Charlotte laughed bitterly and pushed him away, breaking the spell he’d created as his breath tickled her nose. “We definitely are not great together and we never will be. I’ve never had this level of insanity in my life, and I’m looking forward to kissing it goodbye. If I meant anything to him, he’d have gotten rid of Cindy when she started creating waves. He laughs it off, like it’s not important—like I’m not important. Fuck him. I’m done.”
She finished zipping her bag and tapped her phone to order an Uber. Her flight wasn’t until tomorrow, but she wanted to get away right now. She’d stay in a hotel tonight and fly out in the morning. “Goodbye, Reid. Look after Jack and try not to be too much of an asshole to him.” She left the room and he went the other direction, up the hall to the lounge.
Before she closed the front door behind her, she heard him call out, “This won’t be the last I see of you, Charlotte.”
***
When she was curled up in her luxurious hotel bed, the tears finally came. Once they started, they wouldn’t stop, just as she’d expected. She sobbed into her pillow until the early hours, and then she finally fell into a fitful sleep, punctuated by dreams of a naked Cindy and Jack together.
At seven, she woke, feeling like she’d gone several rounds with Mike Tyson. The mirror confirmed how she felt, and she spent an inordinate amount of time putting on make-up. For the first time ever since she’d arrived in Hollywood, she found herself worrying what the press would think of her appearance. What would they say, if they knew she’d been crying? How would they report it, and what press release would Jay have to put out to combat the gossip?
Jesus Christ. I never wanted to be this person.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nikki waited to pick Charlotte up from the airport and squealed when she saw her come through the sliding doors from immigration. Charlotte smiled and hugged her, but she struggled to raise the same enthusiasm.
“Damn, Charlotte, you look like shit. Didn’t you tidy up on the plane before landing?”
“This is me tidied up, Nikki!”
“Sorry, babe. At least no one is likely to recognise you, looking like that. Let’s get you home, so you can have a shower.” Charlotte smiled ruefully at Nikki’s sharp assessment of the situation. Now that she was becoming more recognisable, it mattered a bit more how she looked in public.
Shit. I’m turning into Jack!
Even the thought of his name made her heart ache. The weak bastard. Why couldn’t he have lived up to her daydreams of him? They’d sure made a mess of a simple marriage agreement. Shaking her head, she dismissed all thoughts of him. She wasn’t going to think of him at all, while she was in Australia. She would lick her wounds, try to cement her progress, so far, and then make a new plan with Jay, when she felt like she could talk to him without bursting into tears. He hadn’t been happy to hear of her plan of staying in Australia until after Christmas. Her answer had been telling him to fuck off as she’d hung up the phone.
They were silent for most of the drive home, until Charlotte moved to turn the radio on. Nikki quickly switched it off and glanced sideways at her. “I have to tell you some news. You can’t hear it on the radio, first.”
Her stomach clenched as she imagined the worst. She remembered the look on Jack’s face as she’d shoved him away from the taxi and told him she never wanted to see him again.
Please, God, don’t let him have done something stupid.
She sighed and braced herself. “Spit it out, Nikki.”
“Rough Desire broke up.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“I am. It’s all over the news. Jack lost it after you left and demanded some random PR girl be fired. The drummer—Fergus is it?—stood up for her, so Jack quit. He threw a guitar out the door of the bus and it smashed some businessman’s car window. He then put out a press release that he was banning Rough Desire from using the lyrics he’d written for all of their songs, effectively cutting off their ability to tour, unless they want to just play instrumentals.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah, it’s big news. The last two Vegas concerts are cancelled, and the PR chick went on camera and blamed you for messing with Jack’s emotions—getting him to love you and then leaving him high and dry. She even shed a tear as she said ‘Charlotte Shipton killed Rough Desire.’”
“Cindy? She’s the fucking reason we broke up. She wouldn’t keep her hands off him and I caught her in the early stages of sucking his dick.”
Nikki gasped, “No way! He seemed so in love with you at the wedding. He didn’t leave your side all night.”
“Yeah, well, apparently it wore off.” She felt bad for saying that, because she knew it hadn’t worn off. He’d held her tight every night since then. Jack had insisted she let him buy her a new bikini in San Francisco, took her sightseeing to Yosemite, and even made the tour bus detour, so she could see Mount Rushmore. He’d made sure she was never hungry when they were out exploring and basically addressed her every physical need—except for the main one.
He didn’t love her. Oh, she knew he liked her and had even come to rely on her in some weird way. Without love, though, it was just a friendship, and she already had plenty of those.
***
The days passed in a blur as she lay on her bed in her old room on her parents’ farm. She barely ate anything and had to endure several talks from her mum about looking after herself better. She nodded each time and ate a few bites of whatever her mother had made for her before sending her away so she could go back to sleep. Her misery seemed to know no bounds, and she was hopelessly obsessed with searching for news of Jack on the internet.
It was exactly what Nikki had told her: Rough Desire was no more, Cindy was out of a job, and Jack had gone to ground. They were also reporting that Charlotte, herself, had gone into hiding. Jay called several times asking to put out a press release, but she told him no. She didn’t care what the world thought—she wasn’t living her life through the media.
