Hollywood Playboy

by Natasha Madison

  Isn’t that fucking karma? My own publication broke the story and didn’t have the decency to let me know beforehand. Jesus, this is such a cutthroat industry.

  I shut down the phone, and the man comes back with a bottle of water. “The car is here,” he says, and I nod to him, getting up and making my way back down to the street. I get into the car, and everything is a blur as I get into the small plane and it takes off. After it lands, I walk off the plane and see Kellie there standing next to a car. In her cutoffs, white tank top, and worn cowboy boots, she runs to me, and I bury my face in her neck and sob. My knees finally give out, maybe because I know I’m safe, maybe because I know she’ll take care of me.

  “Brian!” she yells, and I’m suddenly taken into strong arms and carried. I hear car doors open and then close, and the car is moving. Kellie sits beside me with my head on her shoulder. “You’re safe now.” I close my eyes, and the tears fall again. So many tears, how do I have so many tears, how?

  We get to her place, and she holds out her hand for me. “Do you think you can walk, or do you want Brian to carry you?”

  “I think I’m good,” I whisper and walk inside her house. Her dogs run up to her and jump, excited to see her. “I think I want to lie down.” She nods her head and shows me to her guest bedroom with the huge king-size bed in the middle with white and pink covers. It looks like a floating cloud, and there is even a step by the bed to help you up because it’s so high. I kick off my pink heels that I put on this morning; he always loved my shoes. No! I won’t think about him and what he loved because for a while there, I almost thought he loved me. Damn him. I fall back on the bed and pull my knees up to the fetal position. I close my eyes and feel the bed next to me move. “I was so stupid.”

  “No,” she says, brushing my hair away, “you were not stupid. You were a woman who fell in love with a man.”

  “I did love him,” I finally say out loud. “I mean, I thought I did, but I wasn’t sure. Then, well, last night him not being with me, and I missed him like crazy.” All the tears falling make the pillowcase wet. “It hurts,” I admit. “Everything hurts. Even breathing.”

  “Close your eyes,” she says. My eyes suddenly feel so heavy, so heavy, and I finally give into the darkness.

  I don’t know how long I sleep, and when I open my eyes, it takes me a second to remember where I am. As I roll from my side to my back, everything comes rushing back. My hand rubs my chest over my heart to try to ease the hurt. I blink in the darkness, not wanting to move, but my bladder has other plans. I roll to a sitting position and slowly get off the high bed. A light in the corner under the closed door has me walking that way. I open it and see it’s the bathroom. I walk in and look at myself in the mirror. My eyes are puffy and my nose red, but I look a lot better than I feel. I turn on the sink and splash water on my face a couple of times and then finally relieve myself. I walk back into the room, going to the other door and walking out. I walk down the hallway to the open concept house. Kellie lies in the middle of her big couch with her head on a huge guy’s lap as they watch television. “Hey,” I say softly, and she jumps up and comes to me. This makes the dogs freak out and get excited. She is wearing pink pants with a matching pink shirt.

  “Are you hungry?” she asks me, and I shake my head. “You have to eat something,” she says, putting her arm around me and bringing me to the huge ass kitchen. “Sit down and I’ll make you something.”

  “Baby.” I hear the big man from the side speak now. “No more cooking for you.”

  “Don’t call me that.” She points at him. “And it was a little fire.”

  “You almost burned down the house.” He laughs, crossing his arms over his head. “No. If your friend wants food, I’ll go get her something.”

  “Yes,” Kellie says. “Some Chick-fil-A.”

  He then turns to me, and I take in his jeans and black shirt. “Jessica, I’m Brian.” I nod at him. “What would you like to eat?”

  “She wants Chick-fil-A,” Kellie says. “And stop and get a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream. We are mending broken hearts here.”

  “Your heart is fine.” He grabs the car keys and wallet off the counter and then walks over to her and bends down. “Lips.” One word and she leans up, smiles, and kisses him. I watch him walk out of the house, the door slamming behind him.

  “I take it he finally fell for your charm.” I smile, happy for her.

  “I really hope so, or I did anal for nothing,” she says, and for once, I laugh. “Don’t tell him I said that. He’s kind of private.” She comes to the table with a water bottle and hands it to me.

  “I promise I will not bring up that you did anal with your boyfriend.” Taking a long sip of water, I ask, “How bad are the headlines?”

  She looks down at the table and then grabs her phone and comes back. “It’s not as bad as it can be,” she says, and we both know it could be so much worse. “Now just remember half these stories aren’t true.”

  “Yeah, just like half the stories I report aren’t true, right?” I point out as I open it and scroll through the headlines.

  His plan all along to wine, dine, bed, and leave.

  Tyler was playing his best role yet in order to keep her from spilling his darkest secrets.

  He’s been planning this since she came out with his cheating scandal.

  Sleeping with the Enemy.

  Then I see one from Autumn, and it hurts she would run a story on it until I see the title.

  Tyler Beckett’s phone hacked, revealing private and intimate photos.

  I put the phone back down, not even scrolling to read the stories. “I have to type my letter of resignation.”

