“Humour me! Pretend I’m dumb! I have no idea what the hell is going on!” I yell in his face.
He blanches for a split second, then covers it back up with that same stony look I’ve seen before. Tension builds, and we hurtle toward each other, two cars out of control. “You told someone about Mikaela and me.”
Impact.
It smashes into my face, shattering everything around me.
“Wh … what?”
“You told someone about us. It’s all over the news. All over the gossip magazines.”
“Tate, it wasn’t me. I didn't do it.” I shake my head.
“So it’s coincidence that the only person who knows aside from us works in the media and the story has gone viral?” Tate runs a hand through his hair. “Did you tell anyone?”
Shit.
And there it is. That one horrible fact that could indeed make me the one to blame for all of this.
I told Courtney.
One person.
One mistake.
“You did, didn't you?” Tate hollers.
I shake my head faster. “Tate, I never meant to hurt you. I didn't—”
“Didn't what? Didn’t remember that I was doing this to protect my sister? Didn’t think it would be that big a deal?” He pauses, and hurt flashes in his gaze. “Or just didn't really care about me at all?”
He pushes past me, his shoulder hot against mine as he walks to the door.
“Where are you going?” I race after him.
“Back to the resort, where I have a conference call lined up with my agent and manager to try and discuss how the hell I’m going to fix this mess.”
“I’m sorry, Tate. I’m so, so sorry.” I grab at his shirt, tears clouding my eyes. “Please, don't leave. Let’s talk it through. Let’s try and make this work. Don’t you want to fight for this? Don't you want to fight for us?”
His jaw clenches, his resolve steely. “I only fight for things that are real.”
***
Tate
She betrayed me.
Madison Winters. The woman who made me laugh. Who made me smile. The woman who made me think that maybe I did “know”, as my dad would always say.
She ensnared me in her web and then she hung me out to dry.
“Fuck!” I roar, throwing the glass of water from my hand at the wall opposite.
“Tate, you’re gonna have to calm down,” Marty says. Even Bill looks a little pale, as if my outburst has upset him. “Getting angry won’t solve anything.”
“Masters, you got this. Don’t let it get to you. We’ll work something out,” Bill chimes in.
“Shoot. What’s the game plan?”
Marty looks to the side, and Bill glances down. “Well, we have had a call from the coffee place. They want to can the deal, but we’ll find you something else. Hey, now we can maybe find you something a little sexier. Badder. You’ll be the next Jude Law.”
I grit my teeth. “And how about the movie?”
“Well …”
“About the movie …”
I glance from one side of the screen to the other. “Go on. Out with it. Have they canned it?”
“They’re talking delays of at least a year. They won’t can it, not when they’ve already spent so much money, but they need time for your reputation to recover. And for you to come back and show the world you’re very much in love with Mikaela again.”
My mouth turns sour. I know it’s a thing I’ll have to do, but the only woman I can think about right now is the one who looked as if she were about to cry when I left her this evening. The one whose tears I wanted to kiss away, almost as much as I wanted to push her into another stratosphere. She betrayed me. The woman who made me feel that maybe, just maybe, I knew.
And so the cycle starts again.
“We’re thinking TV. Breakfast shows. We’ll get you and Mikaela on every screen across the country. And, dare I say, the E word?”
I glance up to look at Marty. “The E word?”
“Engaged,” Bill says the word slowly.
“Right.” I nod. “Of course.”
“It would be one way to stop the rumours. Engaged, a quick wedding—no one will question how real this is for you then.”
The words make so much sense. It’s the quick-fix to this situation—the Band-Aid solution that will cover the wound so the public won’t see.
It’ll only be me with the hurt festering inside, trapped under the makeshift solution.
And Mikaela.
“I’ll have to talk to her. See what she thinks.”
“Of course, of course,” Bill says, his cheeks wobbling as he speaks. “She’ll like the idea, no doubt. Women love all that matrimony shit.”
“Let us know how you go, and we’ll get in touch with Janie and spin this so the shit shines,” Marty says and signs off, his side of the screen going black a few moments later.
“I know you’ll get through it, Tate. You’re born for the limelight,” Bill says, before shutting the connection down himself.
My phone chirps with another new message that I don't bother to open. It’ll be from her. They’re all from her, apologising, asking for a chance to explain, telling me how much she cares.
Huh.
If she did, she never would have crushed me like this.
I sigh and lean back against the couch. The couch where we’ve kissed. Laughed. Talked. Made love.
“I don't love her,” I say to the broken glass in the corner. I’m gonna have to get someone in to clean that up. No doubt that’ll start rumours, too. From Hollywood golden boy to pissed off manwhore.
I press my eyes shut and tilt my head back. I’m supposed to be angry at Madison. To hate her. To want to never see her again.
So why the hell does it hurt so bad?
***
Madison
It hurts.
It hurts like getting a Brazilian, only the wax is volcanic lava.
It stings.
It stings like getting stung by a bee, only the bee is wielding a machete.
