she didn’t broach the topic.
We cleaned our dishes up, Tess avoiding my eye the entire time as I struggled with my desire to just blurt the truth.
It wasn’t my truth to tell her though. Juliet had been clear about that. They were sisters. I was the outsider.
Chapter Ten
Tess
Watching Ryan and Juliet take sexy photos on the bank of the river was a challenge. I’d lived my life watching my sister get pretty much everything she wanted—or at least getting the things most people seemed to want. And watching her with Ryan was like grinding salt into recently opened old wounds that I’d been sure were healed over.
Which I was aware was one hundred percent ridiculous.
Ryan was a movie star I’d just met. He and my sister were together. And for good reason—she was perfect. She was gorgeous and thin, funny and charming. Standing next to her had always made it pretty clear who got the good-looks genes in our family.
Still, it wasn’t like I had a self-esteem problem. I’d always been happy with myself. I looked just like our mother, so how could that ever be a bad thing? My mother had been soft and sweet, with her long dark hair and her wide light eyes. I missed her, and if I got to see her again when I looked into the mirror in some small way, I was happy about that.
Still, I needed to remember I wasn’t a movie star. And I didn’t date them. Soon they’d be back on a plane to Hollywood and this would all be just a memory. I needed to focus on that. On my life here. On me, Gran, my business.
The strange intimacy that had sprung up between Ryan and me was compelling, but I had to keep telling myself it didn’t mean anything.
And that became easier as I went in and pulled lunch together. My phone chimed on the counter with a text, and I moved to pick it up.
Gran. Who had raced to her gaming room as soon as the interviewers had left. Evidently she’d scanned the news before she logged onto her game, because she’d sent me a link along with about thirty emojis of everything from camels to little faces with hearts all around them, and even a few pretty vulgar emojis I didn’t even know existed.
I was considering revoking her phone privileges.
I pulled up the link. It was the video I’d seen just before Juliet arrived, and as much as I dreaded watching it again, I couldn't help it.
The video began, and there were my sister and Ryan at LAX, making out like teenagers. She looked completely enraptured with the kiss, and then his hand slipped to her breast and my stomach turned. I switched off the phone, shoving it into my back pocket and turning back to the counter with my heart in my throat. Why the hell did I care?
“Hey.” Juliet stepped in through the swinging back door after we’d finished lunch. “Can I talk to you?”
I didn’t want to look at her. It was immature and silly, but I was feeling angry with her, angry for being Juliet. For being gorgeous, for being famous. And I knew that was unfair but it was an old jealousy. Maybe it was in my DNA. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that this was my sister. I loved her. And I didn’t see her enough. “Sure.” My voice wasn’t as friendly as I’d intended it to be.
“Are you okay?” She stepped closer, dipping her head to catch my gaze.
I pasted on a smile. “Fine. What’s up?”
“Uh, well … It feels wrong misleading you,” she began.
I felt my forehead wrinkle. Misleading me? I knew there was something she was hiding. Was she going to tell me about the blackmail rumor? About whatever had her staring off into space distractedly? “What?”
“Ryan and I agreed that we should tell you the truth.”
Oh God. I braced myself. What did she mean? Were they pregnant? Had they eloped or something? I had no idea what she could be about to say. “Okay,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“We aren’t really together.” The words hung in the air between us while I tried to sort through them and force them to make sense. I’d just watched a video in which they were very much together.
In which his hand and her breast were definitely together.
Where their lips were so together it was stomach-turning.
I stared at her, open-mouthed. They’d been rolling around on the lawn just moments before, the photographer telling them how in love they looked, how sexy the shots were. “What?”
“We’re faking it. As a distraction for the press.”
What? I shook my head slowly, letting the words process. Confusion and relief chased each other through my mind and words flitted away, lost to the murk in my mind. Luckily, Juliet kept talking so I didn’t have to.
“Zac is blackmailing me with a video he has of us. A sex tape. He’s saying if I don’t agree to his divorce terms, then he’ll release it. My lawyers are working on it, but I’ve pretty much told them to go ahead and give him whatever he wants. The press has been all over it, talking about my shitty deal and looking for reasons why I’d agree to it. I needed a distraction. I needed something for them to focus on besides the complete train wreck that was my marriage.”
“Oh.” I tried to find other words to say, but my mind was spinning around all the information she’d just given me. My first reaction was to be hurt that she’d treated me just like the press—lied to me as if I wasn’t part of the inner circle, couldn’t be trusted. Then again, she was telling me now. And the strange complicated life my sister led was what made her feel she needed to lie to me.
“I could never live in your world,” I told her. It was true. That any of this made rational sense to her was beyond me. I could never handle having to make choices like these, having to pick which aspect of my life I wanted splashed all over the tabloids.
She winced slightly, but she brushed off my comment with a little shrug. “I needed someone to help me, and Ryan is a good guy. We worked on that movie together and
I knew he might need …” she trailed off and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I knew he could use the lift. It was my agent’s idea, really.”
“The lift?”
“His career’s been flagging. His last couple movies didn’t do well. He was slipping.”
“And being linked romantically to you will help him?”
She had the grace to blush, but she nodded confirmation. “My agent thinks she can get him onto the next film I’m doing—it’s a romantic suspense and they want an action lead for the romantic hero. We kind of made a deal.”
“He acts like he loves you and you get him the job that will make him a star?” I understood the idea fundamentally, but I hadn’t decided yet if it was just business, or if there was some kind of moral deficit in someone who might make a deal like that.
She sighed. “Basically. It’s just business.”
So Juliet didn’t see any moralistic side to the deal. She wasn’t worried about it beyond whatever specifics they’d agreed upon. Maybe it really wasn’t my business either.
“Man,” I breathed. Could the rules that governed behavior in Hollywood really be so different than those in the rest of the world? Still, I didn’t really blame my sister. She understood her world—that was how she’d gotten to the top. But I hated the idea of career success being based on manipulating other people’s feelings. Mine included. I was disappointed in her, and I was trying to figure out if I had any right to feel that way. I wasn’t in her shoes—in her life. “Okay,” I said. “Well, thanks for telling me, I guess.”
“Ryan didn’t want to lie to you.” She squeezed my arm and smiled. “And neither did I.” Juliet turned and headed back outside, leaving me standing there, reeling.
Ryan didn’t want to lie to you.
The power those last words had over me was frightening, and they left me shaking slightly as I repeated them in my head. Why did Ryan care what I thought? Ryan was a movie star. He was a guy who went around flirting with and touching anyone he liked because he knew the power he had over people. He was a guy who’d link himself to a starlet in a false sexual relationship just to get ahead. Didn’t that make him kind of a dirty asshole? Or was it like Juliet said—was he a nice guy? In a world where the rules were so very different, was that the kind of thing nice guys did?
Happily Ever His: Movie Stars in Maryland, Book One Page 9
