by Katie McCoy
My parents were perfect examples of that. They had been in love, or so they told me. My mum had gotten pregnant after a whirlwind courtship, and they had gotten married. They shouldn’t have. They had been miserable ever since, and the only reason they were still together was that they eventually realized it was cheaper for them to stay married than to get a divorce. But their marriage was in name only. I knew my dad had a girlfriend in Paris, and my mum’s ever revolving parade of personal trainers was a lousy front for her own cheating.
The only thing they could agree on was how much of a disappointment I was. They had been against my acting ambitions since the beginning. It wasn’t a suitable way to make a living, they said over and over again. Even though they were both extremely wealthy in their own right, they had refused to pay for acting school, and I had only been able to go because of the scholarships I had been rewarded.
As far as I knew they’d never seen one of my films.
So I lied when people asked me about them. If anyone asked, they were over-the-moon thrilled about my success—couldn’t be prouder. Thankfully no one ever tried to seek them out to confirm this.
I took a drink of water and waited for the next reporter. When she came in, I realized she looked vaguely familiar. Dark brown hair and long legs.
“Mr. Hawthorne,” she said, reaching out and shaking my hand. “Mia Anderson from FastFeed.”
The name didn’t ring any bells.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “And please, call me Jax.”
The cameraman was still outside.
“Can I ask you something?” Mia wanted to know. “Off the record?”
I never trusted a reporter that asked for information off the record.
“Sure,” I said slowly, watching her cautiously.
“What are your intentions towards Penny?” Mia asked bluntly.
“Excuse me?” I was taken aback.
How did she know Penny’s name? It hadn’t been in the tabloids, and I knew that Stella wasn’t going to be passing that information around. Unless Penny had gone to the press at some point today, but that didn’t seem like her at all.
“I’m a friend,” Mia clarified. “Her best friend, actually.”
Suddenly I realized why Mia looked familiar. She had been at the bar last night. I hadn’t interacted with her, and it had been before I bumped into Penny, but I had remembered a brunette in a short skirt walking past me at some point. I had a decent memory when it came to pretty girls.
“I’m a friend, too,” I told her. “An old friend.”
Mia gave me a thorough once over. “Just friends?” she demanded.
“Just friends,” I confirmed. “Unless she’s interested in something more,” I pressed.
Mia shot me a look. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “But you’re not her type.”
“I think I met her type,” I commented, remembering my interaction with Penny’s ex. “Greg someone-or-other?”
Mia’s eyes widened. “Greg was at the bar last night?”
“With his new girlfriend.”
Mia sucked in a breath. “And Penny saw them?”
I nodded.
“He’s a shit,” she said, and I readily agreed.
“What did she see in him?” I asked, remembering what a fucking wanker that guy had been. And it had been immediately apparent to me. Who knew how long it had taken Penny to figure it out.
Mia shrugged. “He was nice to her, I guess. She doesn’t like to take risks. And he wasn’t a risk. At least, not when they first met.”
“She’s too good for him,” I said, and Mia nodded.
“She’s too good for you, too,” she told me.
I was surprised. “Pardon?”
“I’m just saying.” She gestured to the room—all the lights and the still-unmanned camera. “This is not her scene. She’s not a starfucker. She’s looking for something real.”
“Are you saying I’m not real?” I asked, strangely offended.
“You know what I mean,” Mia sighed. “She wants something serious. Do you?”
Just then the camera man re-entered and our off-the-record conversation became on-the-record once again. Mia asked me the same type of questions that I had been answering all day, and while I tried my best to give her something good, I couldn’t help that my mind kept wandering to Penny. To Penny and her ex-boyfriend, and my current predicament.
By the time the junket was over, I was exhausted. I was a social person and I liked meeting new people and spending time getting know strangers, but it was pretty draining. As soon as it was done, I headed back to my hotel for an evening of chilling out in front of the TV.
Except my day didn’t end there.
Stella was waiting, putting my agent on speakerphone so we could discuss the latest development with the Captain Atom role. Apparently they had seen the photos from last night and were not pleased.
“This is a problem,” my agent, Tyler said.
Stella was holding the phone and made an I-told-you-so gesture. I ignored her.
“It was nothing,” I insisted.
“Which part?” Tyler asked. “Entering a club with half a dozen blondes and leaving with one redhead? It doesn’t look good, Jax. It doesn’t look good at all.”
“Define ‘not good,’ ” Stella demanded.
“They’re considering taking Jax off of the shortlist for the role.”
I swore.
“Because of some stupid paparazzi photos?” I asked, feeling panicked. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not just a few photos, Jax,” Tyler told me. “It’s months of these kinds of photos. Of the press seeing you with a different woman—or multiple women—constantly. And you’re not doing anything to counteract those narratives. If anything, your little sound bites make you sound even more like a man-whore. You’re just having fun? Come on, Jax! You have to know how that sounds!”
“That’s not fair!” I argued. “I shouldn’t have to talk about my personal life.”
