Mr. Hollywood

by Tracy Tegan

  She walked in with a huge stack of papers in her hands. She put them on the coffee table and stared down at me, with her hands on her hips.

  “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  I sat up, giving a cursory glance at the papers. They appeared to be news stories about my night out with Jennifer.

  “I went out with Jennifer and Justin Hart last night. Is that what you mean?”

  “Hardly,” she scoffed. “Take a closer look at the photos.”

  I picked up a few of the papers and looked down at the photos she printed out of the three of us. Nothing stuck out to me at first. Then she pointed one of her bony fingers at something and there it was, my engagement ring.

  I got up from the couch and started to pace.

  “If you are going to post pictures of yourself with a big ass engagement ring on your finger, don’t you think it’s going to be noticed?”

  “I’m so sorry, Grayson. I didn’t think about it.”

  “Baby, it’s alright. Just because we didn’t officially announce our engagement yet doesn’t mean I don’t want everyone to know.”

  “I just thought since Ethan …”

  He cut me off. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not Ethan. I want everyone to know that I love you and only you and plan on spending the rest of my life with you.”

  I jumped up in his arms and he caught me. I had to kiss him; I couldn’t help myself. He was just so wonderful.

  Cat cleared her throat. “Okay lovebirds. We still have some issues to work out.”

  Grayson sat on the couch and pulled me down with him. I made myself comfortable on his lap while Cat continued.

  “I called in Tris to do your hair and makeup. What we are going to do is post a selfie of you on Instagram, with you playfully putting your hand over your mouth like you are yawning while simultaneously showing off your whopper of an engagement ring.”

  “So we aren’t going to make an official statement?” Grayson asked.

  “No, that’s so old school. This way you are saying everything without saying anything.”

  Cat and I went upstairs to find the perfect outfit that was just the right amount of sexy while still being casual. To be honest, I was grateful she showed up to distract me from the nightmare that was my life. Had she not I would have sat in the living room stressing and obsessing nonstop about the escaped criminal who at that moment was figuring out a way to come and get me.

  “You sure now is the right time to post this picture with all the stuff going on with the escaped convict trying to kill me and everything?” I asked Cat while Tris played with my hair and makeup.

  “Are you kidding me? It’s the perfect time. That way you are showing the world you don’t care about the man and you aren’t going to let him scare you and are just going to go on with your life.”

  What she said made sense, but it just didn’t feel right, so I agreed to a compromise. I would take the picture but not post it until after this nightmare with the escaped con was over. If nothing else, it would be a great way to get people to stop talking about him and focus instead on my engagement to Grayson. Cat agreed, but mostly because Grayson stood looming over her, giving her that look that would make anyone cave.

  After Cat and Tris left, I cuddled up with Grayson in the living room to watch a movie. That was until the phone rang.

  “Hey Jen, what’s up?” I tried to be casual. I didn’t want to let on that this man had me on edge.

  “Do you think you can come over, Ali?” She was crying.

  “Are you okay? Did something happen with Ethan?”

  “Yeah, Ethan just left. He was really upset about Justin. He was yelling at me, calling me a tramp.”

  What the hell was she talking about? We both know that Ethan was in Papua New Guinea filming a movie. Even if he did hear about her date with Justin yesterday, he wouldn’t have had time to catch a flight and come home to confront her about it, would he?

  “He did? I can’t believe it. Just based on the couple of selfies we posted? That’s crazy.”

  “I’m so glad I left him. What was I thinking ever marrying a guy like that in the first place? I mean, he’s the one who kept insisting that we do a three way and now he’s mad? Seriously?”

  Okay this is strange. A three way? What is she talking about? She never told me anything about a three way. They broke up because his agent wanted him to get an annulment.

  “Can you please just come over so we can talk about it? I need you Alison. I want to file for divorce from Ethan and I need your help.”

  “Sure, sweetie. I’ll be right over.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to Grayson. “He’s there. He’s got Jennifer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because all through the phone call she kept asking me to come over and help her but she kept feeding me blatantly false information that she knew I would know was so insanely wrong.”

  Grayson called for Jax and together they notified the authorities.

  “Let’s go,” I said. But Grayson wouldn’t hear of it.

  “No baby, we need to let the authorities do their job.”

  “Jennifer is in trouble because of me, Grayson. We need to be there for her.”

  “The cops are on their way,” Grayson insisted.

  “That’s great. By the time we get there they will have the asshole in custody and we can be there for Jennifer.”

  “Not right now. When the authorities confirm they have him in custody we can head out.”

  “Grayson, by the time we get downtown from Malibu she will have been alone by herself for God only knows how long. On a good day it takes over an hour. I want to leave now,” I pouted but Grayson was done with this conversation and turned his attention to Jax who had just come into the room to give him an update.

  I took his momentary distraction to grab my keys and bolt out the door. But I didn’t get a few feet out the front door before I was surrounded by Jax’s security team.

  “The bird is in the cage,” one man called out.

  I rolled my eyes. “Really?” Before I could say anything more, though, Grayson was there and he was pissed.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Grayson said angrily.

  “Please baby. I promise I’ll stay in the car until you confirm one hundred percent that it’s safe. I just need to be there for Jennifer. She’s in trouble because of me.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “But everyone is coming with us.”

  “We loaded all the security team into two SUVs and we were off.”

  I rode in the back with Grayson in the car that Jax drove, and during the entire ride to Jennifer’s place neither of them said a single word to me. I knew they were both pissed off at me for insisting we do this but I didn’t care. Jennifer needed us and I wasn’t going to stand by in my house an hour away while she was alone out there with some crazy man. It was my fault she was in harm’s way in the first place.

  When we arrived, they had this new guy on the security team sit with me while Grayson and Jax went to find out what was going on.

  There were police cars everywhere. It was all so chaotic. I looked around to see where Grayson was headed and finally caught a glimpse of him standing next to an ambulance and realized he was with Jennifer. She was alive and I wanted more than anything to be there with her, hugging her, letting her know everything was going to be alright.

  I looked at the stupid bodyguard sitting in the SUV with me and sighed. He wasn’t going to let me go to her until Grayson came to get me.

  As the minutes ticked by, I finally just snapped. I got up and jumped out of the car. He was right on my heels and grabbed my wrists tight. “You are hurting me,” I cried out, but he didn’t let go. He really was hurting me so I did the only thing I could think of: I turned around and kicked him in the balls and ran.

  I didn’t stop until I got to Grayson and jumped in his arms with the bodyguard just a moment behind me screaming and shouting. “You bitch!”
r />   “What’s going on?” Grayson asked.

  “He was hurting me,” I said with tears in my eyes. I lifted my arms and showed him the red marks the guy left on my wrists.

  Grayson pushed me behind him and turned to the guy. “You want to tell me what the fuck you were thinking?”

  “She kicked me in the balls,” the man tried to explain to Grayson.

  “I don’t care what the fuck she does or says, you don’t call her a bitch, and you sure as fuck don’t ever touch her.” He turned to Jax and ordered him to “deal with that” before turning his attention back to me.

  Jennifer threw herself into my arms and started balling. “I was so worried you wouldn’t figure out what I was trying to say to you.”

  “I wasn’t sure at first. I was like, has she lost her mind? But eventually I got it. Especially when you said you wanted to divorce Ethan.”

  “It was all I could think of. I couldn’t let you come over, but he had a gun on me and made me call you.”

  “He’s in custody now. You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” I soothed.

  “He’s dead,” she said quietly. “The police shot him. He was going to kill me. He was so …”

  I looked down at Jennifer and realized for the first time that she was covered in blood.

  “It’s okay Jennifer. He was an evil man. He deserved to die.”

  One of the officers came over to speak to us, letting us know that Jennifer’s apartment was still considered an active crime scene so she would need to find a place to go for the night.

  “She’ll be going home with us,” Grayson told the man. “I’ll send someone over when you are done fixing the doors, changing the locks and cleaning up the mess.”

  After talking to the authorities for a few more minutes, Grayson and Jax took us back to the SUV and then back to his house.

  Jennifer ended up staying with us for two weeks, while Grayson and Jax gave her apartment a big security makeover. In the meantime, Grayson also tried to reach out to Ethan but didn’t have any luck. Turns out the entire cast and crew were deep in the jungle and completely out of touch.

  It was great having Jennifer staying with us because we spent all of our free time planning my wedding. But at the same time I could tell she was still overwhelmed with sadness. I wasn’t sure if it was because she missed Ethan so much, because of the crazy guy who tried to kill her, or some mixture of the two. All I could do was try my best to keep her busy and distracted so she didn’t have time to think of either.

  Eventually though, Jennifer decided it was time to return to her apartment, despite me begging her to go with us to a place or at the very least stay at our house while we were gone. She didn’t want to do either, though. She wanted to get on with her life and felt the only way she could do that was to be back on her own, at the apartment and return to work full-time.

  Chapter Twenty

  When it came time to leave for Uruguay, I was a nervous wreck, but Jax assured me he would have some of his men keep an eye on Jennifer while we were away.

  We took Grayson’s private jet and flew directly into Punta del Diablo. It was a long, fourteen-hour flight. I slept almost the whole time. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was working on my laptop writing notes for my next book.

  My new book was basically going to be a murder mystery where the sexy, alpha male, FBI agent fell in love with a witness to a crime. Harvey wanted me to write a sequel to my Grayson love story, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe I would one day, but not for my second book.

  The moment we landed in Punta del Diablo, the production crew rushed us to the set. It was not what I was expecting. I think I somehow got it in my mind that Uruguay was a third world country and everything would be dirty and run-down. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Everything was breathtakingly beautiful. We were staying in the most exotic and stunning resort and that was also where they were filming the movie.

  We would get to be in this amazing place for weeks, free from the paparazzi. I felt like I was in heaven. I was happy to be there and be a part of it with Grayson. But still, he was there to work, so I spent my free time trying to work as well.

