A Beautiful Star (Beautiful Series, Book 5) (4 page)

“What makes tonight so different? I mean, it can’t be me because you keep bringing up the fact that I’m a journalist. Is this because of what happened with Marcus?”

He glances over at me and presses his lips together in a sad smile. “I feel like a pussy. The guy almost choked the life out of me and I fucking froze.”

“What do you think you should have done?”

“I don’t know. Something. Anything. I shouldn’t have just taken it.”

“Well, you don’t have to take it. If you really need to do something, you can always press charges.”

He shakes his head. “Yeah, and let the world know I clamped up. That would do wonders for my career.”

It’s at that moment that the doorbell sounds and Jonathan excuses himself to answer it. When he returns, he’s followed in by the room service staff who insists on pouring the champagne for both of us while we silently look on.

“Strawberry, miss?” he asks, removing the silver lid from a small bowl and holding it out to me in his white gloved hand. I pick one off the top and smile graciously, thanking him even though I really don’t like strawberries.

“Sir?” he offers Jonathan who has moved to stand over by the window, looking out at the city of Sydney with its beautiful lights that twinkle over a harbour filled with boats.

“No, thank you,” he says, before turning and signing the receipt when it’s offered. Then the staff member retreats, once again leaving us alone.

Standing up myself, I move over to the window and look out at the city. “I love looking at the Harbour Bridge. It’s so pretty at night,” I comment, taking small sips of the champagne as I’m not a big drinker, and the little bit I’ve already had is making me feel light-headed. “You know, it’s silly, but, when I was a kid, I used to think that you drove over the top of it, like it was a rollercoaster. I was so disappointed when I found out you go straight across.”

“I don’t think that’s silly. I think it would be a hell of a lot more fun.” He turns toward me and his eyes meet mine, our gaze locking intensely. I wonder if it’s just the events of the day, or the champagne with little food, that’s causing this strange force between us. And while I stand and wonder why this is happening, his lips meet mine, and he takes a kiss. One I wasn’t exactly ready to give.

Jerking my head backward, I place my hand on his chest and hold him still as I step away. “What are you doing?”

“I’m kissing you.”

“You said you wouldn’t try that again,” I say, shaking my head as anger flashes inside me. “See, this is your problem, Jonathan. This is why you can never be yourself. Because everything you do becomes about sex. I am only here because of the broken window. Lisa is my best friend, and I am not going to have some…some… one night stand with her ex-movie-star-fiancé. I have been the girl who fell into bed with a star and it’s not something I want to repeat. I am not a one night stand girl, and the fact that you’re trying to kiss me again after you promised not to just leads me to believe that you aren’t being yourself now either. I’ll bet this is all just an act. A ploy to get girls to go to bed with you and keep it all a secret because they were the ones who helped to make the movie star
feel.
” I over dramatize the last part as I attack him with my words, my confidence bolstered by the champagne I’ve consumed with no food to soak it up. “You bring girls up here, get them drunk on champagne,” I splash what’s left in my glass on his face. “And feed them strawberries!” I throw the strawberry at his chest. “And then you tell them all about the boy who wanted a simple life and how this life filled with decadence is hard for you. You poor, poor boy. Well, fuck you! I’m not going to be another one of Jonathan Masters’s conquests. You can take your hospitality and stick it up your arse. I’m going home. I don’t care if there’s a gaping hole where my window used to be, and I don’t care if the press is going to be there waiting for me. I just don’t want to be here being tricked into caring about a man who practices deception for a living.”

I turn around and walk out, slamming the empty glass on the bar as I grab my bag and leave. I keep my head held high as I slam the door behind me, hoping to god that he doesn’t chase me out as I wait for the lift.

But he doesn’t come out. He doesn’t call after me. He simply remains inside the hotel suite and I ride the lift down, feeling even surer that I reacted correctly. Jonathan Masters was just trying to bed me for sport. There was no real connection.

Wiping at my eyes, I check my reflection in the mirrored elevator and hate that I’m feeling emotional over this. But more than that, I hate that he almost tricked me into believing him. I feel like such a dumb arse.

The elevator doors ping open, and I’m released into the foyer of the hotel, the bright lights of the open modern floor plan causing me to squint slightly as I head straight for the door, thanking my lucky stars when I see a couple exiting a taxi outside.