I stare listlessly at the ceiling fan as it whirs around and around above my head. I’ve tried calling Tate, tried sending him messages, but they’ve gone unanswered. I’ve left a voicemail for Courtney to call me ASAP, but she’s either sleeping, given the late hour, or knows just how much I’m going to kick her arse, as she hasn't answered my call.
My eyes try to focus on one of the blades spinning around, but it’s no use. Everything reminds me of Tate. Even a ceiling fan.
I roll over on my stomach and hit enter on the Google search loaded on my laptop again. A fresh page of results loads up, with websites everywhere from America to the UK to Australia spilling Hollywood’s latest breaking news.
Celebrity couple a sham
T&M – did someone reveal TMI?
Ta-kaela – practically undrinkable.
The headlines are ridiculous and exploitive, but the facts of each article read the same. Tate and Mikaela are a sham, a couple not really seeing each other but staying together for the sake of the media. Apparently, Tate has even been seeing a “mystery brunette”. Every time I read those words, I cringe. I’m supposed to report the news. I’m not supposed to be in them.
Ever.
An “anonymous source” (aren’t they always?) close to the couple has revealed that they sleep in separate hotel rooms, and apparently stayed together as a way to keep the movie afloat, with the reporters always quick to add it was also no doubt to keep the money rolling in.
Thankfully, Mikaela’s sexuality isn’t mentioned. In fact, the article itself implies Tate and Mikaela were originally in love—it just got derailed at some point. It all but mirrors the information I told my best friend, and my stomach churns when I think of confronting her. She was so sweet to me through the whole breakup with Mike. Why would she go and do a thing like this?
Even as I think the question, I know the answer. Magazines. It’s a chew-you-up-spit-you-out kind of world, and if you’re
not the one breaking the news, you’re probably on a dartboard in an office where the guys up top play Russian Roulette with your job. They’re always looking for the next big thing—and with so many journalists, fashionistas and industry darlings who’ll do anything to work in the media, there’s little for the men up top to lose.
The one thing that stumps me, however, is that no matter how many different Google variations I try, I can’t find one with Courtney’s byline. Then again, the Lola page reporting on the issue doesn’t have a text credit, so I can only imagine that’s the one she wrote. It’s also one of the first sites to have had the piece online.
My phone rings, breaking my trance, and I snatch it up.
“Tate?”
“Who’s Tate, dear?” Mum asks.
“It’s that movie star, the one without the real girlfriend,” Dad hollers from somewhere in the background.
“Why would he be calling our Madison?” Mum pauses, then redirects her question. “Maddie? Why would he be calling you?”
“I’ll tell you another time.” I brush the comment aside and swipe at my nose, trying to stop the sadness from creeping into my voice. “What’s up?”
“Why can’t we just be calling you because we love you? Honestly, young people these—”
“Mum?”
She tsks, and the line crackles. “It’s Mike.”
“What now? You haven’t invited him to Christmas really, have you? Can’t you just let me—”
“The stress from the accident has left Betty really strung out.” Mum pauses. “I’m sorry, love, but she passed away last night.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Madison
The worst kind of grief isn’t just emotional. It hits your body hard. My throat aches from crying, and my stomach twists with pain. I double over, clutching at it, as if somehow that will relieve the hurt.
It doesn't.
It only gets worse.
It’s laughable to think I was devastated when Mike cheated on me then dumped me. That wasn’t true sadness. This grief is all-consuming, a cancer of the soul. Nothing, not throwing myself into work, not drinking, not losing myself in something else—none of my go-to remedies will fix it.
Intermingled with grief is a sense of guilt. Guilt for not being there, even though Mike asked me to. Guilt for telling Courtney about Tate and ruining his career.
But mostly, guilt for how much of my hurt, my pain, is because of Tate, and not my dead honorary grandmother at all.
The next flight to Sydney is packed. I max out my credit card on a seat in first class, the only one available, and try to ignore the screaming children and drunk guys as they all fight for position of Loudest Noise Maker Ever on the six-hour journey. With every mile that passes between the island and my home, my heart breaks a little more. Tate. Betty. The pain I feel inside somehow encompasses them both until it’s swollen like a bowling ball, rolling around in my stomach.
After landing, I exit customs, turning a blind eye to the magazines lining the newsstands with a face I know so well, and see two people I love dearly.
“Maddie.” Mum opens her arms and I run into her embrace. Tears fall from my eyes, not for the first time today, and she rubs my back. She smells like cinnamon and lavender all jumbled together, and I know without having to ask that she’s been baking my favourite biscuits from when I was a little kid. That’s what my mum does.
“Sweetheart. It’s going to be okay.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and then she cries too, her ample bosom shaking as the sobs fall from her lips.
Dad’s hand pats against my shoulder. “There, there.”
I pull back and look at them both, wiping the tears from under my eyes with a careful hand, until I remember I’m not even wearing eyeliner. I don't have to worry about smudged makeup.
This realisation makes me cry harder. In the space of three weeks, I’ve changed so very much.
“Let’s get you home.”
***
Mum and I cry the two-hour trip back to her place. We alternate between gentle sobs and outright howling, and when Dad pulls the dirt-lined Ute up the driveway of the twenty-acre property, he mutters a quiet thank fuck.
