by Nikki Wild
The ringing of Julian’s phone shattered the moment. For several seconds he made no move to answer it, but we both knew he would have to eventually. I didn’t say anything as he withdrew; I knew it was with great reluctance. I also knew who was on the other end of the line before Julian ever even answered it—Tessa was the only person who ever called Julian on his cell.
“Hey, Tess!” Julian began, exchanging dread for excitement. “We just got done with the ultrasound. We’re—”
His face fell more suddenly than I had ever seen, a frown replacing that dashing smile of his like the flip of a switch. My stomach did a somersault, and suddenly everything went completely cold. “How?”
“Julian?” I asked, dread coiling my guts into knots as I wiped away the gel off of my stomach. Something was obviously wrong, and the longer Julian stood there, silently listening to whatever Tessa was saying, the more my mind came up with the worst possible outcomes.
“Right,” he said, swallowing hard as he gave me a look that had the power to break my heart. “We’ll see you in a minute.”
“Julian, what’s wrong?” I asked, my voice rising to match my growing distress. I felt vulnerable enough after having someone quite literally scanning my insides. Adding some disaster to the mix was too much to bear, especially when I had no idea what to expect from it. I felt weightless, like I was falling from some vast height, and there was no safety net below me—just an endless void.
“Tessa’s coming around with a car,” he said, meeting my gaze with a ghost of an apology in his eyes. “Somehow, the press found out about our arrangement. They think this whole thing is a sham.”
16
Julian
The first car was meant for Liz. Tessa wanted her back at the hotel as soon as possible, where she would hopefully avoid getting swamped by the paparazzi and where she would be somewhat safe in general. Sadly, I wasn’t so lucky.
Tessa had called a press conference in order to try and “get a handle on the situation,” as she put it. In truth, she was just planning to cover our asses, but I didn’t care. My reputation meant nothing right now. All I was worried about now was Liz and the baby.
“Who told them our marriage is a sham?” Liz asked as we stood outside the doctor’s office, the car Tessa had called for her pulling up right to the curb.
“I don’t know,” I said, running my fingers through my hair in frustration. “I just don’t know. That’s one of the things Tessa is going to talk to me about.”
“Julian… I’m scared. I don’t know what to do,” she said, pulling me into a tight hug. I wanted to keep her in my arms as long as possible, to not let the comfort of her touch be taken from me so quickly—so soon after we’d just seen our baby for the very first time. I had the ultrasound printouts in my pocket. Well, some of them. Liz and I had split them between ourselves; though there wasn’t much to see, it felt good having some evidence, some concrete proof of what we’d made together to hold on to.
“I’m scared too,” I whispered, begrudgingly drawing away to open the car door for her. Time was of the essence now, and I didn’t want her getting caught in the media crossfire. “Just get back to the hotel. I’m going to fix this. I might be a day or two, but I promise I’ll come back… Okay?”
“Right,” she said, offering me the shade of a smile as she climbed into the backseat of. I could feel a pit opening up in my stomach as I watched the car drive off, an absolutely unbearable thought jumping into my mind.
What if this is the end?
No, I couldn’t think like that. Not after everything had started to go so well for us, not after we’d only just begun to work so perfectly together. It wouldn’t be fair—life would never be that cruel, would it?
Who was I kidding? Life was cruel every single day. I knew that firsthand. But despite that fact, I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that somehow Liz and I would be able to make it through this. That the next time we saw our baby, it’d be bigger and healthier and more beautiful than the ultrasound machine could capture. That there’d even be a next time.
Moments after Liz’s car had driven off the second car arrived. Tessa pushed open the back door the moment it stopped.
“Get in,” she said, her face more grim than I’d ever seen it. Tessa always sported a rather severe look, and that was something I could handle, something I was accustomed to, but the way she glared at me now was different—like she was about to tell me that a bomb had been dropped right over London.
I climbed in beside her and shut the door. “Do we know how they found out?” I asked. The silence in here was palpable, so thick that I could nearly taste it on my tongue. “Who talked?”
“We’re still trying to get all the details,” she evenly replied. Every word from her mouth seemed so carefully chosen, the cadence of her voice so slow and precise. I didn’t like it when she picked her words like that. It never meant anything good, and it sure as hell never meant she was telling me the whole truth. “While you’ve been busy with your little tart up in that shitty hotel room I’ve been down here busing my ass drumming up a media frenzy around your wedding and baby-on-the-way. This leak is screwing everything up Jules. It’s damning, and they’re going to railroad us with it.”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was bone dry. I could feel a coldness crawling up from the bottom of my stomach all the way into my chest. If the media went against you, it didn’t matter if you were right or wrong. They could shape the narrative and ruin my career. This would be the thing that defined me for the rest of my life, not my music, not my voice, not the words I’d ripped straight from my heart and tossed to the wolves. And worst of all, Liz would fall right along with me. She’d be the victim seen as somehow lesser-than for being taken advantage of.
