by Holly Rayner
***
The limo service arrived right on time, and I was packed and ready. Every mile towards the airstrip, I grew more and more excited, smiling like a schoolgirl. When we arrived at the airstrip, another private jet was waiting for me, as was a single flight attendant that I didn't recognize.
He smiled at me as I approached the jet. “Good morning, Miss Wood!”
“Hi!” I said hesitantly. “Are Raj and Nareem not working today?”
He shook his head with a slightly confused frown. “I'm afraid not, miss. My name is Trevor,” he said with a smile.
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, shaking his hand.
“We'll be taking off in about ten minutes. Let's get you settled,” Trevor said, leading me to the staircase and up into the flight cabin. He turned to me. “Can I get you anything before we take off?”
“I’d like a Bloody Mary, please.”
“Certainly, I’ll be right back.”
Trevor disappeared into the crew area while I checked out the rest of the cabin. It was a similar model to the other plane, but the bed in back had been replaced with a lounge area with plush couches, and lacked the ornateness décor and chandelier.
Maybe Zane is using the other plane for something else today, I thought to myself. He must have a whole fleet of them. The flight would still be luxurious anyway, but I did find myself missing Raj and Nareem. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been some kind of mix up in my being here.
In the main cabin, I settled into one of the recliners to enjoy my Bloody Mary and sink back into the paperback novel, figuring I would stretch out on one of the couches in the back for a long nap once we were over the Atlantic. A few hours into the flight, however, the captain’s voice came over the intercom to announce that we were beginning our descent, and all crew and passengers should buckle up to prepare for landing.
“Descent? Already?” I asked Trevor as he took my empty glass. “Last time, we didn’t need to refuel until we hit Germany.”
“Refuel?” Trevor was confused. “No, Miss Wood, we’ve just about arrived at our destination. There’s no need to refuel.”
“What? We’re not going to Al-Dali?”
He laughed as if I had told a joke. “The Middle East? No, why would you think that?”
I opened the window shade I had put down hours before and, looking down, saw the dark, lush forests of the Pacific Northwest. Soft clouds floated underneath the plane like lace tablecloths over the world.
We were still at a height that allowed me to see the stark blue Pacific at the edge of the horizon. My gaze followed its trailing blue rivers through the land, to an inland harbor.
“Then…where are we going?” I asked shakily, trepidation in my heart.
“Canada, Miss Wood,” Trevor said slowly. “This jet was hired by your studio to take you to your filming location. Did you think we were going somewhere else?”
Confusion tied my brain and tongue into knots. My next project? My studio? I didn’t have any of those things. I hadn’t even had a chance to email Katherine about accepting the horror movie project. I might have become a little scatterbrained in the last few months due to stress, but I certainly would have remembered if I had signed a contract.
“There has to be some mistake,” I said, trying not to panic at what could become embarrassing tabloid news. “I think you were waiting for someone else. I must have gotten on the wrong plane, or taken the wrong limo service.”
Trevor laughed again, gently this time. He was probably starting to wonder if I was crazy. “No, Miss Wood, I know who you are. I love your films. We were definitely waiting for you to board this flight.”
I stared at Trevor, as if the answer would magically appear on his face if I looked long enough. Finally, I sighed and shook my head. “This is all very strange.”
“Well, we will be landing shortly, and we’ll figure it out. I’m sure there’s a simple, logical explanation for all of this,” he said, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder for comfort. “Now, buckle your seat-belt.”
Trevor was right—there was, indeed, an explanation waiting for me on the ground when we landed in Canada: it was Jack Lister leaning arrogantly against his rented sports car with a creepy grin on his face. He ruined the view of the small private airport that sat at the edges of a beautiful harbor with a picturesque Northwest town built along the banks. The air was cold and heavy, low-hanging clouds moving swiftly over mountains and great forests of pine. It would have been beautiful, if it weren’t for Jack standing in the way of it.
SIXTEEN
I power-walked towards Jack as he stood up straight and put his arms out as though he wanted me to run into his arms and give him a hug. Instead, I walked up and slapped him across the face without a second of hesitation. The sound was so loud, a few people passing by stopped to look.
He looked shocked, and rubbed the side of his face that was quickly turning red, ripping his sunglasses off. “Jesus Christ, Julianne, are you crazy?”
“What is wrong with you?” I raged at him. “Why are you doing this to me?”
He shrugged smugly, arrogance radiating off him. “I knew you’d have a change of heart,” he teased. “I’m just here to pick you up and take you to the studio and get you all settled into your new life as a richer woman. After all, I am your boyfriend. Isn’t it your boyfriend’s job to pick you up from the airport and stuff like that? I have to play the part.”
