My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach.
“This is bullshit!” Piper snaps.
I open my eyes and look at her. She’s pissed.
It’s because she’s been caught. And caught so publicly.
My eyes flick past her to Cain.
The contriteness in his expression is all the confirmation I need.
And I feel sick.
There’s commotion all around. I can hear people yelling from off camera. Piper is screaming for them to turn the cameras off.
That’s what she cares about right now.
Not me. Not the fact that my heart is being broken on live television by my cheating-ass girlfriend. But, worse, by my friend, whom I trusted. The guy I’ve known for ten years.
Ten fucking years.
My head starts to cloud.
I’m no longer on live television with an audience of people sitting there.
I’m staring at my best friend, and rage is firing in my bloodstream.
I get to my feet. “Is it true?” I say to him, my voice trembling with anger.
Cain gets to his feet, facing me. “I’m sorry,” he says.
Sorry?
“You’re sorry?” I laugh without a trace of humor.
Then, I punch him.
Hard. In the face.
Chapter 1
Three Months Later
Vaughn
“Up and out!”
The sound of hands clapping and Jack, my manager’s, voice split through my head like an ax on wood.
Groaning, I mumble, “Fuck off, Jack. I’m sleeping.” My voice is muffled by the pillow my face is buried in.
Sunlight and warmth hit my back a second later as the curtains are pulled open.
“For fuck’s sake,” I grumble.
“Ladies, get dressed, and be on your way. A car is waiting for you downstairs to take you home,” Jack says with that no-nonsense tone of his.
I feel movement on the bed. Limbs and bodies climb over me and off the bed.
Last night…
Oh, yeah.
A party.
Alcohol. Lots of alcohol.
A redhead who could deep-throat like a champ and a brunette with legs that went on for miles.
Sex.
Lots of it.
At the party. In the limo on the way back to the hotel suite I’ve been living in these last few months. The sofa. The bed.
The usual.
Well, the usual for me now.
Stretching my aching body, I lift my head. The sunlight blinds me. Rubbing a hand over my face, I blink through the haze. My eyes meet with Jack’s.
He’s standing there, his arms folded over his chest, a disapproving frown on his face.
He wears that look a lot when looking at me nowadays.
The girls are moving around the room, picking up the debris of their clothes from last night’s activities.
“What?” I bite at him.
He says nothing. Just shakes his head.
His stare is making me uncomfortable. It’s the disappointment in his eyes that bothers me the most.
In a business filled with sharks, Jack isn’t one. He’s loyal. To me. His wife. His kids.
For all these years, I’ve stayed clean in a city full of dirt with his help and because of my family back home.
Well, I was clean. Now, I’m a helluva lot dirty.
My eyes flit to the girls as they quickly dress.
Shame spreads through my chest.
This isn’t me…
At least, it wasn’t me.
Sure, I’ve done one-night stands in the past. I’ve slept with women with no promise of more.
But this—the endless nights of drinking and fucking, and then rinse and repeat—isn’t me.
But, right now, it’s the only thing that makes me feel better.
Well, for a time anyway.
Shame has me getting to my feet and snapping out, “Jesus, Jack, stop fucking looking at me like that.” I walk my bare ass over to the closet where I pull out a pair of black lounge pants and slip them on.
“Like what? Like you’re a mess?” Jack states, like he doesn’t care that other people are in this room.
I can just see the headline now…
Vaughn’s Manager Calls Him “A Mess” in Heated Argument
As I grit my teeth, my angry eyes quickly flit to the girls leaving my room. Neither looks like they heard or care about what Jack said, but you can never be too sure in this town.
My eyes meet with the redhead’s. She gives me a smile that says she wants a repeat and drops a slip of paper on the dresser before she leaves with the brunette in tow.
Sorry, love, no repeats.
Jack walks over and shuts the door behind them.
“Since when do you mouth off in front of people?” I fire at Jack.
He’s the one who always tells me to be careful what I say and to whom.
“Since you clearly don’t give a shit about your career anymore.”
“I care.”
He laughs. “Then, sort your shit out.”
“Give me a fucking break.”
“That’s all I’ve done for the last few months. That’s all anyone’s done. We get that you’re hurting. What they did…it was shit. But shit happens, and life moves on. You move on, Vaughn.”
“I’m moving on,” I growl.
“Yeah, looks like it.” He gives a pointed look at the empty box of condoms on my nightstand and the bottles of Jack littered around the room.
I feel ashamed again. I shouldn’t. I’m a grown fucking man, but I know this isn’t me. It isn’t what I’m about.
And I care about what Jack thinks of me. I respect him.
And I know my family is worried about me. I know I’m letting them down.
I’m letting myself down.
Sighing, I drag my hands through my hair.
“You need to get it together, Vaughn.” He reaches inside his sports coat and pulls out his phone. He turns it, showing me the picture and headline.
Our Star Has Fallen
Unrecognizable, Vaughn West is seen falling out of a club, held up by two women he spent the night partying with in Van Helden, along with renowned party boy and A-lister Gabriel Evans and TV star Julian Jacob.
