Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

“Weren’t you in Las Vegas six weeks ago for that conference?” Jen asked, her tone turning into one of apprehension. Why are you so quiet? “Is this some kind of joke?”

I pressed my hand to my chest as if that could keep my heart from beating hard enough to make my ribs quiver. I looked around my living room, certain I’d find evidence of some hidden cameras. Was Ashton Kutcher still out there punk’ing people? Maybe this was a fever dream, brought on by whatever ailment was trying so hard to rip me apart from the inside out. In either case, I would be off the hook. Delusional, maybe, but not married to Julian Bastille.

I shook my head defiantly. “This can’t be real…”

“Despite efforts to make contact with Bastille, we have yet to hear from the singer on just how legally binding these proceedings are. Is he planning on using his new marital status to become a US citizen? We’ll have more as the story develops.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered as the TV cut to a commercial. “I can’t be married to him… all we did was sleep together!”

Jen gasped. “You slept with Julian Bastille?!” I winced. The pitch of her voice was high enough that I was sure she was alerting every dog within a three-mile radius. “And you didn’t tell me? I thought we were friends!”

“I didn’t want to tell anyone, Jen!” I whined, grabbing one of the throw pillows and holding it close like a shield, like it could protect me from my friend’s anger—and the truth. “You think I really want to go bragging that I almost got black-out drunk and woke up next to a rock star?”

“Um… yes! Who the hell doesn’t want to brag that they got some of that action? I mean, have you seen the man? He’s gorgeous!”

“Clearly, I’ve seen him,” I said dryly, and I could practically hear her scowl over the line. I groaned and fell over onto my side on the couch. “What am I going to do, Jen? This is a mess. I didn’t want any of this. I was just trying to have some fun.” I sighed. “Can’t I just do what everyone else does and hide from my problems?”

“Well, you can,” she said at length, “but not for long, I don’t think. You’re probably going to have people on your front steps any minute now.” My heart sank and Jen chuckled. “Oh, come on, sweetheart. You’re about to get your fifteen minutes of fame. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

No, I thought. Not everyone. Not me. All I’d ever wanted was to be successful. To live a quiet, but fantastic life according to the plans I’d made back in middle school. I’d worked so hard to make every bullet point on my list into a reality. I’d gone to the college of my dreams on an academic scholarship. I’d graduated at the top of my class with an MBA in accounting. I’d had my pick of the litter when it came to firms, and I’d moved halfway across the country to accept the offer I’d received from one of the most prestigious, and reputable, companies around.

With one naughty night, I’d ruined all those hopes and dreams. All of my planning and effort was crumbling around me…

I’d thrown my life away for a night with a rock star.

Julian

“Wake up, Julian,” Tessa said as a sharp pain in my side brought me back into consciousness. I sat up in my bed—no wait, this was the couch. I hadn’t made it to the bed last night.

“For fuck’s sake Tessa. What’d you have to go and wake me up for?”

She stood over me, hands on her hips, fingers leaving small, crisp indentations in the finely tailored fabric of her stark white suit coat. The light behind her created a halo effect around her auburn hair that some men might have called angelic. But I knew Tessa better than that. There wasn’t one thing about her that was as divine and serene as all that.

“Because you need to get the hell up and get dressed,” she said. The glare of the lights off her glasses was intolerable. “You have a flight to catch.”

I snorted. “To where, exactly? We don’t have any shows planned for another month!”

She shook her head and walked over to my telly, her heels clicking on the marble tile. Grabbing the remote, she turned on the set and changed the channel from one of the adult premiums to the news. Not the actual news, mind—the entertainment variety.

“Oh, that was a good picture, that one,” I said as I stared at myself on a magazine cover from a few years back. I was shirtless with my tattoos on full display, perhaps with a color balance edit in Photoshop to really make them stand out. I glanced up at Tessa. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

Tessa glared at me and smashed her thumb into the volume button, turning the telly up.