He opens the door and gets out of the car as quickly as he can, leaving Mum and I to our sobfest.
“Do you want to go in?” Mum asks, lifting her glasses to swipe at tears waiting underneath.
I look at the old homestead with its large wraparound veranda, a veranda Betty and I sat on many times throughout the years.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m going to sit out here for a while.”
Mum walks inside and I place my handbag on the wooden floorboards, then position myself on the rickety swing. The cushion smells like damp, and the chains are rusted through, but they’re not bad enough to crack through my shield of grief.
Betty. My honorary grandmother.
Dead.
Her warm smile, her sweet charm … how can that no longer exist?
The sun’s rays stream across the golden fields. A cow moos in the distance, cockatoos gossiping to each other as they fly from skeleton tree to skeleton tree. I pull my jacket closer around my arms, the cool twilight breeze settling in and sending the swing on an eerie creaking tilt.
My head feels so busy. So many thoughts running through it. So much sadness leeched from my veins. Pain swirls around inside me, haunting my body and gnawing at my soul. I just want out. I need to leave.
Now.
I launch from the chair and hurtle down the steps into the front garden. My arms pump by my sides and my feet fly every time they connect with the ground, as if it’s made of the molten lava that prevented me from getting here earlier. The cool night air scorches my lungs, but the burn is so good. It’s a physical manifestation of the hurt that consumes me.
My knees scrape against the loose wire when I clamber over the fence, then keep running through the paddock. A disinterested cow looks up as I pass, my feet flip-flopping over the uneven grass, but most of the herd don’t pay me any mind.
New tears form at the corners of my eyes, but I don't know if I’m crying, or if my eyes are too exposed to the harsh wind, or if it’s some combination of the two—I just don't know.
I don't know.
How true that line seems to me right now.
I don't know. I don't know where I fit. I don't know what I feel. I don't know what I want.
A stitch eats at my side, and my feet hurt from slapping against the ground. God, I want to run forever. I just want the hurt to stop.
I run toward the fence for the next paddock and leap. My body soars, and for a brief moment, I’m free.
Then my foot clips the top of the fence and I tumble to the ground.
Broken.
Alone.
***
Tate
I postpone the final day of shooting. I shouldn't. It’s only making the problem worse. Still, I feign a headache and spend the hours locked in my room. I pull the shutters down so that damn perfect view can’t taunt me anymore. I don’t get dressed, don’t shower, don’t clean my teeth—I just wallow. I eat. I drink. I watch daytime TV.
I’m numb. This can’t be happening to me.
People like me don't fall for girls like Madison. Not when I’ve tried so hard and for so long to get to this point in my career. How can one woman come along and derail it all?
“She must have hated me.” I take a swig of the beer and then place it back down on the coffee table. Why else would she do something like that? Go to all that effort to make me fall—make me fall for her, not fall in love. But why bother doing that only to betray me?
“Bitch,” I mutter, but the word is thick and heavy coming out of my lips. It doesn't feel right.
Knock, knock, knock.
Sighing, I push to my feet and walk to the door, squinting through the peephole. Huh. Strange. No one there.
I head back to the couch only the knock sounds again. This time, I walk to the door joining our two rooms.
Mikaela.
I pull it open, then turn and head back to my couch and my beer again. Couch and beer. They’ve never hurt me.
“What are you doing?”
I flop down, the leather cracking under me, then hold my arms out to the sides. “What does it look like?”
Mikaela wrinkles up her nose and eyes the empty beer bottles, the tray room-service sent up with the half-eaten burger, and the empty packets of crisps I haven’t bothered to clear yet. “Grieving.”
I scowl, and turn up the volume on the television, but Mikaela steps in front of the screen, her hands on her hips. “We need to talk.”
Sucking in air through my nose, I look up at her. The shitty thing is, she’s right.
The shittier thing is, I still don’t know what to do.
I click the TV off and clear a space on the couch next to me, sending a chocolate bar to the floor. Mikaela, to her credit, doesn't say anything, simply strides over and joins me.
“So this kinda sucks, right?” she asks, nudging me.
I manage to raise one side of my lips in a smile. “Yeah. Kinda does.”
She pauses and licks her lower lip. “Was it the girl you’ve been sleeping with?”
I shrug one shoulder, even though I know the answer is yes. “Aside from you and Janie, she’s the only one who knows.”
I don't add that she works in magazines. Despite how sorry for themselves they are right now due to the unexpected recent sexual deprival, I’m sure my balls would appreciate being used again some day.
Mikaela exhales. “That’s rough. Real rough. But …”
I glance at her. “But what?”
“But what about the hotel staff who cleaned three towels out of our combined rooms? What about the guys who brought you and I room service for three instead of two?”
Whoa.
It’s something Madison and I talked about once, then decided the hotel staff wouldn't notice. Surely actors can be excessive with their towel usage. Still, for a split second, I want to believe it.
Then I think of Madison’s face when I asked her if she’d told anyone about us, and I know I can’t.
Fame (Not Like The Movies #1) Page 23
