Her eyes flick down and she hesitates. “When we were in London.”
For a moment, I don’t believe her, but I do remember her crying in the bathroom at the Lanesborough Hotel. I was being a complete dick to her and everyone around me that day. I was beating myself up about not calling my mother, even though she lived less than two hours away and knew I was there. It was a media circus outside, and I was a caged tiger. Luckily, we only had to be there for two nights before heading to Paris.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve realized.” I run my good hand through my hair, and dropping my chin to my chest for a moment, see I have a few drops of blood on my white button-down shirt.
Audrey hiccups again and takes two tentative steps toward me.
I don’t stop her or move away, and she continues until I open my arms and fold them around her tall, slender body. And even still, after months, and in the midst of all this shit, I am wishing I had my arms wrapped around a smaller girl, a girl who flipped my insides over just looking at her, and who I may never get to hold like this again. I squeeze my eyes closed.
Audrey’s shoulders shake from her crying, and she sniffs. “I love you, Jack.”
Tensing, I ease away her head from my shoulder to look at her face. I am instantly on alert. She may be hurting right now, but Audrey should always be handled carefully. I’ve seen how she’s dealt with perceived threats to her career before. And I am in the starring role of this perceived threat. I need to be able to do this on friendly terms, but the way she’s looking up at me, has me thinking she’s not on my page.
“Just give it time, Jack. We’ll get back to where we were, where you were in love with me, before I hurt you.”
My heart hammers. My God, she doesn’t know me at all. “Audrey,” I say as gently as possible, knowing there is no good way to say this. “I cared for you, do care for you, and I loved you, true. But I was never in love with you.”
Her eyes widen.
I know I’m botching this but I can’t seem to stop. It’s like an exit sprint. “My ego was hurt more than anything.”
Her slap to my left cheek is fast and painful.
I seem to excel in pulling this reaction from women. I don’t move, but she’s not done. Her face transforms into a scowl, and before I know it I have seized her flying fist in midair, gripping it inside my good hand, squeezing hard.
“Bastard,” she snarls and tries with the other.
I sway back. “Calm the fuck down, Audrey.”
“No, I won’t fucking calm down,” she screeches. Her eyes have transformed from her soft doe-eyed expression, designed to elicit sympathy, into hard slits of anger, and she wrenches from my grip. “You are not doing this to me!”
“Doing what, Audrey? Taking my life back? Ignoring some stupid contract? The movies are over now.” I grit my teeth and finish this. “We are over. We have been for ages. I’m not sure what qualifies for a functional relationship, but I can promise you, we are not it.”
“No. You are not doing this to me! Not with her.”
“Don’t you fucking dare bring her into this,” my voice booms out like thunder, causing her to jump.
Her cheeks are red and splotchy, but crossing her arms over her chest, she recovers quickly. “I can do what the hell I like. But you can’t. Do you think Andy will take you firing him lying down? Or think I’ll let you walk away from me? We are a team, Jack. We are much more powerful together than we are apart. You need me. You may not think so, but you do. And do you know why? Because I’ll make sure you don’t even have a career if you walk away. Have you thought about what it’ll do to your poor, sweet country girl to have paparazzi hounding her every move. I didn’t want to draw attention to her before by tipping them off, but maybe if it’s spun the right way …” Her voice trails off, as she taps a fingernail thoughtfully on her chin.
I’m listening, speechless, and watching her face morph into ugliness with each word she utters. My jaw clenches tightly to keep myself from exploding back at her. I shake my head.
She turns to an imaginary person next to her. “I was driven to another man’s arms because Jack Eversea is so cold and heartless.” She affects a whiny, hurt voice. “I felt emotionally bullied, all the time.” She sniffs for effect and looks away for a moment. When she looks back, her eyes are watery again, and a single tear tips onto her cheek. “And the most horrible thing of all was he got me pregnant, and then, when I lost his baby he was so mean, and so relieved. He laughed and told me he had never been in love with me. Laughed!”
She heaves out another sob. “All the time I thought we were together, he was sleeping with slutty waitresses he picked up from anywhere. There was this one girl—” She stops and looks at me. “Well, you know where I can go from there.”