The Redhead Plays Her Hand (Redhead #3)(32)
Author: Alice Clayton

You wanted to talk to him about this tonight anyway. Now’s your chance . . .

I realize that, but things were going so well.

Give him the phone, heat up his egg rolls, and then have your Come to Jesus conversation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I took him the phone, throwing it maybe a little harder than I would have normally. He was still in bed, sheet pulled down low on his hips as he reclined against the headboard.

“Phone call,” I said, leaving the bedroom as he answered it. I finished the reheating, then headed back in, just as he was finishing up his call.

“Right then, tomorrow. Sure thing. Yep, ’bye.” He hung up and looked hungrily at the plate I brought him. He reached for it, but I held it just out of his reach.

“What’s up, love?” he asked, a puzzled grin making its way across his face.

“We’re going to talk, and then you will get your egg rolls. Fair enough?” I sat at the end of the bed, curling my legs underneath me.

I was still in my red negligee, and I realized this conversation was entirely too serious for the amount of peekaboo I was still in. A look of frustration crossed his face, one I’d seen lately when he was confronted with photographers but rarely directed toward me. He sighed, but sat back against the headboard.

“Okay, so I’m not really sure how to say this, since you’ve been doing this longer than I have, certainly, and you’re an adult and all, and really you’re—”

“Say what you want to say, Grace,” he said quietly.

“I don’t like the path you’re on. It worries me, it worries your friends, and it’s worrying Holly.”

“Is this coming from you or from her?”

“Me. Both. Me. Jack, I know I’ve said this a lot lately, but I’m worried about you. I’ve never seen you like this with your fans. You’ve been downright rude a few times. That’s not like you. And you know how I feel about Adam.”

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

“It’s part of it, yes. He’s just . . . he’s not good for you. You’re a different person when he’s around.”

“Grace, I can’t go anywhere in public without either a bodyguard or a driver hardly at all anymore. My girlfriend is attacked for dating me, even though the question of whether we’re really dating can’t even be answered because some focus group somewhere says it would be bad for my career to be seen as unavailable right now. I can’t go to a restaurant without someone tweeting it and fifty people showing up within twenty minutes, and if I don’t feel like signing autographs one night because I’m tired as f**k, then I’m an ass**le who doesn’t care about his fans. I blow off a little steam, and everyone is concerned. To use one of your American phrases, everyone needs to just chill out a bit. Everything is fine. Are we done?” He got out of bed and headed over to the chair where his clothes were.

“Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

“For a drive. I need to get out of here for a bit.”

“But you just got home! Jack, I need to be able to talk to you about this stuff, okay? I need to know that when you’re gone, when you’re on location, that you’re okay. You can’t blame me for being concerned.” I stood in front of him as he stuffed his legs into his jeans and pulled on his shirt.

“You talked; I listened. I hope you heard what I said too. There’s nothing to be worried about, okay?” He planted a kiss on my forehead absently on his way out of the bedroom. I followed him, my mind whirling at how quickly this conversation had turned.

“Wait, Jack, what’s happening here? Are you really leaving?”

“Just for a bit. I’ll be back soon. It’s fine, Grace. We’re fine. I know what you’re saying, and I appreciate your concern. I really do.”

His eyes were hidden from me as he pulled on a jacket and headed out into the night. I stood in the doorway, still in my red lace, shivering in the night air.

“Tell Holly the next time she goes through you to get to me, we’re going to have a real problem,” he said, sliding into his car.

I watched him go, then went back inside. I turned out all the lights, except for the one in the entryway, then padded back to our room. I left the red lace on the floor of the bathroom, slipped into one of his T-shirts, and got into bed. Stunned, I lay on my pillow, more worried than I’d been in a long time.

Sometime in the early-morning light, Jack came home. He came in, I heard him undress, and I felt him climb into bed.

Come over here. Please, come over here, I silently begged, needing to feel his arms around me. After what felt like an eternity smashed into twenty seconds, he wriggled over to my side of the bed, slipping his arms around and under me, hands surrounding my br**sts and laying his head on my pillow. I breathed out, letting him hold me.

“I love you so much, Jack,” I said quietly.

“I know,” he whispered back, kissing the side of my neck and going to sleep.

My alarm, set to wake me up for my first day of press interviews, went off thirty-seven minutes later. I looked like hell.

twelve

The press junket was tough. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect it to be so hard. Was I digging ditches? Nope. Answering phones in a call center somewhere for ten hours in a row? Uh-uh. Was this a hard job? Not in the traditional sense, nope. No way. Was that press junket hard? Hard as a motherfucker.

I’ll never watch a celebrity interview the same way. Even though I had prepared for this—I knew what to expect, I felt ready to go—it was hard. You sit in a hotel room, with the windows blocked out behind you, publicity posters sitting all around, and every ten minutes another journalist comes in and asks you essentially the same questions the last thirteen did. And you try to answer them differently but not stray too far from the “script.” You smile and nod and thank them when they tell you they loved what they’ve seen of the series so far, and you wonder if they are really being truthful.

And when they get clever, when they start asking questions and you know exactly where they’re trying to lead you to (Hamiltontown) you smile and nod again, and then evade. Because as much as they would like you to believe they’re in charge of this interview, it’s up to you to keep it on the material that you feel comfortable with.

I’d done well. I was pretty impressed at how I’d handled things. Holly was there. She had conversations with each producer ahead of time, and then again with each interviewer before we began to make sure they stayed on topic and only on preapproved subjects: the series, my costars, my recent rise to fame, adjusting to life in the limelight. They were each allowed to ask one question about my weight—something I had initially been against but was warming up to.