He asked if he could pass a message to Jack and she agreed. When he asked her what she wanted to say, she thought about it for a moment. “Tell him to fuck off,” she said as she hung up the phone on her poor agent for at least the fifth time since this all began.
By mid-November, Charlotte was at least getting out of bed each day. She’d slept away an entire week and she decided it was time to pull herself together. Her plan was made more difficult by her parents wanting to discuss her relationship all the time. She couldn’t tell them it had all been a sham; the contract said it had to be kept confidential. Even though Jack had breached the contract by telling Reid, she wasn’t about to admit to her parents that he hadn’t loved her.
As they ate dinner one Friday night, they tried to get Charlotte to agree to a weekend road trip to the coast with them. “I’m really not interested. You guys go; I’ll be fine here by myself. I have to talk to Jay and make a plan to get to work in the new year, anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Ed asked her. “We hate seeing you like this.”
“I know, Dad, but the worst has passed. I’m back in the land of the living.” She smiled to reassure him.
“Not that I want to say I told you so, Charlotte, but we told you two that it was bad luck for him to see the bride before the wedding. Jack wouldn’t listen, though, and now look where you are just two months later!”
“I know, Dad. I know my marriage only lasted forty-four days—you don’t need to remind me. I could probably work it out to the nearest hour, if I could be bothered.” She looked at her mother, “Do you think forty-four days is a record of some sort? Dear God, I hope we don’t hold the record for the shortest marriage. We’ll end up on that 20 to One show.” A tear slipped down her cheek as she kept chewing the mouthful that had been moving around her jaw for the last ten minutes.
She gave a little laugh as her mother took her seriously and said, “It’s possible a Kardashian has the record—or Britney Spears, actually. Hers was less than
a week, so don’t worry too much.”
Charlotte swallowed her dry mouthful and pushed her plate away. “This is not the end of my life, guys. This happens. I’ll lick my wounds here for a while and then I’ll get back on the horse. I have three movies coming out next year; it’s going to be the year I make my mark. It might be awful now, but this will actually help, in some twisted way.”
“Well, we don’t want to see you hurt, anymore. Choose wisely next time, Charlotte. Maybe wait a little longer before tying the knot, too.”
She laughed again as her parents watched her trying bravely to keep her feelings in check. “We weren’t meant to get married until February eighth, but Jack said he couldn’t wait and insisted we bring it forward. We’ve separated even before the original date we would have walked down the aisle. That’s so sad,” she sniffed. Her mother collected the plates, and Charlotte headed for her bed to cry some more.
On Saturday morning, her mum came to say goodbye and make sure she had their contact details. “I’m not three, Mum. Go, have fun, and don’t think about me for a second. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Alright, dear. I left a lasagne in the fridge for you, so you don’t have to cook. Just throw a piece in the microwave and you’re done. Don’t forget now.”
“Thanks, Mum. You’re the best.” A few minutes later, she heard the front door bang, and she was mercifully alone.
***
Until she wasn’t.
Around two on Saturday afternoon, she heard the front gate creak. She’d just dressed after finally dragging herself to the shower, and she considered ignoring the knock on the front door. If it was a courier or the postman, they would have had to make quite a trek to get out to the farm, so she pulled the door open and looked up to see what she needed to sign for.
Her eyes bugged out of her head as her eyes travelled up black, studded boots and tight, denim pants with patches of red, gold, and black sewn onto them. A smooth, flat torso greeted her, completely visible though the ridiculous mesh top he was wearing. As her eyes met his, she noted the tilt of his hat and how he looked like he’d just stepped from the pages of the latest Rolling Stone magazine. They stared at each other for a moment as she considered slamming the door in his face. Eventually, Reid smiled his most wicked smile at her and invited himself in.
As he pushed past her, she noted his suitcase by the door. Hoping he wasn’t staying, she left it where it was and followed him into the house.
“Nice digs, Charlotte. Where is everyone?”
“My parents are having a weekend away.”
“Your misery wearing on them, eh?” He looked sympathetic to their plight.
“No, dick. They invited me along, but I decided to stay here to get some work done with Jay.” Reid was walking through the house from room to room, giving himself the tour without asking permission. He stopped at her room and indicated her unmade bed.
“Is this your room?”
“Yep. How did you know that?”
“The pile of tissues on the floor is a dead giveaway. I told Jack you’d be pining for him.”
“Fuck you, Reid. You should leave.” She turned her back on him and walked to the kitchen.
“No way. I came to Australia to bring you home. I can’t leave until you agree to come back.”
“Well, you’ll be here a fucking long time, then. I hope your visa lets you stay for the rest of your life.”
“Are you making me an offer I can’t refuse, Charlotte?” He clutched his heart and waggled his eyebrows at her. She resisted laughing, in case it turned into tears—she didn’t want to cry in front of him.
“Don’t flatter yourself, asshole.”
“Oh, I’ve missed those terms of endearment you spread around like candy at a kid’s party. Seriously Charlotte, I need you to come home.”
“This is my home, Reid. My home is not in Las Vegas.”