“Are you free?” I ask the cab driver, who nods and waits for me to slide into the backseat and rattle off an address, breathing a sigh of relief as he pulls away from the hotel, as I hope that I can put this whole incident behind me. The last thing I need in my life is regret over a man like Jonathan Masters. I’m just not that kind of girl.

Not anymore.

“Shit,” I hiss, listening to Lisa’s voicemail greeting for what I think may be the thirtieth time. I know she’s going through a lot right now, and I just wish she’d talk to me so I know she got away safely.

My mother knocks on my door. “Is everything alright, Sandra?”

I chose to come and sleep at my parent’s house last night. Despite my bravado when I left the hotel, I was a little too nervous to spend the night alone at my place with a busted up window. Who knows what could have happened if I’d gone back there? Most likely, I would have woken up to paparazzi in my bedroom, photographing me drooling… not pretty.

“Yeah, mum. Everything’s fine. I just can’t get a hold of Lisa.”

She walks in and sits on the end of the bed I slept in until I moved out home. Everything in my childhood bedroom is exactly the same, from the band posters on the wall to the floral bedspread that covers the single bed.

“Her picture is all over the paper, and I saw her on the morning show too. And, I saw you. They’re suggesting that you’re that movie guy’s ‘other woman’. People are reporting seeing you go into a hotel with him.”

I drop my phone on the bed and lie back, covering my face with my hands. “Have they released my name?”

“No. But it’s only a matter of time, I suppose. They know where you live. They’ll find out whose name is on the title or go through your mail…”

“This is just brilliant,” I groan.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m not trying to make it worse. I’m just being practical.”

“I know, mum. I know. I just can’t believe that in trying to get my friend out of a mess, I’ve gotten myself into my own one.”

“Is there anything I can do?” she asks, reaching out to pat my hair like I’m a child, and I let her, because she’s my mum and it feels nice.

“Could you see my face?”

“Not really,” she says slowly, and I wonder what she’s holding back, so I sit up really fast and grab my phone, bringing up an entertainment news site that is featuring all the pictures on their homepage as the story of the moment.

“What do you mean ‘not really’? What’s wrong with the picture?” I flick through the article and quickly land on the photo I’m in. I’m standing there, wrapped in Jonathan’s arms as my face is all scrunched up. I look like I’m howling. It’s a horrible picture and the only saving grace is that my expression is so distorted that most people would have a hard time picking me. “Well, at least you can’t tell it’s me.”

“Yes. But you look so ugly in it,” my mum mutters, taking the phone out of my hands and looking at the image. “You’re so much prettier than that. Surely they had a nicer photo of you…”

I pull the phone from her hands and stand up off the bed. “It’s a good thing they don’t mum, otherwise you’d probably have press outside your house right now. Paparazzi are relentless.”

“You’d think there’d be some sort of journalist bro code where they didn’t chase down one of their own,” she comments.

“Paps don’t have a code, mum. They just go where the money is.”

I begin hunting the wardrobe for some clothes to wear. Thank god I didn’t take everything with me when I moved out.

“Where are you going?” she asks, watching me.

“I need to go to work,” I remind her, flicking through my old clothing and wondering if I can get away with dressing like a teenager…

“To work? Why don’t you just stay here today? Wait and see what happens. I don’t want you getting chased and end up crashing in a tunnel like Princess Di.”

“I don’t think it’s going to get that bad, mum. I’m no Princess, that’s for sure,” I laugh, giving up on my clothes hunt. “Can I borrow something of yours?”

“Sure,” she says, following along behind me as I leave my old room to go to hers. But neither of us makes it. Instead we both stop half way, staring at the television with our mouths wide open as we see a press interview with a crying Simone Weston, demanding to know who the home wrecker is who stole her fiancé from her.

“Well, at least they found a nicer photo of you,” my mother says, as a clear shot of my face fills the screen. It’s a little out of focus. But it’s clearly me.

“Maybe it is going to get that bad,” I mutter, deciding that perhaps work isn’t the best place for me today.

“This is a nightmare,” I moan as, my phone begins to sing. It’s a number I don’t recognise and wincing, I answer, swiping my finger across the screen and holding it against my ear as my mother looks on in concern. “Hello?”

“Sandra? It’s Jonathan. I just wanted to apologise for last night and make sure you’re OK. I just saw the news. I had no idea she was going to do that.”

“How did you even get this number?”

