by India Lee
Liam nodded. “Sounds good. Just name what I need to do, I’ll do it.”
Terrence smiled. “Alright. And I’ll actually need you too, Amanda, if you’re willing.”
“Of course,” Amanda managed with her best attempt at a gracious smile. Terrence beamed.
“’Perfect. Cause this little stunt actually requires the both of you,” he said, a placid smile on his thin lips. “What I need is for you two to break up.”
Chapter 9
The terms were listed as the following:
1. Publicize breakup by tomorrow, June 10th before noon (Perrin will draft statement)
2. Be sure to convincingly portray a split couple to the public. Avoid attending the same public events. If simultaneous attendance cannot be helped, ensure that there are no run-ins or photographs of any kind together.
3. Do not speak to interviewers about the breakup. “No comment” will be the answer for any questions regarding one another.
4. Limit contact to phone calls or text messages if you must. No in-person contact after tomorrow, 12PM EST.
5. Absolutely no visiting each other’s apartments or being near the general vicinity. Amanda will stay off Mercer Street. Liam will not go east of Avenue A.
6. Maintain image of breakup until after February 24th Academy Awards. Breakup must remain past production of The Legends unless A Soldier wins an award in any of the following categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role
7. Liam will avoid any sort of negative press/troublesome behavior (i.e fighting, public drunkenness) that may be interpreted as related to the breakup.
8. If any of the above terms are broken, the contract between Liam Brody and Rambis Films for The Legends will be nullified.
By the time she’d chewed her pinky nail down to as far as it would go, Amanda had had enough of the silence in the Mercedes.
“I wasn’t about to be the reason you sacrificed everything.”
She turned to him. The decision she’d made for them had her heart weighing down her entire chest. It felt as if it would force her to double over at some point. But she stood by it nonetheless.
“I thought you would understand that considering the way you feel about everything Logan did for you.”
Liam remained silent as the car turned onto Sixth Avenue, casually running his hand over his buzzed head, staring out the window as if no one was talking to him at all.
She had said “yes” perhaps too quickly. Perhaps she should’ve pretended to think about the proposition for more than a half second after Terrence’s proposal.
“What I need is for you two to break up.”
Liam’s first reaction had been to laugh but when a solid moment passed without Terrence so much as cracking a smile, his reply had been simple. “No.” Even after Terrence presented the official contract for The Legends, he had been steadfast.
But Amanda had already been swayed.
Despite Liam’s claim of equal responsibility, she was far too aware of the fact that her inbox had been the one hacked because she had gone ahead and befriended Casey Mulreed despite the multiple warnings. It was her one mistake as an industry rookie but a massive one and she wasn’t about to let it ruin another career nearly ten years in the making. Certainly not one of someone whom she cared about so deeply.
“It’s only for the next year,” Terrence had said with nonchalance, as if a year were really nothing at all. “Less, actually. Eight months, assuming we win an Oscar. I just need the world to forget the Liamanda bullshit, that it ever existed. I mean you can save yourselves for each other all you want. Pretend you’re in a long distance relationship or something. I just need you to stay away from each other till after award season. But hey, maybe by Fall, we’ll find a way for you guys to meet in secret. Or depending on the public reception, we can afford to let you two be ‘friends,’” he had said, lifting his eyebrows as if to commend himself for his generosity. “But for now, for these first few months, I need the agreement to be strict. After noon tomorrow, you two are separated. No seeing each other. At all.”
Without consulting Liam, Amanda had signed the contract that Terrence drafted. She had simply assumed he’d be on the same page as her. It was his career on the line. But upon setting the pen down, Amanda had looked up to see Liam’s brows completely knit as he stared at her.
It had taken much more time but eventually, his signature wound up below hers. And from the moment they left Terrence’s office, Liam was silent.
