She glanced off set, and a thin guy with a pencil mustache emerged from the group. “This is the phone we’re using. I can be the person at the other end, if you need someone.”
“Sure, whatever.” Dana took the phone and turned it over in her hand. “This is the same case as Emma’s?”
“Same case and cover pic,” the guy said smoothly. “Ringtone also.”
I stole a look at the phone, which was a Nokia—a guaranteed product placement because iPhone never paid. Still, I was surprised she couldn't have swung a Samsung or LG sponsor. Nokia was the bottom of the barrel of influencer packaging, but maybe that’s what you got at twenty million followers.
We walked through the setup during the fifteen minutes it took Emma to change, and I almost missed the moment she walked back through the living room and out the French doors.
Almost. I’d have to be a blind man to miss the view of her in a string bikini, her hair loose and down around her shoulders. I stopped mid-sentence and watched as she eased out the door and stepped into the sun.
I called her white trash once, but it wasn’t true. Emma had always had an air of class about her. A smooth fragility. At the party, it had been hidden behind a baggy sweatshirt and defensive posture, and now it was cased in wit and confidence—but the vulnerability was still there, softening her rough edges.
She dropped her towel on a chair and eased into the pool, and I fought back a growl as three cameras captured the action, the men circling her like lions moving in for a kill.
“Got it?” Dana snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“Yeah,” I snapped. “I got it. I’ve answered a phone before.”
"Great," she said tartly. "Then, maybe we can knock this out before lunchtime." She looked past me and into the sitting area, which was crammed with crew and equipment. “Glorya, you ready to make the call?"
“Yep.”
“Is Emma in the pool?”
“Emma’s in the pool,” someone called out.
Everyone fell silent, and Dana nodded at me. I opened the fridge and pulled out the milk, glancing over when Emma's fake cell phone, which was on the counter next to her purse, rang.
* * *
The fake call ended, and I was at the counter eating a ham and cheese. She came in, her cheeks flushed, skin glistening, a white towel wrapped around her body and tucked into her cleavage. I kept my gaze on the sandwich before me and listened as she circled the end of the counter and opened the fridge.
"Our drink selections suck," she complained, pulling an orange Fanta from the door and pushing it shut with her hip. I tried not to notice her bare legs or the cling of the towel against her ass.
“Where’d you get the sandwich?” She paused beside me, close enough that I could smell her sunscreen.
I looked up and made, for the first time that day, eye contact with her. “I made it.”
“Wow, Cash Mitchell makes his own food.” She cracked open the can. “Shocking. I would have thought you had people for that.” She grinned at me, then took a sip.
I looked back down at the sandwich and prayed for this to just be over already.
“THIS IS BORING,” Dana said loudly. “Either start jacking him off or check your damn phone. I’m honestly fine with either.”
I could have imagined it, but I think her cheeks colored at that, which was strange. I'd always imagined Emma was a hellcat in bed, the sort who handcuffed you to her headboard before taking control. The idea of a meeker, less experienced Emma pulled at me in an unsettling way.
She turned away and the moment, if there had been one, ended. She reached for her phone, and I wondered what acting chops she had. She settled into the stool at the bar and swiped through the device.
I took another bite of my sandwich. Honestly, I hadn’t made it. A blonde crew member with pigtails and a Packers hat had given it to me, then added extra mayonnaise after she’d analyzed my first bite.
“What do you think of the show so far?” Emma set down her phone and tilted her head at me.
“Uh… what?” I glanced at the living room, where Dana raised her hands in exasperation.
"It's weird, right? I mean, I'm used to being on camera, but it's still odd. I was peeing this morning, and I could hear the guy on the other side of the door, waiting for me. I swear, there's a sound clip somewhere of my urine." She laughed.
Laughed. Emma Blanton, evil witch of the west, laughed. And it sounded genuine, which only moved my confusion higher. What was happening right now? Was this a genuine conversation? Because we were supposed to be talking about her phone.
She was looking at me. Waiting. What had she asked me?
I took another bite of my sandwich, and I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with my hands once I finished it.
She waited for another beat, then sighed and picked her phone back up. She hunched over the screen, then looked back up at me. "This says that I just got a call."
Finally. I nodded and worked to swallow the bite. "Yeah." I coughed. "I called out to you, but you were in the pool."
"So… you answered it?" She stood up, and she looked seriously pissed. So much so that I couldn't tell if she was pretending because she looked furious.
“Uh, yeah. I took a message for you. It’s…” I looked for the piece of paper where Dana had written down a name and number. “It’s here somewhere.” I pointed to the drawer beside the fridge. “There. Open that drawer.”
She stood, and a bead of water ran from the end of her hair down in between her cleavage. Pulling open the drawer, she picked up the paper. I watched her face, waited for it to calm, but it only darkened. "Chet Morris. Vision Placements."
“Yeah.”
“I suppose you were going to tell me about this?”
I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She looked at me, and if she was acting, she was damn good at it. “I told Marissa yesterday that I was waiting for this call. You were right there.”
“And you got the call.” I set down the sandwich and stood up. “So?”
