As Long As You Hate Me

by Carrie Aarons

  Welcome to my life, Kara. “Not those … although we’ll get to that. The ones about me and Hannah Lockwood, have you seen those?”

  Her nose turns up and she won’t look at me. “Believe it or not, I try to stay as far away from anything concerning you as possible. I don’t want to know you, Dean. And I was doing a fine job of that.”

  That one stings. My ego and my heart take the punch, because as one of the most famous musicians in the world, I’m used to people knowing my business before even I do. The fact that the one girl I’d hoped was stalking me behind a computer screen all these years actually wasn’t … it’s kind of humbling.

  “Well, if you did, you’d know that there is a woman accusing me of rape.”

  Just saying the word sends chills down my spine, the revolting, nauseous sensation taking over my throat. The first time Patrick had come to me, telling me that Hannah Lockwood was coming out with these allegations, I actually puked. Rape? To ever have a word so disgusting associated with me … I still couldn’t even fathom it.

  Kara’s eyes almost bug out of her head. But by the furious, sad expression in them, I can tell that she knows outright that it’s not true.

  Except, her eyes shutter closed, cutting off any emotion from me. “I haven’t known you for seven years. I don’t know who you are anymore, Dean.”

  Chapter Six

  Kara

  The minute the words leave my mouth, I know I shouldn't have said them.

  Dean sits up from his lounged position, the neck of the beer bottle glistening as his fist tightens around it. "Seriously, Kara? You actually think I'd rape someone? You may not know me as well as you did, but this is me."

  The hurt in his voice is palpable, and I swear his face turns a shade of green with nausea.

  I shake my head, sighing. "I apologize, that was a low blow."

  I want to ask more questions, or go home and Google everything about the story, but I refrain. The reality is, he probably has to deal with this kind of stuff all the time, and for the first time I think about how annoying and difficult that must be for him.

  "Don't apologize just yet, because you're going to hate me more when I tell you what I need from you."

  What he needs from me ... the words have me shivering in anticipation and wanting to sprint in the other direction at the same time. Because for as much as I despise him, and what he did, my heart also wants to go running right back to him.

  I stay silent, the organ in my chest beating double time.

  "I came back for you. Selfishly, to try and fix my problems. I'm not going to sugar coat this, Kara ... I am in some deep shit. This is bad, it's already affecting my career and who will work with me even though it's completely untrue. And I need to do something to stem the blood gushing from the open bullet wound this has left in my life."

  "What the hell does that have to do with me?" I pace in front of him, not wanting to sit on any surface in this living room.

  News had gone around town when William Jacobs had passed away, although it was no surprise to anyone that he'd laid in a pool of his own filth for three days before he was actually found. The drunk piece of shit deserved what he had coming to him, in my opinion, and from the years of abuse I'd seen Dean take, I can't say I missed him. This house was in horrid condition, but besides that, every single surface held a memory. It had been years since I'd stepped foot inside, and I was already itching to get out.

  "For years, everyone has wondered about this mysterious girl in all of my songs. It's a conspiracy theory at this point, there are full websites dedicated to finding out who you are essentially. And it’s probably the only thing that could overshadow these allegations. So, my agent and I, we came up with a proposal for you."

  You know those moments in life when dread fills you, but you don't know why in that exact moment? Like the universe is preparing you for some fatal blow?

  His blue eyes study me, and then he drops the right hook directly into my gut. "I want you to be my fiancée. Well, pretend to be. There would be a contract, you would live with me. I would provide whatever you needed, you'd be handsomely rewarded, and we could end it in a year or two when this all blows over."

  Now I knew I had to be in the twilight zone. My ears couldn't even process the syllables that had left his lips because they were just too ludicrous.

  "Are you fucking crazy?" It's all I can get through my brain, which is basically mush now.

  "Kara, hear me out, please. It's not crazy. This could be a great opportunity for you. We have some of the best hospitals and private practices out in California, your career could take off. Think of how many influential people I know, people you could work on. You would want for nothing. The ring would be just for show—"

  My brain nearly explodes when he says ring, and he essentially lights the fuse of my temper with the match of his voice.

  "What do you take me for, some kind of prostitute?! I don't care about your money or connections, Dean. In fact, I would have been perfectly happy if I never had to see you again in my life. I was fine before you came back, and now I'm being chased down in parking lots and ambushed at my friend's wedding. A ring!? You have got to be fucking kidding me. Actually, I have no idea why I'm still even entertaining a conversation with you."

  I storm toward the door, anger flickering through every pore.

  "You said you were fine. Not happy."

  They're the last words I hear before I slam the front door, shaking the entire ranch down to its foundation.

  Chapter Seven

  Dean

  If I were a more self-conscious person, I wouldn't have been able to get through the conversation with Kara a day ago.

  But luckily, years of Hollywood conditioning and a general "don't give a fuck what people think" attitude, now serve me well. A more humble, caring person would have felt like a complete jackass asking the girl they'd ruined to become their fake fiancée to make a rape scandal go away.

  But on a good day, I was a jackass. So, there you had it.

  "What did she say?"

  Neil Pombo asks, his smoker's voice scratchy through the phone.

  He'd been my drummer for what felt like forever ... practically the day I'd stepped foot in Hollywood. Neil was one of the only genuine people I actually trusted in the entertainment business, and just so happened to be my closest friend. He understood the machine we both worked for, how both dangerous and spectacular it could be.

  I looked around the grimy confines of my childhood kitchen and felt the urge to punch all of the walls. "She stormed out, thought I was out of my fucking mind. Which ... I feel like I am. Dude, this rape shit has my bones spooked."

  I felt the shiver course through my veins again as I said the word rape. I still couldn’t believe it. Hannah Lockwood was the latest up and coming model, not an A-list celebrity yet, but a girl to watch. And she was my typical MO; skinny, pretty, nice, although fake, tits and not too much talk. We’d had some fun nights, and some angry fights. But nothing had ever gotten violent, or physically abusive. I would never, and I mean ever, lay hands on a woman … at least in a way she wasn’t begging for. I hadn’t seen Hannah for three weeks, we’d kind of cooled off, when she’d showed up on a highly-watched daytime television show. Bruises on her cheeks, tears streaming down her chin, claiming I’d raped and hit her.

  Instantly, the story had been picked up, and while most of my fans were withholding judgment, after a brilliant statement my agent put out, I knew there were rumblings.

  “You need to make her see the benefit to her. Convince her that she will get more than just a year with you and a bunch of money. From what you’ve told me about this broad, in your drunken, lonely stupors, she’s a genuine person. She’s not going to be swayed by the typical material shit all of these groupies usually go gaga over.”

  Neil and I … we’d been on the road for almost a decade together. Threesomes, drugs, wild parties, potential deathly situations. We’d done it all together. He knew what our norm
was, and Kara was definitely not it.

  “The money is definitely a factor for her, but I have to approach it in the right way.” I rub my chin, sipping on another beer in the endless stream of beers I’ve had since I got here.

  I didn’t want to make this about money, but I’d seen her finances. It was alarming what certain dark web experts could dig up for you, but I wasn’t above using those channels. Kara was in debt up to her ears, the amount of money she owed would keep her nice and poor until the time she was about sixty. She could barely afford to buy a bagel, and there was no way she’d see a decent paycheck for another year or two with the track she was on. My private investigator had explained all of that to me.

  The money I could provide her, with the contract in place, would solve all of her problems. With the connections I could pull, access to some of the best doctors in Los Angeles with some of the wealthiest clients, she would be set to work in any place she desired afterward.

  “Her work. That’s going to be it. She’s a … a dermatologist, I think. We have a ton of those, all studied on the latest technology, in California.”

  I practically hear Neil nod through the phone. “That we do, she’ll learn a lot. And be able to get any job she wants after a year at one of those places.”

  I should write this down, fuel for my case to get her to agree, but I’m too lazy.

  “So Hannah isn’t going to settle?” Neil’s voice is cautious.

  Patrick had called me about the meeting this morning. Not that I wanted the splotch of a rape settlement on my record, but it was better for everyone if this went away quietly, her getting some money and me getting a signed non-disclosure.

  “The bitch said that she won’t stop until she takes her story to the masses. She’s not doing this for money, she’s doing it for attention. To be on the latest cover of every magazine. Patrick said she was so cutthroat in the meeting, that I would have probably jumped across the table if I’d actually been there.”

  “She’s a real piece of work. Jesus, man, I’m sorry this is happening to you. It doesn’t sound like she’s going to give it up.”

  My gut roils with fury at being in this situation. “Get my mind off this man, what’s going on with the tour?”

  Before I left LA to come out here and do damage control, we’d been planning a tour of intimate venues. I was tired of the giant stadiums and arenas, something about my life just felt … lacking. We thought maybe playing acoustic, to crowds who could literally sing along from just five rows back, would feel like we were actually doing real music.

  “Got three more dates, so that’s the entire UK leg of it. Smaller pubs and theaters, this is totally going to rock, man. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of Hollywood … the fake is frying my brain.”

  We both had a love/hate relationship with our transplant hometown. It was both wonderful and disgusting at the same time, making you want to explore and then leave for extended periods of time.

  “Yeah, getting on the road will feel nice … although if Kara agrees, I’ll have to stay in Malibu for a little bit before leaving. Look like the doting fiancé, you know?”

  I chuckled because the idea was just absurd. It was twisted and fucked up, putting a girl who almost had no choice in a position to be used like this. On one hand, I was so pissed at her. On the other, I loved her more than I ever had … not that I’d let that interfere in what we may have going on. Or maybe I would …

  My head was all fucked up from being back in Elm Hill, a place I swore I’d never step foot in again.

  “Sometimes I think you really are that prick they write about in the tabloids. Have you written?”

  Staring at my black Moleskin notebook, one of a thousand that I’d filled with lyrics over the years, I sigh. “No … it’s like I come back to this shit hole and all of my talent is zapped. It’s a miracle I made it out of here.”

  Neil chuckles. “Ironic, isn’t it? That you can write so many best-selling records about the woman from hundreds of miles away, but get within three feet of her and you have writer’s block.”

  I gave the receiver of my phone the middle finger.

  After a few more blips of conversation, I hung up with Neil.

  I guess it was pretty fucking ironic. The girl in the songs, that’s what they called her all these years. A ghost that I’d built up in all of my interviews, and I knew she’d never expose herself.

  Part of it had been a last-ditch effort to win her back. Then it just turned into a martyr’s cry. And now … I couldn’t summon the words about my so-called muse at all.

  As much as this whole plan seemed like a good idea when Patrick and I had cocked it up in his office, a feeling of slow moving doom lingered over my head, warning me that maybe this wasn’t all that it seemed.

  Chapter Eight

  Kara

  “This has got to be a fucking joke.”

  I roll my eyes, trying to relax as the girl at my feet massages my heel. “That’s what I said.”

  Heidi giggles as her pedicurist scrubs the bottom of her feet with a pumice stone. “I mean, this is some Hollywood movie kind of shit.”

  I roll my neck as the massage chair digs its artificial hands into my back. “B, he kind of lives in a fairy-tale world if you think about it. This is probably normal.”

  B stood for best friend, the position the blonde sitting next to me had held since the third grade. Ever since Heidi Jensen had spit on the boy who’d pantsed me on the playground and then told the lunch lady to shove it, I’d known she was my sister from another mister. She was the loud spitfire where I was the more reserved one. I helped her pass classes, while she taught me how to sneak out and straighten my hair. She had been so good at the hair part that she’d turned it into a career; it had only taken her four years, but she had a successful salon in town that kept her in her own apartment and paying all of her own bills. Although I always refused, she kept trying to convince me to move in with her and, “stop being a spinster who lives with her parents.”

  Little did she know, I could barely afford this pedicure, let alone what it would take just to move out.

  “He wants you to wear a ring, pretend to be engaged, take millions of dollars, and work in some of the most famous plastic surgery offices in the world? I don’t really get the downside here, B.”

  She did get the downside, but Heidi was always one to jump headfirst into new situations … something I often envied. If it were her in this situation, would she have agreed on the spot?

  And was it crazy that I was even contemplating this?

  “Come on, Heidi. This is Dean we’re talking about. You remember what he did, right? And how for years, I couldn’t listen to the radio. You do remember the way I’d sat on your bedroom floor for months, crying until I couldn’t breathe?”

  Those were dark, dark times. Some nights, I didn’t think I’d ever get out of the funk our breakup had put me in. My mom actually suggested going to a therapist at one point, and I knew I had to snap out of it.

  She rolls her eyes, the nail tech slathering a coat of mint green polish on her toes. “Okay, yes, I admit, it wasn’t the greatest when you broke up. But it’s been seven years, I think you can bury the hatchet and listen to the guy. Honestly … you may kill me for saying this, but I always liked him. And his music rocks.”

  I flip her the bird. “Thanks for choosing my side.”

  “B, I’m always on your side. Which is why I’m trying to convince you that this might be the best thing. Could you fall in love with him again? Sure, anything is possible, especially when it comes to a tattooed rockstar. But you’re smarter now, and I have confidence in you.” She shrugs, acting like this is totally normal. “But … we both know you’re bigger than New Jersey. Bigger than living at home, in debt, working the shitty shifts at some bumfuck private office where they don’t know a pimple from a cyst.”

  My heart twinges, because deep down I know she’s right. I always meant to make it out of here, but after my world imp
loded when Dean left, I kind of just …. stuck. I went to college in state, of course it was a top ranked private school, but in state nonetheless. I did my graduate schooling there as well, and rounded at the hospital near my parent’s house. For as well as I did in school, I had chosen the safe route. The easy one. A private family office where I’d be fast tracked to an associate doctor, meet some boring guy, settle and have two point five kids.

  I yawned just at the prospect.

  “But … Hollywood? The world will be up in my business. No doubt about that, if I’m linked to Dean, the entire universe is going to know … what toenail polish I like to wear and how I take my coffee.” I shiver, not liking how any of that sounded.

  Heidi sighed as the girl began to massage her calves. “Necessary evil for getting hundreds of thousands in loans paid off, and helping a guy who really needs it. Do you think that Dean would have come to you if he wasn’t in a horrible situation? Think about it, B.”

  We were silent as the sound of the trickle of the water in the pedicure bath filled my ears. She was right again. This was a torturous decision for me, but I hadn’t quite thought about how desperate he must be if this was his last resort. And it was … I’d gone home and read every article I could get my eyes on, and this Hannah Lockwood situation was not good. What she was accusing him of … if he didn’t get some sentence or worse, his name would at least be tarnished forever.

  And I’d seen his face when he said the word rape. Pale, haunted, disgusted. I may not know him anymore, but I did know that Dean Jacobs was not a violent or abusive person. Growing up in a household like he did, you went one of two ways. And he’d chosen the path the furthest away from becoming his own father as he could.