By the time the Mercedes pulled in front of his Mercer Street apartment, he still had yet to speak a word. Amanda could only watch and follow as he climbed silently out of the car, barely holding the door open for her when he entered his building. She scowled but still trailed him closely, needing desperately to hear at least one word out of him. Once again, she wondered if he would tell her that he never wanted to see her again. Contract or not, that they were broken up, actually separated.
But the silence continued as they rode up the elevator. Exasperated, Amanda leaned against the cold metal wall, simply glaring at Liam and daring him to continue ignoring her in such a confined space. He did.
“Liam, come on,” Amanda pleaded once they were in his loft. She dropped her purse to the floor, following him as he made his way into the industrial kitchen and opened his fridge to retrieve a beer. “Can you just say something so I know even a little of where your head is at?” She groaned when he gave her only the briefest glance before opening his beer against the glass top counter, unflinching despite the sound and the scratch that the bottle top left on the table.
“I don’t know how you’re interpreting what I did but I signed Terrence’s contract because I don’t want to stand in the way of what you’ve been working on for ten years,” Amanda said, her face hot. She waited for him to respond. Again, nothing. She closed her eyes to stay coolheaded, speaking through her teeth. “This is the movie and the moment your entire career has been building up to. I don’t want to be the person who screws all that up. Not more than I already have, at least.”
Once she opened her eyes again, Liam was heading for the stairs. Are you kidding me?
“Liam.” Her cheeks burned with rage. “All I wanted was to help you. Jesus, you just bought two multimillion-dollar houses and you want to keep providing for Logan and Heidi and the kids, don’t you? How else are you going to do that if you don’t try to fix this situation? What if no one wants you after this?” She gritted her teeth as he continued on, reaching to grab him but only getting a handful of his T-shirt to hold him in place. “Listen to me. I did what I thought was the best for you. It guarantees you not only a job after Soldier but an incredible one, one that any other actor would kill for. It’s exactly what you’ve always wanted and I wouldn’t have signed the contract if it wasn’t. It’s not like I had fun doing it, like it was in any way easy so please stop making it harder and just talk to me.”
She could hear the last bits of desperation in her voice turning into fury as he continued looking blankly into the sitting room, lazily swigging his beer. Her fingers tightened into a fist around the cotton of his T-shirt.
“Just say something Liam, fucking anything. Unless what you really want is for me to leave.”
A ripple of chills shot up her arm when he suddenly wrapped his hand around hers, removing it from his shirt with irritation. His jaw was tight when he finally spoke.
“I love you.”
Amanda blinked, letting go of him. Her narrowed eyes fluttered into doe-like wideness though her body still had yet to catch on and relax. Despite a swelling heart, leftover heat continued to course angrily through her veins, their reaction to Liam’s sentiment still completely delayed. Amanda stared at him, at the tense look she had never anticipated seeing paired with those words. Her own jaw tight, she could tell that her expression mirrored his as she returned them.
“I love you, too.”
Liam set his bottle down on the counter, rubbing the side of his ne
ck as he gave a bitter laugh. “I thought about you every day while I was in Jordan. I was in character and I still thought about you. I just came home. I wasn’t supposed to have to miss you again.” He leaned back against the brick wall, his lips curled in disbelief as he shook his head. Amanda’s eyes narrowed once again. She was sure that she detected a sneer and she was sure that it looked accusatory.
“It’s not like I won’t miss you, like I’m not going to have a hard time here, too.”
“It’s different.”
Amanda squinted at him. “How.”
He lifted his hard stare. “You know I’m fine no matter what but I don’t have that luxury with you. Especially not after knowing how the paparazzi, how Pop Dinner treated you while I was gone.” He shook his head, his eyes flickering elsewhere again. “I couldn’t stop it then because I was three thousand miles away. Now I’m right here and I have to sit back and let them screw with you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can but whether we want to admit it or not, double standards exist and between you and me, I have a feeling the paparazzo’s going to be a lot more brazen with the one who’s half his size.”