“Well, it has been for the past few months. Jack needs you to come back. We all need you to come back.”
“Bad luck.”
“Cindy is gone.”
“I know, Reid. I have the internet, you know. It doesn’t make any difference; if it wasn’t her, it’d be someone else. You know about the contract, so why are you even trying to get me to return? We were never in love—we have no connection. It was just business. For Jack to behave the way he has after I left is totally unprofessional, and it should not have impacted you all in this way. It was a private agreement between us,” she raised her voice to make her point, “and he should not have fucking told you about it!”
He threw up his hands, “Okay, okay, I get the picture. So, which room is mine?”
“What?”
“Where will I be camping out? I didn’t fly all this way just to turn around and go home. I want to see a kangaroo. Do you have them in your backyard?”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure am. Jack told me you guys planned a trip here, but then cancelled it, because he moved up the wedding. I will, therefore, have a little holiday with you, and then I can tell him all about it when I go home.”
“Why are you doing this for him? He ruined your last two concerts and broke up the band.”
“Pffftt—he can’t break us up, and who gives a shit about the concerts? We refunded all the tickets; no one was out of pocket. When we talk him into joining us again, there’ll be people desperate to see us. That’s how this business works. You’ve probably done us a huge favour, actually. We got press all around the world, because of this.” He rubbed his fingers together to indicate cash before he spoke again, “It’s money in the bank.”
She sighed. “That’s what I told my parents. I’m disgusted that it’s like that.”
“Fuck it, don’t be. We all play the game—some people just play it better than others. You and Jack had a genius attempt at playing. Lots of good will come of it, even if he has a broken heart.”
“Yeah right. He’s just pissed that Cindy didn’t get to finish what she started.”
“That’s not true, Charlotte.” Reid reached out to touch her arm and she flinched away. “He didn’t want you to go. Surely me being here proves that?” He got up from the table. “He won’t be happy when I tell him you said no. Now, really, where am I going to sleep?”
***
Reid loosened her up on Sunday by regaling her with a blow-by-blow account of the implosion of their band. He mostly omitted Jack from his stories, for which Charlotte was grateful—it hurt whenever anyone said his name.
Her parents arrived just after lunch to discover a rock star had moved into their house, and they didn’t quite know how to take him. Their only experience of Reid had been at the wedding, when he’d been dressed in a suit and looked mildly normal. Charlotte could tell that his mother didn’t know where to look every time he turned to face her with his bare chest on display. Several times, she saw her father roll his eyes at her mother as she blushed and stammered, trying to offer Reid a biscuit or a drink.
Reid noticed straight away and tried even harder to freak her out by touching her arm and whispering in her ear whenever he got the chance. By nightfall, Charlotte had seen enough and excused herself to go to bed. Her poor parents were left to deal with the rock star. She couldn’t see him going to bed early and putting them out of their misery, either.
A quiet tap on her door just before eight startled her, and she was surprised to see Nikki creep in quietly. She closed the door behind her and turned to Charlotte with wide eyes. “I can’t believe he looks like that in real life—when he’s not dressed for a wedding, I mean,” she whispered.
“I know. It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?”
“Did I see your mother blushing out there in the lounge?”
“You did. I had to come to bed, because Reid just wouldn’t let up. I left Dad to deal with it.”
Nikki laughed. “It’s getting to the point where he’ll be dealing with it, alright. I came to show you this.” She handed Charlotte a newspaper cutting
and watched as her eyes scanned the words.
“He’s going solo?”
“Looks like it. Did you read the whole lot? He said he’s going to write a whole album about his heartbreak over you.”
“That’s bloody great marketing. His agent is a genius.” Charlotte handed the paper to Nikki and shrugged.
“You think this is just for publicity? It doesn’t confirm that he misses you and he wants you back?”
“Nope.”
“Why is Reid here, then?”
“Why don’t you go ask him?”
“I can’t—I’m afraid I’ll start drooling on his shoes as soon as he looks at me. That man is gorgeous.”
Charlotte laughed. “He is gorgeous, but beware: there’s a new girl every night. If you don’t mind that, then go for it. I’ll bet he’s lonely, all the way out here. He’s not used to spending the night alone—trust me.” Nikki’s eyes widened and Charlotte watched her lick her lips. “Just keep the noise down, or take him to your house, so my mother doesn’t hear.”
“Do you think he’d come?”
“Reid? I saw him checking you out at the wedding. I suspect he’d jump at the chance.”
“Right. I’m going to invite him. Wish me luck.” She hugged Charlotte and was out the door without another word.
God, help us. Why do we all want a rock star?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Reid stayed an entire week. He popped in several times to plead Jack’s case, but Charlotte sent him away. The girls took him to a wildlife park and took photos of him holding a koala and feeding the kangaroos. For a worldly guy dressed in rock star getup, he was remarkably taken with his chance to pat the fur of the Australian icons he’d read about. He didn’t return to her house, but spent every night at Nikki’s place until it was time to leave. On their last day together, Charlotte consoled a predictably upset Nikki.
Contracted For Love: Famous Love Series Page 17