Heartthrob

by Katie McCoy

  “Right. There’s only a few weeks of shooting left,” I agreed.

  “No, I meant you and Jax, and your little ‘relationship.’ ” She gave me a wink in the mirror. “You’ll be relieved when it’s all over, I’d imagine, and you can get back to regular life without the paparazzi hounding.”

  Over?

  Time screeched to a stop, and my heart pounded in my ears.

  What did she know?

  Olivia was still fixing her makeup. “You’ve done a great job, I have to admit,” she continued. “Excellent image rehab. And that proposal was a stroke of genius, they ate it up. His publicist really is the best. I might have to hire her myself, for when Jax and I start dating.”

  “What . . . ? What are you talking about?” I couldn’t have heard her right.

  Olivia turned, looking surprised. “Well, you know, you’re only Phase One of the plan. I’m Phase Two.”

  “Phase Two . . .” My voice came out a croak. “I don’t understand.”

  “Once he gets the Captain Atom role then you guys will stage a big, sad breakup,” Olivia explained. “Demands of fame, distance tore you apart, yada yada. Tragic, really. Of course, I’ll be his shoulder to cry on, and romance will blossom. We’ll be together by the time the movie comes out, ready for the red carpet and front pages. And the award nominations,” she added, blotting her lipstick. “I’m sorry we couldn’t move the timeline up and save you from all these events, but you know how it is, everyone has to keep to the plan.”

  I felt as if she had punched me in the stomach.

  “The plan,” I repeated numbly. “So, it’s already been decided.”

  “Of course,” Olivia said lightly. “This isn’t a game. There are millions of dollars on the line, and both of our careers. But this way everyone gets what they want.”

  Everyone except me.

  My head spun. I couldn’t believe Jax had already lined up my replacement, but maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, I was only ever Phase One: the safe, boring starter girlfriend. I’d known from the start this was all an act. Olivia was the next level up: gorgeous, talented, and at ease in front of the camera. If he’d been happy to sign up for one fake relationship, why not another? It made total sense for them to be paired off next.

  So why did my heart feel like it was breaking in two?

  Olivia turned to look at me for the first time, and something must have shown on my face, because she paused.

  “Oh,” she said, looking both surprised and guilty. “Maybe I’ve spoken out of turn.”

  “No, it’s fine,” was all I could say.

  “I’m sorry. I really am.” Olivia took my hand, and I could see the genuine concern on her face. “I just thought you knew how this worked. I figured they’d set you up with a contract, an apartment, maybe even some contacts for your next career move after this was done.”

  I nodded, feeling humiliated. I’d been so swept up in the romance of it all, I’d begun to believe I was special. That what Jax and I shared was special. But here Olivia was, reminding me that I was just a convenient pawn in a bigger game. I had forgotten all about the contracts. I had wanted to forget.

  “Besides.” Olivia gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “This world isn’t for the faint-hearted,” she said. “The sooner you can get out of it, the better you’ll be. Because none of it is real.”

  I didn’t say anything, just watched silently as she checked her appearance once more and left me alone, with her words echoing in my head. The truest words I’d ever heard.

  None of it was real.

  26

  Penny

  I felt as if the world had dropped out from under me. But what could I do? I was in an expensive, borrowed gown, gussied up like a proper movie star’s girlfriend, here to support said movie-star boyfriend. That was the deal—that had always been the deal. Never mind the kisses and the sweet words and the mind-blowing sex. When it came down to it, they didn’t mean a thing.

  I told myself that I shouldn’t be upset—I shouldn’t even be surprised. A temporary arrangement—that’s how Stella’s contract had defined it.

  Yet, things had changed—hadn’t they? Or maybe I had just hoped they had.

  Because I was falling in love with Jax.

  I saw him from across the room, and my heart squeezed tightly in my chest. Forget falling in love, I was already head over heels for him.

  I watched him talking with other actors, schmoozing with directors and producers. He was totally in his element—comfortable and happy and glad to be there. This was what he wanted to do, and as much as it broke my heart, I was glad I got to help him do it.

  He caught my eye across the room, and his face seemed to light up. At least, my poor, wounded heart hoped that it did.

  I took a step towards him, hoping that I could be strong, that I could fake it for the rest of the evening, but with the next step, I felt tears gathering in my eyes, and before I could stop them, they began to spill down my cheeks.

  Jax’s smile immediately vanished. I spun around, pushing through the crowd, needing to get out of there.

  One of the hallways was blissfully empty, so I leaned up against the wall and took several deep breaths, trying to keep my crying under control. I was ruining my makeup. I wouldn’t be able to go back to the party like this, not with the proof of my misery trickling down my cheeks.

  “Penny?” Jax’s voice broke the silence of the hallway. “Penny? What’s wrong?”

  I turned away from him, but he placed himself in front of me anyway.

  “You’re crying,” he said, and I could hear the concern in his voice. “Why? Tell me, Penny, I’ll make it right.”

  I didn’t even know where to begin. Somehow, I managed to swallow my tears and meet his gaze—his worried gaze.

  “I spoke to Olivia,” I told him, surprised I could keep my voice level.

