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“We’re faking it. As a distraction for the press.”
What? I shook my head slowly, letting the words process. Confusion and relief chased each other through my mind and words flitted away, lost to the murk in my mind. Luckily, Juliet kept talking so I didn’t have to.
“Zac is blackmailing me with a video he has of us. A sex tape. He’s saying if I don’t agree to his divorce terms, then he’ll release it. My lawyers are working on it, but I’ve pretty much told them to go ahead and give him whatever he wants. The press has been all over it, talking about my shitty deal and looking for reasons why I’d agree to it. I needed a distraction. I needed something for them to focus on besides the complete train wreck that was my marriage.”
“Oh.” I tried to find other words to say, but my mind was spinning around all the information she’d just given me. My first reaction was to be hurt that she’d treated me just like the press—lied to me as if I wasn’t part of the inner circle, couldn’t be trusted. Then again, she was telling me now. And the strange complicated life my sister led was what made her feel she needed to lie to me.
“I could never live in your world,” I told her. It was true. That any of this made rational sense to her was beyond me. I could never handle having to make choices like these, having to pick which aspect of my life I wanted splashed all over the tabloids.
She winced slightly, but she brushed off my comment with a little shrug. “I needed someone to help me, and Ryan is a good guy. We worked on that movie together and I knew he might need …” she trailed off and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I knew he could use the lift. It was my agent’s idea, really.”
“The lift?”
“His career’s been flagging. His last couple movies didn’t do well. He was slipping.”
“And being linked romantically to you will help him?”
She had the grace to blush, but she nodded confirmation. “My agent thinks she can get him onto the next film I’m doing—it’s a romantic suspense and they want an action lead for the romantic hero. We kind of made a deal.”
“He acts like he loves you and you get him the job that will make him a star?” I understood the idea fundamentally, but I hadn’t decided yet if it was just business, or if there was some kind of moral deficit in someone who might make a deal like that.
She sighed. “Basically. It’s just business.”
So Juliet didn’t see any moralistic side to the deal. She wasn’t worried about it beyond whatever specifics they’d agreed upon. Maybe it really wasn’t my business either.
“Man,” I breathed. Could the rules that governed behavior in Hollywood really be so different than those in the rest of the world? Still, I didn’t really blame my sister. She understood her world—that was how she’d gotten to the top. But I hated the idea of career success being based on manipulating other people’s feelings. Mine included. I was disappointed in her, and I was trying to figure out if I had any right to feel that way. I wasn’t in her shoes—in her life. “Okay,” I said. “Well, thanks for telling me, I guess.”
“Ryan didn’t want to lie to you.” She squeezed my arm and smiled. “And neither did I.” Juliet turned and headed back outside, leaving me standing there, reeling.
Ryan didn’t want to lie to you.
The power those last words had over me was frightening, and they left me shaking slightly as I repeated them in my head. Why did Ryan care what I thought? Ryan was a movie star. He was a guy who went around flirting with and touching anyone he liked because he knew the power he had over people. He was a guy who’d link himself to a starlet in a false sexual relationship just to get ahead. Didn’t that make him kind of a dirty asshole? Or was it like Juliet said—was he a nice guy? In a world where the rules were so very different, was that the kind of thing nice guys did?
Ryan didn’t want to lie to you.
Most importantly, why did Ryan feel like I needed to know the truth?
I was confused and a little bit angry. But down deep inside me, in a place I was trying hard not to think about, a flame had been lit. A little flame glowed and stirred as I considered this idea. Ryan wasn’t with my sister. Ryan had almost kissed me. Ryan had asked her to tell me the truth.
The little flame burned brighter, and I realized with horror that it was a flame of hope.
Chapter Eleven
Ryan
When lunch was over, I stepped off the sweeping back porch, gazing out at the river lapping at the beach down below and the huge old trees leaning over the wide yard, cooling the still air. This place felt magical to me—part of it must have been the knowledge that it had been here for hundreds of years, it had seen turning points in American history that I’d read about in books. And, if Gran was to be believed, plenty of history I hadn’t read about. Who knew the founding fathers were such stone cold players?
When you’ve lived your entire life on the West Coast, this kind of real history makes an impression. Even the air here gave the sense of calm steadiness, of patience, as if the whole place was saying,I’ve been here this long, I’ll be here forever.It made me feel small, somehow, less solid. But it also made me aware of the impermanence of my own life—not that my own history hadn’t done a pretty good job of that. But it just hammered home the knowledge that our time here was short.
And while the history of the place was definitely interesting, it was the present that held my interest most.
I didn’t know what it was about Tess, or what might exist between us if we gave it a chance, but it was something I’d never felt before.
I turned back to the house, and could see Tess through the kitchen window at the sink. Juliet had gone inside with her after lunch, winking at me as she’d gone, so I was pretty sure by now Tess knew the truth. I was less sure what that meant for me. Would she be angry that we’d lied to her? Would she think I was just another dirty Hollywood type, doing anything to get ahead?
Wasn’t I?
I thought about Dad, back in Los Angeles, about the money it took to take care of him. I thought about the abandoned plans I’d had once for a completely different kind of life. And I thought about the deal I’d made with Juliet when the roles seemed to be drying up and the money with them. I’d had a reason for what I’d done—maybe Tess would understand.