“Life isn’t fair,” Stella reminded me with a laugh. “Go cry into your five-star pillows, poor little Hollywood star.”
I snorted with laughter. OK, she had a point. As far as first-world problems went, this was a doozy. For a moment, I wondered what Penny would say. She would be blunt, I was sure: I was lucky to be here—with an amazing team, all devoted to getting me the job of a lifetime. The least I could do was try to help.
“OK,” I said, sitting down. “What do we do?”
“We change the narrative,” Tyler argued.
“That’s exactly what I told him,” Stella agreed. “You need to start presenting yourself as someone serious. Someone respectable.”
“You need to be in a relationship,” Tyler said.
“No,” I told them.
“It doesn’t have to be real,” Stella added.
“That’s a great idea,” Tyler chimed in. “Someone solid. Responsible. Not an actress, not a model, not a party girl.”
Immediately Penny’s face came to mind. But no, that would be ridiculous. Wouldn’t it?
“All we need is for you to put your dick away for a few months,” Stella told me. “That’s not that hard, is it?”
“We need the right girl,” Tyler added. “Any ideas?”
Be was talking to Stella, but I answered.
“Actually,” I said. “I might know just the person.”
4
Penny
“I can’t believe you ended up in the tabloids before me!” Mia was saying on the phone as I got ready for work.
“Trust me, it wasn’t intentional,” I said, my voice muffled as I pulled on my shirt. “And it won’t ever happen again. I promise, you’ll be featured running off to a tropical island with a hot rock star before my name is ever mentioned again.”
“I hope so.” Mia laughed. “Or else, what has my life come to?”
“Pure tragedy.”
There was a pause.
“So I saw your little friend
yesterday,” Mia said, trying and failing to sound casual.
“My friend?” I wiggled into my skirt and zipped it up.
“Tall, dark, and famous?” she prompted.
“You saw Jax?” My hand froze on my skirt’s clasp, and I grabbed for my phone, taking it off of speaker. “When? How?”
Mia laughed. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, missy,” she said. “Calm down. Nothing happened.”
“That’s not—” I stopped, realizing she was teasing me. “Whatever,” I told her. “I don’t care.”
“You’re the worst liar,” she said. “The worst.”
“Fine,” I admitted. “Talk.”
“It was for work,” Mia told me. “The girl who usually does the press junkets for movies was out sick so I had to cover for her. He was doing press for his latest film.”
“Sure, that makes sense,” I said, realizing that he had to be in town for a reason. I assumed that he usually lived in Los Angeles—where all the movie stars lived.
“Anyways, I asked him about you,” Mia said.
“What?” I practically shrieked. “No you didn’t.”
“Of course, I did,” Mia laughed. “And let me just tell you, he does not think very highly of Greg.”
I wasn’t sure why that made me feel good, but it did.
“Why were you talking about Greg?” I wanted to know.
“He brought it up,” Mia told me. “He said that Greg was at the bar. Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
“I forgot,” I said, surprised that it was true. After everything that had happened that night, running into Greg and his new girlfriend Topaz was one of the least interesting things that had occurred.
“Well, it was clear that Jax thinks Greg is a right wanker,” Mia said in a terrible British accent. “And I agreed with him.”
“How was the interview?” I asked.
“It was fine,” she told me. “Not as fine as he is, but you know, that’s a pretty high bar. Because damn girl, he is incredibly good looking.”
“I know,” I admitted with a sigh. “It’s annoying, isn’t it?”
“Very,” she told me. “Especially since he’s such a man-whore.”
“I guess it makes sense,” I said. “If you’re that pretty, why would you waste all that hotness on just one girl?”
There was a knock at my door.
“Someone’s here,” I told Mia. “It’s probably my neighbors. You know, all their sex toys get delivered here?”
“You should keep them,” she responded wickedly. “Finders keepers!”
I laughed and hung up, going to the door. Peering through the peephole, I wasn’t sure I was seeing correctly. I blinked and looked again. Nope, still the same person.
“Jax?” I asked, opening the door. “What are you doing here?”
He grinned and held up a jacket. My jacket, which I had left at the bar the other night.
“You forgot this,” he told me.
“How did you find me?” I asked, still in total shock that he was standing outside my door.
And I was standing with wet hair, and my blouse buttons done up wrong.
“Hello, and thank you to you, too,” he said with a wink.
I grabbed my jacket out of his hand, blushing furiously. “Some people might consider this stalking,” I told him, turning away from him before he could see what a mess I was.
“Your address is on the internet,” Jax said, following me into my apartment. “But don’t worry, I’ll have someone take care of that.”
I shot him a look over my shoulder as I struggled to do my buttons up right this time.
“Take care of that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “My agent knows people who can scrub personal information like that from the internet. You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” I told him, putting on my earrings.
He ignored me. “Your apartment is so small,” he commented, looking around.
I flushed. My one-bed was a shoebox, with barely enough room for a couch and tiny galley kitchen. I kicked the door to my bedroom closed, hiding the mess, and tried not to freak out.
Jax Hawthorne was in my apartment.