“We never should have done this,” I muttered, shaking my head. “This was a stupid plan right from the start. I knew it in my gut, but for whatever damn reason, I decided to ignore it and listen to you instead. I’m having real feelings for this girl. I don’t need to be playing pretend. I think we can be together for fucking real…”
“Don’t blame me for this,” Tessa snapped, whirling on me so fast I jumped. “It’s your fault all of this fell apart—hell, it’s hers!” I felt that clench in my jaw, the one I got whenever I was nervous—or pissed. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which emotion was gripping me tighter now, but for Tessa’s sake, I hoped it was the former. “Elizabeth spilled the beans on this whole damned thing! I can see it now—Rocker’s Wife Confesses to Sham Marriage.” She shook her head in disgust. “Do you know what the Enquirer would pay for that kind of story? You’ll never book another concert after this.”
“Liz didn’t do this, Tessa,” I said as coolly as I could manage. Tessa was truly testing the limits of my self-control. “She wouldn’t. She was with me the entire time—when would she have the time to call the press?”
“I don’t know, Julian,” she said, folding her arms and turning her gaze out the window. “Maybe it was after that little tiff that saw you sulking in a corner booth with a whiskey in your hand?”
The two of us lapsed into silence, each of us staring out of our respective windows as we watched the city pass us by. I hated myself for it, but Tessa’s mention of my fight with Liz had gotten to me. She’d been so angry at me, hadn’t she? So ready to call this whole thing off. Wasn’t that what she’d said? That it wasn’t going to work out?
There’d been plenty of time between the moment I left the room and the moment I returned for her to make a phone call or two. Or three. Or seven. Or even to text her friend, Jen, the super-fan, someone who likely wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to get their fifteen minutes. Had Liz fucked me over?
A glance into the rearview mirror caught a flash of a camera in the car behind us, and already I could feel my face starting to redden. Couldn’t they just leave us alone?
“So, what do we tell them?” I asked, trying to resist the urge to open up the car’s built-in fridge and go rooting through the mi
ni-bar. “At the press meeting, I mean.”
“Well, we can either come clean or double down,” she said. “Tell them mistakes were made, or feed them a sweet little lie about how you two are truly in love and how you’re planning to raise your bastard baby together.”
The way she threw around the word bastard was starting to grate. I slipped one hand into my jacket pocket, worrying the ultrasound printout with my thumb and forefinger, relying on it instead of the bottle I wanted to wrap my fingers around.
“Why would that be a lie?” I said at last, meeting her gaze.
“You can’t be serious, Julian,” she snorted. Then she laughed. “You can’t honestly tell me that you’ve fallen for that little tramp, have you? I know you’ve been up there fucking her, but don’t be a fool…”
“First and foremost, Liz is not a tramp. You call her that, or anything else degrading, one more time, and I have half a mind to drop you on your arse at the nearest corner for all the world to gawk at.” Tessa gaped, but before she could get a shot in, I ran right over her. “Secondly, what if I have, Tessa? What if I’ve actually fallen in love with her? Would that be so awful? I mean, we were supposed to act like a happy couple, weren’t we? Wasn’t that the plan? Why can’t we actually be happy?”
“Because that wasn’t a part of the plan,” she said quietly, her expression suddenly as blank as a sheet. The incredulity fell away, leaving a frankly horrifying lack of emotion in its wake. “This was just supposed to be just another slut you’d slept with—not your real bloody wife! You’re supposed to love her and leave her. Tell the whole world she broke your heart and write another platinum album worth of songs about it. The fans will eat that shit up with a fork!”
And just like that, the numbness on her face morphed into a seething rage. I slid back into my seat as far as the safety belt would let me, watching as her face colored bright red and she screamed at the top of her lungs. All I could do was stare, my eyes wide as she sucked a few slow, deep breaths afterward, seemingly an attempt at calming herself. It worked. Suddenly, her stoic demeanor was back. I’d never seen her act this way before. Whatever emotional rollercoaster she was on was apparently flipping end over end.
Had Tessa finally reached her breaking point? Had her failed machinations driven her to some kind of nervous breakdown? I suddenly, intimately understood Liz’s position—not knowing what you were up against, whether in whole or in part, was one of the worst feelings in the world.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I began, but Tessa held up a finger to silence me.
“No. Don’t say a word, Julian. I’ve heard more than enough.” She pulled out her phone and started texting at speeds I’d thought physically impossible for a human being. “I’ll make sure this is taken care of. I will fix everything—like I always do—and you’ll just stand there and watch me clean up your mess—like you always do. Understood?”
“Where are we going?” I asked as the driver swung the car toward the airport.
“New York City,” she replied, her fingers still working overtime on her phone. “Now shut up and let me work.”
I didn’t speak to Tessa on our flight to the big apple, and I wasn’t about to start now that we’d landed. I just sat here staring out the window at the traffic as our driver took us through Times Square on our way to wherever the hell Tessa had called this damned conference at. Why it couldn’t happen back in Liz’s hometown was completely beyond me, though I supposed the farther away from Liz all of this was, the better. I’d screwed her life up enough. The last thing she needed was to be stuck in front of the American public.
