Even the guys in my investment group had commented on how full of life I seemed to be in recent days. They were exactly right; I was full of life and plans for the future. It was impossible not to make plans for the future with Angelina; I liked thinking about her in my life, and I liked thinking of what we could do together as we got to know each other more.
“You’re going to be late,” she said as her hips rocked back and forth on top of me.
“I don’t care.”
“Maybe I’ll never let you leave this room,” she teased.
“I still don’t care,” I said as I held onto her hips and thrust inside of her.
“I’ll keep you as my personal play toy, hopping on you whenever I need a good orgasm.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a plan.” I laughed.
We were in our own little world when there was a loud banging on the hotel door. It scared both of us to death, and I wrapped myself up in one of the blankets and ran to the door.
“Who is it?” Angelina asked.
“It’s the police,” I replied as I shrugged my shoulders. There was absolutely no reason for the police to be coming to our room. Neither of us did drugs or other illegal things. Plus, we had been in our room for three days so, it wasn’t likely we had caused too much chaos in the world.
“Are you sure they are really police?” Angelina asked as I was about to open the door.
Her concern surprised me, but then again, I wasn’t really sure they were police. They had uniforms on but hadn’t identified themselves at all. I kept the door locked as I talked to them.
“What do you need?” I asked through the door.
“New York City police, we are here to do a well person check on Angelina Kent.”
“She’s fine. We are both fine.”
“We are going to need you to open the door, sir.”
Angelina hurried and put on some clothes as I talked to the men through the door. I didn’t want to be a total ass, but I could understand Angelina’s concern in opening her door. We were both celebrities, and if someone wanted to do a lot of harm, they could do that pretty easily if we just let them into our room.
“Can you show some identification please?”
I watched the police officer through the peephole in the door, and I knew he really was a cop by the annoying look he gave when I asked for identification. But he pulled it out and held it up to the peephole so I could read it. I unlocked the door shortly after.
“I’m fine guys, can you tell me what’s going on?” Angelina asked.
“Miss Kent, can I talk with you in private,” the female officer asked.
“Sir, why don’t you and I go over here and talk?” the other officer said to me.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
It was concerning that they had shown up, but it was more concerning that they needed to separate us to talk to either of us. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but my gut said that her mother was probably involved.
“Sir, have there been any incidents of violence between the two of you?”
“No,” I said although I wanted to laugh in the man’s face.
“Sir, we have had a report of domestic violence. The caller reports you are holding Miss Kent hostage in her hotel room.”
As I stood there naked and wrapped only in a sheet from the bed, I did my best to take the man’s questions seriously. But if he had glanced around the room he would have clearly seen that we were just a couple hanging out and making love in that hotel room. There was no sign of struggle, no items used to tie someone up. Plus, Angelina was clearly not harmed in any way at all.
“She’s my girlfriend, and we are simply making love officer. I think someone in her family is just upset that she’s not returning their calls.”
“Perhaps, but we need to follow protocol. My partner is talking to Miss Kent now and will get her version of what is going on here.”
“Wow, okay, but it’s going to be the same as my version.”
Then there was loud laughter from the bathroom. I heard Angelina literally having a hard time breathing, she was laughing so hard. I just looked at the officer and raised one eyebrow as we waited for the ladies to come out of the bathroom.
“Yeah, I know, it’s pretty tough having her as a mother,” Angelina said to the officer when they opened the door and came back into the main room.
“It appears everything is fine here,” the female officer said. “We are sorry for intruding. We hope you understand we just have to follow through on concerns like this.”
“It’s alright. I’ll call my mother so she’s not sending in the marines next.” Angelina smiled and shook hands with the officers as they made their way to the door.
“Sorry for the intrusion,” the male officer said and shook my hand.
I could have been a total ass about it, but I did understand that they had jobs to do and checking up on Angelina was just part of it. It really sucked that her mother would do something like this, though, and I had no idea how I was going to deal with it. Angelina’s mom was a powerful woman, and I suspected if she really didn’t like me she would go to all possible lengths to make our relationship difficult.
“Well, that got you out of bed.” I laughed. “Should we go eat?”
“After your shows. I think I’m going to take some time and return some calls. Give everyone the fluffy feel good conversations they need to let me be for a little bit.”
“Sounds good to me. Maybe I’ll even call my agent and check in. I know she’s left like a dozen phone calls.”
“You know this is the longest I’ve gone without posting something to social media. People probably do think something is wrong.”
“I appreciate you taking some time just to be here with me. This is hard to figure out, and I know we will find a balance that works for the both of us. Let’s talk about it some tonight while we get sushi, how’s that sound?”
“Perfect,” she said as she kissed me goodbye.
Her lip was healing up nicely, and the bruising around her mouth was almost totally gone. It had been a really eventful week, but something told me that this would be pretty typical for us if we decided to date. Not the chaos around her split lip, but the constantly being busy and trying to sneak time for ourselves. I really didn’t know how celebrity couples managed to stay together.
