Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

Already people were starting to shout out questions, most of them wondering how Liz had tricked me into marrying her and getting her pregnant. I was almost grateful when Tessa stepped in front of the crowd and asked for silence. Once the mob of reporters had quieted their din to a low rumble, I finally began to speak.

“Good afternoon,” I began, doing my best to keep the quaver out of my tone. “I have recently been made aware of certain information that proves that my so-called wife, Elizabeth Lawson, has in fact been lying to me since our meeting in Las Vegas, where she got me drunk, drugged me, and proceeded to use my impaired judgment in order to facilitate conceiving a child. Her plan was to receive child support through the American courts, as well as alimony after the planned termination of our marriage…”

I didn’t look anyone in the eye. Not a single one. I couldn’t bear to acknowledge the complete idiocy I’d engaged in, or the stupid brand of hope I’d felt that my life could change—that I could ever be anything other than what I was. That I could be loved the way other people were, known the way other people were, or love someone else the way I so desperately wanted to. In my line of work, there could be no trust. All I would ever know of love was the shitty lyrics I wrote to coerce teenage girls into buying my albums on iTunes.

And I sure as hell didn’t reach in my pocket and touch the ultrasound photos there—the only tangible remnant I had left of the future that had turned out to be nothing more than a lie.

Elizabeth

I stared at the television set, utterly dumbfounded by what I had just heard come out of Julian’s mouth. For a moment I thought for sure I’d lost my mind, that the last few days he and I had spent together—all the things we’d done together and said to one another—had all been in my head. My world was spinning into a freefall that I felt like I wouldn’t be able to pull myself out of in time to avoid the inevitable crash landing. Was this really how all of this was going to end? Just when I had thought maybe I’d be able to have something with Julian?

I could feel my chest seizing, the world suddenly losing all sound. I watched in horror as he answered question after question about my character, my supposed manipulations, and some kind of elaborate plan I’d enacted to trap him into marriage and fatherhood. Nothing made sense, and I wanted to just stop existing until I woke up from what had to be the worst nightmare I had ever experienced.

Pull it together, Liz, I thought, trying as hard as I could to push through my panic attack. In my head, I started going over a list of all the things that I actually had control over, repeating the exercise incessantly until my lungs expanded and the world settled on its proper axis again.

I snapped myself out of my stupor just in time to catch the very end of the interview as one of the reporters asked Julian, “What’ll you do now, Mr. Bastille?”

“I’m going back home,” he said. I’d been feeling a lot of awful things since this press conference started, but the worst feeling of all came when I saw just how sad he looked as he said that. Julian looked like he might crumble right there in front of everyone, just dissolve to ash and blow away in the wind. When he walked off camera, my heart wrenched for an entirely different reason. It was like I was watching him turn away and leave me, rather than just the crowd.

I sat forward on the couch, hiding my face in my palms as I wondered just how long I’d be able to stay in here before they told me I needed to leave.

I glanced back up at the television as a newscaster began going over a few more of the story’s details.

“According to sources close to Mr. Bastille,” the woman said, leaning forward almost conspiratorially, “Ms. Lawson’s deception was uncovered through a series of leaked e-mails, detailing for months how she and a friend had plotted out every step of their insidious plan.”

“What fucking e-mails?!” I yelled at the screen, grabbing the landline and trying to call Julian one more time. Now there were a bunch of e-mails that implicated me in some kind of marriage con? It was bad enough that some low-life paparazzi had made a claim like that—men like him came up with wild theories to sell their stories all the time—but for an actual news organization to publish it too?

Whoever had “leaked” those e-mails must have been the same person who had tipped the press off to the arrangement Julian and I had made—one that I honestly wished I’d said no to right from the start. I knew one thing for sure: whoever was responsible for all of this was going to pay for every moment of this humiliation. That was a solemn vow I was only too happy to undertake.

I wanted to scream, to shout to the heavens that I wasn’t responsible for any of this, but that would get exactly nothing done except leave me hoarse. No, I needed this anger inside me, fueling me to take action in setting the record straight—and Julian.

As much as I hated the very thought of it, there was at least one more person I could call—someone that I knew would be able to get me in touch with Julian, or at least tell me what in the world was happening. She was in the thick of everything now, and if anyone had any answers, it would be her.

I scrolled through my cell phone for Tessa’s contact information, lifted the receiver on the hotel phone once again, and dialed. I just had to hope that she, too, wouldn’t be ignoring my calls. The last thing I needed was that bitch snubbing me on top of everything else. But she was Julian’s manager. She would want to do what was in Julian’s best interest, wouldn’t she? And clearing all of this up would be in everyone’s best interest.

With each ring I could feel my stomach tightening, each one taking me one step closer to having to hear the sounds of that woman’s voicemail and leaving me with yet more unanswered questions.

On the fourth ring, I heard someone pick up the line, the distant murmur of voices, and the sound of a door slamming shut.

“What the hell do you want?” Tessa hissed. “Haven’t you done enough to ruin everything already?”