  Kellie laughs. “How about you’re a fucking whore, I quit.” Then she throws up her hand. “I mean, you’re the writer.”

  “I can’t believe Stephanie let her run that story, and that Brooke ran it.” I shake my head. “I loaned her my deodorant, for fuck’s sake.” I rub my face with my hands and sigh. “And what about my clothes.”

  “In your room,” she says, and I look up at her. “The minute you called me from the cab, I made two phone calls, actually three. One was to the hotel you were staying at. Housekeeping took your bag and packed it up. They sent it to Mario, who is the second call I made. My doorman.” I nod at her. “And the third was the plane.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper to her, the tears now flowing again. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “I know without a shadow of a doubt that if it were me, you would have done the same thing,” she says, and I nod at her.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m going to go to bed. How about we eat the ice cream for breakfast?” I tell her as I get up and give her a hug, and then make my way back to the room. Opening the door, I walk over to the side table and turn on the light. Seeing my luggage in the corner of the room, I put the luggage on the floor and unzip it. The black dress falls out, and I pick it up and bring it to my nose. I smell him on it, from when he took me in his arms and hugged me on the elevator on the way back to his room. I put it aside and grab my pajamas. Peeling myself out of my clothes, I toss them on the floor and climb into bed. I know my phone is no doubt a mess, but I don’t bother with it. Instead, I turn off the light, curl up into a ball, and cry myself back to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Tyler

  Tyler’s new lady love is in hiding and has now been fired!

  When Jessica walked out of the room or, better yet, told me to never touch her again, I thought my legs would give out. I was stuck, my feet not working, and the only thing I could see was the sheer horror on her face. I called her repeatedly, but she never picked up. Everything after is a blur; we canceled the press tour portion, but the red carpet still went on. As they say in Hollywood, the show must go on, and fucking on it went. I got on the plane and didn’t speak to anyone, just going into the back room. I waited for everyone to get off the plane, and then I walked out. The paparazzi were all th
ere at the gate with their flashes going off as I walked off the plane in LA.

  I ducked into the car. “Autumn is going to run a story about your phone being hacked,” Cassie says from beside me. “I’m trying to find out how they got the photo,” she says while she scrolls on her phone.

  I walk into the house and go upstairs to my bedroom, then grab my cell phone and call my parents. He answers after the first ring. “Dad.”

  “Son,” he says, his voice low, “how are you? Where are you? How is Jessica?”

  “I’m fine. I’m home,” I say quietly. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know where she is?” he hisses, and I sit on my bed defeated, defeated and broken. And alone.

  “She left the minute the story came out,” I tell him, recalling everything, “then she was gone, and I don’t know where, Dad.”

  “I’ll make a few calls,” he says, and I sigh. My father’s best friend is a private investigator, so if anyone can find her, it’s him. “Your mother has been crying all day long.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “Fuck, Dad, I didn’t protect her.” The pain in my chest is fierce. “I put her in that situation because I wanted to take a picture of her with me.”

  “Son, they took a private moment and made it dirty,” he starts talking. “Don’t let them win.”

  “What if she won’t talk to me?” The thought is unfathomable. “What if she wants nothing to do with me?”

  “You made her fall in love with you once, you can do it again,” he says, and I can’t say anything over the lump in my throat. Was she in love with me? “I have faith in you.”

  I nod even though he can’t see me. “Now, let me go call Donnie and see if he can do anything.”

  “Okay. Tell Mom I love her,” I say, hanging up the phone. I look up when I hear a knock on the door. “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to head out,” Cassie says, “unless you want me to stick around for a bit?” I shake my head at her. “Great. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I don’t say anything when she leaves. I lie on the bed and try calling Jessica again and again and again. This time, a recording tells me her number isn’t in service. I close my eyes and hope that this nightmare is almost over, but it isn’t. Every day, it just gets worse and worse because they dig up everything that they can. The picture of the two of us is now plastered everywhere. On top of that, Donnie has no leads. Nothing. It’s like the whole universe is blocking me from finding her.

  It’s been four days since my life crashed around me, literally. “How the fuck is this still going on?” I say, grabbing my glass of water and throwing it against the wall. “It’s been four fucking days.” This time, the headlines are saying that her paper fired her for breach of contract.

  The table in the dining room is filled with Ryan, Cassie, Joseph, my new security detail, Edward, my agent, and Larry, my lawyer. The six of us are going over different strategies to get this over once and for all because I’m done just staying quiet.

  “Nothing is going to happen if you tear this whole house down.” Cassie looks up from her notes. “All it does is give me more work.”

  “You just need to,” Ryan starts, and I glare at him, “let it blow over.”

  I put my hands on the table. “I’m fucking done letting shit blow over. Every day is another fucking story.”

  “And every day, I’m filing a new suit,” Larry says. “Sometimes twice a day.” He takes off his glasses and looks at me. “These people are vultures. You take out one and five more pop up.” He looks around the table we’ve been sitting at for the past three hours. “The more you go after them, the more they come back, this time tenfold. I hate to say it, but Ryan is right.”

