Don’t let him see them. Don’t you dare let him see them.
With my back to him, I left the bedroom and started to walk down the long hallway, moving swiftly past the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen, finally emerging into the foyer, where I found my clutch on a side table.
“I’m not giving up on us, Sienna,” he called after me.
When I reached for the door, I felt the palm of his hand press against the low of my back, and he said my name with a sense of urgency that felt so right that I almost turned to kiss him a final time.
But I didn’t—I couldn’t. It would ruin me if I did.
I had to get out of there. And so, without answering him, I opened the door and left him behind. Upset that for so many reasons that were out of my hands, we couldn’t be, I entered the hallway and hurried toward the bank of elevators. When I found them, I entered the first one that opened for me.
It was only when the doors slid shut and I was in the car alone that I buried my face in my hands and openly began to weep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Over the next three days, Austin began what apparently was his new mission in life—trying his best to tear down my walls and prove to me he was indeed serious about waiting for me.
Since I knew in my gut there was no stopping this man, I was grateful that at least he was discreet and professional whenever we were around Jackson, Harper, or Mimi. When we were with one or all of them, he never once revealed—with his face or with his eyes—any trace of his desire for me.
But it was there. I knew it was—he showed it to me in a whole host of other ways.
First came the dozen roses that were delivered to my apartment the morning after we’d made love. They were full, lush, and beautiful—and came with a card that simply said, “I meant what I said. I’m not giving up on us, Sienna. And because of that, I also don’t want you to see red this morning. –A.”
I’d smiled when I’d read that, because the roses he’d sent had been white.
The second day, when Jackson had to shoot during the evening—which meant that my night was free—Austin texted me late in the afternoon. What he said was as simple as it was mysterious: “Don’t cook tonight.”
Later, I found out why. The man who’d once proclaimed himself the king of takeout proved he wasn’t joking. At seven that evening, a large delivery from Momofuku Ko—a high-end restaurant revered in Manhattan and around the world—arrived at my apartment.
The contents were an embarrassment of riches.
Inside the several white takeout boxes were such things as snapper tartare with shiso and green chili; foie gras with pine nuts and lychee; farfalle with brussels sprouts and Szechuan peppercorns; Muscovy duck with lime pickle and crème fraîche; a soft-boiled egg with potato chips, caviar, and herbs; and even a delicious-looking piece of chocolate cake. When I tried to tip the delivery man, he told me the tip had already been taken care of. His parting words to me were, “Mr. Black hopes you enjoy your meal.”
I did—and then some.
On the third day, which was today, Jackson and I had spent the afternoon being photographed feverishly as we enjoyed a day of shopping along Fifth Avenue. When our time together was over, Austin drove me home. And when he did, I could literally feel the tense silence stretching between us—all the words going unsaid in the vacuum of silence I’d created when I’d walked out on him.
Although Austin had driven me home every day since that night, we hadn’t shared more than a few pleasantries. Since I didn’t want to encourage him to think I believed we ever could be—and especially because I didn’t want to lead him on—I hadn’t thanked him for the roses or for the fabulous dinner he’d sent me, which made me feel like a piece of shit, but what could I do? I knew that if I did thank him, I’d only encourage him to do more and also engage him in conversation when I was trying my best to put distance between us so I could protect my heart—and also his. Still, the guilt I felt for not thanking him was so off the charts it was ridiculous.
We were driving downtown to my apartment when he broke the silence.
“Care to listen to some music?” he asked.
I met his eyes in the rearview.
“What kind of music?”
“I don’t know. You know…music.”
“Are you planning on playing jazz for me again?”
“I don’t like to repeat myself. What would you like to listen to?”
“Maybe a dance station?”
“You like to dance?”
“I love to dance.”
“Well, look at that,” he said. “After three days of silence, I just learned something new about you.”
“I haven’t exactly been silent,” I said.
“Saying good morning to me doesn’t really cut it when it comes to having a conversation, Sienna. But I get it. You just need some time and space to come to terms with your feelings for me, especially after what happened between us the other night, which blew both of us away. And when you finally have your come-to-Jesus moment—which you will at some point—I plan on reassuring you that I will wait however long I need to wait for you. Because you’re worth the wait. And I’m not giving up.”
And here we go with this again. If we had to wait only a month before I was out of my contract with Jackson, I’d be all in with you, Austin. But seven months? Seven months is the kind of bet I just can’t take with my heart.
Stick to the plan, I thought. You’re right about this. Julia was right about this. Listen to your gut…
I looked at him in the rearview.
“If dance isn’t your thing, what would you like to listen to?” I asked.
He pressed a button on the radio’s console. “Lately, I’ve been listening to this.”
