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“Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed as I nearly threw my phone across the tarmac. “Can’t they find someone else to torment?”

“They will,” Griffin assured me as he led us toward the terminal. “That’s really the only good thing you can say about gossipmongers. They have a short attention span.”

“It’s been two years,” I snapped. “I’m starting to think I could cure cancer and they’d tear me apart for putting doctors out of business.”

He laughed. “Welcome to the club, love,” he said as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. We escaped into a private limo and sped toward our five-star hotel.

By the time we got checked into our room, the whole Internet was abuzz with this new titillating gossip. This wasn’t just a lascivious scandal anymore. A prominent lawyer in Las Angeles weighed in on the matter, saying that I could face criminal charges should the accusations prove true. And of course she cited a long list of celebrities and musicians who had these same kinds of charges brought against them in the past, proving, I guess, that since it had happened before, it was entirely possible that it would happen again.

Of course Coy had chimed in
shortly after that. He appeared on a conservative news channel to talk about the hedonistic influence of Hollywood, once again using me as the poster child of excess, perversion and self-destructive choices.

Eddie, ever joined at the hip with his wannabe father-in-law these days, was sitting to his right, offering his two cents on how the high life corrupts those who might have more traditional, wholesome values.

“I know from experience how tempting that life can be,” he told the host of the show. “And Jordi knows how to wield that influence. She offers to pay for whatever you need so that she can engender herself to you, making you indebted to her many demands. She sets you up with a home and a car and with all the trappings money can buy, and when the day comes you can no longer submit to her will she casts you out onto the street. That’s what happens to everyone eventually. She learned that lesson from her mentor, Vanni Carnevale, who did the same thing with every single person who littered his past.”

He mentioned Kat Daley, Vanni’s ex-backup dancer and most famous ex next to Lourdes Carrington. After Kat and Vanni had broken up, she capitalized on some of her notoriety as an adult film star, but had recently found God. She had gained quite a following via her weekly webcast, where she was now ministering to other “lost souls” who felt they had to trade their bodies for fame.

She had no love for Andy, Vanni’s new wife and the mother of his child. She maintains that Andy and Vanni were secretly having an affair while he romanced her for the cameras to protect his image. Those who had been disenfranchised from the Dreaming in Blue fandom after his marriage latched onto her new message, but it appeared to be a fringe movement.

Now my “drama” was giving it a
new platform. I sent a message to Vanni to let him know I was sorry for once again dragging him and Andy through the mud. He texted back that if I apologized one more time for one more thing that I didn’t do, he would personally fly to New York and give me a spanking himself.

I smiled as I pocketed the phone. Until I found Diego, Vanni had been the closest thing to a brother I had ever had.

He was also usually right on the money in his advice. PING was an unfortunate byproduct to the lives we all lived. It sucked that they could shade us with whatever colors they wanted and people the world over would believe them, but I guess Jace was right. People clung to the things that validated what they already wanted to believe.

These were not my fans, and likely they never would be. They wanted to see someone face-plant, they didn’t care who.

I closed the computer and went to check in on Diego and Maya.

She was sleeping in her private room, with the nurse just outside if she needed anything. Diego was nowhere to be found, which worried me now that we were in a brand new city – not to mention one of the biggest cities in the world.

I didn’t think twice before I headed to Griffin’s room. He was shirtless when he opened the door, which took me by surprise. “Am I disturbing you?”

He shook his head. “I just got out of the shower. If you’re looking for Diego, he’s in the guest room.” He shut the door behind me. “He’s being attacked online but a bunch of Jace’s rabid fans. It’s been pretty ugly.”

My stomach dropped. That was the last thing I needed to hear. I knocked on Diego’s door. “Diego? It’s Jordi.”

“Go away!” he muttered from the other side.

I collapsed on the sofa in the sitting area of Griffin’s suite. “I can’t catch a break,” I said as I fell back with my hand over my eyes. “This is going to ruin everything.”

Griffin sat down next to me. “It doesn’t have to,” he said as he rubbed my shoulder with one hand.

I peered at him through my fingers. “Are you kidding? Did you read what they are saying about me? About us?” I sat forward. “They’re going to ruin the performance. Everything you’ve done and Angus has done to make this song great and this movie important and beautiful… they’re just going to shit all over it.”

“Yeah,” Griffin agreed easily. “That’s what they want to happen.”

“Aren’t you mad?”  I asked.

He chuckled. “I don’t get mad anymore. I just turn the tables on them. Let them think what they want so I can live somewhat of a private life they could never expect.”

My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his photos. He offered the device to me, and I could see a towheaded little boy with a smile as bright as sunshine staring back at me. “Meet Oscar,” he said. “My son.”

“You have a son?” I squeaked as he thumbed through photo after photo. “I don’t understand.”