  “There has to be something I can do to get them to stop running all these stories.” I sit down defeated in the dining room chair. “Anything.” I look around the table at everyone, seeing if they have any suggestions.

  “You have a sex tape?” Edward asks. Everyone groans, but he holds up his hand. “What? It would get her off the covers of every rag in this town.”

  “Yeah, and get her onto every paid porn movie site instead,” Larry reminds everyone.

  “Maybe,” Ryan says, “maybe she’s loving this.” I whip my head toward him. “Maybe she’s staying silent because she’s working on a book deal. A tell all.”

  “No way,” I say, shaking my head. “There is no way she would do that.”

  “How do you know?” Edward asks, and Ryan and Larry lean back in their chair, waiting for me to say something.

  “I know,” I whisper. “I just know.” I hear a chair go back and see Joseph getting up from the table.

  “I’m going to do a turn of the premises and make sure everything is okay.” He turns and walks out the door. Having him around has gotten on my nerves because I just want to be by myself. No, I want to be with Jessica alone, just the two of us. It’s been four days since I’ve slept properly, and four days since I last saw her, if you don’t count the number of times I’ve looked at our pictures.

  “You have to be ready,” Larry says, “just in case she is selling a tell all.” I just shake my head. “I’m going to ask around just in case.”

  “You’re wasting your time.” I sit back in my chair, looking at him.

  “He’s right,” Ryan finally says, shaking his head. “She would never do that.”

  “Oh, please,” Cassie mumbles under her breath, and all eyes go to her. She looks up now, and her hand flies up. “What?” Her voice goes a bit louder know, and I just stare at her. “She was obviously in love with him.” No one says anything at the table; not one person takes their eyes off her, her hands moving while she talks. “It was so obvious.” She rolls her eyes. “She was all over him all the time, and you saw it in her eyes in the picture.”

  I glare at her. “What picture is that because in the picture that was leaked to the press, she had her eyes closed?” My heart starts to pound. “What fucking picture, Cassie?” I yell, and everyone around the table sits up. Ryan puts his hands on the table next to me, and I know it’s to save me if I jump over this table.

  “The fucking picture of you two on the boat somewhere,” she finally says, and it’s at that moment I know that the person closest to me is the one responsible for all this, and she knows there is no turning back from this. “Don’t look at me like that!” she yells. “Who do you think would have been left to clean up the fucking mess you made after she fucked you over?” She stands up now. “Me.” She points at herself. “Me like always.”

  “You leaked the picture,” I hiss. “You leaked the picture,” I say again, letting it sink in.

  “I did,” she says, sitting down. “Someone had to step in and do something; you were being irrational.”

  “Cassie,” Ryan says quietly, and she snaps her head at him.

  “You weren’t there,” she says. “He was.”

  I stand now, my chair going flying. Ryan stands up also and so does Edward, coming over to me and whispering in my ear, “Calm down.”

  “Get the fuck out of my house!” I roar. “Get the fuck out of my house before I fucking toss you out!”

  “You can’t be serious,” she says, looking at me. Her face is finally going white when she realizes I’m not playing. “You are going to choose her over me? After everything that I’ve done for you. Cleaning up all your shit, burying stories, making sure your whores went away quietly?” she yells. “I did that. Me, not you. Me,” she emphasizes, pointing at herself. “And now you’re going to stand there and pick that self-righteous bitch over me?”

  “You did what I paid you to do because that was your job, and if I remember correctly, you were very well paid to do all those things,” I hiss, “and to answer your other question, I pick her. I choose her every second of every fucking day.” I lean forward, Edward putting his hand on my chest. “Now get the fuck out of my house.”

  “If I leave, I won’t come back,” she says, puttin
g her papers together.

  “You don’t touch anything in my house,” I say, and her hands stop when she grabs her purse. “Leave the phone,” I say, and she snaps her head back when Ryan walks to her and holds out his hand for her phone.

  “That’s my phone!” she shrieks.

  “No,” I yell, “it’s mine! I pay for it, so it’s fucking mine.” I have to get my anger in check because if she were a guy, I wouldn’t stop beating him until he stopped breathing.

  She reaches in her purse and takes out the phone, handing it to Ryan. “Cassie.” He shakes his head, pressing something on the phone. “You were taping this meeting?”

  I lunge now, and it takes Edward and Larry to hold me back, and Ryan puts himself in front of Cassie. “Get the fuck out of my house!” I roar while they hold me back.

  She walks past them, and I turn around, “Oh, and, Cassie, I suggest you read the contract you signed when I hired you. You mention another word about anything, and I’ll bury you so far down you won’t see the light for the rest of your life. Your life trotting across the globe with the newest and hottest star will be over before it can even begin.”

  She stops and turns around. “She’s gone,” she says softly and quietly. “Her apartment was emptied yesterday.”

  “More lies,” I hiss. “The paparazzi have staked out her apartment, and if she showed up, it would be in the papers.”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t believe me, go see for yourself. It took the movers twenty-seven minutes to clear out her apartment. She never showed.” She turns and grabs the handle of the door. “She wasn’t fired either; she quit her job at the paper the day after.” That is the last thing she says before she slams the door.