When the first notes sounded, I recognized the song immediately—and knew at once I’d been set up. We weren’t on any radio station, because just like that we were suddenly listening to Mariah Carey’s “Love Takes Time,” which speaks about the dangers of letting love slip away, that Carey hadn’t been able to escape the pain, and that there was a hollow in her heart that needed to be healed.
He so had that song ready to go. Fuck my life, already.
It didn’t exactly take a doctorate in psychology to know what he was doing—Austin was using Carey’s song to speak to me in ways I wasn’t allowing him to. And even I had to admit that the song did so in ways that resounded. As I listened to the track—which happened to be a favorite of mine—I closed my eyes while Carey sang about a person who said he didn’t care about her and didn’t need her, but she knew that deep inside he did.
Switch around the pronouns, and that person clearly was meant to be me.
“Austin…” I said.
“Listen to the words, Sienna.”
Take the bitter pill, swallow it, and say nothing, I thought. Let him make his statement. Don’t engage him more than you already have.
As Carey wailed on about how fucking sad she was, I decided to separate myself from the music by looking out the window to my right. There, I saw a thriving city eager to distract me just when I needed it most.
It was midafternoon, the sun was shining high in the sky, and as the city sped by as we cruised down Fifth, it did so in a series of vignettes.
I saw an elderly couple holding hands as they walked down the sidewalk, a man playing saxophone on a street corner to a small gathering of listeners, and three smiling, whooping boys darting through the crowds on skateboards, their colorful shirts blazing in flashes of red, green, and white.
I looked longingly at it all. The city I’d come to love and call home was as unleashed as ever—it was raw, free, and alive in ways I was feeling isolated from due to my growing celebrity.
With each headline Jackson and I made—and they were countless at this point—I was starting to feel mildly claustrophobic. Just this week alone, there was a noticeable shift in the sheer number of people who recognized me on the street. On Monday, when I went to the dry cleane
rs, I found myself surrounded by people who wanted to take selfies with me or who wanted my autograph—or both. The experience had been so unnerving that I’d called Harper when I got home. She’d talked me down, but not without warning me that Jackson and I had saturated the media for so many weeks with literally thousands of photos posted of us in newspapers, magazines, and online that the tipping point had obviously come.
Fame was upon me.
At first, I thought what had happened on Monday was a fluke. But it wasn’t, because next came the crowd of young women who’d swarmed me at the Sephora off West Nineteenth Street on Tuesday.
The moment I’d walked into the store and made the mistake of taking off my sunglasses without even thinking about the ramifications of doing so, it was clear that just seeing me in person was now enough to cause a minor riot—particularly since the store was filled with teenage girls and women in their twenties, all of whom likely had the hots for Jackson. When I was spotted by a pretty brunette, she blinked twice at me before her jaw dropped and she turned to her friends, saying loud enough for the entire block to hear, “Oh, my God—Sienna Jones is in the fucking store!”
When I was engulfed by dozens of teens and twenty-somethings, I quickly became overwhelmed with a whole host of questions that ranged from what Jackson Cruise was like and if I were in love with him or falling in love with him to what he was like in bed—and could they please take a selfie with me? I felt obliged to do the latter, because I got it—as far as they knew, I was dating one of their idols. I also knew what they really wanted from me was a photo taken with them for their Instagram feeds. When I saw several of the girls starting to call their friends to alert them that I was in the store, I left without buying anything—but with the knowledge that I was rapidly becoming an object to be studied, assessed, and obsessed over.
I’d always wanted to be an actress, but in my fight to become one, I hadn’t given much thought to the true weight of celebrity, which had been naive of me. At some point soon, I needed to come to terms with this new life of mine. Years ago, Jackson had had to do the same thing. As had so many before us who had watched their own worlds shrink as their privacy was stripped away from them. Because this new life of mine wasn’t going away anytime soon—if ever.
“Where are you, Sienna?” Austin asked.
I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t realized the song had ended and that we were now riding in silence. For how long? I didn’t know. Instead of shutting him down, I just shrugged at him.
“I’m in a place that I need to come to terms with,” I said.
“What place is that?”
“A place where my anonymity no longer exists.”
“You’re becoming famous,” he said. “Each time you and Jackson go out, it just gets crazier and crazier. I mean, look at what happened today, for instance. Cartier had to shut its doors to the public when you two were inside. And after word had spread that both of you were at Cartier, a few hundred people had gathered outside to catch a glimpse of you. It was pandemonium. That kind of adjustment can’t be easy.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “And please don’t think I’m complaining, because I’m not. I just need to get used to it. And adapt to it. That’s going to take some time.”
“I saw Jackson go through it,” he said. “There were times when the attention gave him a massive high—but other times, I knew he was struggling with his lack of privacy, especially when it came to how it affected his personal life. But he’s told you that.”
“He has, and it saddens me. Jackson’s a good man. He deserves to have love in his life—we all do. I hate that he feels he can’t openly share his life with another man. But I’m working on him.”