  “OK,” he responded, his eyebrows furrowed.

  “She told me about the new plan,” I said. “About what happens after you’re done with me.”

  He looked at me blankly. “What plan?” he asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I told him everything that Olivia had said, and the confused look on his face grew.

  “Is that what’s going to happen, Jax?” I asked, my heart aching. “Is our breakup already in the works? Which tabloid will get the scoop this time?”

  “It’s not like that,” he insisted. “I don’t know where they came up with the idea, but I haven’t agreed to any of it.”

  “They,” I repeated, sick to my stomach. “So you do know what I’m talking about.”

  “Stella mentioned something,” he admitted reluctantly, “but it’s not like anything’s been agreed. I swear, Penny, I would never do something like that without talking to you first.”

  “Yet, you don’t seem terribly upset by the idea,” I pointed out, feeling a rush of emotions. Sadness, anger, heartbreak. I hated all of them. I felt so dumb for allowing myself to get this deep. For forgetting what this had been from the start. A lie.

  Jax shook his head violently. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “So tell me, what do you mean?” I asked bluntly. “What’s going to happen now?”

  He blinked at me. “What do you mean?”

  “With this.” I gestured my hand, where the giant diamond sparkled. “How long are we going to keep this up? Until you get the Captain Atom role, or longer? Does what I want even matter, or are you just going to wake up one morning and decide it’s time for Phase Two?”

  “I thought you wanted this too.” Jax looked hurt.

  “I don’t even know what this is,” I exclaimed, my heartbroken frustration spilling out. “Because right now, it feels like we’re leading some double life. In private, things feel real between us, but then I have to come be paraded around for the press, with staged photo ops and leaked stories, like it’s all pretend! That’s not what I want, Jax.”

  “So what do you want?”
Jax demanded.

  I could see that he was frustrated too, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Because he was just frustrated that I was going back on our deal.

  “I want to know if any of this is real,” I said, my voice quiet.

  He went still.

  “Of course, it’s real,” he told me, his eyes searching mine. “I care about you.”

  “You care about me,” I echoed. It was like salt in my wound.

  “We’re friends,” Jax continued, oblivious to my heartbreak. “This whole thing only works because we’re friends. That’s what made it so perfect. I couldn’t have faked it with anyone else.”

  I felt as if he had ripped my heart right out of my chest.

  “Well, I’m not faking it anymore,” I said, barely whispering now.

  “What?”

  “I’m falling in love with you, Jax,” I confessed. “It’s not pretend for me, not anymore.”

  He stared at me, and I thought I saw real emotion in his eyes. For a moment, I believed he would say the same thing. Confess his love and sweep me into his arms, the way he would if we were characters in one of his movies.

  But this was real life, and there were no cameras around to capture the half step he took back from me.

  “I . . . don’t know what to say to that,” he said, looking away. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “I know,” I told him, wanting to reach out and shake him. Convince him that falling in love wasn’t as tragic and terrible as he had always believed. “But it’s happened anyways. Surprise,” I added, deadpan, but he wasn’t smiling.

  Jax sighed. “It won’t last,” he told me sadly. “It never lasts. You just got caught up in the romantic gestures and script and . . . We’ll just let it pass. And then we can go back to how things used to be.”

  I knew he was talking about his parents. I knew he believed that love was where they had gone wrong. That it was because of their emotions that their marriage had soured, but I knew that it wasn’t so simple. Nothing was ever that simple. And if you really loved someone, you fought for them.

  But Jax would never understand that. Which is why I couldn’t allow myself to stay with him. Because I could spend the rest of my life falling in love with someone who didn’t trust himself to love me back.

  And no matter how crazy I was about him, I deserved more than that.

  So even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I took a step away from him.

  “I don’t want things to go back to the way they were,” I told him, trying to keep my voice steady, trying not to cry. “I can’t be your fake girlfriend—fiancée—anymore.”

  “Yes you can.” Jax sounded a little desperate. I wanted to believe that some of it was because he was afraid he was going to lose me, but the practical side of me knew that it was because he was afraid of what would happen to his image. He was worried about losing the part—not me. His career was what was important to him. It always had been, and it always would be. I would never come close.

  “Ignore what Olivia said—that’s not the plan—that was never the plan,” he insisted.

  “But it’s a good one,” I told him, trying to make him understand. “It could get you everything that you want.” I felt tears crowding my eyes. “I’m not what you want, Jax. I was the means to an end, and even if you don’t follow through with this new plan, another, better one is going to come along eventually. I was a good temporary solution, but that’s all I ever was.”

  “Penny—” Jax tried to stop me but I held up my hand.

  “This wasn’t real to you,” I said tearfully. “But it’s real to me, and if we continue like this, it will hurt too much when it ends. So let’s just end it now, when I can still deal with the pain.”

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Jax said, his voice hoarse. “I know this is all new to you, but I thought you were done playing safe. I thought you were done being scared to take chances.”

  Tears slipped down my cheeks. He didn’t understand. He’d never understand.

  “Please, Penny. Take a chance on me,” he said, imploring me. “We’ll have fun, I promise. We’re perfect together like this. Nothing has to change.”

