Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

“You keep saying that, hun,” Jen said from my couch. She’d braved the clamoring masses to knock on my door this morning, McDonald’s breakfast and coffee in tow. My stomach had been too upset for me to feel excited about either one, though I couldn’t deny how sweet the gesture was. “But this could be huge for you! You’re Julian Bastille’s wife! This is awesome!”

“How is this awesome?!” I asked, my voice rising to uncomfortable levels. “I have people outside my house with cameras! Nothing about this has been awesome so far!”

Jen looked over at me for a few long moments before heaving a sigh and hefting herself up from the comfort of the couch cushions.

“Listen, babe,” she said as she sauntered over, “you’re currently married to one of the hottest guys in the UK. I’d give my left arm to be in your position. Sitting here listening to you complain about having a bit of media attention outside of your house is a little annoying… and the only reason I’m not standing with a crowd of Bastille fans cursing your name is because of how much you mean to me.” She grinned. “And ‘cause being your friend means I might get close enough to touch him. You have nothing to worry about! Worst case, this all goes away in a few days.”

I bit my lower lip and Jen laid a hand on my shoulder, smiling sweetly, though the way her words had come out I swore she was about to smack me upside the head. I’d already called into work today—again. The only thing I could do was sit and wait to see if this bastard would so much as acknowledge the shit storm he’d just dropped me into.

“You’re right,” I said, smiling half-heartedly. “I don’t have anything to worry about—not yet, anyway. I’m just surprised that his lawyer or manager or whatever hasn’t called yet. We need to get this marriage annulled quickly.”

“Give it time, Liz,” Jen said. “Guys like him love shit like this. If he doesn’t call you, then he’ll probably be on the news soon anyway.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to calm myself down. My nausea had abated somewhat, though I could still feel my stomach teetering on the precipice of butterflies versus queasiness. I’d thrown up twice before Jen got here. Nothing like waking up to your gag reflex in overdrive. “I just wish my doctor would call me back.”

“Lab work can take a few days,” Jen said, waving her hand as she turned toward the reflective surface of my television—which I’d turned off, after that bombshell dropped—and started to preen herself. “Do you think I look good enough for the news?”

I stared at her. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding me? This is the biggest thing to happen in this town since the history of forever! Hell yes, I give a damn about how the world’s going to see me when I make my big television debut!”

“Unbelievable,” I muttered as I headed toward my bathroom. I needed a shower, and not just because I felt dirty, but because I was a mess. Ever since I’d gotten home from the doctor’s two days before, I had been practically useless.

I stripped out of my pajamas and turned on the shower, making sure to avoid the windows. I’d seen enough movies to know that these paparazzi pricks loved to get shots of their subjects when they weren’t looking—and usually in the most compromising positions.

For extra measure, I turned the water as hot as I could stand, waiting until it was steaming before I stepped inside. I breathed deep from the humid air that whirled around me as the near-scalding water beat down on my skin, eliminating all traces of the world outside. I’d always loved taking hot showers, the way the white noise of the water rushing through the nozzle could clear my thoughts. In here, I could have a moment’s respite from the stress of life outside this room. In here, I could forget the name Julian Bastille and all the ways he had royally screwed me over.

In some ways, literally.

I’d just barely managed to get my muscles to relax when I heard Jen calling to me from outside the bathroom door.

“Hey, hun? You might want to come out here and see this.”

My stomach clenched. Just like that, all my tension was back. Those words couldn’t possibly mean anything good.

“In a minute,” I called back to her before beginning to wash my hair and body in earnest. I didn’t even want to think of what awful thing had happened now—all I wanted to do was get myself clean again.

After I’d rinsed, I stepped out onto the coarse terrycloth rug, wiggling my toes against the scratchy fabric. The sensation of it underneath my feet make me heave a sigh of contentment—something I didn’t think I’d ever do outside of this room again—before wrapping myself up in a towel and walking out into the living room to find out just what Jen was making a fuss about.

“What is it now?” I asked, pulling the towel up to make sure that it covered all of my assets.

