by Rachel Lacey
“I can hire someone to analyze them and prove that they’re fake.” Jenn glanced up from her iPad, fixing Kate with her green-eyed stare. Her red hair was swept back in a simple ponytail, with loose tendrils escaping to frame her face. As a personal assistant, she was more valuable than the pink diamond ring Kate had received from her record label after her album Gravity was certified Diamond for ten million copies sold.
“Yes, let’s do that.” Kate blew out a breath.
“And Vero will be here in a few minutes to run damage control. She’s the queen of damage control.” Jenn was tapping away on her iPad, brows bunched.
Yes, there was a reason Veronica Padrón was the most sought-after publicist in Hollywood, a reason Kate hadn’t had much use for. Until today.
“I know that, but I’d rather not need to know that.” She grabbed the insulated cup from Olive’s, her favorite café, that Jenn had left for her on the coffee table and took a much-needed sip of steaming rich cappuccino as she sank onto the couch. Jerry trotted over and hopped up beside her.
Jenn set her iPad on the table. “Anyone in your position is going to need damage control sometimes. It comes with the territory.”
“The Fan Voice Awards nominations start today.” Kate stroked her fingers through Jerry’s soft fur. He scooted closer and rested his chin on her thigh.
“I know. This is a blip on the radar, Kate. Voting runs through December. No one will remember a few fake photos by then.”
“Let’s hope.”
It was silly. She had shelves filled with awards. She cherished them all, a tangible seal of approval from her peers. But the Fans Voice Awards meant the most because they were voted by the fans. It ate at her like tiny piranhas in her gut that the image she’d worked so hard for might be tarnished. She’d won Female Artist of the Year the last four years. If she won again this year, she would receive a legacy award as the first-ever female artist to win five years straight.
It meant more to her than she cared to admit.
The love and support of her fans kept her going when she wanted to curl up in a ball and give in to the nightmares that still haunted her most nights. This record-breaking win would be validation somewhere deep inside that she was in fact worthy of their devotion.
“There’s something else I wanted to mention.” Harry sat in the overstuffed chair opposite the couch. “Your mother called me last week.”
“She what?” Kate’s throat tightened, and her stomach rolled.
“She wanted to get in contact with you. I got the impression she was after money.” He raised his eyebrows for effect. “Given your estrangement, I had her checked out before I mentioned it to you.”
“And it…it’s really her?”
He nodded. “Which means you and I need to decide how we want to handle this.”
Kate pressed a hand to her chest, her fist clenched. She’d been seventeen when her mother slammed the door in her face, shattering what was left of Kate’s innocence. They hadn’t spoken since. Not a word in twelve years. There was no good reason for Doreen Hathaway to reappear in her life after all this time.
She met Harry’s gaze. “Tell her it’s too late.”
3
Josh sat on a cracked barstool at O’Malley’s Pub, staring resolutely into his bottle of Smithwick’s Pale Ale.
“You really had no idea who she was?” Gabe’s eyebrows knitted in skepticism.
“She had on sunglasses, and she introduced herself as Kate.”
“Who are you, Lois Lane?” Gabe Silva taught Portuguese at Columbia. In a small-world coincidence, he and Josh had gone to high school together in Burlington, Massachusetts. They’d reconnected a few years ago when Gabe moved to New York and joined the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. A mutual love of the Red Sox led to friendship at a time when Josh most needed it.
“Very funny.”
Gabe chuckled. “You do know Kate is a nickname for Katherine?”
Josh rubbed his brow. “So if you met a brunette in Central Park who introduced herself as Angie, you’d automatically assume it was Angelina Jolie?”
“I’m pretty sure I’d know if I was talking to Angelina Jolie, yes.” Gabe’s eyes twinkled.
“Bad example. Anyway, it’s not like I’m all that well versed in pop music.”
“I hear you, but she’s pretty famous.” Gabe contemplated this for a moment. “So let me get this straight. You bump into Katherine Hayes in Central Park and somehow wind up dangling her headfirst off a rock to rescue her dog?”
