Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

She regarded me wordlessly for several moments. I couldn’t be sure if she was going to tell me anything at all, and that reminded me of how guarded Liz had seemed back in our suite before we’d talked about having the ultrasound. Maybe that bit about needing proof of the baby’s existence had all been a ruse. Maybe she’d been trying to cover for the fact she was feeling guilty about what she’d done—or worse, that she wasn’t, and she just needed a visual aid to flash at the press once they came calling for her.

Either way, the expression that crossed Tessa’s face was so similar it made my stomach turn. I was tired of being lied to. Tired of being left out in the cold and the dark.

“The answer is coming. Just be patient.”

“I’ve been patient,” I muttered as we stepped out into the crowd of reporters, all of them shoving their cameras and microphones in my face before I could even get to my feet. I threw my arms up to protect my eyes from the flashes of light, pushing through the throng as best I could to follow Tessa, who deftly wove a path between the bodies. I could already tell this was going to be an absolute circus.

Once the two of us were in the clear, we made our way down a set of winding hallways. Somehow Tessa already knew where she was headed, though I had no real reason to question it—she always knew what she was doing, as though everything, even the shit that went wrong, had all been accounted for already. That was just who she was.

That’s why I’d followed her to New York for this dog and pony show. She’d never led me the wrong way before, and if there was a way to calm down the press so I could get back to courting Liz, I was sure she’d make that happen.

“Step in here,” she said, opening a door that was marked as some kind of office. As instructed I stepped inside, expecting to find at least one person charged with getting me ready for being on camera, but to my surprise, I was completely alone.

“Tessa, where is—?”

“You’re going to stay in this room until the press are ready for you,” she said, interrupting me like she so loved to do. “I’ll have someone come in to get you ready when it’s time, and I’ll be in to tell you what you’re going to say.”

“I’m going to tell them the truth!” I said, but before I could finish, she was already gone. I stood in that office, scrubbing my face with my hands, wondering how the hell I’d ended up in this mess in the first place. How any of us had.

But more importantly, I was hoping Liz was all right.

Elizabeth

Hours earlier…

I spent the entire car ride having a panic attack about the bombshell that had just been dropped in my lap. A bombshell that provided a million questions and absolutely no answers. What in the hell was going on? Why would Julian just abandon me like that right after our ultrasound? Whatever was happening, I could have stood with him! I could help him make it right. To hell with the media or anyone else who thought our relationship was fake.

We made a child. I’d seen it with my own two eyes. That was something… That was real.

I leaned forward in my seat, my head in my hands as I tried my damnedest to remind myself that the world was not actually spinning and that it was all in my head.

I reached forward and pressed the little intercom button just below the privacy glass that separated me from the driver.

“I want to go back to my place,” I said quietly.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but you’ve got places to be. Julian wants you on a plane in thirty minutes,” came the reply.

I could already feel my chest beginning to tighten and the start of yet another wave of nausea rearing its ugly head. Julian had just stuffed me into this car, and now he wanted me on a plane?

I couldn’t help but wonder what Julian was doing—how he was handling all of this. It had only been a few minutes since we’d seen one another, and already I wished that he was in the car with me, comforting me with those gentle touches and the accent that I’d come to enjoy over the course of these last few days. I wanted to have him by my side to tell me that everything was going to be okay, and that no matter what, he’d be there when the smoke cleared.

Who cared if people thought this was a sham? What mattered was the way we felt about each other.

I cursed an errant tear as I pulled out my phone. I’d forgotten to take it off silent after we’d left the doctor’s office, which I supposed was understandable, given the news we’d received. I checked my messages, but to my surprise, there wasn’t even so much as a text from Jen. If there was big news about Julian Bastille, wouldn’t she have been all over something like this?

In a way, I felt abandoned. The whole world was speeding by me as I sat alone in this car, just waiting for some new bomb to detonate and bathe my life in nuclear fire.

I wanted to tell myself that it would all be all right—that Julian and I would weather this. We’d only known one another for a short time, but in that time, he’d shown me the kind of man he was—or at least, the kind of man that he wanted to be. Would he throw that all away at the first sign of trouble? Though if that were the case, then wouldn’t he have turned tail and ran when I’d said that I was pregnant with his child? He hadn’t done that—in fact, he’d stepped up.

“We’re going to be all right,” I said to myself, thankful for the privacy glass that separated me from the driver. I didn’t want to be seen. All I wanted was to be safe and hidden from the world, but the closer that we got to the airport, the more I began to realize that I would hardly get my wish.

We finally pulled up to a part of the airport I’d never been anywhere close to. A large hanger was labeled GULFSTREAM and a handful of small private jets sat quietly on the runway. A sea of paparazzi was waiting for me as the door opened, cameras flashing as they shoved microphones and smart phones in my face, eager to get something on tape. I pushed through them quickly and boarded the jet, thankful to leave those vultures behind. All they wanted was to pick clean the

carcasses of whoever was unfortunate enough to fall along the wayside of fame and fortune. I’d only been famous for a few days, and already I hated them with every fiber of my being.

“Glad to have you aboard,” a man shouted from the cockpit. “Get yourself buckled in. We’ve got places to be and no time to get there.”

I didn’t ask questions. If Julian wanted me here, I knew he must have his reasons. I sat back in one of the huge comfortable chairs and closed my eyes as I waited for my plane to take flight. The nausea seemed to die down as I took deep breaths. Maybe everything was going to be okay…

I awoke to the sound of wheels chirping on tarmac. Huge skyscrapers filled the view out the small window next to my seat, and I knew instantly where I was…

New York City?

I’d barely been given a chance to react to my new surroundings. I stepped out of the plane just long enough to take a breath and get thrown straight back into another black town car. The driver sped across town as the towering skyline surrounded us in a man made canyon of brick and steel and glass. I’d never seen anything like this in my life.

We pulled up along the front entrance of the hotel, and just as expected, there was a crowd of press waiting for me there. I wanted to scream and cry and hide all at the same time, to curl into a ball and disappear completely from the universe. I felt so small, like an ant about to be crushed beneath the boot of someone so much larger than I. But even that would have been too merciful, too quick, compared to what was about to happen.

None of this made sense. What could possibly be going on that deserved this level of attention? I wanted my life to be my own again—I was so tired of the spotlight and the heavy chains it seemed to come with.

The moment I stepped out of the car, they were on top of my like a pack of wild dogs taking down a kill. Flashing lights blinded me, almost making me stumble as I did my best to push past them.

“Ms. Lawson! Ms. Lawson!” one of the reporters cried over the throng, “Why did you fake your marriage to Mr. Bastille?”