Staring at nothing, Amanda’s head shook blankly. “I don’t know what to tell you anymore.”
“Then don’t try to tell me anything.”
Amanda felt her eyes flicker. “Fine.” Her voice was colder than she had ever heard it. Her anger beyond renewed, she turned on her heel. “You know what, I’m not sure what else you want me to do at this point maybe I should just — ”
A sharp breath caught in her throat as he pulled her back before her sentence finished, the grip of his fingers on her forearm desperate in a way that didn’t match his stoic face.
Amanda shot a hard glare at Liam, her mouth opening to snarl something though her lips snapped shut and her arm froze in the midst of yanking away when she caught the look in his eye. It had softened enough to expose a glint of torment.
Catching her breath, Amanda’s gaze slowly relaxed, traveling from the look in Liam’s eye to the tautness of his cheek as his jaw flexed. A handful of her gauzy raglan in his fingers, she stood before Liam, her chest heaving as her stare fell to her bare left shoulder and the top of her bra, both exposed as his hand remained gripping her sleeve, stretching it down. She watched as his own eyes dipped, his fist tightening just enough to stretch the fabric down to expose a couple more inches of her bare skin.
Eyes downcast, Amanda let go of a heavy breath, fully closing her eyes when she felt Liam pull her into his body, one arm wrapped tight around her waist and the other cupping the back of her neck.
The sigh she let go of when he kissed her managed to be tired and hungry at the same time. She let him take control and back her against the counter, feeling the cold of the glass on her skin as he cupped her jaws, his tongue hungry, angry as it parted her lips for him. Amanda breathed hard, her mouth falling open wider as she felt his hand tilt her head against his lips by a firm fistful of her hair. Her palms pressed on the hard planes of his chest. She let her fingers curl against them as his tongue swept hot through her mouth. The mere touch of her fingers hooked into the denim drew a groan from Liam. He pulled away from their kiss to watch as she undid his button, his eyes interchanging between her flushed lips and busy hands.
As his jeans fell around his ankles, Liam reached behind his back, swiftly yanking off his T-shirt. Once it was flung aside, his hands pulled again at her top, his fingers hooking into the cups of her bra this time so that he pulled them down along with her neckline. As his hot mouth crushed over hers again, Amanda hastily pulled her arms out of her sleeves and bra straps, pushing the rings of jersey and lace cloth down her bare torso and past her hips till they fell around her feet, leaving her in her ripped shorts only. Liam gave one more long, hot sweep of his tongue against hers before pulling away to let his eyes take her in from head to toe, coming back up to take in the sight of her naked chest.
He gave himself another few seconds of gazing at her in only her shorts before pulling her into him by the pockets. She thrilled in feeling her nakedness against his as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. As his tongue drew a hot line up to her jaw, his hands pulled at her already torn jeans, as if he intended to tear them the rest of the way off. It didn’t seem impossible considering the loud rip that sounded after one of his harder yanks of the shredded cloth. Eyes closed, a wide smile spread across Amanda’s lips when she felt and heard him laugh into her neck.
Her legs wrapped around his torso, she couldn’t remember when he had lifted her and brought her up the stairs. By now, her head was dizzy with the same electrifying pleasure that pulsed between her legs and compelled her to pump her thighs every time she felt the flicker of his tongue. Her body barely hit his mattress before her own hands tore at her shorts.
Kneeling on the bed in front of her, Liam watched her writhe out of the shredded denim, his eyes gleaming at the sight of her utter impatience. Once she was fully undressed before him, he simply watched her with that smirk of his, relishing in the need that pinched her brows. He kept still until she arched her back and groaned, one hand twisting a handful of sheets in irritation as the other reached for the pillow behind her.