I had started arriving through the tunnel under the theater, and it was perfect. Sometimes I even waited at the building across the street and watched the paparazzi before I slid inside and down to the basement walkway. It was rather hilarious to me that I was right there within their sights yet no one bothered to look across the street because they were too busy waiting for me to walk right up to them.
“You doing alright?” Cat asked as I sat next to her in the makeup room.
“Yeah, I’m going great, why?”
“Your Twitter feed has been a little scary this week. Today I got worried.”
“My what?” I asked in total shock.
I had not been posting to Twitter at all. I had very specifically not been posting to any social media outlets because we were trying to figure out what was going on between the two of us. I slowly opened my Twitter app to see what the hell Cat was talking about.
“It wasn’t me posting,” I said as I started to scroll through the feed.
“Were you hacked?”
“No, it’s got to be my agent. This shit is ridiculous.”
“God, I’m so glad it wasn’t you posting. I was starting to think I really didn’t know you at all. Your agent is pretty crazy, though; does she think that’s how people really talk on Twitter?”
“I have no idea.”
I stopped talking and read through each of the posts that had been made to my page throughout the week. It was pretty cringeworthy material.
D_Morrison: Nothing as cool as dating a girl like @AngelinaKent. I feel like a young man again. All the twenty-something love me.
D_Morrison: We met using
@InstaMatch and it was a total surprise. Seriously guys you have to check that app out. Girls like @AngelinaKent are on there!
D_Morrison: In talks with @WarnerBros for a new mega-hit movie.
D_Morrison: Maybe we should start our own reality television show @AngelinaKent?
It was starting to make a lot more sense why her mother had sent the police over to check on Angelina. She had probably seen that last Twitter update and was worried I was trying to pull Angelina away from their reality show and into a new one. Add in the fact that Angelina wasn’t checking her phone or her messages, and it probably looked pretty bad.
My hands shook as I dialed up Bella’s number. I didn’t bother to listen to her voicemail messages because frankly, they didn’t matter at all to me. What mattered was that Bella had taken it upon herself to put information out there about me as if she was me, and that wasn’t alright. If she had posted messages on her own Twitter about what she was setting up for me, then that would have been one thing, but she had purposely misled fans with tweets like they were from me. I didn’t deceive my fans; I was always honest with them, and that was one of the reasons they loved me still after so many years.
“Who do you think you are?” I said calmly when she answered.
“Dean! It’s so good to hear from you. How are you doing?”
“Bella, you’ve been posting on my Twitter.”
“Yes, Dean. I was posting on it since the account was started. Remember, I told you that before.”
I knew she had told me that, but I thought since I was posting on there she would have stopped. Now that she mentioned it, I really didn’t know what she had been posting on the page before I knew about it either, and I didn’t like that at all.
“Don’t post on any of my social media again.”
“Dean, you hired me to protect your business interests. Building on this relationship with Angelina is in your best interest. You can have millions of new fans in an age range that you normally wouldn’t have access to. Instead of sitting around and hiding, you should be online, and so should she.”
“Building my career is always on my mind, but I’m not going to do it at the expense of Angelina or anyone else. I said not to post on my page and not to make a statement; if you can’t listen to my request, I will hire someone else.”
“Now, now Dean. I’m just trying to make sure this little vixen doesn’t totally take you down with her social media crap.”
“Careful Bella,” I said as she continued.
“No, I won’t be careful. This girl is playing you, Dean. It’s no secret that she wants a career in movies now. She’s done with the whole reality thing, and now she’s going to latch herself onto you so you can help her get some movie parts. I won’t sit by and let this lying sleazeball of a woman take over your chances of making a comeback.”
I should have been surprised by how Bella was speaking to me, but after so many years in Hollywood, there wasn’t much that still surprised me. Luckily, I knew enough to make my exit slowly and not blow up at her right there on the phone.
“I’ll be back in Los Angeles next Monday; we can talk then. For the time, being please honor my request and no social media or statements. Deal?”
“Yes, but I’m not responsible for the aftermath that you’ll have to deal with.”
I hung up the phone and immediately called Angelina, but she didn’t answer. It felt dirty the way Bella was using my public persona, but the thing that pissed me off the most about it was that I hadn’t been paying attention at all before I met Angelina. It should have bothered me just as much then, but I was too wrapped up in feeling bad about my spot in Hollywood.
The only thing I could think of was that Angelina was going to talk with her agent and her family, and they were going to tell her about the tweets. I still hadn’t even checked my Instagram. The anxiety was building up as I felt my happiness slipping away. What had started as an easy way to earn money from Instamatch had turned into meeting someone I really cared about. But she didn’t know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t have used her like it looked like I was doing. I hoped she knew I wouldn’t do something like that, but I just didn’t know for sure.