  “It already has,” I said sadly. “At least playing it safe keeps me from getting my heart broken.”

  Then I slipped off my engagement ring and shoved it into his hand.

  “Goodbye, Jax,” I told him, and then I walked away.

  27

  Penny

  3 Weeks Later

  I hadn’t gotten out of bed in . . . days. Several of them. And judging by the state of my grotty old sweatpants, I hadn’t done laundry in a fair while either.

  Who cared about laundry when my heart was broken?

  After flying back to New York immediately after the premiere, I had used the excuse of jetlag for why I couldn’t leave my bed. After all, I didn’t have a job waiting, so there was no reason why I couldn’t burrow under the covers and hide from the world. But now, the excuse was starting to get stale—even to me.

  The truth was that I couldn’t get out of my bed because I was heartbroken. Because despite all my attempts to protect myself by leaving London and Jax, I hadn’t managed to completely guard myself from those unwanted feelings of love.

  I loved Jax Hawthorne. I didn’t want to, but I did.

  And he made it so easy to love him.

  After I fled the premiere and hightailed it back to New York, he called. He texted. He even wrote me emails. I ignored them all; it hurt too much to even think about him. And then he eventually stopped trying, which hurt even more again. I didn’t blame him. I was supposed to be an easy fix to his problem and I had allowed my emotions to get all tangled up in the arrangement. It was my fault.

  At least I was away from the set and hidden from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. Sometimes, when I first woke up in the mornings in my old bed, in my tiny apartment, with the sound of garbage trucks outside my window instead of English songbirds, it was as if none of it had even happened. But then, the pain in my chest would return and it all came rushing back.

  And I went back to bed.

  My parents left worried voicemails. “Penny, sweetheart, just checking in . . . Jax has been trying to reach you too. Call us!”

  BEEP!

  “Penny, stop wallowing.” My sister tried a blunt approach. “I’m this close to getting on a flight and dragging you out of bed, you know.”

  BEEP!

  Then there was Mia.

  “Hey, babe, I’m worried about you. Please let me know you’re OK, and not in a pathetic heap of pajamas and pizza delivery.”

  I looked around the room. She knew me too well. And I didn’t want to keep lying anymore.

  I called her.

  “You’re alive!”

  “Just about,” I sighed. “Look, we need to talk. Can you meet me in Central Park on your lunchbreak?”

  “Of course,” she said immediately. “I’ll even buy you one of those terrible hot dogs you love so much.”

  I wanted to laugh, but I started crying instead.

  “Screw lunch. I can be there in twenty minutes,” Mia said.

  Fifteen minutes later we were sitting on a park bench, with Mia watching as I cried into my hot dog, making the bun soggier and soggier.

  “The rumor was that you broke it off with him,” Mia said gently after I had stopped sobbing. “Is that not true?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. Because none of it is true,” I said, and I tearfully confessed the whole charade.

  Mia listened quietly, her eyes getting rounder and rounder as each part of the deception was revealed. When I was done, I buried my face in my hands, unable to face my best friend.

  “Do you hate me?” I asked her, my voice muffled.

  “Only a little,” she said.

  I looked up, anxious, and found her giving me a sad smile. “I wish you’d trusted me enough to tell me, but, I get it.” She sighed. “My job makes everything more co
mplicated.”

  “I really wanted to,” I swore. “But Stella had this non-disclosure contract a mile long. If I’d let it slip, they would have owned my firstborn.”

  Mia cracked a smile. “I believe you. Rumor has it Katie Holmes’ contract was three hundred pages.”

  “Mine wasn’t like that,” I said quickly. “It was supposed to be simple.”

  Mia took my hand. “So, you fell for him, didn’t you?”

  I nodded, the tears welling in my eyes again. “I was so stupid,” I cried. “The worst part is that I miss him. Even though I know all of it was an act, I still miss him.” I pressed my palm to my chest. “It really hurts. And I want it to stop hurting.”

  “I know.” Mia hugged me. “And it will. And if it doesn’t, I can just post that you dumped him because he couldn’t get it up.”

  “No!” I protested, laughing through my tears. “Believe me, that was never a problem.”

  “Oh really?” Mia arched and eyebrow, and I sighed.

  “Talking about the amazing sex won’t make me miss him any less.”

  “Good point,” she agreed.

  “What is wrong with me? Did I really think I could resist a movie star?” I asked her, throwing my hands up. “His job is to make people fall in love with him.”

  Mia paused. “Are you sure that what it was for him? A job?”

  I took a deep breath. “That was always the deal. He was clear from the beginning—I mean, we had a contract and everything. But then everything got blurred. I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I forgot that it was all for pretend.”

  “I don’t know, Pen.” Mia scrolled through her phone, showing me the pictures of Jax and I at our picnic—the one that I had thought was private. “He doesn’t look like he’s pretending here.”

  And if I didn’t know any better, I might have agreed. Jax was looking at me with a heartbreaking combination of tenderness and desire. And the look in my eyes was the same—only I hadn’t been faking it. I had fallen for him. For real.