She was pinned down before her arm could swing it at him. Liam grinned, intertwining his fingers with hers and bringing both hands above her ahead as he knelt over her. Lowering his face to hers, he kissed her again, flicking the hot tip of his tongue over her lips, pressing his midsection against hers when she wriggled with anticipation. The weight of his body easily subdued hers. Amanda let out another groan from under him — a longer this time. If this is what he felt like for the past two months, I have no idea how he did it.
“Liam, please,” she finally breathed against his mouth in desperation.
Liam let go of her. Immediately, her hands flew down between their bodies, slipping beneath the elastic of his boxer briefs to grab hold of his length and wrap firmly around it. Amanda’s jaw fell slightly open as she watched Liam’s reaction to the long strokes she gave. It was fascinating to see him overwhelmed with pleasure, to see his eyes squeeze shut and his arms buckle as they pressed against the mattress above her. Suddenly, it was no longer in his interest to draw things out. In no time, he’d snatched a condom from the drawer of his nightstand, tearing its gold wrapper off before fully shedding his boxer briefs. Holy shit.
Amanda’s eyes feasted on the sight as Liam slid the condom onto every last inch of himself. Heat flared in her cheeks, her limbs, between her thighs as she watched his long, muscular frame hover over her, one hand above her head to balance his weight on the mattress, the other gripping the base of his erection.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Amanda pulled his lips to hers again, opening her mouth for his tongue again, wrapping her bare legs around him. Her moan was short and breathless when she felt Liam rub his tip against the part of her that throbbed the most, running it slowly up and down until she couldn’t take it anymore.
Luckily, neither could he.
Liam’s growl was thick with pleasure as he sunk himself into her. Holding tight onto Amanda’s waist, he watched her back arch with each of his long, deep thrusts, her moans joining every one of his lustful grunts. When her arms reached out for him, he took her cue, lowering himself so that she could once again wrap her arms around his neck and press her lips against his, filled to the brim with ecstasy and too overwhelmed with pleasure to wonder when they would even get to be this close again.
Chapter 10
LIAMANDA “BREAKS UP,” LIAM SIGNS ONTO “THE LEGENDS”
The Pop Source
July 20th
It’s been a strange 36 hours but after being outed as a fake couple, Liam Brody and Amanda Nathan have announced this morning that they have “broken up.” While emails between the two indeed revealed the false and premeditated nature of their relationship, some voices — including that of publicist to Nathan, Wendy Krentz — are claimin
g that while the romance began as fake, it eventually developed into one of real feelings.
If that is indeed the case, it appears as if Brody and Nathan were unable to make it work anyway. This morning, a joint statement was released quoting the following:
“Liam and Amanda are no longer together because of the stress that was put upon their relationship in recent days, however they wish the best for one another and will remain on good terms. They appreciate the public’s respect of their privacy and do not wish to speak of recent incidents, rumors or their past and present relationship. Thank you.”
Meanwhile, it seems Brody’s career hasn’t taken a hit following the scandal as he confirmed recent casting rumors and officially signed his contract to star in Terrence Rambis’s The Legends on Friday. Via Twitter, Rambis stated the following: “Proud to have completed casting of Legends with true soldier, Liam Brody. Warrior mentality, unrivaled work ethic. Looking forward to another masterpiece.”
MEGAN MAYER AND MERIT, MISSOURI REACT TO THE FALL OF “LIAMANDA”
Pop Dinner
July 21st
Surprise! Liamanda was fake and now the whole town’s a’talkin’!
Let’s be honest here — between these two conspirators, the Hollywood newbie’s just a little more screwed when it comes to career-salvaging. Any predictions on how fast Amanda Nathan will end up back in Missouri? If you’ve got none, let us provide you some from the people who know best. Besides, you know you’re curious about what the fabulously bored and sassy folks back in Amanda’s hometown have to say about the fall of their old friend.
So, who more appropriate to start with than Megan Mayer? In case you forgot about the 23-year-old brunette stunner, she’s the one who allegedly slept with Liam while visiting New York in February, and she had the following to say about former bestie, Amanda: