by Amity Cross
“He signed, bitch.” Vix laughed, the sound swatting me away like I was a pesky fly. “Oh, just so you know, it was me who tipped off the paparazzi on your pathetic arse,” she said, dropping a bombshell. “Well, it was me after that trashy Roberto…Rob… Robbo…whatever his name was, gave Seb up to them. Did he ever tell you that?”
My heart sank into my stomach.
“It’s only a matter of time before your gold-digging arse does us all a favour and fucks off.” She sneered and stepped around me. “Nice knowing you, Juniper. I’d say it was a pleasure, but I really hate your fucking guts.”
The door opened, letting in a wall of sound, then it muffled as it swung shut.
Staring at my reflection, I scowled. My fingers tightened into fists and my nails dug painfully into my palms. What was it about me that inspired so much hate? A darkness opened up inside my heart and I wondered what the point was. If being with Sebastian caused so much pain, then what were we fighting for? Love?
I didn’t even know who I was, so how could he love me? He couldn’t even bring himself to mention he’d seen Mallory, or the fact that Vix was responsible when the tabloids printed those awful stories about my dad’s suicide. If that was his way of protecting me, then he was going about things the wrong way. Ignorance wasn’t bliss, it just made me look stupid.
I was beginning to see why he wanted to get away in the first place. Music might soothe the weary soul, but the price of fame was too high.
I took one last breath, squared my shoulders, and smoothed my palms over my velvety dress. I looked fucking great no matter what those bitches said.
Leaving the bathroom, I raked my gaze over the party searching for Sebastian. I had no idea what I was going to say to him, but I was tired of being the outsider. I didn’t want to just do something, I wanted to be someone.
Mallory was standing on one side of the room, pouting and licking the rim of her martini glass suggestively. Scowling, I followed her line of sight and found Sebastian staring at her. She was eye-fucking him across the room and he wasn’t looking away.
Seeing red, I strode towards him, anger truly lodged into my heart. When he saw me, his expression changed, but I could hardly see a foot in front of me.
“What’s wrong?” His brow creased.
“Nothing.” Coward.
“Bullshit. Something’s bothering you.” His hand settled on my waist. “I know this thing between us has been a fast trip, but I can tell.”
“How?”
“Because you’re avoiding me when it’s always been easy to talk. We’ve never had awkward silence.”
I didn’t want to bring it up here, but with my nemesis making provocative gestures at my boyfriend across a crowded room, I had to do something.
“She was at the concert the other night,” I said. “You were with her right before we had sex in your dressing room. You were with Mallory.”
Sebastian’s expression dropped. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck. Is that what you did with her? Do you like double dipping? You were eye-fucking her just now. I saw.”
“Juniper, I’d never do that to you. Never.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded. “She had a go at me with her long legs and massive tits. She’s a manipulative bitch, but at least she knows what she wants to do with her life, I suppose.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“I’m lonely, Sebastian. I’ve always been on my own and it’s never bothered me, but this is different. Alone isn’t lonely. You all have these big lives that don’t include me. You’ve got your fans, concerts, tours, interviews, photo shoots, parties… I don’t fit into any of it.” But Mallory did. “Nobody wants to know me. Me being here is a problem for your contract, it’s interfering with your job.”
“She’s got into your head, hasn’t she?” he asked, his breath catching. “Mallory.”
I shook my head.
“Vix?”
Maybe those mean girls had buried their poisonous barbs into my brain, but it was all true. I was a hanger-on, a nobody. I served absolutely no purpose here other than a hole for Sebastian to fuck. I couldn’t see the way forward anymore. I couldn’t see my heart or my feelings, instead, I just saw hopeless lust.
“What are we doing, Sebastian?” I murmured, my voice barely audible over the music. “Are we just fooling ourselves?”
“Don’t let them get to you,” he pleaded. “Juniper, they’re—”
I didn’t get to hear what he was going to say because a loud moan tore the words from his throat. Our attention was pulled across the room, along with the entire party of celebrities, musicians, actors, and influencers. As my gaze hit the giant images above the dance floor, my heart stopped.
Sebastian and I were projected on the impossibly tall screens, deep in the throes of passion. I was lying on the seat of a limousine, my breasts on show as he relentlessly fucked me. We’d been filmed… The night of the album release party… Someone had filmed us.
I couldn’t breathe. People were staring at me, smirking and sniggering.
I looked at Sebastian, but he didn’t move. He just stood there, staring at us having sex on that screen and did nothing to stop it. He did nothing while a private and intimate moment was splashed up there for all to see.
I took a step back, but he didn’t move. More people were turning to stare as my humiliation reached nuclear levels.
Looking around the room for an escape, I locked eyes with Vix. She lifted her glass in a silent toast, her smirk saying it all.
My friends, my boyfriend, the family Sebastian wanted me to be part of… They all did nothing. I looked around, but there wasn’t one friendly face in the entire room.
Choking back a sob, I fled from the party, barely holding onto my tears as I pushed past famous musicians and celebrities. What had I done? I’d had the audacity to fall for a rock star.