"So," she said patiently, in the way an executioner would take a deep breath before whacking off your skull, "you answered my phone and wrote down this number and then stuck it in this drawer full of whisks where I would never see it."
“You think I intentionally hid the call from you?” I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. “Be serious.”
"You're with Vision Placements. We all know about your seven-figure deal—god, your publicist wouldn't shut up about it. Which is so great, because we all know you needed the extra million.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and dared her to continue.
She stepped closer and jabbed her finger into my chest. “Just admit it, Cash,” she hissed. “You didn’t want the competition.”
I had to laugh at that. Talk about truly funny. I stretched out the laughter a little longer than was necessary, but it was worth it, her face darkening with each additional guffaw. I gasped for breath and then gave it another throaty chuckle.
And that was when she went off script and slammed her fist toward my face. I turned to avoid the blow, but it caught my jaw. Honestly, I thought her manager had been a giant baby about the whole thing when she’d done it to him, but damn—that girl could pack a punch. I’ve had grown men deliver less of a blow.
41
#whathadhappenedwas
EMMA
My cheeks felt like they were under a heat lamp when Dana made that comment about jacking him off. He looked at me when she said it, and I couldn’t look away. And there was this long awkward moment where we just stared at each other.
It was… it was almost nice, a calm before the storm.
And the punch was the wrong thing to do, I know that. It was unplanned and completely impulsive, but trust me when I say that I had to do it. Which sounds crazy, right? I mean, who has to punch someone? Especially when they aren't doing anything other than laughing. But uggggh, that laugh was obnoxious. And he was laugh
ing at me—that was the painful part of it. Whether we were playing a part or not, the mockery was real. He was laughing at the thought that he could ever be threatened by me. And it wasn't just a quiet chuckle. He was intentionally cruel about it, and in a moment that was being captured on film and would be broadcast to the entire nation—or at least the subset that watched MTV.
But the embarrassment and humiliation weren't why I punched him. I did it—and damn, that iron jaw hurt—because I had felt myself preparing to kiss him. Feet inching forward. Hands twitching to grab onto his shirt and tug him to me. Lips trembling with the realization that they wanted to press against his.
I was going to try to kiss him, and I was terrified of how he would react, and everyone was staring at us. Watching. Recording.
So I punched him. And yes, I realize how insane that sounds.
42
#findemma
CASH
She punched me and ran. Like, literally ran out of the kitchen in her towel, pushed through the pile of crew and assistants, past the craft service bar, and out of the front door. It slammed against the frame, and there was a moment of total silence in the house before Dana screamed at everyone to chase her.
You’ve probably seen the footage of the chase. Everyone has. It's like a shaky Jerry Springer clip where the camera guy is wheezing as he jostles after her, and Emma flicks him off as she's getting into the car, and you see a production assistant tugging at the exit gate, but it's useless because Emma was already halfway down the drive, her windows down, wet hair blowing in the wind, and then she was gone.
Within fifteen minutes, everyone was back inside, huddled in the kitchen, an emergency production meeting underway. I was offered an ice pack that was quickly snatched away by Dana, who muttered something about preserving the injury.
“We need to get Cash into an interview asap, but let’s get legal out of the way first. Suits from the network are on their way, and I’ll need signed statements from everyone who saw what happened or caught any of it on camera. We also need the daily’s to show them that this wasn’t planned.
“Police are on their way,” a brunette in coveralls piped up.
“Get cameras outside and record them pulling in. Cash, try to look more wounded, okay? We want video of him with the cops and a closeup on the charges, so do it discreetly, but zoom in on the paperwork whenever you can.” She surveyed the room and ignored my hand, which I raised in question. “Who is following Emma?”
“Ned and Tyler took the van. But she doesn’t have her phone, so we don’t have tracking.”
Dana cursed.
“Are you guys tracking our phones?” Marissa pushed into the kitchen. “That’s a complete violation of our personal rights.”
“That you all agreed to in your contracts,” Dana snapped. “We can’t record you if we don’t know where you are.”
I looked to the sidelines where Eileen’s manager spoke up. “She’s right.”
Marissa sputtered through an argument and I tuned out. I’d never had privacy. I wasn’t sure I even fully understood the concept. I’d been followed, photographed, and recorded since I was a child. There wasn’t an inch of our home that hadn’t been watched by security cams, and I never went anywhere that escaped paparazzi or follower cameras.
I dropped my hand and barged into the argument. "I'm not pressing charges on Emma."
“Holy shit,” Eileen breathed, moving closer to me, her fingers ghosting over my jaw. “You’re going to have a serious bruise.”
“Hold that reaction until we get a camera on you,” Dana shrilled. “Where in jack tar village are my cameras?”
“Ned and Tyler have two, plus the guys out front waiting on the police.”
“Well, get me one,” she snapped. “I don’t care if it’s your iPhone. We need this. In fact,” she looked around. “Every crew member who wants a paycheck this week, pull out your phones and record something.”
“The cops are pulling in,” someone called from the front of the house.
“Dana, I’m not talking to the cops,” I said. “I’m not pressing charges.”