As I entered the room, Jennifer was standing in front of the TV, her mouth open and eyes the size of silver dollars. My heart skipped a beat as I turned my gaze toward the screen and saw Julian Bastille himself standing in front of a private jet, a crowd of reporters surrounding him as he smiled like the cat that ate the canary.

“My Lizzie and I are madly in love,” he said, the lovely lilt of his accent made much less so by the subject matter at hand, “and she and I are planning on spending many happy years together.”

“His Lizzie?” I hissed, my face flooding with color. “Nobody gets to call me Lizzie.”

If there was one thing in the world I hated being called, it was “Lizzie.” This piece of crap had somehow managed to push every button I had before we’d even properly met! Not only had he recited my most hated nickname—and in front of all the world, no less—but he’d declared us lovers. As if this was reciprocal. As if I felt anything at all for him beyond horror and disdain.

“Madly in love,” I snorted. “The only thing mad about us is him.”

“This just keeps getting weirder,” Jen said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Why would he get on TV and say those things about you two? Unless you’re still not telling me something!”

“There’s nothing I haven’t told you!” I cried, throwing my hands up as I stomped back toward my bedroom to get dressed in fresh PJs. This whole mess had reached peak levels of insanity, and by this point, I was barely even able to handle the fact that none of this was a dream. I just wanted to go back to bed and have all of this be over when I woke up.

I slipped into a pair of loose-fitting harem pants and a tank top, taking as much time dressing myself as I could before I went back to watching the circus that had become my life. Already I’d had fifty separate phone calls from different news networks—and not a single call from my own damned doctor!

I wanted to scream, to throw something, to shake whoever was responsible for this ridiculous story getting out to the public. But none of that would solve the problem I had right now. How was I was going to fix all of this? I could imagine there were plenty of lawyers who would take a divorce case like ours, but the issue was finding a way to consult one without wading through a sea of reporters and photographers.

“Vultures,” I muttered to myself, taking a brush to my hair and then tying it back into a ponytail. If I hadn’t had social anxiety before, I certainly did now.

“Liz!” Jen called. I groaned and just barely restrained myself from thunking my head into the nearest wall.

“What now?”

“You should probably look outside,” she called back, her tone almost apologetic. Already I could feel the regret that following her instructions would bring, and I didn’t even know the worst of it yet.

I cautiously peeked through the blinds, just enough to get a glimpse of what appeared to be a rather large commotion within the crowd of press that had made a temporary camp outside my house—but for the life of me, I couldn’t get a good look at what was causing it all. Grinding my teeth, I stormed back into the living room. Jen was looking out through one of the windows. Her cheeks were red and her hands were clenched so hard her knuckles had turned white.

“What is it?” I asked Jen, gently pushing her aside to look just long enough to get a camera’s flash set off right in my face by one of the photographers, sending me reeling back from the sudden bright light.

“Jesus!” I cried, covering my eyes as I tried to rub away the spots dancing in front of my vision. “What the hell?”

Someone was knocking on the front door. I blinked, hard, and looked at Jen, squinting at her past the Technicolor starbursts flaring over her face.

“Please,” I said to her. “Please tell me that’s not…”

Jen said nothing in return. And half-blind like this, her expression was almost impossible to read.

Oh, God.

The way this day had gone, there was no way it wasn’t Julian Bastille at my door. It had to be. The clamoring of the press outside. Jen’s inability to function or speak. The fact that I’d just seen him on TV twenty minutes ago, standing in front of a private jet, professing his love for me. Our love for each other. He was at my doorstep. He was here for me.

I suppose I knew this would happen eventually—that we would have to come face-to-face and actually talk about this. But some part of me had been hoping it could all happen remotely. That we might be able to do this through lawyers and mediators and paperwork sent through the mail. The last thing I wanted to do was see Julian’s face, to add fuel to the fire of this controversy. To ruin my life more than it already was.

But there was no avoiding it. The press knew I was holed up in here. If I didn’t open up, things would get so much worse. It all came down to a single question, and a very unfair one. Which way would I prefer the world to see me: as the blushing bride, or the slut?