My heels clicked on the marble floor as I pushed into the foyer. Thankfully, no one was out here to witness my walk of shame. It was only a matter of time before this was plastered all over the media. People would share the video, jack off to it, pass their judgment and shame on me until—
“Juniper!” Sebastian’s voice echoed behind me. “Juniper, wait!”
I stopped, my unshed tears burning in my throat.
“If I’d known this was what Mallory was going to do, I—”
“You knew?” I shouted, turning to face him.
“I knew she had footage, but not of us,” he argued. “I thought it was something else. I could’ve handled that…”
“But you couldn’t handle this?” I demanded, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces. What a pathetic excuse.
“Juniper, I can fix this. Please…” He reached for me, but I recoiled.
“Don’t touch me.” I backed towards the door, wanting to be anywhere but here. “I’m humiliated, Sebastian. You stood there and did nothing to stop it. None of you did. It’s probably still playing right now!”
“Juniper—”
“No,” I snarled. “I know I don’t belong here, but that…” I jabbed a finger towards the party. “You knew. You knew, and you did nothing.” I fisted my hands into my hair. “I can’t even look at you.”
A sharp pain tore through my heart as I turned away from Sebastian, the words he’d spoken to me back in Point Mambie echoing through my mind. Rock ‘n’ roll will save your life, but the fame will kill you.
Those words were never truer than they were at this moment. Fame had truly sunk the knife in and twisted.
18
Sebastian
I had to let Juniper go. If I followed her now, it’d only make things worse.
All this time I thought Vix was punishing me, but it was Juniper she’d been manipulating. I’d been the perfect tool to chip away at her confidence, and I’d been clueless. I thought I’d been smart by playing along.
I cursed, the sound echoing off the marble. Things were so messed up, I didn’t know what to think anymore. If I
left with Juniper, I’d be hurting the band. If I stayed, I’d be hurting Juniper. I didn’t give two flying fucks what happened to me, but no matter which hand I played, people would suffer.
Vix had screwed me over for the last time. Screw trying to be fair and honest. Screw it to hell.
I took out my phone and opened the voice recorder app. There was no way in hell I was going in there without fighting fire with fire.
Vix wasn’t hard to find. She was busy laughing off the drama with a wave of her martini glass.
“It’s just another scandal in a long line of them,” she was saying to someone. “People expect it when Beneath is around. After all these years—”
“Fuck, you’re such fake bitch,” I declared. “Do you actually believe the shit that just dribbled out of your mouth right now?”
“Here we go,” she drawled, turning away from her groupies. “Let’s hash it out, Seb. Right here in front of everyone.”
“Why not? You sure love sharing my cock without my permission. You do realise that this is a felony?”
“But, darling, I didn’t do the sharing.”
Ignoring the stares, I pulled Vix across the venue and into a private room. Slamming the door closed, I held onto my rage and swallowed it, knowing I’d need a cool head if I was going to get her to admit what she’d done.
“Okay,” she said, raising her eyebrows as her drink almost spilled. “It isn’t like you to get pissed over a sex tape. It isn’t like it’s the first one you’ve stared in. Honestly, the production value this time around was outstanding.” She sipped at her martini, her blasé attitude fooling no one.
“You’ve gone too far this time,” I said, levelling my gaze at her.
“Since when is a sex tape too far?”
“This isn’t a game, Vix. Destroying people for financial gain… You crossed the line.”
“Ugh, you need to stop pretending, Seb.”
“Pretending?”
She rolled her eyes and plastered on a fake smile. “Let’s face it, you’re not the kind of guy who settles down. Are you really willing to sacrifice all this for a nobody? The awards, the fans, the adoration, the money?” She shook her head slowly, her blonde curls bobbing. “I don’t think you are.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it? How have things been going the last few months?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “They’ve been sliding down lower and lower. That’s how you know it’s not meant to be.”
“That’s between me and Juniper.” I pointed towards the party, barely holding onto my rage. “What you and Mallory did to her out there was disgusting.”
“And what makes you think it was me and Mallory?”
“Oh, just the part where she threatened me when I wouldn’t have sex with her back in Las Vegas.”
“You declined sex?” She started to laugh and sipped her drink.
“Vix.”
“I wasn’t the one who pressed play,” she said. “I just made sure that the right people were in the right place at the right time.”
“You gave the footage to Mallory,” I accused. “Admit it.”
Her lips curved into a wicked grin. “So what?”
“So what?” I couldn’t believe her. After everything, I thought I would’ve learned how to beat her at her own game, but all I’d done was play into her hands. Nothing had changed, nothing at all.
“I saved your career, Seb. I saved Beneath from ruin.”
Seriously? Everything we’d been through since Melbourne had been designed to destroy Juniper and shackle me to the money-making dark side of Beneath. Vix had turned something I loved—my dream job, my dream life—into everything I abhorred. Right then, I never hated someone as much as I did her and Mallory.
“You saved nothing,” I snarled. “You ruined Juniper and for what? Money?”
She shrugged, displaying how cold her heart really was. “It does make the world go ‘round, Seb.”
“I’ll fucking destroy you for this, Vix.”