Then again, if she’d been the one to leak the information in the first place…
But why would she do it?
“We’re here,” Tessa said as our car pulled off of the street and down into an underground parking garage a few minutes later. We were beneath some building I’d hardly even gotten the name of—though it almost looked like another hotel. “Just get out of the car, and for heaven’s sakes, keep your mouth shut. We’re going to get you ready to go live in a few minutes.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, Tessa,” I said, catching her gaze. “What is it?”
She regarded me wordlessly for several moments. I couldn’t be sure if she was going to tell me anything at all, and that reminded me of how guarded Liz had seemed back in our suite before we’d talked about having the ultrasound. Maybe that bit about needing proof of the baby’s existence had all been a ruse. Maybe she’d been trying to cover for the fact she was feeling guilty about what she’d done—or worse, that she wasn’t, and she just needed a visual aid to flash at the press once they came calling for her.
Either way, the expression that crossed Tessa’s face was so similar it made my stomach turn. I was tired of being lied to. Tired of being left out in the cold and the dark.
“The answer is coming. Just be patient.”
“I’ve been patient,” I muttered as we stepped out into the crowd of reporters, all of them shoving their cameras and microphones in my face before I could even get to my feet. I threw my arms up to protect my eyes from the flashes of light, pushing through the throng as best I could to follow Tessa, who deftly wove a path between the bodies. I could already tell this was going to be an absolute circus.
Once the two of us were in the clear, we made our way down a set of winding hallways. Somehow Tessa already knew where she was headed, though I had no real reason to question it—she always knew what she was doing, as though everything, even the shit that went wrong, had all been accounted for already. That was just who she was.
That’s why I’d followed her to New York for this dog and pony show. She’d never led me the wrong way before, and if there was a way to calm down the press so I could get back to courting Liz, I was sure she’d make that happen.
“Step in here,” she said, opening a door that was marked as some kind of office. As instructed I stepped inside, expecting to find at least one person charged with getting me ready for being on camera, but to my surprise, I was completely alone.
“Tessa, where is—?”
“You’re going to stay in this room until the press are ready for you,” she said, interrupting me like she so loved to do. “I’ll have someone come in to get you ready when it’s time, and I’ll be in to tell you what you’re going to say.”
“I’m going to tell them the truth!” I said, but before I could finish, she was already gone. I stood in that office, scrubbing my face with my hands, wondering how the hell I’d ended up in this mess in the first place. How any of us had.
But more importantly, I was hoping Liz was all right.
17
Elizabeth
Hours earlier…
I spent the entire car ride having a panic attack about the bombshell that had just been dropped in my lap. A bombshell that provided a million questions and absolutely no answers. What in the hell was going on? Why would Julian just abandon me like that right after our ultrasound? Whatever was happening, I could have stood with him! I could help him make it right. To hell with the media or anyone else who thought our relationship was fake.
We made a child. I’d seen it with my own two eyes. That was something… That was real.
I leaned forward in my seat, my head in my hands as I tried my damnedest to remind myself that the world was not actually spinning and that it was all in my head.
I reached forward and pressed the little intercom button just below the privacy glass that separated me from the driver.
“I want to go back to my place,” I said quietly.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but you’ve got places to be. Julian wants you on a plane in thirty minutes,” came the reply.
I could already feel my chest beginning to tighten and the start of yet another wave of nausea rearing its ugly head. Julian had just stuffed me into this car, and now he wanted me on a plane?
I couldn’t help but wonder what Julian was doing—how he was handling al
l of this. It had only been a few minutes since we’d seen one another, and already I wished that he was in the car with me, comforting me with those gentle touches and the accent that I’d come to enjoy over the course of these last few days. I wanted to have him by my side to tell me that everything was going to be okay, and that no matter what, he’d be there when the smoke cleared.
Who cared if people thought this was a sham? What mattered was the way we felt about each other.
I cursed an errant tear as I pulled out my phone. I’d forgotten to take it off silent after we’d left the doctor’s office, which I supposed was understandable, given the news we’d received. I checked my messages, but to my surprise, there wasn’t even so much as a text from Jen. If there was big news about Julian Bastille, wouldn’t she have been all over something like this?
In a way, I felt abandoned. The whole world was speeding by me as I sat alone in this car, just waiting for some new bomb to detonate and bathe my life in nuclear fire.
I wanted to tell myself that it would all be all right—that Julian and I would weather this. We’d only known one another for a short time, but in that time, he’d shown me the kind of man he was—or at least, the kind of man that he wanted to be. Would he throw that all away at the first sign of trouble? Though if that were the case, then wouldn’t he have turned tail and ran when I’d said that I was pregnant with his child? He hadn’t done that—in fact, he’d stepped up.
“We’re going to be all right,” I said to myself, thankful for the privacy glass that separated me from the driver. I didn’t want to be seen. All I wanted was to be safe and hidden from the world, but the closer that we got to the airport, the more I began to realize that I would hardly get my wish.