“Something like that, and yes, I know it sounds crazy.” He’d replayed the moment in his head a million times since learning it was one of the richest and most famous people in America he’d held in such a precarious position. If she’d gotten hurt? He didn’t even want to think about it.
“Buddy, I think crazy is an understatement. I’ll be looking for photos of this in the tabloids, mark my word. So is she as hot in person as she looks on TV?”
Josh took a long pull from his beer. “She’s…pretty.” And that was the understatement of a lifetime. The woman had a smile that could bring a suicidal man down from the ledge.
“Just pretty? Josh, my friend, my impression is that Katherine Hayes is pretty goddamn gorgeous. You didn’t happen to get her number?”
Josh grunted as he downed the last of his beer. He didn’t want Katherine Hayes’s number. Yeah, he and Kate had shared a connection…a spark, but that was before he knew who she was and what she did for a living. He was just glad no one had noticed him when the paparazzi had descended around her there at the end. The last thing he needed was his face on a celebrity gossip blog.
“Well, damn,” Gabe said. “You’re doubly screwed.”
“How’s that?”
“Now any woman you date is going to have to live up to the sweetness of Noelia and the hotness of Katherine Hayes.”
Josh signaled the bartender for another beer. All the more reason to stay single.
“If you were wondering what she looks like, I hear there are some nude photos of her making their rounds on the internet right now,” Gabe said.
Josh shook his head, unable to block the image of the nude photos out of his mind…or the wounded look on Kate’s face when she’d realized what she was holding. Maybe his next beer would help him forget. He’d come here with Gabe tonight to unload, but somehow, he’d failed to predict his buddy’s enthusiasm over the idea of Josh spending the afternoon with Katherine Hayes.
“So, seven o’clock tomorrow, right?” he said. He, Gabe, and their friend Brian were training together for a triathlon, something they did every year. On Friday mornings, they met at the Y in Midtown to swim laps before work. This would be Josh’s first week joining them since returning from Spain.
“And I’m going to kick both your asses,” Gabe said with a smile. He was the strongest swimmer out of the three of them and never let them forget it.
“We’ll see about that. I had some practice this summer in the Mediterranean.” Josh’s cell phone rang with an unknown number. Frowning, he lifted it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Josh Randall?” a female voice asked. She sounded young. If a student had gotten his personal number again, heads were going to roll…
“Yes?” he said. “Who’s this?”
“My name’s Jennifer MacDonald. I work for Katherine Hayes.”
Josh stiffened. What? How? He swiveled on his stool to shoot Gabe an accusatory look. “Is this a joke?”
His friend raised his hands in a show of innocence.
“No joke,” the woman on the phone said. “Kate feels really badly about what happened earlier today and wanted to see if you’d be available for dinner tomorrow night.”
“That won’t be necessary.” He hung up the phone and shoved it deep into the pocket of his jeans, wishing his heart hadn’t quickened at just the mention of Kate’s name.
When he got home that night, Josh sat on the edge of his bed. He r
eached into the bedside table and pulled out the notebook he still read nearly every night. Its blue silk cover was worn, molded by his hands. The words inside provided comfort, as they always did.
He read it cover to cover, twice tonight. Then he walked to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. Pain and longing burned in his chest. He missed Noelia so much, his whole body ached with it. Would it ever end? The answer crystallized in his mind as clear as the water running through his cupped hands.
I don’t want it to end.
Or did he? Kate’s face flitted through his mind, and he shoved it away angrily.
* * *
At six o’clock the next morning, Kate stood inside NBC Studios in Rockefeller Center. In moments, she would take the stage to rehearse for her live performance on Today. She peeked out the window at the crowd gathered below, her name and face everywhere on their clothing and posters.
Her stomach twisted with an unaccustomed bout of nerves thanks to the nude photo scandal. She’d scrolled through her Twitter mentions last night and never seen so many hateful words written about her in one place before. It was jarring. She thought of Josh and his carefree attitude. Who cares what they think?
