Hidden Hollywood

“I can’t believe you! I told you I wanted to keep us private!”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It is bad! Now they’re going to make up all kinds of stories about how I’m doing twins. Ménage a twin or whatever you call it.”

His lips twitched. “Ménage a trois.”

She stood, furious. “This might be funny to you, but it’s not to me. You probably did this on purpose to get your name in the headlines. Since you’ve got those offers on your company. This will just up your status.” She should’ve known. Men always used her like this to make themselves into something bigger.

“Claire, it’s not like that. You make it sound like I’m using you for your name.”

She crossed her arms. “Aren’t you?”

“No.” He stood and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m using you for your body.”

She jerked away.

“Come on,” he said. “I was joking. You’re acting like a prima donna. Not everything’s about you.”

“This is, Jake! This is very much about me.” She grabbed her cell and punched in the code. Ten voice mails, at least a hundred emails with alerts on her name, and seven increasingly frantic texts from her publicist. “I put everything I had into the Fierce trilogy. There’s nothing left for a marketing campaign. All I have is the good buzz around me and Blake to make an impact.”

“So you can’t have a relationship because of a movie? Is that what you’re saying?”

She quickly texted her publicist that she was on it. “It’s not that simple. This is my career, my business, my future all wrapped up in one.” She met his eyes. “Now I have to deal with the fallout while you just walk away carefree. Your net worth just went back to ten figures.”

“Why’s everything about money with you?” he barked.

“Because that’s what people want from me! They want to use me in whatever way it most benefits them.”

“Maybe that’s what you wanted from me,” he said. “That’s my experience with women.”

“You pig! How dare you accuse me of being a gold digger! I have my own money and you know it.”

“No, you don’t. You just said it was all invested in that movie.”

“I’ll get it back if I can just have a good opening weekend, which means I need good press.” Her cell vibrated with a text. She looked at him. “Frank wants to know if I’m okay.”

“So tell him you are.” His lip curled. “It’s like you have a giant babysitter.”

She glared at him.

“What? Are you going to pretend I’m doing something to you that’ll make him kick me out? I haven’t done anything you haven’t begged for.”

“That’s over,” she spat. She quickly texted Frank that she was okay. “You should go.”

“Just because I don’t jump at your command and play your little cloak-and-dagger games to hide from the world doesn’t mean I’m against you. I want to be with you.”

“On your terms.”

“Yes. Because yours are fucked up. You put the press above the people in your life that actually care about you. That’s me in case you didn’t know!”

She felt like kicking something. She stalked to the pile of his clothes and threw them at him. “You don’t understand. If you really cared about me, you would at least try to see this from my perspective. I’m a commodity. A brand. And that has to be protected at all costs.”

He stared at her for a long moment before he pulled his shirt on. “Maybe your price is too high.”

Her knees nearly buckled, and she locked them tight. Because he didn’t think she was worth the cost of being with her.

“I want you gone,” she said quietly before making a quick exit to the living room where she knew she had to call her publicist. It would be a cascading number of calls after that to settle things down and turn the message.

Claire was on the phone with her screaming publicist for the next several minutes, her blood pressure spiking into the red zone, but she still heard the slam of the front door.

~ ~ ~

Somehow Claire got through the next month of shooting intimate love and fight scenes with Blake. The fight scenes were a helluva lot easier because they hated each other. She was sure Blake was behind all the press reporting that tensions were high on set. He was stabbing them all in the back just so he could vent to someone and get back at her. And she wasn’t feeling the least bit loving since Jake ripped her heart out and stomped on it. She hadn’t heard from him. He was just gone—poof—too good to be true. Just like she thought.