The brokenhearted star’s behavior has worsened since the outing of the affair between his former best friend, Cain Acton, and ex-girlfriend, Piper Watts, which was revealed on Digby’s Dirt, the popular late-night show hosted by Bradford Digby, where West physically assaulted Acton. No charges were filed.
The affair between Acton and Watts allegedly began on the set of the film, Treason, which the three actors starred in together.
I barely recognize the bloodshot-eyed mess of a man staring back in the photos. Propped up by the two women who just left my bed, my hand clearly up the back of one of their skirts in one of the shots.
Jesus, I’m a fucking mess.
Jack swipes the screen. The next headline…
Vaughn West. Sex Addict and Alcoholic? Our Expert Says Yes.
And again…
A picture of me from another night, looking wasted, flipping the bird to the press, with another woman holding me up.
Then, there’s a picture of Cain and Piper, the one that was used to expose them on Digby’s show—the source of my pain and humiliation.
The betrayal hits me all over again.
Sighing, I turn away from Jack and look out the floor-to-ceiling window, dragging my hands through my hair again.
I hear the creak of the bed as Jack sits down on it.
“I know what they did stung like a motherfucker—Cain stung me, too—but you can’t let this destroy everything you’ve worked for.”
When Jack took me on as a client, Cain was already his client. I needed a place to stay, so Jack put me in touch with Cain, who was looking for a roommate at that time. That’s how we met.
Even with the scandal, Cain was still big money for Jack, but he
dropped him as a client and stayed with me.
I know I should feel thankful for that, but I don’t feel thankful for an awful lot right now.
“Drinking and screwing random women isn’t going to fix this, Vaughn. Getting back to work is what’s going to fix it. We need to get the press and fans focused on your next movie and not your personal life.”
“Personal life?” I laugh. “What a fucking joke that is! I don’t have a personal life because everyone in the world is fucking privy to what goes on.”
“And you’re not exactly making it hard for them right now, are you?” he throws back at me.
I narrow my eyes at him. “What if I don’t feel like making a movie right now?” I fold my arms over my chest, pressing against the dull ache there.
He laughs. It’s not a humorous sound, and it makes me turn to him.
He gets to his feet. “They screwed you over, and it hurts like fuck. I get it. But you think this is the way to get back at them—drinking yourself into a coma and banging anything with a vagina? Get fucking real. You know this business, Vaughn. It can turn at the snap of a finger. At the moment, their popularity has crashed. They can’t get work for shit. No one will touch them. They couldn’t even get a call back for a toilet paper commercial at the moment…but it won’t last. We’ve seen it before. Angie and Brad each made twice as much in the year after their affair. They skyrocketed because their publicist swung it the right way. And the way you’re acting now is giving Piper’s publicist her meal ticket back to success.”
He swipes his finger over his screen and turns his phone to me again. There’s a picture of Piper, looking tearful.
Bitch.
Piper Watts Speaks for the First Time Since Her Affair with Cain Acton Was Revealed
“Vaughn’s alcoholism and constant womanizing pushed me into Cain’s arms,” a tearful Piper said. “Vaughn has a vicious temper.”
“You were scared of him?”
“Yes,” she answered softly, head bowed.
“Did Vaughn ever hit you?”
“Yes.”
So, ladies and gentlemen, when Piper was faced with a violent alcoholic who cheated as much as Vaughn West did, then I guess it is understandable that she sought solace in another man’s arms.
We’d like to hear your opinions on this. Vote on our poll: Was Piper right to cheat? Yes or no?
“That lying bitch,” I seethe, my hands curling into fists. “I never touched her.”
“I know that, but you hit Cain with the world watching.”
“Come on, Jack, you would have hit him if you were in my situation. Anyone would have.”
“You’re right, but it’s easy to twist and manipulate things to look differently, and Piper’s proven she’s good at lying. Then, there’s your behavior as of late—the drinking and the women. It’s giving Piper’s people the tools to swing this however they want. Piper is getting sympathy by bringing you down. It’s not too late to stop it, but we need to take action now, Vaughn.
“I’ve let you have your time to be hurt and angry, but it’s enough now. I need you to clean yourself up. I need you out of the press for whom you’re fucking and back in it for what you’re working on next. You want revenge for what they did to you, Vaughn? Then, revenge is cleaning yourself up and getting back to work, stepping over them and climbing right back to the top.”
He’s right.
I know he’s right.
This isn’t me. Who I want to be.
But I’ve never been hurt like this before. It’s almost like I don’t know what to do with the hurt, so I ignore it, and when it becomes too much to ignore, I drink and fuck it away…until it comes back, and then I rinse and repeat.
Piper’s betrayal hurt. But Cain’s betrayal hurt way more.
He was my friend for ten years. I would’ve taken a bullet for the guy.
And he slept with my girlfriend.
I almost laugh out loud at the cliché of it.