“British rocker Julian Bastille is a married man! Sources say that he and his new bride tied the knot while Bastille was supposed to be playing a concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. Instead it seems the singer hit a drive-thru chapel with his intended and enjoyed a wild honeymoon at the crowd’s expense. His reputation in the States has plummeted, with many of his fans taking to the Internet to declare their outrage.”

“What’s this ‘married’ nonsense?!” I asked, staring at Tessa, my eyebrows raised. “I didn’t get married!”

“His spouse,” the anchor continued, “a woman by the name of Elizabeth Lawson from Billford Falls, has yet to be reached for comment.”

“Elizabeth who?” I mumbled, cocking my head. This had to be some kind of a drunken hallucination, didn’t it? Except it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt real. I could tell by the way my mouth felt full of cotton and the muscle in my cheek was starting to twitch. I looked up at Tessa. “Who in the hell is Elizabeth Thomson?”

“Apparently,” she said, extending every syllable out as much as she could, “she’s the girl that ran out on you in Vegas.”

Oh…

I put my face in my hands. I’d been trying not to think about that night since Tessa and I had gotten on the plane. In fact, I’d done my damnedest to forget all about it—or what little I could recall in the first place. Every indicator had pointed to that evening being something of an embarrassment, and the fact that she ran out on me wasn’t a damn confidence booster. I didn’t know why, really. Something about being abandoned like that—me, a rock star, for fuck’s sakes—just made me feel like a failure. Jagger sure as hell never had this problem.

“We’ve got to sort this out,” I said into my palm. My heart was pounding, a cold sweat clinging to my brow. I was starting to sober up and I didn’t like it. “Call Jerry. We might have time to get this whole thing turned around. Didn’t Brittney Spears unwind one of these Vegas weddings? We’re going to need to get divorce papers, and—”

“You’re not going to divorce this girl.”

I dropped my hands and stared up at Tessa in indignant disbelief. “The hell do you mean, I’m not?” I laughed, even though there was nothing at all funny about this situation. It just seemed like one of those things where you either laughed or you cried, and I wasn’t about to start shedding tears like a baby who needed his dummy. “Sorry, love. You might control every other aspect of my life, but this one’s mine to claim. I’m not the marrying type.”

“And why not?” she asked, lifting her brows as she hit the mute button to silence a story about a new set of pandas at some zoo in the States. “This is perfect, Julian. It’s just what we’ve needed to get your name into the American news. It’s exactly what we talked about back in Vegas.”

My jaw sagged. “You’ve got to be kidding.” I pointed at the screen in dramatic fashion, hoping that by now they’d put up a picture of this Elizabeth girl so I could both put a face to her name and invoke some sense of her humanity in all this, but no—they were still going on about the bloody pandas. I ran my fingers through my hair instead. “That girl deserves better than to be put on display for public amusement. And I fail to see how stringing her along is going to help my reputation.”

“It’s going to make you more human,” Tessa said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “Without something to make people care about you, you’re going to fade away! Your money’s running out. You haven’t played a proper

show or recorded an album in over two years, and walking out on the one gig I managed to book in the states didn’t earn you any sympathy!”

I turned away from her, casting my gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows and toward the London skyline. I hated all of this publicity nonsense that Tessa kept trying to push on me. I remembered our conversation in the town car—as much as I wished I didn’t—and we’d had several like it since then. She’d even gone as far as to find a professional matchmaker to try to set me up with someone “fitting” of a scandal. Someone who might understand my “unique” position in all this. I couldn’t believe people actually did this sort of thing. It really put me off the idea of love.

Not that I’d been romance’s biggest fan, anyway. It all seemed such a messy business, and not in a good way. I’d never had much loyalty in my life. My past was a roadmap of utter betrayal, a Rolodex of people who’d turned their backs on me for their own gain. And imagining doing it to someone else… it just didn’t sit well with me. Not in the slightest.

“This isn’t right, Tessa,” I said, shaking my head as I focused my attention on the south bank of the Thames. I could see the London Eye from here. More like the London Eyesore, really. It stuck out a chav at Buckingham Palace. “I don’t like this one bit.”