Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

Tessa turned off the television. “No one said you had to love her.” She returned to stand in front of me, arms folded across her chest. Her tone was soft, but everything else about her was so severe. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not just that,” I replied, finally meeting her eyes. “What about her feelings in all this? What happens to her, when all is said and done?” I turned away again. “Christ, I can’t imagine all the press at her door right this moment. And maybe I’m wrong, but Billford Falls doesn’t exactly have that big-city ring to it. Poor dove must be going out of her mind…”

Sighing, Tessa sat beside me on the couch. “Oh, Jules. You always think the best of people, don’t you? That woman, whoever she is, is probably eating this up with a spoon. I mean, clearly, she was a fan. Why else would she roll through a drive thru chapel with you? Trust me, Jules. She’ll be more than happy with this arrangement.”

“You think so?” I asked, an uncertain frown creasing my face. I didn’t like the idea of taking advantage of this woman if she was just as much a victim in this as I was.

Tessa patted my leg. It didn’t suit her, this phony fondness. “I know so. I’ve seen it a million times.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “But why didn’t this come out sooner? If this girl’s the shrewd bird you think she is, wouldn’t she break the news much earlier? I haven’t seen heads or tails of this woman.”

“You’re thinking too much,” she chuckled. “Don’t you pay me to do that for you?”

I wasn’t so sure. Those empty words seemed an awful lot like Tessa just didn’t have an answer.

“Think of it this way,” she continued, leaning forward and clasping her hands. “You two meet up in the States. We let the paparazzi have a field day for a while, come up with some story about why this didn’t come to light sooner. And then you two announce you’re going to try to make things work. You live in married bliss for a while, then manufacture a big row in the public eye. Something that implicates you both. You need your freedom, of course. She needs security. The age-old chasm that separates men like you from women like her. You break it off, get sympathy from your adoring fans, and she gets to have her taste of fame! Once for the marriage, and then one more time for the break-up.”

She smiled, spreading her hands now. “It’s a win-win for the both of you, really. What do you have to lose?”

Tessa’s plan made a cruel sort of sense, but it was still contingent on the idea that this woman—this Elizabeth—was willing to go along. Tessa seemed to think she’d been complicit in this from the start, but I still wasn’t sure that I bought that. The timeline just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. If that really were the case, I’d have expected her to be crowing about it long before now.

“All we have to do is hop on a plane and you and I will find this girl, make her see reason, and everything will fall into place from there,” Tessa finished at last. “Really, Jules, it’s the perfect plan.”

Perfect, I mused. Perfect for who? It certainly wasn’t perfect for me. If I was allowed to have my way, none of this would be coming to pass. I could focus on the musical aspect of my career instead of the parts that made me feel like I was part of some reality TV show. And that word—allowed—made me grind my teeth. Wasn’t the life of a rock star supposed to be about doing whatever the hell it was I wanted to do? Weren’t people supposed to answer to me instead of the other way around?

But then… I wanted to survive, didn’t I? Maybe this was just a part of paying my dues. I’d thought those days were over after my first hit, that I’d finally made it to the top of the mountain. Instead, I’d looked up and realized that the fog of perspective had been obscuring my view. What awaited me was yet another uphill climb, this time along a sheer cliff face with no handholds to speak of. Every victory I achieved meant nothing if I wasn’t scrambling for another one. It was exhausting.

And the truth was, I’d burned out.

I was sick of struggling. I was sick of the endless task of finding something bigger and better to do, to be. No matter what I did, the audience would always want more. And not just more of the same. They’d want something spectacular. They were chasing the dragon of novelty; we lived in an age where the worst possible thing you could be was predictable. Predictable was boring. And that meant that performers couldn’t just perform anymore. They had to entertain, too. It wasn’t good enough to stand up there and sing your heart out, you had to do it dressed in a pair of meat panties while two assholes in shark costumes danced in the background.

I blame Pink Floyd for all of this, of course. The spectacle has become more important than the music.

I felt like a puppet on a set of strings that could be cut at any moment, leading to my full and irrevocable collapse. It wasn’t a condition I wanted to stay in. When I finally threw off my binds, I wanted it to be because I’d escaped my masters—not because they’d given up on me. I wanted it to be my choice.

If that meant I had to suffer a few unsavory compromises along the way… well…

“What do I have to do?” I asked, averting my gaze from Tessa’s once again. I could convince myself this was a necessary evil, certainly, but in the end it was still evil, and I didn’t have to like it.

She relaxed beside me, reaching down to straighten the hem of her jacket. “We’re going to get onto a plane in an hour—I called in a few favors and got you a private jet, and I phoned ahead to the local news station where your wife—” Tessa seemed to take a special, sadistic pleasure in using this word “—lives to let them know we’re on our way and that they ought to get their press vans mobilized. Once we land, you’re going to make a statement on how your romance was spur of the moment, and that you two fell in love at first sight.”

I cocked a brow at her. “People really go for that stuff, do they?” She shrugged, and I shook my head, bewildered. “Christ almighty.”

“After that,” Tessa continued, “you two will meet up somewhere. Someplace private, as it gives us all time to speak freely about the circumstances at hand. If she’s a fan like I think she is, she’ll be more than happy to play house. Depending on how she reacts, we’ll decide whether or not to tell her about the break-up plan.”

I snapped my head around to stare at her. “Jesus, Tessa, why wouldn’t we tell her?”

She regarded me, nonplussed. “To keep her from causing the kind of scandal you don’t want, of course.”

“Of course,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. This was all so bloody complicated. I felt like I was an agent for MI5 rather than a guy who wrote songs for a living. “And what if she’s not on board?”

“Then we’ll make something up that explains this whole

mess away, something that paints you as the victim here instead of her.” She thought for a moment, then added, “We’ll say you were drugged, then tell everyone you’re not pressing charges…”

The look I gave her must have telegraphed my horror, because Tessa raised her hands disarmingly and immediately went on the defensive. “I’m just being practical, Julian. And it’s either this, or go back to working small-time here in London, playing in those little dive bars you used to love so much.”

I groaned. I couldn’t go back to that, not after I’d gotten a taste of the limelight. Now I needed to stay there at any cost… but at the cost of this girl’s happiness, or even her reputation? I felt like scum, though from the smile on Tessa’s face, you’d think she’d just won the lottery.

“Up and at ‘em, then, Julian!” Tessa said, her voice rising to delighted heights. “We’ve a plane to catch and a sham marriage to reap the benefits of!”

I sat back a moment and took a breath, still reeling from the idea that any of this had even happened. The pit in my stomach had only grown as I’d learned the details of Tessa’s plan, and with her machinations already in motion, I knew it wasn’t going to shrink anytime soon.

I rubbed my face and hoisted myself up off of my couch, searching around for something clean to wear as Tessa made excited phone calls just out of earshot.

“No press is bad press,” I muttered to myself.

Elizabeth

“Oh, God! Jen this is so bad,” I said, peeking out from between my curtains at the mass of vans and camera crews milling around just inches from my front yard. It had only taken them a few hours to start gathering after the news had leaked my name to the entire state—hell, even TMZ was outside waiting for me to make some kind of statement for them.

I wasn’t giving them a damn thing, though. They’d been out there for almost twenty-four hours now, just waiting for me to come outside. There had to be some kind of public ordinance about this thing. Could I call the cops?