“Tessa!” I said. For once in the entire week that I’d known her, I was actually relieved to hear that sneer directed at me. “You have to let me talk to Julian. This entire thing is a—”

She barked a laugh. “Let’s get one thing straight here, Elizabeth: I don’t have to let you do anything. You can go rot in a jail cell for all I care—not that Julian is pressing any charges—but I do hope that you get whatever book they can think of thrown at you. You’ve ruined everything.”

“You have to listen to me,” I begged, hoping to God that she didn’t hang up on me. “None of what they’re saying is true! I didn’t do any of this!”

“These e-mails say otherwise,” she said, an odd turn in the tone of her voice putting me on edge. “According to these, you’ve been planning this little con of yours for months now—and who is the world supposed to believe? The hard evidence? Or some nobody from Bumfuck, USA who swears she didn’t do anything wrong? You’re up the bloody creek without a paddle darling, and I’m sure as hell going to enjoy watching you drown.”

There was something in the way she spoke, some glee she took in describing just how screwed I was, that made me pause. The more she went on, the less angry she seemed. There was something manic about her now; she was spitting her words out so fast that I was surprised that she wasn’t stumbling just to keep up with herself.

“Put Julian on,” I demanded again, clenching my hands into fists as I was met with another laugh. “Now!”

“There’s no way I’m letting you say a word to him, little Lizzie,” she said, and I ground my teeth at the use of that hated nickname. “I’ve worked far too hard to let someone like you ruin this for me. In just a few hours, Julian and I will be on our way back to London.”

“Jesus Christ, Tessa, what the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you care about the truth?” I remembered the way he’d looked at the conference and my heart broke all over again. “This is going to tear him apart, and it’s pure lies! He’ll never recover from it. Never.”

I’d been attempting to appeal to her humanity, to the part of her

I believed, at the time, truly cared about Julian and his well-being. But Tessa didn’t even pause to consider what I’d told her. She just lowered her voice, her mouth very close to the phone as she said:

“If I so much as catch a whiff of you before we’re on that plane, you’ll be in jail for whatever charges I can have a solicitor dream up. If you know what’s good for you, Lizzie darling, you’ll do everyone a favor and just disappear—you and that little bastard growing in your belly. The world doesn’t want to hear about some whore whose only claim to fame was uncrossing her legs for one of Britain’s most wanted.”

I reeled from the shock of the venom in her words, the icy and cutting way she spoke them right in my ear. Was she really so determined to turn this against me that she wouldn’t even listen to my side of the story? But the more I thought on it, the more I realized that no matter what the outcome of this situation, Tessa would spin it to her benefit. She was the kind of person who would turn any bad thing that happened into her newest advantage, and while that sounded almost admirable, the fact that she would step over—or on top of—someone just to manipulate things in her favor left me with nothing but loathing for her.

“I can’t believe this,” I said, trying hard to hold back the tears prickling the corners of my eyes—tears of frustration, anguish, and rage all fighting for dominance over which would be in control of my reaction. “I can’t believe you’d be so goddamn heartless.”

“Oh, please,” Tessa tutted, “heart has nothing to do with it. But since I’m feeling generous, I’ll let you in on a little tip: either you do, or you get yourself done. It’s fuck or be fucked, and I don’t mean that in the good way. That’s how this world works, pet. Always has, always will. Tough lessons to learn, I’m sure, but in the end, you’ll be smarter for it.”

“You fucking bitch,” I whispered, almost choking on a sob. “All I want is to talk to Julian.”

“I’m not a bitch, Lizzie,” she said coolly. “I’m just winning. And I’ve worked way too hard to let some loser, some runner-up, like you take that away from me.”

And just like that, the line went dead, and I was alone in our suite once again.

It was then and only then that I started to break down, crumpling into the sofa as the weight of all I’d lost came crashing down on me.

For one small moment, I had thought that maybe my life wouldn’t be spent paying off my student loans or being alone with no one but my best friend for company. I had dreamed, for just a second, that I could have someone who cared about me, who would stick by me no matter what. That I could finally surrender all this armor I’d been wearing since I was practically a child. That I could stop fighting so hard for every scrap of happiness in my life, and maybe even start living it.

But it seemed that the universe would have none of that—as though all of creation couldn’t stand the idea that maybe Liz Lawson got her happy ending for once.

I don’t know how long I lay there, my face stained with tears, before I reached out and grabbed the hotel phone one last time. I dialed a number that had been burned into my memory from a lifetime of friendship. If there was one person on this planet who would help me now, it was Jen.

Julian

Two days later…

It was almost like I had gone back in time.

There I was, sprawled out over the couch, a bottle clutched limply in my hand and God only knew how much booze coursing through my veins. I stared at the ceiling, having completely surrendered to the void of sweet oblivion. Everything was exactly like it had been before I’d ever gone to Vegas, just like the days when I would spend weeks at a time in a drunken haze. But it was exactly that that had me so… dissatisfied.

