“Were you ever going to say anything?” This was my life, my reputation, my worst fears coming to life and everyone had known about it and hadn’t warned me. “The photograph was of me.”
“I didn’t want to concern you with it. You were worried enough about going to Chateau Marmont. Then that went so well, even better than I’d hoped. I didn’t want this to trouble you if it turned out to be nothing.” His brow was furrowed as if he was totally confused as to why I might be upset with him.
“So you lied?” I asked.
“I didn’t lie,” he snapped.
“You didn’t tell me the truth, either.” I didn’t understand why he thought that it was okay to keep information about me secret. He was supposed to be the good guy. The guy I could trust.
“This is Sinclair’s job. He’s the best. What good would it do for you to have known? There’s nothing that you could have done.”
“That’s not the point. The fact is it was my picture, my problem. At the very least I could have prepared myself for being accosted at LAX by a paparazzo.”
Matt winced.
“Lana, I promise you, in a week’s time, this will be old news. You don’t need to get yourself so worked up,” Sinclair said. “There are a hundred stories like this every day. No one will remember tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “There’s only one story that involves me. One that my boyfriend and his publicist lied to me about.” I stood and the chair scraped against the stone patio. “And I just don’t understand why. Is it because my thoughts and feelings just don’t matter? Or is it because you’ve been so focused on the fallout for you and your career that I’ve just been abandoned by the roadside like I’m worthless?”
“What?” Matt asked. “That’s not it at all. I’ve been trying to protect you, keep you away from all this Hollywood bullshit. It’s an easy fix as far as my career is concerned.”
“Oh, well I’m glad I’m not too much of a burden.” I laughed bitterly.
As Matt stood, his chair fell backward. “Lana, come on. We were just trying to make this better.”
“But that’s not your job.”
He swiped his hand through his hair. “It’s exactly my job. You said it yourself. That we’re in this together, that you could only do this with me by your side.”
I nodded. “That’s right. By my side, not out in front. Not by filtering what I can see, especially not when it’s about me.”
“It could have been so much worse. This is nothing,” Sinclair said.
“It’s nothing to you, because you’re thinking about Matt’s image. About his career.”
Sinclair shrugged. “That’s what I’m paid to do.”
I turned to Matt. “You might be happy to have other people run your life for you, but that’s not who I am.”
“Hey, people don’t run my life. Sinclair is here to help.”
“They don’t? Then why haven’t you optioned that book you loved so much? Is this your career or Brian’s or Sinclair’s or whoever else is on the payroll, making decisions about your future?”
I turned and headed back into the house. I had no idea where I was going to go. I was locked in some kind of LA prison. Would David still be in the driveway? But I knew I wanted to be away from Matt, from Sinclair, from all the cover-ups and scandal. I wanted to go home.
“Hey,” Matt said, catching up with me and grabbing my arm.
I twisted away from him. “Let me go.” I kept walking across the marble floors toward the front door.
“So, that’s it? You’re just going to leave?”
“What is there to say? You don’t even understand why I’m upset.”
“Of course I do. Having those photos leak is your worst nightmare coming true.”
I paused. A few weeks ago, if anyone had asked me what was the worst thing that could happen to me, Bobby selling my picture to a tabloid would have taken the gold medal. But now that it had happened, I realized there was something far more damaging. “No. Having my boyfriend lie to me, having the person I risked everything for treat me as a problem to solve, rather than his equal, is far worse.”
The echo of Matt swearing was all I heard as I opened the door and strode into the drive. Thankfully, David was still there, washing the car. “Can you take me to LAX?” I asked.
David glanced behind me to where Matt lingered in the doorway. “Sure, Miss Kelly.” He dropped his hose and unlocked the car.
“Don’t go,” Matt shouted as he came up behind me. “Stay. I want to work this out.”
I took a deep breath. But what about what I wanted? For this not to have happened. For us to have dealt with it together. “I want to leave. It’s not always about what you want,” I said, putting my purse on the back seat.
“Don’t run, Lana. We can face this side by side if you just stay. You can’t run away and hide from problems your whole life.”
“I’m not running. I’m going home.”
He sighed behind me. “Are you sure? Are you certain you’ve not just been waiting for an opportunity to leave me? This relationship? Isn’t this just convenient?”
I spun around to see if he was serious. “You think I’d wait until the internet had called me a porn star if I planned to run?” How could he say something like that just to deflect attention from what he’d done? “I’ve faced my worst fears, risked everything for you. And you don’t think enough of me to tell me the truth.”
“I was trying to protect you. And I’m sorry. But don’t leave. Not now.” His hands snaked around my waist. “If you don’t want to be in LA, then I’ll come to Maine.”
Part of me wanted to say yes. I wanted to rewind and relive those moments locked in our Worthington bubble where we were just two people enjoying a thunderstorm.
“Lana, I want to make this better.”
There was no way he could. If only he could have been the man I thought he was, the man I’d agreed to give up my anonymity for. But he’d turned out to be someone entirely different and no one I could trust.
“I need to leave. Don’t come to Maine.” Matt’s presence would bring more attention, not less. And I wanted to disappear.
I wasn’t running. I just wanted to go home.
To wave at Polly Larch as she walked her cat.
To hear the sound of the ocean as I sat on my porch.
Twenty-Five
Matt
The LA heat was stifling, but the way the air conditioning cut to the bone was worse. I sat out by the pool on the swing that I’d bought for Lana. I’d wanted to have a piece of Maine in Los Angeles for her when she arrived, but now I wondered if I’d ever get to show it to her. Maybe I’d ship it to Worthington. All I’d been able to think about in the week since she’d left was everything I’d lost. What my job had cost me. She was gone and she wasn’t responding to my calls or messages.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, so I pulled it out and tossed it next to the script for The Final Battle, which had arrived a few days ago. Brian’s name flashed across the screen. No doubt he was checking up on me, making sure I loved what I was reading.