Jax Hawthorne was in my apartment, looking like a Greek god.
“It’s New York, and it’s a bargain,” I said instead.
He wandered past me, opening the door I just shut and poking his head into my tiny bedroom.
“This whole place could fit into my hotel bathroom,” he said with a low whistle. “You should come check it out sometime. The Plaza. You’ve heard of it, right? I’m under the name Tom Bond.”
“We’ve all heard of the Plaza, Jax,” I told him, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from my unmade bed. “You’re rich and famous. We get it.”
Also, I didn’t like the idea of being that close to a bed with him. It was way, way too tempting. And he was way, way out of my league. That was more than apparent by the strong bicep I felt underneath my palm as I dragged him towards the door.
“I’m just trying to spread my wealth and good fortune around,” he said, allowing himself to be pushed into the hallway.
“I’m doing fine on my own, thanks,” I told him, grabbing the last of my things and closing the door behind me. “And I’m late for work.”
“Right, the dude-bros at the start-up,” he said, following me down the hall.
I was surprised he had remembered. I thought the most interesting part of his evening had been getting those naked texts from that random girl.
“Well, thank you for bringing my jacket over,” I told him as we reached the lobby of my building. “It was great seeing you again.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He grabbed my arm before I could turn away. “I didn’t just come here to give you your jacket. I was just thinking about our pact,” he said, looking adorable and slightly sheepish.
“Our promise?” I blinked.
“The one we made that winter. When we were kids. About getting married if we were still single in our twenties.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Jax—”
“Come on, Penny,” he said, getting down on one knee. “Let’s get married.”
I stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. Was he serious right now?
He quickly got to his feet. “Too much?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Uh, yeah, just a bit,” I said, trying to hold back my giggles. The whole thing was too surreal to be actually happening. “You’re messing with me. Or we’re on some weird YouTube video show.”
“I’m not,” he said. “Penny, I’m serious.”
No. He couldn’t be. Or maybe Hollywood really had screwed with his mind.
“Jax, I’m not going to marry you,” I told him gently. “That would be crazy.”
“OK, OK,” he admitted. “Maybe marriage is taking it a bit too far too quickly, but hear me out. Be my girlfriend. For a few weeks.”
I was pretty sure I was hallucinating.
“This doesn’t make any sense.” I shook my head. “I haven’t seen you in fifteen years and now you want me to date you? But only temporarily?”
Jax grabbed my hands. “OK, I’m going about this all wrong.” He took a deep breath, his expression turning serious. “So, you might have noticed that I have a bit of a reputation in the press.”
I shot him a look, and he laughed, guiltily.
“Fair enough,” he said. “The point is, I’m up for this really big, really important part and the people involved are worried about that reputation. They say it’s distracting and contrary to the character.”
“But you’re not the character,” I said, confused. “You’re just the actor playing that character.”
“True,” he told me. “But people get invested in these kinds of characters, and the people who play them get put under a microscope. It’s not fair, but that’s the way these things work.”
“I still don’t see what this has to do with me,” I told h
im, trying to pull away. “And I really am late for work.”
“I need a girlfriend,” Jax said bluntly. “I need someone to convince the press that I’m in a serious relationship. With a serious girl.”
Oh.
I came down to earth with a bump. Now it all made sense.
“It would only be for a short while,” he told me, his blue eyes beseeching. “Just while I’m filming in the UK. You’d get to spend that time on set with me, getting treated like a star yourself—”
“Jax,” I interrupted him. “I have a job. I can’t just up and leave to go hang out with you in Europe on a movie set.”
Jax didn’t say anything, but I could see the disappointment on his face. I felt bad, but only for a second. The whole thing was ridiculous. Me? Pretend to be Jax Hawthorne’s girlfriend? Ditch my job and go hang out in the English countryside for a couple of weeks? It was insane.
The world didn’t revolve around him. He might have been used to women throwing themselves at his feet to do whatever he pleased, but I had a life of my own.
“I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong girl,” I told him. “I have to go.”
When I got to work, I was still processing everything that had happened. I wanted to call Mia and tell her about it, but I also wasn’t even sure that it had actually occurred. I knew that once I said it out loud it would sound even crazier than it sounded in my head.
Jax Hawthorne, asking me to fly to England and play his fake girlfriend? Part of me was flattered, that out of all the women he had in his life, he was asking me. It was romantic, and risky, like something out of one of his movies. Except . . .
I sighed. When I replayed the conversation, one thing stuck in my mind. He said he needed a “serious” girl for the job, someone to convince the press he’d reformed from his bad-boy ways.
Serious.
Aka, boring. Normal. Ordinary.
Me.
I knew I wasn’t exactly the most stunning, exciting girl in the world—Greg had made that part crystal clear—but it still stung a little that Jax had jumped to that conclusion too, after spending all of one evening together.
There was nothing wrong with being serious, I told myself, trying not to get insulted. Serious meant I had my head on my shoulders, and wasn’t about to get my heart broken by charming playboys like Jax.