The Redhead Revealed (Redhead #2)(42)
Author: Alice Clayton

He was quiet. He was so angry. I’d never seen him so angry. When he let go of my arms, I had little Jack-prints on my skin.

“I’ve never in my life seen someone deliberately run in the opposite direction of happiness more than you do,” he said, staring daggers into my eyes.

“What?”

“You heard me. You push it away as hard as you can. You and I know both know there’s no one on the planet better suited for you than me, no one better equipped to handle all your shit, and yet here you are. Throwing it away like you don’t care.”

“I do care! I love you! But this is wrong. I just know in my heart it’s wrong. You don’t need all my shit. It isn’t fair to you. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, but this is just not the right time for us. You don’t realize how they’re going to scrutinize you for this,” I said, my voice beginning to crack.

“Would you please let me decide what I can and can’t handle? God damn, Grace. You act like you’re so difficult. Did you ever stop to think that I need you too? That you’re perfect for me? That you put up with my shit as well? You can’t just give me your love and then take it away without asking. It doesn’t work like that!” he snapped. He ran both hands through his hair, dragging them down and stopping with them on either side of his face.

I softened when I saw him look so sad, and he saw me weaken. He moved in fast.

He pressed his body into mine and kissed me hungrily, his hands finding their way inside my robe. I moaned in spite of myself, my body reacting the way it always did with his hands on me. It was not enough, though.

I pushed away.

His face looked broken.

I placed my own hands on either side of his face, cradling it. We both had tears now.

“When you’re a little older, you’ll see this more clearly,” I said, and he closed his eyes.

That did it. When he opened them, they were cold.

“Don’t you dare bring my age into this when you’re the one acting like a child,” he glowered.

That was what I needed. I backed away, closing my robe and my heart to him. “I need you to leave,” I said, my voice as cold as his eyes. I was back in control, and I was making the right choice.

“Don’t do this, Gracie,” he pleaded, voice softer now.

I turned away. I couldn’t look at him. “I have to. I need some time. I’ll call you when I can,” I said, effectively ending the conversation.

And us.

He walked away without another word.

I waited until I heard the car leave, and then I fell.

Apart.

Eventually I got off the ground and packed up my shit. I couldn’t look at our bed. Only two nights in it, and it was our bed. I got my phone out of the freezer. I barely saw the Post-it and the picture.

I went to Holly’s. She took me in, fed me ice cream and aspirin, and didn’t yell at me for ruining her client’s big night.

She put me on a plane back to New York the next day.

Broken.

What had I just done?

Chapter 14

It had been six days since I left L.A. Six days since I’d seen Jack. Six days since I’d talked to Jack. Six days since I broke both our hearts.

I was miserable. I literally did not know what to do.

Breakups are hard. Everyone knows that. I’d been through bad ones before. The first days are the worst. All you want to do is avoid reminders of the boy in question. But imagine you’ve just broken up with the new It Boy. Jack was the new Brit It Boy.

The day after the premiere the entertainment shows and online blogs had been full of pictures of me and Jack. I scrutinized the images of me solo on the red carpet—before the Milk Dud Incident. I looked better than I thought I would. Seeing myself without dirty martini glasses (which were evidently the fancy-girl’s beer goggles, but with a tragically opposite effect) certainly improved things. I still saw the flaws though. The curves that maybe shouldn’t be quite so curvy…the hair that was a little too frizzy.

They also reposted the pictures from last summer, including the one from our first date at Gladstone’s where I was pointing a shrimp. That one tugged at my heart a lot. That was the day he kissed me for the first time. They brought back pictures from our outings in Los Angeles last summer and this fall in New York. Now there was a name with them: Grace Sheridan, age thirty-three.

They knew Holly was my manager. They knew Jack was also her client. They knew approximately when he and I had met. They knew my age. They didn’t know much else. Holly had confirmed that I was, in fact, a client, as well as her friend. She denied the rumor that Jack and I had been dating, explaining simply that we were good friends and had gotten to know each other when I was staying with her last summer.

Conveniently, pictures of Jack and Marcia had surfaced as well, including a new batch of the two at lunch in L.A. Holly was a master at spin, and the Grace and Jack story was quickly dropped by the mainstream media when Jack refused to comment.

On the fan websites, though? The story ran rampant and wouldn’t go away. My reviews were decidedly mixed. Rumors and speculation ran wild as to whether or not I was really his girlfriend. I was called Grace Sheridon’t, Grace McOldAss, and That Redheaded Hamilton Fucker. That last one was pretty funny, actually.

And there was a small group who seemed to really like the idea that Jack was maybe, possibly dating an older woman. I had a feeling these women were all in their thirties. Just a feeling…

I allowed myself a peek that first day, and then I stopped looking. It was too hard to see the pictures, and it was too hard to see how happy Jack had been that night—his big night. Before I broke his heart.

I was in the final weeks of rehearsal, as the first week of previews had been pushed up to the week after Thanksgiving. I was in a black funk most of the time and not looking forward to celebrating a holiday right now. Which was fine, because the rehearsal schedule left no time for cooking or cavorting, and Holly had ended up stuck in L.A. The entertainment industry never slows down, even for a holiday. The cast had turkey sandwiches and cranberries from a can for lunch break on Thanksgiving Day, but otherwise the day slipped by unnoticed.

Leslie knew I’d broken up with Jack, and while she looked at me like I was the most insane person on the planet, she didn’t ask me about it. Poor Michael didn’t know what to do with himself.

He knew I was devastated, but I don’t think he quite understood what I’d done, or why I’d done it in such a dramatic, all-or-nothing fashion. I was questioning this myself, but my decision was based in self-preservation, and as much as I was in total and complete hell, I was pushing through it. I’d had to end it, before it ended us.