Bella seemed to think by adding Angelina’s name to my tweets it was going to pull her fans into me. She also clearly believed I needed Angelina’s base of fans in order for me to be popular again, but that wasn’t true. I felt it deep down, and I wasn’t about to sell myself out just to be popular again.
My phone rang, and I instantly answered it.
“Angelina, I just found out Bella has been posting to my Twitter,” I said before she could say anything.
“Dean, I don’t think I can do this.”
“No, no, no, Angelina. It was just Bella. She thought she was helping me. I’m firing her. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“It’s more than that Dean. I need some space that’s it, just some time to figure out what it is that I really want. My whole world is spinning right now. I’m too wrapped up in what everyone else wants from me and can hardly stand what my life is becoming.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“But you do Dean. Everyone wants something from me. You don’t want me to post about our relationship; my mother wants me to post all the time, and my agent wants me to bring you to public places for photo ops. I’m over it all. I need to think. I need to get myself straight.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t argue with her logic. It did seem like a good idea for her to get her head clear and decide what she wanted. Our love affair had been fantastic, but maybe it wasn’t enough to keep us close to each other after we both moved on.
“I’ll call you,” Angelina said solemnly.
“I’m sure we will see each other around Hollywood,” I said softly. “But call me, okay Angelina? Take some time and then call me.”
“I’ve got to go, bye Dean.”
Just like that, she was gone. I knew it wasn’t just because of the tweets that had gone out, but I was still furious with Bella. In my gut, I knew that Angelina was at such a big turning point in her career that she did need some time to herself. Selfishly, I wanted to be there with her, though.
Chapter 14
Angelina
There were too many people in my life pulling me in a million different directions; I just couldn’t take it a second longer. My mother believed that Dean was brainwashing me into leaving Hollywood and starting a new reality show with him. My agent believed I was giving up my goals of working in film full-time. Even my sister thought I was changing because of Dean, and she wasn’t sure it was for the better.
I couldn’t argue with them all. The press was hounding me about my fall and my cut lip so I talked my mother into airing the unedited footage of the incident right away. I told Jeremy that I was going to be posting a cute picture for Instamatch to pull the contract to an end a little early. Then I asked my sister if she would come crash with me in New York until the filming of my movie was done.
The picture of my empty bed went out to Instagram with a caption, “You can find any type of guy to sleep in your sheets, but only a really good one will fill your fantasies. Instamatch, thanks for bringing a good one into my life.”
My hope was that people would understand that Dean had nothing to do with me getting hurt. He was a good man, such a good man that I didn’t want to ruin things with him by being a basket case. When I had read those tweets on his page, the first emotion I felt was betrayed. He had been talking about how much he didn’t like Twitter and Instagram, yet he was clearly posting plenty on there. The betrayal feeling was hard for me. It ran deep, and I had a long history of men using me.
For a couple of days, I even thought that maybe Dean had been using me. But he wasn’t, and I knew it. When the two of us were together, it was genuine; there was no way he could have been pretending.
“How do you know he wasn’t using you?” Jeremy asked me.
“I guess you can never know
for sure. But how do I know you aren’t using me?”
Jeremy was silent as he contemplated my question. It was a realistic question, though, how do any of us know if someone is using us or being sincere? At some point, we just have to trust our gut and be genuine ourselves. At some point, we have to live our life and be the best we can be. We have to surround ourselves with people we believe to be good and just go from there.
“I’m there for you even when things aren’t going well,” Jeremy said after he thought about my question for a long time.
“We fight, yet we both are looking out for each other,” I added.
“I’m not always right, and you accept that.”
“I’m not always right, and you tell me like it is.” I laughed.
“So you really think this Dean guy is a good guy?” Jeremy asked.
“Yeah, I do. I don’t know if now is the right time for me to get wrapped up in something with a good guy, though. You know how much I need to keep filming roles. It’s going to take months to get this movie into theaters; I’ve got to have others on their way as soon as possible.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re giving up the guy for your career?”
“Maybe, that’s the way it has to be right now.”
“Maybe.”
It took another ten days for the filming to finish up on my movie, and then my sister and I headed back to Los Angeles. She had become close friends with Luke, and I tried to squeeze in a few questions about Dean when I could, but he wouldn’t give me any details. Luke just told me I should call Dean and check in.
When ten days goes by and you don’t talk to someone that you’ve slept with, there’s really no going back. It wasn’t like I could call him up and just apologize for ignoring him for the last two weeks. No, I figured we were just going to have to move on and go our separate ways.
As I flew back to Los Angeles, I kept thinking about Dean, though. I had seen that his Broadway show was picked up for another year, but speculations were that he was going to turn down the role and someone else was going to take over. What was he going to do then? I wondered to myself as I read through another industry article about the show.
His Huge Rock Page 28
