The Redhead Plays Her Hand (Redhead #3)(29)
Author: Alice Clayton

Unexpected: the fact that I had yet to appear on television but was almost famous—almost famous for nothing other than who I was dating and what I weighed.

Expected: most of Jack’s fans continued to hate me, writing post after post online about how thoroughly they despised me for getting to “fuck our Brit.”

I sat in Holly’s office after debriefing the latest online diatribes and the best way to handle the press junket I had scheduled the next day. This time tomorrow I’d be in front of every reporter and online entertainment bunny, all of them knowing they were not allowed to ask me about Jack but still trying as many creative ways to trip me up and get me to make their interview stand out from the other one hundred I would sit through.

I’d gone from just wanting to come back to Los Angeles and try to get a job singing a toothpaste jingle or watching a toddler dance around in the newest kind of diapers with a really big baby load to this: a series that was going to debut to high ratings even if the show was shit, which it was not, and a press junket where I would have to sit and watch as reporters showed pictures of me at my heaviest and tried to get me to comment on why weight was such an issue in Hollywood.

As Jim Morrison said, this is the strangest life I’ve ever known.

Holly had done her best to offer me different ways to answer certain questions, strategies to steer the conversation back to the work, the series, and away from my personal life. We knew there wouldn’t be a way to completely avoid everything, but there were ways to try to keep some control.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?”

“I’m so busy, I barely even have time to get a pedicure!”

“Are you dating anyone?”

“I’ve been so focused on this exciting new chapter in my life, in my career, that I’m really just excited about the work right now, and what might happen next.”

“So have you been to Santa Barbara recently?”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? One of my favorite places in Southern California.”

“What does Jack Hamilton think about the pictures that have surfaced recently of you considerably heavier than you are now?”

Silence.

“You have to be faster than that, Grace. You were doing really well,” Holly prodded gently.

“Can we take a break?” I sat back in my chair and leaned my head on my hand.

“Sure, but you ask for a break during this junket and you’ll be a diva who is combative and unresponsive during interviews.” She tossed me a bottle of water. I sipped and thought while she pecked on her laptop.

“Sixteen pounds! Sixteen pounds and they’re ready to get a crane to lift me out of the house! I’m underweight for my height, for God’s sake. It’s ridiculous!” I snapped, flipping through the most recent pictures of me in another tabloid magazine. The weight I had lost came back on as soon as I stopped the cucumber-and-air diet. I kept up the additional workouts, trying like hell to get back to at least my starting point, but my body knew where it was healthiest, and it was where I was now. Me + 16. “I can’t believe this is the story; this is how this new series is being framed. I feel terrible for the other actors.”

“Don’t. It’s press. Not the kind of press I would have liked, but it’s press. And it’s starting to turn in our favor, so buck up, asshead.”

“Were you always this tough?” I snorted into my water.

“Yep.”

“Does Michael like it when you’re tough?”

“Not answering that.” She smiled, a blush creeping into her cheeks.

Michael and Holly had officially been an item for some time now. They went into it slow, starting with a few dates here and there, spending time together when they could, and it had developed into a relationship. I had never seen her happier. She’d always been someone who dished everything—and I mean everything—about the guys she was dating. This one she was keeping pretty close to the vest, which showed me how much she was truly in love. I still saw Michael on set all the time, and it was now clear to me (and everyone else who spent any time with him) that Michael thought the sun rose and set on Holly. Still, it was nice having my friend with me as I went through this. Both my friends, actually.

“While we’re breaking, can we talk about Jack?” Holly asked.

“He’s your client. You talk to him.” I sighed, knowing where this was going.

Jack’s behavior had gone from questionable to really questionable in the last few weeks. He’d been on location longer than initially planned, mostly due to constant script rewrites and weather delays. Which made for plenty of playtime in Las Vegas, only an hour away. We talked every day, e-mailed, texted, and he came home as often as he could. But there was beginning to be a breach between Home Jack and On-Location Jack. Guess which one I preferred?

At the beginning, even though I didn’t like Adam, I brushed most of it off. Jack was young and having a good time, and as hard as he worked, he deserved to blow off a little steam. But we were getting into a gray area now, beyond steam blowing and into just plain blowing it. He was due back in town tonight, and I planned on seducing him, then trying, once again, to talk some sense into him.

Adam Kasen continued to be at the center of the trouble. I knew I didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, and my instincts had proven to be true. The earlier reports of his having cleaned up his act were bollocks, to use a phrase from Jack, and he was just as much of a party boy as he always was. Getting cast in the same movie as Jack was the best thing he could have done for his career, as he was all over the tabloids again and constantly linked with my boyfriend. My sweet, young, beautiful boyfriend who was smart but not infallible. Who was smart but impressionable.

And Adam was impressioning him right off a cliff and within reach of Dr. Drew, who was already commenting to anyone who would listen that Jack would be the next celebrity involved in a Lindsay Lohan–size scandal.

Not on my watch. I wasn’t going to let it happen.

The problem was he’d grown increasingly belligerent whenever Holly tried to talk to him about his public persona—the way he was behaving with his fans and the choices he was making. He didn’t want to hear it from her, and he barely wanted to hear it from me.

“He’s coming home tonight. I’ll talk to him,” I told her. “But you’re his manager. There’s only so much I can do.” I hoped I’d closed the subject before it really opened.