I shook my head and felt my temples begin to throb. “That is not happening. This is a twisted trick I didn’t think even you were low enough to pull. I’m getting on a flight back to LA right now. Good luck finding an actress for my part when I tell Avery and the media what a manipulative psycho you are.”
Jack groaned, annoyed. “Come on now, it’s not that bad.”
I yelled, “Not that bad? You just tricked me onto an international flight to work on a movie I never signed a contract for. That is sociopathic behavior.”
Jack just laughed and fluffed his blond hair in a pathetic attempt to look sexy. “Trust me, the zeros on that contract are going to make you change your mind real fast. Just come on a little ride with me out to the site, I’ll introduce you to the director and the studio heads, and we can get this show on the road—and your career back on track, I might add.”
“I’m not doing any of that,” I said with a firm shake of my head.
“They are very excited to meet you,” he continued, “Very excited to have such an experienced actress in their film. They’ll do anything to get you to work this out.”
I sighed, my anger melting into a sheer, helpless frustration. There was no reasoning with Jack. It was like talking to a store mannequin.
“There is nothing they could offer me, and nothing you could offer me, to make me say yes to this. Okay? Do you hear me, Jack? I know you have trouble paying attention to any voices except your own, but I don’t know how much clearer to make this. I don’t want to work with you ever again. In fact, I don't ever want to see you ever again. Period.”
I turned to walk away from him and find a way to get back home. Over my shoulder, I said, “And if you try anything like this again, Jack, I swear I will get you a restraining order faster than you can say ‘ego’.”
“You may want to hold off on doing something so rash, kitten,” Jack replied with a tilt of his head.
“Oh I’m sure you've got a great reason for it, too.” I yelled back.
“Truly, it’s for your own good.”
There was something in his voice that made me stop and turn around. I folded my arms. “Pray tell, how would that be for my own good?”
With a sickening smile, Jack closed the gap between us with a few long strides. He pulled up something on his phone, and held the screen in front of me, watching my face with malice and delight.
It was a cut scene from one of the movies we did together—a sex scene that never made the final reel. Seeing myself even pretending to be
intimate with Jack again made my stomach roll, sickened.
“So?” I replied. “What are you trying to say here?”
He stared at me for a moment with cold, emotionless blue eyes. “I’m saying that I know all about your little prince out in Al-Dali, darling,” he replied in a dark, threatening whisper. “Your agent is a desperate woman, did you know that? Remember how she used to represent both of us?”
Fear gripped my chest, and I swallowed without replying.
“Oh man, when she realized it was me on the phone…” He trailed off and let out a loud, long laugh. “She was hungry for the chance to pull me back into the fold. She would do anything to try and be my agent again, including telling me all about your sad little trumpet horn of a career. All I had to do was ask—in the guise of the helpful ex who wanted to rekindle the romance, of course. She couldn’t wait to spill the beans on every intimate detail of your sad little life.”
I didn’t want to believe him, but something in his eyes was too happy for it not to be true. He loved having power over me.
“I know about all the pathetic TV parts. I know about the horror movie.” Jack leaned closer to me, lowering his voice to a whisper. “And I know all about your little prince in Al-Dali paying you to be his girlfriend for a day like some sad loser in his mom's basement.”
I couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath that gave away my position. Jack knew, now. Any chance of lying my way out of this was gone. With a dull sense of dread, I realized that the text I’d received that morning hadn’t been from the Sheikh at all.
“I can’t have you running off to be a prostitute halfway around the world, Julianne. I need you here. So I took care of the Sheikh. I sent this scene to him and let him know that you and I have reconciled our deep love for one another, so he doesn’t need to worry about talking to you ever again,” said Jack, gesturing to the phone.
Dark anger bubbled up in my veins. “You did what?”
“It was for the best, trust me.”
“You’re a monster!” I cried, no longer caring who overheard. Jack seemed a little put off by the sudden show of anger, and it only made me bolder. “What is wrong with you? You already wrecked every part of my life, and now you’re back trying to ruin my future, too?”
Jack didn’t have a snarky reply to that, especially now that we had an audience gathering at the borders of our personal space. For all his supposed bravado, it only worked when he had the right audience. People were beginning to recognize us. Already, phones were coming out of pockets, ready to record what he said next.
“This better be the last time I ever see your face,” I told him through gritted teeth. “Come near my house, or try to contact me again, and I will make sure not only the police, but everyone else in Hollywood knows what kind of person you are.”
I stormed away before he could answer, headed once again for the airport. I had to find a way to get to Al-Dali and fix the mess Jack had made.
From behind me, Jack shouted that it was too late to do anything about it. I ignored him, intent on proving him wrong.