  When I wasn’t writing notes for my new book, I was planning my wedding. My sister suggested I create some boards on Pinterest to help with organizing my wedding plans. I didn’t want a big affair with a lot of people, but there were still some things that needed to be settled, like what I was going to wear, where we were going to have the ceremony, what the cake was going to look and taste like, how I was going to do my hair, and what kind of flowers I wanted.

  The wedding was just going to be a few friends and family, but we had agreed to let OK! Magazine have the exclusive photos. They were going to pay us a boatload of money, which in the end would pay for the entire cost of the wedding, so I couldn’t really complain about that.

  I was struggling with what kind of wedding dress I wanted. At first I thought I wanted something simple yet elegant, sort of like what Kate Middleton wore when she married Prince William, but the more I looked at wedding dresses on Pinterest, the more I fell in love with the fantasy-type gowns with lots of tulle and Swarovski crystals.

  Cat thought it would be a good idea to tweet about my dress board on Pinterest and see what my followers had to say. The response was overwhelming; I could barely keep up. My assistant, Kendra helped organize them all and even had a wedding website made where fans could cast their vote on their favorite selections for my dress, bridal bouquet and even what shoes I should wear.

  Grayson and I decided to get married during the spring instead of the winter. It wasn’t that we didn’t want a holiday wedding, but it turned out he would have some promotion to do for a movie that would be coming out at around that time and I would be busy promoting the release of my own book during December as well and we didn’t want work to interfere with our wedding.

  To keep the press at bay, though, we decided not to tell anyone, not even our family when the real date of the wedding would be, which was going to be March 21st. Instead, we told everyone that it was going to be a huge summer affair, probably in June. Since that was a typical time for weddings, everyone seemed to buy it. We even booked a big castle in Scotland for June 10th to throw everyone off.

  The Food Network contacted Cat about doing an episode of their popular TV show ‘Last Cake Standing’ around making a cake for our wedding. Because it takes some time to prepare and film an episode like that, they would begin the pre-production process right away, but the episode wouldn’t actually air until after the New Year. Grayson and I would film our parts for the show when we returned to the United States from Uruguay.

  Everything was getting out of hand. I couldn’t believe how our small, intimate affair was turning into such a huge mess. There were going to be less than twenty people at our wedding. Did we really need an entire television show dedicated to coming up with our wedding cake?

  How could something that was supposed to be so special, the most important day of my life, be so taxing? Wasn’t it supposed to be happy and magical?

  The more things got out of hand, the more my mind drifted to the photos that Jennifer showed me of her wedding with Ethan. It was just the two of them. They didn’t have a big cake, lots of friends or anything at all … just the two of them on the beach and she never looked happier. She wasn’t stressed out that she picked the wrong shoes or that she would have the proper tiara for her wedding veil. She was just with the love of her life, enjoying their special day together. That’s what I wanted.

  I don’t care what Grayson and I would be wearing or that the facility would have the proper lighting for the photos for some stupid magazine. I wanted it to be just us, for our special day. Nobody else mattered. Nobody else should matter. It was our day after all, not anyone else’s. So, how do I tell Grayson that I didn’t want a wedding? How do I tell him that I wanted to run off and get married, just the two of us? Would he go for it? Would he agree to such a crazy idea?

  I
didn’t get a chance to even talk to Grayson about it because our private time alone was interrupted by a visit from one of the producers of his movie.

  “As you know, we like to invite members of the press to the set during production so that they can get some behind the scenes footage. It’s great marketing for the movie.”

  “Okay, but what does this have to do with me?” I asked him. “I’m not in the movie. I’m just here visiting my fiancé.”

  “Yes, well,” the producer continued, “a crew from Entertainment Tonight is on their way. We thought that since you happen to be here - and right now you are all everyone seems to be talking about with your upcoming wedding - that you might like to be an extra with the Entertainment Tonight host, Nancy O’Dell.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Normally, when they are filming behind-the-scenes footage, we give the host a walk-on part in the movie. Not always, but when it’s possible, we like to do it.”

  “And you want me to film the scene with the host of Entertainment Tonight?”

  “Exactly,” the producer said excitedly.

  “But why? I’m not an actress.”

  The producer looked at me disbelievingly.

  “You do realize that you are in the news right now more than any other actress, right? You are huge back home. Your upcoming wedding is what everyone is talking about. My wife has called me ten times since we’ve been here trying to get some inside scoop about it.”

  “Seriously?” I looked to Grayson and he just shrugged, seeming just as surprised as I was about this. I mean, I knew our wedding was being talked about, but was it really that big of a deal?

  “So I guess what you are saying is that by being an extra with the Entertainment Tonight host I would get additional media coverage and that would help Grayson’s movie, right?”

  “Exactly my dear. Now let’s get you into hair and makeup. The Entertainment Tonight crew should be landing any minute.”

  “What do you think, Grayson? Is this okay with you?”

  “I think it’s great. I love that we will be working together, even if it’s just in one scene of the movie.”