“My agent got it. Listen, I really am sorry about this. I don’t wish this circus on anyone.”

“It’s fine. It’ll pass,” I state, shaking my head when my mother leans in my field of vision and tries to ask me a question.

“You’re right. It will. But in the meantime, lay low, OK? And if you need anything, you’ve got my number now.”

“I won’t. But thanks.”

“And Sandra.”

“Yes?”

“You’re not at your house are you?”

“No, why?”

He lets out a relieved sigh. “Good.”

“Why? What’s going on?” I ask, still waving my mother off as she begins to pull at my shirt.

“You’re not watching the TV?”

“I am, I’m just…” I turn around, finally understanding what my mother was trying to get me to look at. “Oh shit,” I say again, as I look at footage of my house where a reporter, a woman I’ve actually worked with before, is talking about who I am and explaining that they can’t find any sign of me. “This is getting out of hand.”

“Welcome to my world.  If you tell me where you are, I can come and get you. I’m pretty good at evading this kind of stuff.”

I shake my head, even though there’s no way he can see me. “No. No thanks. I don’t need your help.” And with that, I hang up the phone and look at my mum, my eyes wide as I wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do.

She places her hands on either side of my upper arms as if she’s holding me up and looks at me in that way that only mothers can. It’s a look that says she’s got a plan. That she’s going to fix this.

“Call work. Tell them you’re going away. I’m going to call your father and let him know we’re going down the coast for a few days to stay in the caravan. I’m sure it could do with an airing, anyway,” she says, and I just nod in agreement and do everything she says as the shock of my now upside down life settles in.

***

“Ew! I told you it could do with an airing. It smells like someone put prawn heads in the curtain rods,” mum says as she scrunches up her nose and walks around the built on annex and opens all the windows, her brown ponytail swishing from side to side as she moves, making her appear much younger than her forty-nine years.

“It’s not that bad,” I chuckle, dropping our bags on the futon I remember using when friends came down to visit during my teen years. I step inside the van and push the small windows open that are above the tiny kitchen, above the main bed and between the four bunk beds that are to the rear. The cool sea air flows through quickly, filling the air with a fresh saltiness that you don’t get in the city, despite the giant harbour.

Standing in the kitchen area, I feel my phone buzz in my back pocket. It’s been going off non-stop, and I silenced it hours ago. I’m surprised it still has battery. I pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen and it seems as though there’s an endless list of missed calls. Many are from private numbers or numbers I don’t have saved in my phone and others are from friends and co-workers. I guess they all know by now. And I wonder if I should answer them. I don’t like that they all think I’m involved with Jonathan Masters. I especially don’t want Lisa to think I’m involved with him. I don’t want her to think that our friendship means that little to me.

Flicking through the numbers, I feel overwhelmed. How the hell am I supposed to deal with this? I was just trying to help a friend…

“Um, mum?” I call out and she appears immediately in the doorway to the caravan with a questioning look on her face. “Do you think you could shoot a video for me? I need to tell the world I’m not a home wrecker.”

She smiles, her expression shifting from a question to pride as she nods and holds her hand out to take my phone from me.

“How do I look?” I ask, raking my fingers through my long straight blonde hair.

“You look beautiful. Do you know what you’re going to say? Do you want to write it down first?”

“No. I think I’m going to wing this one.”

“OK.”

I take a seat at the small table and my mother stands exactly where I just was and she holds out my phone then nods when it’s recording.

“My name is Sandra Haegen,” I start, my heart suddenly beating a little faster as my nerves kick in. This is why I’m a print journalist and not a TV one anymore. I’m not a huge fan of being in front of the camera. “Yesterday, my house was surrounded by a mass of paparazzi. They were there because they were looking for my friend, Leisil Marx. You all know her as the woman who drove a car through Jonathan Masters’s living room window a while back. But, I know her as Lisa, and she’s been my best friend since we started working together at Voyeur Magazine. I understand that there’s a rumour going around out there at the moment. There are people who think that Mr Masters and I have some sort of a relationship. But I’m here to tell you that isn’t true. I only met him yesterday when we both agreed to help out a mutual friend by getting the press to leave her house so she could find somewhere quiet to wait out the interest in her story. And now, I’ve been forced to do the same. But where I’m concerned, there is no story. There is nothing between Mr Masters and I. He helped me when I was frightened after my window had been broken, and then he took me somewhere quiet to wait while my window was fixed. That’s as far as the story goes.