“You…destroy me?” She laughed like I’d told an outrageous joke. “You’re in no position to do anything, Seb. The record label owns you. Try, and you’ll have your arse bared in court, you’ll destroy the rest of Beneath, and you’ll have nothing and no one. Your precious Juniper is gone, but you can still save your family, or have you forgotten about them?”
She had me cornered. There was nothing I could do to oust her from the label. I had zero proof that Mallory was the one who leaked the footage and Vix had said nothing that could incriminate her. The only thing I could do was go after Juniper and promise her I’d do everything in my power to protect her from the fallout. I’d sue the living shit out of any magazine that published the footage and every fucker who shared it online.
I snarled at Vix and strode around her, moving back into the ballroom. The party had resumed, but I knew people were still talking because when I appeared, all eyes focused on me.
I ignored all of them. I had to get back to the hotel and find Juniper. I had to fix this.
“Seb.” Josh grabbed my arm, but I shook him off.
“I need to find her,” I said. Anxiety was eating through the fucking lining of my heart. What if she’d left for good?
“You want us to come with?”
“No, I—” The words caught in my throat as I spotted Mallory across the room.
I pushed past him and went directly for her, my anger parting the crowd as I went. She watched me approach, posing like the fake bitch she was. She looked proud that she’d just humiliated the one woman I’d lay my life down for. I wasn’t blameless, but Mallory took the fucking cake.
“You’re fucked up, you know that?” I hissed.
Her lips curved into a satisfied smirk. “No one turns me down, Sebastian. No one.”
Flicking her hair, she walked away, leaving me bleeding in a room full of sharks.
19
Juniper
All I was, was despair.
Just like Sebastian and my romance had begun, so had it ended—in a whirlwind of passion and desire, like a storm obliterating everything in its path.
The sex tape was splashed all over the internet and the press. All the social media accounts Harry had helped me set up where being bombarded with disgusting messages and dick pics. This time, however, it was far worse.
Sebastian was coming off as the hero, and I was the trashy whore. I hated the world and everything in it. What was the point of getting back up when I was always pushed down?
The sun was out today, which was a stark contrast to the darkness that swirled inside me. Below, the ocean was heaving, waves were crashing against the cliffs, and the wind raced upward and over the lip, whirling around my insignificant presence. The water didn’t care about the sex tape, it didn’t care about anything.
It was ironic that I found myself here at my lowest point. Standing on the same cliff my father had thrown himself over twenty-something years ago.
“Juniper?”
I turned my head, my copper hair flying in all directions. Vanessa stood on the path, watching me with an alarmed expression. She thought I was going to jump.
“Juni, you have to come away from there,” she pleaded, holding out her hand. “Following in your dad’s footsteps won’t make anything better.”
Three days ago, I’d ran from the party that’d ruined my life and gotten on a plane back to Australia. With a little help from Harry, my belongings and I were bundled up, pushed through airport security, and had boarded a Qantas flight before the news broke. Though, when I arrived at Melbourne Airport, the story was everywhere. Fourteen hours in the air hadn’t stopped time, it’d only amplified it.
Vix had set me up and had used Mallory to pull the trigger. The footage had been sold to Stargazers, and they’d wasted no time getting the news out to the world. Censored images were printed on magazine covers, video clips were shared online, people were asking for links to the full version…it just went on and on.
The o
nly place I could go, where I knew I wouldn’t be looked at with pity or amusement, was Vanessa’s—but Point Mambie wasn’t the same. The Page Break was gone, I had nowhere to live, I was humiliated beyond compare, and my heart was broken into a million razor-sharp shards. Every breath I took burned. I looked to the future and saw nothing but misery.
A gust of wind buffeted me towards the cliff’s edge and I wondered if it was so bad. Falling like that.
“It wasn’t enough. Maybe it was just lust. This whole time—” I choked back a sob.
“This won’t solve anything,” Vanessa said. “Come back, Juni.”
Stepping back onto the path, I allowed my best friend to throw her arms around me. I never lied to Sebastian, not when it came to the most important things. I’d told him that we weren’t our parents, that their destiny didn’t shape ours. My dad had always struggled with life, that’s why he’d killed himself, and my mum had loved too hard. As for me, maybe I didn’t love enough. Maybe I’d mistaken lust for something more and that’s why things had gone so wrong.
Perhaps that’s why Sebastian didn’t do anything to stop the footage from leaking. He’d seen the truth—that our relationship was built on sexual desire and nothing more—and saw an easy way out. We’d needed each other for a brief second in time, and anything beyond that was doomed to fall apart.
“I tried so hard,” I whispered.
“I know,” Vanessa said, rubbing her palm in soothing circles over my back. “You did everything you could.”
“I’m a fool. A naïve little girl.”
“Oh, Juni…” Her embrace tightened to the point I thought my head was going to pop right off my shoulders, but it felt good to have someone in my corner—Vanessa, Ziggy, and Hugo. When she finally pulled away, she said, “I didn’t want to say anything, but there’s photographers in town.”
I snorted. “Of course there are.”
“They’ll lose interest eventually. Another celebrity will have a scandal, and this will fade into the background.”
It was a nice dream, but a scandal of this magnitude would either make me the next Kim Kardashian or drive me into the ground so deep that I’d never be able to show my face again.