“Oh honey,” her face pinched together in mock sympathy. “Of course you are.”
She was right, but also wrong. As my attorney later explained, pressing charges wasn't even a thing. The police did a report, took the video evidence, and referred the allegations to the district attorney's office, who would issue charges with or without my cooperation. I did my best to help Emma, but she was still charged with assault. Not right away, but later. Initially, they couldn’t charge her because she wasn’t there.
She drove out of those gates in a red bikini and white towel, without her phone or wallet and disappeared.
43
#drinkinggames
CASH
“Okay, never have I ever…” Marissa paused, then looked around the table. “Ate lamb.”
We all groaned in unison, and Eileen pushed up from the table and huffed. "This is bullshit. You can't just name a different meat every time it's your turn."
I took a sip of my beer and glanced toward the front door of the house. “I don’t understand why we’re filming without her here.”
“Yeah, shouldn’t we be out looking for her?” Eileen chimed in.
“She’s not a lost kitten,” Layton drawled, tipping back his eighth beer of the night. “She’s a big girl. She knows where she is.”
"And where is that?" Marissa folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. "They have people at her apartment, and she doesn't have cash, her wallet, or her id. She can't stay anywhere without those things."
“Maybe she’s at a friend’s house,” Eileen offered. “Or her parents.”
"Umm… her parents are like white trash." Marissa looked to me for verification, and I hated myself for saying that. "I think she cut ties with them after they did that Celebrity Star magazine article about her.”
"And she doesn't have friends." Emma's black stylist spoke up from her spot at the table. Dana had decided that she liked the ethnic addition, plus needed the conversational source for moments like this. Emma's disappearance, as much as Dana was screaming and stomping around… was probably great for show fodder. In fact, I had to wonder if the punch, the sprint out… was all on a script I hadn't seen. Though, if Emma had done it by Dana’s orders, she could have gone a little easier on the punch. I tenderly touched my jawline, which was getting puffy.
“What about Bojan?” Eileen countered. “They’re photographed together all the time.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” the stylist said, and I remembered her name. Dion. “I guess he’s her one friend. But he’s in Dubai. They already checked. And his doorman hasn’t heard from him or seen Emma. His condo is at Ludwins, so…”
“Lud-what?” Layton cocked an eyebrow.
“Ludwins,” chimed Eileen. “It’s where, like, the presidents stay. It’s super high security. You need, like, a background check and fingerprints on file just to walk in the door.”
"Emma isn't allowed there," Dion remarked. "We always shoot her and Bojan at her place. They won't approve her for entry when Bojan is in town, so with him out of town…" she shook her head, and her curls bounced off her shoulders. "She's not there."
“She has to have a friend," Marissa countered stubbornly. "Other than Bojan."
I watched as a camera moved closer, focusing on Dion’s face. The girl raised both eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Nah. Seriously. No other friends. Haven’t you watched her videos? You think anyone in the industry wants to be friends with someone who trashes like that?”
This was going to be bad. By the time Emma returned, they were going to dissect her entire life, and all on camera.
The front door finally opened, and I turned, disappointed to see Emma's manager stride in, full of self-importance. “All of the news outlets are aware. Gossip sites have lookout reports posted for her. We put a reward of $250,000 up, and it’s trending. Someone will find her, though I’m hoping we’ll
get around eight to ten hours of press before she crawls out of whatever high-thread-count bed she’s curled up in.”
“Ohhh… a guy!” Eileen breathed, her eyes lighting up at the thought. “I bet she hooked up with a random and is hiding out at his place.”
“Again… no.” Dion glared at her. “She’s like, asexual. The only guys she has ever been on dates with were set up by her publicist. And we all know how those have gone.” She looked pointedly at me.
Asexual? That isn’t how I ever pictured Emma, and certainly wasn’t the vibe I’ve ever gotten from her in our face-to-face encounters. Then again, I obviously couldn’t read her well. In the kitchen, when she was screaming at me about her phone—I actually thought there had been some chemistry there. A fire.
Maybe it had been a fire of hatred I had mistaken for heat.
“Dion,” the manager snapped from the sideline. “Shut up unless you’re raving about how wonderful Emma is.” She settled in beside Dana, her arms across her enormous chest, and the two women could have been sisters.
“Maybe she’s been arrested,” Marissa whispered, her gaze darting toward the living room where a dozen people stood, watching and listening. “And they just don’t want to tell us.”
“Maybe she’s trashed and partying,” Johno mused. “That’s what I’d do.”
"If she was partying, someone would catch it on camera and claim the reward." Layton brought a red plastic cup up to his mouth and spat a hunk of brown liquid into it.
"It's pretty genius, you know." Eileen kicked her foot up and rested it on the empty chair that should house Emma. "I mean, look at this. The entire first episode is going to be about her, plus she's trending, you know her numbers are growing, and her sponsors are probably beside themselves in happiness right now.”
"She punched me," I pointed out. "She's probably facing assault charges, and will lose sponsors."
The F List: Fame, Fortune, and Followers Page 10