If only she could brush off the hurtful comments that easily.
“Ready?” Jenn asked, her hand poised on the doorknob.
Kate glanced in the mirror. She touched her fingers to the curls Leo, her hairstylist, had spent over an hour creating for her earlier that morning, pinned back from her face with brilliant red rhinestones. Linda’s makeup magic had even managed to disguise the shadows under her eyes from a mostly sleepless night.
“Ready.” She swallowed over her nerves and followed Jenn through the door. Nothing was more thrilling than the walk from her dressing room to the stage. It got her every time. Exhaustion segued into excitement as she thought of the tour, only six weeks away. She stepped outside, shivering against the rush of cool air as Jenn pressed the microphone into her hand.
Jorge caught her eye from the soundboard and waved. “‘Unfaithful’ is first, then ‘I Wish.’”
She flashed him a thumbs-up as she stepped onto the stage.
The crowd exploded with screams. Girls who’d been half-asleep moments before now bounced energetically, waving banners and yelling for her attention. Kate grinned as the familiar tingle of adrenaline rushed through her. It sharpened her senses, zapping her from her scalp to her crimson-painted toes.
The stage was relatively small—about forty feet wide—with the band on risers behind her, flanked by powerful lights and cannons of confetti. Several hundred eager fans already filled the plaza despite the early hour. Most of them were here to see her, some just tourists hoping to see their faces on TV, all of them rosy cheeked from the cool September air.
Behind them, traffic honked by at a steady pace on Forty-Eighth Street. The air carried all the familiar scents of Midtown Manhattan: the pungent fumes of car exhaust, mixed with the warm, musty scent of the subway and the spicy aroma of boiled peanuts.
Kate glanced at the section in front of the stage, where about twenty people wearing VIP badges stood. She looked for little Ava with her blonde pigtails and infectious smile, but the girl and her mother were nowhere to be seen. They hadn’t come, thanks to the nude photos. Anger rose up in her chest, hot and prickly. Well, she would set the record straight with her interview this morning on Today. The specialist Jenn hired had found pixilation in the photos, proving they’d been altered, with Kate’s head photoshopped onto someone else’s nude body.
The crowd chanted her name, and she pushed it all back, smiling broadly. She brought the microphone to her lips and spun in a full circle, waving to the fans. “Good morning, New York! Thanks for getting up so early to see me.”
Among the screamed responses, Kate heard several cries of “since last night.”
“What’s that? You’ve been here since last night?” She reached for the sound pack clipped at her waist and adjusted the volume of the microphone in her ear monitors as she toyed with the crowd. “Well then, this song is definitely not dedicated to you guys.”
The first bars of “Unfaithful” swelled behind her. Kate slid the microphone into its stand and closed her eyes as she absorbed the music. She stood motionless in the middle of the stage, hands shoved into her pockets against the early morning chill.
“How could you be, so hard, you thought I couldn’t see…I felt it baby, don’t you know, even though you thought it didn’t show…” She drifted off, smiling, as she heard the voices of a hundred girls singing along with her. “You didn’t have to be unfaithful.”
“We need more from the strings,” Jorge interrupted from the soundboard. A sound tech rattled off several numbers as they made adjustments.
Kate pointed to a sign that read Kentucky loves Katherine Hayes. “I love you too.”
The two girls behind the sign screamed with delight.
“From the bridge,” Jorge called, and the music began again.
Her voice ricocheted off the surrounding buildings. It filled the plaza and spilled into the streets beyond. This was what she’d dreamed of as a little girl. The fans singing her lyrics back to her, feeling what she’d felt when she’d written them, showering her with their love.
It was better than any drug. Onstage, she was invincible.
Off to the right, behind a group wearing red T-shirts stating that they were “Team Mikey,” whatever that meant, Kate spotted the woman she’d met outside her building yesterday. Their eyes locked, and Kate felt a flickering of unease.