“Today, I have received so many phone calls that I can’t possibly answer them all, so this video is my answer. Please, leave me alone to live my life. There is no story. I don’t know Mr Masters, and I’m unlikely to ever see him again. Marcus Bailey on the other hand, well, he owes me a window. And then we’ll call this even. Thank you,” I finish with a nod, and my mother lowers the phone and gives me a smile.

“Great work, sweetheart. It’s always good to tell your side of a story. Then they can’t make stuff up.”

I take the phone from her hands. “Let’s just hope they listen.”

***

My mother and I spend the rest of the week relaxing in the coastal town of Gerringong. We walk along the beach, we swim in the rock pool and we eat fish and chips among a squawking mass of seagulls and laugh as they fight over every offering of food and try to swallow it whole. And I find myself smiling a lot too. It’s been so long since I’ve been to the place I spent almost every holiday as a kid, and it’s been kind of nice to get away from it all, and it’s been nice to spend time alone with my mum.

Daily checks of the tabloids let us know that my video was indeed seen. It didn’t stop the phone calls, but after a few days, they dropped by half and on the final day, my phone was only ringing once every half hour, so we thought that was progress.

“My window has been fixed,” I comment, looking at my screen after it let off a message alert. The message had come from Jonathan. I don’t know why but I saved his number. I guess I knew he’d try and make contact again…

“That’s good news. Do you want to go back home or stay with your father and I for a bit?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could do a drive by, and if it’s safe I’ll stay, but if it isn’t I’ll come to you.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she says as we load up the car and get on the road. Sitting in the passenger’s seat, I scroll through my giant missed call list again.

“Oh shit,” I exclaim as I spot the name of ‘Brad’ in my missed calls.

“What? Did you forget something?”

“Well, yeah, but not at the caravan. I was supposed to have dinner wit this guy I met last month. I completely forgot and I’ve got all these missed calls from him. I totally stood him up.”

“Well call him. Tell him what happened. He probably knows anyway.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll call him a bit later.”

“Don’t want to call a boy around your mum, huh? I thought you were twenty-three now, not thirteen.”

“Fine,” I say, rolling my eyes at her as I tap his name on my phone to bring his contact details up. And as I hit call and hold the phone to my ear, I glance at my mother who is grinning to herself, looking very pleased. “Oh, you’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“Sweetheart, your life over the past week has been the most excitement I’ve had in ten years,” she laughs.

And I find myself laughing along with her as the line rings and then connects. “Sandra,” he says, his voice surprised as he answers. “How are you?”

“Hi, Brad, I’m fine. But I wanted to call and tell you how sorry I am about the other night. There’s been some stuff going on in my life, and–”

“I know,” he interrupts. “I saw the paper.”

“It’s not true.”

“It wouldn’t really matter if it were. We weren’t exclusive.”

“Oh, I know,” I reply quickly. “But still, I don’t want you thinking I’m a flake. I generally keep all of my dates, and I’m so sorry I missed this one. Can I make it up to you? I’ll even pay.”

He laughs, his tone relaxing. “There’s no need for that. But yeah, I wouldn’t mind rescheduling while I’m still in town. How does Monday night sound?”

“Monday night sounds perfect. I’ll see you then,” I smile, saying a quick goodbye before hanging up.

“Well?” my mother asks straight away. “That sounds like it went well. Are you going to tell me about him?”

I smile and shake my head. “No.”

“You are the worst fun,” she comments, causing me to laugh.

“I thought I was the most fun?” I comment.

“Well, now I’ve changed my mind,” she pouts comically.

“I’ll tell you what–if it goes well, I promise to fill you in on everything. I just don’t know him that well yet.”

“Well, at least tell me what he looks like.”

“OK, that I can do. He’s tall, good looking with really dark hair and one of those chins that has a slight dimple in it. Blue eyes, nice completion. Decent sense of humour,” I shrug, not knowing him well enough to tell her much more beyond my own first impressions.

“Sounds like Superman. And how did you meet him?”

“In a lift. He pulled my hair, we had a drink, chatted a bit. It was nice so we set up dinner.”

“Interesting,” she remarks, drawing out the word as she focuses on the road ahead of her.

“We’ll see,” I smile, as I look out the window and watch the rolling hills slowly move past us as we motor down the highway, back to my mess of a life.