Best friend fucks girlfriend for months under the nose of the boyfriend, and he has no clue.
Happens all the time.
But, when you’re a celebrity, then it’s the juiciest story of the decade. A story that just won’t fucking go away.
To the fans and press, I’m the wounded animal.
Pathetic.
Poor Vaughn.
It’s the pity and apathy that drive me fucking insane.
But no more. Jack’s right.
Arms folded, I lean my back against the window. “So, what do you have in mind?”
Jack smiles. “You have an offer.”
“For what?”
“More like from whom.” His smile widens, making me stand up straighter. “Evans.”
My heart stops. “Brandon Evans?”
“The one and only.”
“Holy fuck.”
Brandon Evans is the hottest director around at the moment. Everyone wants to work with him.
“What’s the movie?”
“The Lament. It’s a gangland thriller. Think Goodfellas 2017.”
“What’s the part?”
“Lead. Drew Asher, heir to the Asher family. It’s a great fucking script. Brandon wrote the part with you in mind.”
“You’re shitting me.” I’m almost breathless. My insides are lighting up like the sky on the Fourth of July. “Did you know?”
He shakes his head. “You know Brandon keeps things tight to his chest. I got the call just last night. There’s no doubt that he wants you for the part, but he has reservations, Vaughn…your recent behavior.”
“I’ll sort it out. Clean up my act.”
My heart is drumming, my pulse thrumming. I feel alive, like I haven’t felt in a long while.
This is the part I’ve been dreaming of. This could take me up to the next step. From the hot movie star to serious actor, like DiCaprio did with his career.
“This could be it, Vaughn,” Jack says, excitement in his voice. “This could put you at the top with no way of ever coming down. I’ll do the work at my end to get rid of the shit the press has been saying about you, but you have to keep your nose clean in the meantime. No more excessive partying, drinking, or screwing around until the film is released.”
“Consider it done.” I pick up the paper with the phone number that the redhead left behind. I crumple it in my hand and toss it in the trash can.
Chapter 2
Charly
I’m admiring the gorgeous Fendi hanging from the shoulder of the woman walking in front of me when my cell starts ringing from inside my knockoff Stella McCartney.
I retrieve it from the bottom of my bag, expecting it to be Nick—my roommate and best friend since college—but see that it’s Ava Simms. She’s a friend and colleague. She works wardrobe like I do.
“Yello!” I sing cheerily to her.
I hear her laugh.
“Charly, do you ever answer the phone like a normal person?”
“Why would I when I can answer so colorfully?” I say in a puzzled tone, making her laugh again. “How you doing?” I ask.
“Good,” she says.
But I can tell from her tone that she’s not good at all. We might not be super close, like Nick and I are, but I know her well enough to know when something is wrong. I just hope it isn’t that prick of a so-called boyfriend of hers. The one she moved across the country to be with. Honestly, I can’t imagine leaving New York to move to LA for any guy. Especially not an out-of-work actor who sidelines as a hand model and thinks he’s God’s gift to women.
I don’t know what Ava sees in that guy. Granted, he’s good-looking, but he’s a dick, and she could do a million times better.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Are you still in Nashville?”
Okay. Not the answer I was expecting but whatever.
“Nope. I just landed in JFK.” I smile to myself, looking forward to having the week off that I booked in for myself. I haven’t had any time off in…forever, and even though I�
��m not rich, I have enough money in the bank to allow myself a week of doing nothing. “I’m actually walking through the airport as we speak, heading to grab a cab home. Why?”
“Well…I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I landed a job on this big-budget movie, and I’m the wardrobe mistress—”
“Really? Congrats! That’s great, Ava!”
Wardrobe mistress is a promotion for Ava, who was a wardrobe assistant like me. She’s been in the business longer than I have though, so I can’t envy her promotion.
“Well…the thing is, I was wondering if you would want to come and work with me.”
“When?” I have a job lined up in wardrobe on a small Broadway play after my weeklong break, but if it’s after that, then I can do it.
“Well…tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I yell in surprise.
“Yeah, I know it’s short notice—”
“No kidding. Hang on, am I an add-on? Did someone drop out, and you need me to fill in?”
Silence.
I can practically hear her wince.
“Ava?”
“It’s not as bad as you’re making it sound. I knew you were already working up in Nashville on Rollers, so I hired Millie Reed—”
“Millie Reed?”
“I know you don’t like her—”
“She screwed Michael.”
“After you dumped him.”
“I know, but that’s not the point. She was supposed to be a friend. You know, girl code and all that.”
“You two were never friends; you just worked together.” She laughs. “I remember what you said the first day after you worked with her. You said she was useless.”
“She is useless. She’s a crap seamstress. She sewed all the buttons on a shirt the wrong way—rookie mistake.”
“Well, she was available—”
“She always is.”
“And you weren’t,” Ava continues seamlessly. “I would have asked you first; you know that. But, with the timing, I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it, so I asked Millie, and…”
Keep This Promise Page 89