She couldn’t say why, really. This was hardly the first fan to come knocking at her front door looking for an autograph, but something about her seemed off. For starters, she hadn’t been carrying a magazine or anything to be autographed, that Kate could see, anyway. She was too nervous to be a reporter, though, so she was probably just a fan who’d lost her nerve.
Still, Kate trusted her gut intuition about people, and her gut said this girl was trouble. She shivered, turning away.
The music for “I Wish” kicked in, startling her as her backup dancers climbed to the stage behind her. Together, they ran through a series of dance steps, although Kate’s energy was tempered by the early hour.
“I wish,” she sang, giving a low impact version of the dance routine, “you could be here, baby…I wish, I didn’t feel so down…but I know, I’m going to be all right…”
She held the microphone out for the crowd to repeat the anthem back to her.
“I wish!” they screamed.
When the song ended, she clicked off the microphone and handed it to Jenn, then tugged the monitors from her ears. She slid her phone out of her back pocket and held it up. “Who wants to take a selfie with me?” She centered herself in the shot with the crowd visible behind her, waving and screaming enthusiastically. “I want to make sure I remember everyone who came out so early to see me.”
She snapped a photo, making a mental note to share it on her social media later, then pocketed her phone, stepped down from the stage, and walked to the barricades holding back the fans. Mick was at her side with a handful of Sharpies and tailed by two NBC heavyweights.
Kate approached the two girls with the Kentucky sign. “Hey, how are you?”
They blubbered incoherently. She handed their camera to Mick, then stepped between them against the barricade to take a picture. “Thanks so much for coming out.”
She moved down the line, signing autographs, posing for pictures, accepting gifts, and calming a couple of teenage girls who started crying in her presence. She knew from past experience that the group here on the left-hand side of the stage were the ones who had camped out all night to see her, the real diehard fans, and she made sure to greet them all.
“Okay, guys, I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you in a little while for the live show.” She waved as Mick and the NBC heavyweights ushered her into the building. They whisked her upstairs to her dressing room, where Jenn waited with breakfast and a
much-needed cup from Olive’s. It was just seven o’clock, and Today was broadcasting live from a plasma screen on the wall.
Only after she’d dropped into the oversized chair awaiting her and taken a few revitalizing sips of her cappuccino did she realize that, while she had greeted the various members of “Team Mikey,” so dubbed to support a friend serving overseas, the mysterious girl from yesterday had disappeared.
* * *
The phone rang as Josh packed his briefcase. “Hello?”
“Yo, your girlfriend’s on the Today show. Turn on NBC,” Gabe said. “Damn, she looks hot. You’ve got to call that number back.”
“Gabe…” Josh protested, even as he reached for the remote control.
There was Kate, as promised, belting out a song he recognized but couldn’t name. Her blonde hair was wildly curled, pinned back from her face with jeweled clasps. She wore a sparkly red top that accentuated her cleavage and black pants that hugged every curve.
Something tightened deep inside him at the sight of her. Lighting up his TV screen dressed like that, she was virtually unrecognizable as the woman in jeans and a blazer he met yesterday in Central Park. And yet…
He shook his head. “I’m not interested in Katherine Hayes. Look, I’ve got to run. I’ll catch up with you later.”
He put the phone down and grabbed the remote control, then paused with his finger hovering over the power button. Her voice was beautiful, flawless and rich with emotion. Girls in the crowd cried as they sang along. Kate was singing to a lover who had cheated. Something about the intensity of emotion in her eyes made him wonder if the song might have been inspired by personal experience.
He sat down at his kitchen table, still holding the remote control.
On the screen, Kate chatted with one of the morning show hosts, then launched into another song. She and her dancers tapped and twirled across the stage, their feet moving in unison, and damn, she was stunning to watch.
He paused the DVR on a closeup of her face, imagining, just for a moment, that she was looking at him. He clicked the TV off in embarrassment. Enough of Katherine Hayes. Yesterday, he’d been flustered about the whole thing. Today, he was ready to shrug and put it behind him. He gathered his briefcase and jacket and headed for the door.