Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

“Who told them our marriage is a sham?” Liz asked as we stood outside the doctor’s office, the car Tessa had called for her pulling up right to the curb.

“I don’t know,” I said, running my fingers through my hair in frustration. “I just don’t know. That’s one of the things Tessa is going to talk to me about.”

“Julian… I’m scared. I don’t know what to do,” she said, pulling me into a tight hug. I wanted to keep her in my arms as long as possible, to not let the comfort of her touch be taken from me so quickly—so soon after we’d just seen our baby for the very first time. I had the ultrasound printouts in my pocket. Well, some of them. Liz and I had split them between ourselves; though there wasn’t much to see, it felt good having some evidence, some concrete proof of what we’d made together to hold on to.

“I’m scared too,” I whispered, begrudgingly drawing away to open the car door for her. Time was of the essence now, and I didn’t want her getting caught in the media crossfire. “Just get back to the hotel. Don’t go home… I’m going to fix this. I might be a day or two, but I promise I’ll come back… Okay?”

“Right,” she said, offering me the shade of a smile as she climbed into the backseat. I could feel a pit opening up in my stomach as I watched the car drive off, an absolutely unbearable thought jumping into my mind.

What if this is the end?

No, I couldn’t think like that. Not after everything had started to go so well for us, not after we’d only just begun to work so perfectly together. It wouldn’t be fair—life would never be that cruel, would it?

Who was I kidding? Life was cruel every single day. I knew that firsthand. But despite that fact, I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that somehow Liz and I would be able to make it through this. That the next time we saw our baby, it’d be bigger and healthier and more beautiful than the ultrasound machine could capture. That there’d even be a next time.

Moments after Liz’s car had driven off the second car arrived. Tessa pushed open the back door the moment it stopped.

“Get in,” she said, her face more grim than I’d ever seen it. Tessa always sported a rather severe look, and that was something I could handle, something I was accustomed to, but the way she glared at me now was different—like she was about to tell me that a bomb had been dropped right over London.

I climbed in beside her and shut the door. “Do we know how they found out?” I asked. The silence in here was palpable, so thick that I could nearly taste it on my tongue. “Who talked?”

“We’re still trying to get all the details,” she evenly replied. Every word from her mouth seemed so carefully chosen, the cadence of her voice so slow and precise. I didn’t like it when she picked her words like that. It never meant anything good, and it sure as hell never meant she was telling me the whole truth. “While you’ve been busy with your little tart up in that shitty hotel room I’ve been down here busting my ass drumming up a media frenzy around your wedding and baby-on-the-way. This leak is screwing everything up Jules. It’s damning, and they’re going to railroad us with it.”

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was bone dry. I could feel a coldness crawling up from the bottom of my stomach all the way into my chest. If the media went against you, it didn’t matter if you were right or wrong. They could shape the narrative and ruin my career. This would be the thing that defined me for the rest of my life, not my music, not my voice, not the words I’d ripped straight from my heart and tossed to the wolves. And worst of all, Liz would fall right along with me. She’d be the victim seen as somehow lesser-than for being taken advantage of.

“We never should have done this,” I muttered, shaking my head. “This was a stupid plan right from the start. I knew it in my gut, but for whatever damn reason, I decided to ignore it and listen to you instead. I’m having real feelings for this girl. I don’t need to be playing pretend. I think we can be together for fucking real…”

“Don’t blame me for this,” Tessa snapped, whirling on me so fast I jumped. “It’s your fault all of this fell apart—hell, it’s hers!” I felt that clench in my jaw, the one I got whenever I was nervous—or pissed. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which emotion was gripping me tighter now, but for Tessa’s sake, I hoped it was the former. “Elizabeth spilled the beans on this whole damned thing! I can see it now—Rocker’s Wife Confesses to Sham Marriage.” She shook her head in disgust. “Do you know what the Enquirer would pay for that kind of story? You’ll never book another concert after this.”

“Liz didn’t do this, Tessa,” I said as coolly as I could manage. Tessa was truly testing the limits of my self-control. “She wouldn’t. She was with me the entire time—when would she have the time to call the press?”

“I don’t know, Julian,” she said, folding her arms and turning her gaze out the window. “Maybe it was after that little tiff that saw you sulking in a corner booth with a whiskey in your hand?”

