I’d checked messages, snoozed and even played a few rounds of Candy Crush as Juliet fielded calls from all directions—her agent, the producer of her next film, and her ex-husband, giving me a pretty in-your-face reminder of how impressive her career was compared to mine.
“I guess I should call my sister,” she said after a while, dialing another number on her phone. “Tess,” she said into the phone.
I glanced at my watch, a little worried that it was already almost one AM. Was her sister generally up at this hour?
“Yes, I know,” she was saying. “I’m sorry about the short notice. And the hour. And about the security guys.” She apologized for about four more things and then rolled her eyes to me and made a mouth sign with her hand, opening and closing it over and over before returning her attention to the phone. “Tess, I hear you. And I would have totally given you more notice about Ryan and the guards. It’s just … things have happened really quickly.” Now she shot me a look that was clearly an apology to me. Her full pink lips pressed into a line as her blue-gray eyes widened and she gave a tiny shake of her head.
I was beginning to wonder if this whole thing had been a mistake. “Go for it!” My agent had said. “It sure can’t hurt your career!” He’d told me. But agreeing to pose as Juliet Manchester’s boyfriend was something that might have begged a bit more thought.
Except my career was sinking, and being linked to Juliet—even for a minute—could yank me out of the murk of obscurity and back into view of the directors and producers who seemed to have written me off after my last three action films flopped. And that was without even mentioning the fiasco that was Charade of Stones. I’d been on that show for five seasons, my star power growing the whole time, until the writers lost their minds and ended the series by killing off half the main characters and casting the others into obscurity, pissing off every loyal viewer they’d gained in previous seasons. For some reason, the actors were all paying the price for that ridiculousness.
Now, riding in the back of a town car with Hollywood’s darling and preparing to pretend we were intimately involved at some family shindig had me thinking I’d just accepted a fairly challenging role.
There was a reporter from Hollywood Entertainer magazine coming down to attend the event and document Juliet’s ‘real life roots’ or something, and a new love interest was the one piece her team believed was missing. I’d been in the right place at the right time—or maybe the totally wrong place at the wrong time—and they’d asked me to play the part. So here I was, with the moonlit shadows of hulking trees and barns flying by on either side of me and … “Was that a horse and buggy?” I asked, sitting up straighter. It was dark out, but the moon was full, and as we sped by the horse and carriage, I thought maybe my tired mind had imagined it.
“Oh yeah, this is Amish country,” Juliet said, sliding her phone to her shoulder for a moment to answer me.
“Amish country,” I repeated, feeling farther from home than I had since I’d been on location in the Solomon Islands for my last epic failure.
“Hey Ryan,” she said, finally putting down her phone and leaning back to look at me. “Thanks for this. I mean it.” She smiled, but her eyes stayed sad, distant. “The divorce was such a complete disaster … I mean, I guess no divorce is a good thing, but everyone just seems to know everything about mine …” her voice faltered, and I felt the same sympathy I’d felt the night when she’d asked me to meet her at her house to propose the idea. Juliet was a good person. I could help her out.
“It’s okay,” I said, dropping a hand to take hers on the seat between us. She actually flinched at my touch, which didn’t do a hell of a lot for my ego.
After a second she relaxed, leaving her hand where it was. “Sorry,” she said. “Just a little tense.”
We’d put on a pretty good show in the airport at LAX, and again at Dulles, but Juliet was stiff and rigid. I wasn’t sure how convincing our act was going to be, but it was my job to make it work. And I liked Juliet. She was a superstar, but beneath the trappings of fame and glamor, I thought she was a good person. And she’d been treated like shit.
If Juliet—and about a million tabloid reports—was to be believed, her marriage had ended in a pretty spectacular disaster. The husband-banging-the-personal-chef-on-the-kitchen-counter kind. Toss in a little bit of stealing millions from your famous wife, and you’ve got a picture of what supposedly happened there.
I wanted to do what I could to help show her fans that she’d come through it all without a scratch, even if that clearly wasn’t true. Her ex was a leech and a cretin, and he’d siphoned off half her money before she’d walked in on him on the kitchen island. He’d gone straight to the media to play the victim, and they’d caught a few candids of Juliet clearly distraught, leading to a frenzy of tabloid coverage alleging everything from a nervous breakdown to a long-hidden drug habit.
Her shiny new “relationship” with me was a big first step to showing the world she was fine, even though I doubted it was true. When she gazed absently out the window, Juliet’s shoulders slumped and the lines around her eyes showed evidence of long sleepless nights.
I found myself wanting to help, even though I didn’t have a