The sight of those e-mails still haunted me as I lay there, rereading them over and over again in my mind, still trying to come to terms with how any of this could have been true. I could almost convince myself that all of it had been a dream, that I had only just woken up from a week-long torpor and that somehow, whatever fantasy had danced through my unconscious had turned so horribly sour. But deep down in my heart, I knew that it wasn’t a dream, wasn’t something that I would forget before I took the next sip from the bottle in my hand, or even something I’d forget a week from now.

Or a month. Or a year. Or, hell, a lifetime. I took another pull from the bottle of Jack. Bottom’s up, eh?

I had been betrayed. Betrayed by the woman that, for the first time in my life, I thought I might have a chance—or even wanted a chance—with! These were the kinds of things that people wrote tragedies over, the loss of trust in love and the slow march into utter loneliness. Even my impressive level of intoxication couldn’t guard my heart against the toothy memory of those messages between the woman I had begun to care so much for and her best friend. The messages that had been used to plot out how the two of them would take me for a complete and utter fool and use me to finance the rest of their lives.

I felt rudderless again, like I had before I’d met Liz, and couldn’t help but marvel at the irony that the one time I felt like I had a purpose in my life, it had only ever been a ruse to line someone’s pockets. Was that all I was good for, being taken advantage of and consumed like something you’d buy at the grocer’s? Was I just a tool to be used and then thrown aside once I had served my purpose?

I couldn’t blame Liz entirely for it, I supposed—after all, the plan had been to use her for practically the exact same thing—or rather, that had been Tessa’s plan. But so much had changed since I’d met her, seen her as something more than a woman I’d fucked in a hotel in Vegas, or even the accidental future mother of my child. I had begun to see her as the woman I wanted to ensure didn’t have her life ruined because of me. But instead, it had been her plan that both Tessa and I had played into. It was ironic, to say the least.

And it was something Tessa had warned me about since the beginning. Oh, why hadn’t I listened to her? She might have been a right cunt half the time—really, only half? I wondered to myself—but she was rarely, if ever, wrong. And she’d never double-crossed me, not like Liz had. It was a damn good thing Tessa had found those e-mails, because as smitten as I’d been with Liz, there was no way I’d have believed her if she merely told me.

Yet despite how all of the evidence pointed toward her using me without any damned remorse, I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with Liz. No—instead, all I could bring myself to feel was utter despair and loneliness, crushing my ribs like a vise whenever I tried to take a deeper breath.

Ever since the press conference, I had just felt so damn empty, walking along in a daze. And damn, too, the idea that I was meant to be more than just some fleeting star, burned out before I got my chance to truly shine. If there ever had been any anger inside of me, it had been snuffed out before it had even gotten any air to breathe—extinguished by the knowledge that I would never have someone I could truthfully call my own.

The idea of a family had only been mine for a moment before it got snatched away from me like bait on a line. That was what I had become—the rock star that bit the hook and got reeled right in like the sucker I was.

I should have never left London, I thought, shaking my head as I brought the mouth of the bottle to my lips once again, taking a long, slow pull from its amber contents. I should have never even entertained the thought of going to Vegas. What a stupid idea that’d been.

But then I remembered that Vegas had been Tessa’s idea, really—she’d booked the gig and had practically demanded that I go. She had been so damned determined to get me a bigger following in the States, and I hadn’t been in enough of a mood to tell her no. Who would I have been to tell her she didn’t know her own business? If she said that it was a good move, why wouldn’t I have believed her? Shit, it might have worked out fine, had I actually shown up to the concert.

I attempted to set the bottle down on the floor beside the couch, but only ending up tipping it over and spilling some of its precious contents onto the marble tile.

“Shit!” I shouted, jumping up as quickly as I could, only to suddenly realize how much of a mistake that had been. I slipped on the puddle that had poured out from the bottle and busted ass, a bolt of pain searing up my spine through my tailbone.

“My God, man, you look like a mess,” came Tessa’s unusually chipper voice as the door swung open. Just the sound of it made me dread whatever it was she had come to my flat to say. “Why’re the curtains closed? It’s wonderful outside!”

I groaned and laid down on the floor—fuck getting up, though the clicking of her heels across the tile made me want to crawl into my bedroom and shut the door, a feeling only compounded by the sudden burst of light flooding into my living room as my manager flung the heavy blackout curtains wide.

“Jesus!” I cried, covering my eyes and turning away from the light. “Could you not?”

“Oh, settle down, Jules,” she said, an infuriatingly pleasant smile on her lips. “You should be pleased! You’re in the clear!”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll start doing a dance any minute now,” I grumbled, glaring at her as my eyes slowly started to adjust to the offensive amount of daylight streaming in through the windows. “What do you want, Tess?”

“Is that any way to talk to the woman who’s practically just saved your career from the rubbish bin?” she purred. “I mean, I did just make sure that you’re the most talked about person in the whole country, after all.”

“What in the hell are you on about?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her as I hoisted myself carefully from off the floor. “My career is over, Tessa. We both know that, don’t we? There’s no way I’m coming back after what happened.”