“What does that mean?”
“I drop little hints here and there.”
“Little hints about what?”
“The possibilities of his coming out.”
“And he gives you no pushback for that?”
“When I first broach the subject, he doesn’t. He’ll listen. But when I go too far, he shuts me down. As he probably will over dinner tonight, because I plan to bring up the subject again in a few hours.”
“On the yacht Mimi chartered for you two…”
“The paps will be there to see us getting onto it, but once we’re on it alone for our ‘romantic’ cruise on the Hudson, I’ll have Jackson to myself.”
“Not completely you won’t, Sienna. The staff will be listening.”
“I’m a master when it comes to speaking in code, Austin.”
“And look at that—that’s two things I’ve learned about you today.”
“Very funny.”
He clocked me in the rearview.
“In all seriousness, I need to ask if you’re being recognized when you’re out on your own now. Or are you still able to fly under the radar?”
“Yeah, not so much anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
I told him what had happened to me this week.
“Why haven’t you told me about any of that?” he asked. “Jesus Christ, Sienna, when you are in situations like that, you need some sort of security around you to assist with crowd control. Because if no one is there for you and things become too much for you to handle, what are you going to do then? What would Jackson and you have done today if my security team and I hadn’t been in place to protect both of you? You see how insane it’s getting. If you and Jackson had gone out today on your own, you would have been screwed. The same is true for you now.”
I looked at Austin—and knew he was right.
“Who do I hire?” I asked. “Can you give me some leads?”
“Sienna, what are you thinking?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be the one paying. Jackson should be the one who provides you with that kind of service. It sure as hell shouldn’t come out of your pocket. It should come out of his, because you’re helping him. Now, listen to me for a moment—”
He stopped short when he said that, and then I heard him curse beneath his breath as he touched the brakes.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“We’ve got a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
He pointed toward my apartment building. “That problem.”
When I leaned forward and looked through the limousine’s front window, what I saw left me feeling deflated and exposed. It wasn’t just the paparazzi I saw waiting for me in front of my apartment building—there were a few hundred people waiting right along with them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I told you this would happen,” I said as Austin pulled the limousine up next to my building. The moment he did, the paps practically popped off the sidewalk and began taking photographs of me inside the car. Right behind them came a slew of other people—likely Jackson’s fans, because they certainly couldn’t be fans of mine—who were armed with their smartphones, and eager to take my photograph as they cried out in excitement.
In a matter of moments, our car was surrounded by all of them, which caused such a scene that others passing along the street, their curiosities piqued, joined them to see who was inside the car and what all the fuss was about.
Despite the tinted windows, the paparazzi’s flashes were so bright that I knew they were capturing me, so despite how unnerved I felt, I nevertheless did my best to compose myself as I reached for my handbag. Inside were my sunglasses. I removed them and put them on.
“I’ll get you inside,” Austin said. “It’ll be OK.”
“I’m not so sure I agree with that,” I said. “The paps have finally figured out where I live, which means that getting around my neighborhood just became seriously complicated. I told you the other night that this was inevitable—and here we are, Austin. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. But when it comes to the paps, what I don’t understand is that they just took photos of Jackson and me while we were shopping. How many other photographs do they need?”
“Sienna, at this point, they clea
rly want photos of you by yourself. People are interested in you. Things are escalating.”
“Then, I guess I’d better adapt.”
“Look, right now, a few hundred people are surrounding the car,” he said. “Getting you into your apartment is going to be difficult. Do you want me to drive around, call in my team, and then handle the crowd when they arrive? I can do that, Sienna. In fact, I think that we should do that.”
“There’s no time. Austin, I need to get ready for my dinner with Jackson tonight. Harper and Mimi have set things into motion. They’ve already leaked that Jackson and I will be arriving at the North Cove Marina at eight. I need time to look my best.”
“If you want to go in now, it’s not going to be easy,” he said, looking at me over his shoulder. When our eyes met, I tried my best to keep my features neutral, because after days of pretty much not looking at him at all, I now had no choice but to face him directly. And when I did, the attraction I felt for him was like a meteor glancing brightly across the sky.
“So, how do we handle this?” I asked. “How do I get inside?”
“With this many people?” he said. “You need to ignore the paps, and you also need to ignore your fans.”
“They aren’t my fans, Austin—they’re Jackson’s fans.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “But because this situation is now about your safety, don’t you dare stop for even one selfie. Don’t do it. Just take my hand when I offer it to you and hold onto it, and I’ll carve a path through all of them.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be. But I’m scared, Austin,” I said as I looked out the window and saw the teeming masses desperate for me to step out. Several people had cupped their hands against the limousine’s tinted windows to catch a glimpse of me. The din of excitement was building to a frightening level. “This is ridiculous,” I said.
“I can call in my team,” he said. “We can wait here for them.”
“How long will that take?”
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