The two of us lapsed into silence, each of us staring out of our respective windows as we watched the city pass us by. I hated myself for it, but Tessa’s mention of my fight with Liz had gotten to me. She’d been so angry at me, hadn’t she? So ready to call this whole thing off. Wasn’t that what she’d said? That it wasn’t going to work out?

There’d been plenty of time between the moment I left the room and the moment I returned for her to make a phone call or two. Or three. Or seven. Or even to text her friend, Jen, the super-fan, someone who likely wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to get their fifteen minutes. Had Liz fucked me over?

A glance into the rearview mirror caught a flash of a camera in the car behind us, and already I could feel my face starting to redden. Couldn’t they just leave us alone?

“So, what do we tell them?” I asked, trying to resist the urge to open up the car’s built-in fridge and go rooting through the mini-bar. “At the press meeting, I mean.”

“Well, we can either come clean or double down,” she said. “Tell them mistakes were made, or feed them a sweet little lie about how you two are truly in love and how you’re planning to raise your bastard baby together.”

The way she threw around the word bastard was starting to grate. I slipped one hand into my jacket pocket, worrying the ultrasound printout with my thumb and forefinger, relying on it instead of the bottle I wanted to wrap my fingers around.

“Why would that be a lie?” I said at last, meeting her gaze.

“You can’t be serious, Julian,” she snorted. Then she laughed. “You can’t honestly tell me that you’ve fallen for that little tramp, have you? I know you’ve been up there fucking her, but don’t be a fool…”

“First and foremost, Liz is not a tramp. You call her that, or anything else degrading, one more time, and I have half a mind to drop you on your arse at the nearest corner for all the world to gawk at.” Tessa gaped, but before she could get a shot in, I ran right over her. “Secondly, what if I have, Tessa? What if I’ve actually fallen in love with her? Would that be so awful? I mean, we were supposed to act like a happy couple, weren’t we? Wasn’t that the plan? Why can’t we actually be happy?”

“Because that wasn’t a part of the plan,” she said quietly, her expression suddenly as blank as a sheet. The incredulity fell away, leaving a frankly horrifying lack of emotion in its wake. “This was just supposed to be just another slut you’d slept with—not your real bloody wife! You’re supposed to love her and leave her. Tell the whole world she broke your heart and write another platinum album worth of songs about it. The fans will eat that shit up with a fork!”

And just like that, the numbness on her face morphed into a seething rage. I slid back into my seat as far as the safety belt would let me, watching as her face colored bright red and she screamed at the top of her lungs. All I could do was stare, my eyes wide as she sucked a few slow, deep breaths afterward, seemingly an attempt at calming herself. It worked. Suddenly, her stoic demeanor was back. I’d never seen her act this way before. Whatever emotional rollerc

oaster she was on was apparently flipping end over end.

Had Tessa finally reached her breaking point? Had her failed machinations driven her to some kind of nervous breakdown? I suddenly, intimately understood Liz’s position—not knowing what you were up against, whether in whole or in part, was one of the worst feelings in the world.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I began, but Tessa held up a finger to silence me.

“No. Don’t say a word, Julian. I’ve heard more than enough.” She pulled out her phone and started texting at speeds I’d thought physically impossible for a human being. “I’ll make sure this is taken care of. I will fix everything—like I always do—and you’ll just stand there and watch me clean up your mess—like you always do. Understood?”

“Where are we going?” I asked as the driver swung the car toward the airport.

“New York City,” she replied, her fingers still working overtime on her phone. “Now shut up and let me work.”

I didn’t speak to Tessa on our flight to the big apple, and I wasn’t about to start now that we’d landed. I just sat here staring out the window at the traffic as our driver took us through Times Square on our way to wherever the hell Tessa had called this damned conference at. Why it couldn’t happen back in Liz’s hometown was completely beyond me, though I supposed the farther away from Liz all of this was, the better. I’d screwed her life up enough. The last thing she needed was to be stuck in front of the American public.

Then again, if she’d been the one to leak the information in the first place…

But why would she do it?

“We’re here,” Tessa said as our car pulled off of the street and down into an underground parking garage a few minutes later. We were beneath some building I’d hardly even gotten the name of—though it almost looked like another hotel. “Just get out of the car, and for heaven’s sakes, keep your mouth shut. We’re going to get you ready to go live in a few minutes.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Tessa,” I said, catching her gaze. “What is it?”