He kept sliding through each photo. “About seven years ago I met someone unlike anyone I’d ever met before.” He landed on a photo of a woman with dark eyes and dark hair, and
a generous figure that made us very unlikely and unexpected twins. “We were friends. And then one night we were more. I never even knew about Oscar until a couple of years ago, when she was in an accident. Died instantly,” he said sadly. “Oscar had a good, solid life with his grandparents, her folks. They felt it was only right I knew about my son, but they agreed with their daughter that they didn’t want his life tossed upside down just because he had a famous dad. So no one knows. Just them. And me. And now you.”

I blinked in confusion.
“So all the women…?”

“Take their focus off of what I don’t want them to see. It’s all sleight of hand.”

I was floored. All this time I had pegged him as some ruthless manwhore when he was just playing PING’s game better than they were.

“It’s why I tried to stay the hell away from you,” he finally admitted. “You’re like a paparazzi lightning rod. No one can wrap their heads around you, so they pick you apart. And unlike Gemma,” he said, referring to his phone, “there’s nowhere you can hide.”
He touched my hair. “And you shouldn’t hide, Jordi. You’re the brightest light I’ve ever seen. You should shine for the whole world to see.”

I dropped my eyes from his. “I thought you resented having to work with me, since I didn’t look like all the girls you’re always photographed with in the press.”

He shook his head slightly. “I don’t resent you, Jordi,” he said quietly. “Those were your issues, never mine. If anything, I’d probably want more from you than you’d ever want to give.”

“Griffin….” I started, but he cut me off.

“See?” he said with a slight grin as he pulled his hand away. “I decided to hide my family, because that was what was best for my son. But Diego shines even brighter than you do. He’s never going to be happy hiding in the shadows. I think you should go public with your story, love. They’re trying to make you ugly because that’s the box they want to keep you in. Show them how beautiful you really are.” He took my hands in his and said in one fervent whisper, “Win. For all of us.”

Iris was at the hotel within an hour. She had prepared a
press release by the evening news, and fielded every interview request that poured in over the hours that followed the announcement. Even PING got in on the excitement, with considerably less vitriol than they usually spewed my direction.

FIERCE DIVA REVEALS PRIVATE STRUGGLE FINDING HER BIRTHMOM!

“
Jordi Hemphill, one of the finalists who made such a splash on the first season of the megahit Fierce, made headlines again when she announced to the public a very personal journey. It almost eerily imitates that of the heroine from The Journey Home, the Angus Newhouse film creating a lot of Oscar buzz, especially around the song penned for Hemphill to sing for the soundtrack. As it turns out, Jordi could plumb her own depths to bring this song to life.

At the end of her tumultuous tour
earlier this year, Hemphill learned that her parents had conceived with the use of a surrogate. She quietly investigated her questionable family tree, landing finally in Las Vegas, where she found Maya Palermo and Maya’s teenage son, Diego, Hemphill’s half-sibling. Recent rumors romantically linked the pair, forcing Hemphill to make her private struggle public. Both Maya and Diego accompanied Hemphill to the Big Apple, where both Jordi and songwriter Griffin Slade are scheduled to debut the single with a live symphony. No word yet on if these struggles are driving Hemphill and her boyfriend of record, Fierce finalist Jace Riga, apart as they struggle to navigate careers on opposite sides of the country
.
Sources close to the couple insist that they are stronger than ever, but no word yet if Riga will show up to watch his lady-love duet with another man.
”

I turned to Griffin with a smile. “Just when I thought they could pull off a factual, relevant article...” I let the sentence drop because nothing more needed to be said. PING was PING. All we could ever do was play defense in our own ways.

Diego finally emerged from the hotel to join us for our rehearsals. His experience with the ever-present paparazzi ended up being way more positive than mine. With his long, dark hair and brooding good looks, he drew immediate interest from the press and the public. Catastrophe Rising capitalized on my announcement with a record number of downloads. Even Graham offered to meet with him once we got back to Los Angeles, which by now was a foregone conclusion.

Sonny hadn’t said much, which I assumed meant that he was strategizing on how to make this work out in his best interest.

He was the least of my worries at this point. Everyone and their dog wanted to get an exclusive interview with me to talk about my journey to find my birth mom. I wouldn’t have agreed to anything had they not interviewed Marianne Hemphill and Shane Pearcy, who suggested that the reason I would want to keep Maya under wraps had a lot to do with her shady past.

“My husband and I wanted Jordi to know her mother from the start,” Marianne told yet another talk show host. “But she couldn’t stay clean and I had to put my foot down. I had a baby to protect,” she added, clinging with everything she had onto the loving mother label she had cultivated through the taping of
Fierce
.

I turned off the program before it ended. If Shane had said anything I likely would have tossed the TV out of the window. Instead I called Iris and told her to book me on whatever talk show had the most credibility. She worked her magic, nabbing an exclusive hour-long interview with one of the most influential women in daytime TV the minute I went back to L.A. the following week.

In the meantime we had a performance to nail. Unlike the chaos of
Fierce
, Angus and Griffin made the 12-hour days a fun experience for both Diego and me. Iris stole Diego for one afternoon and he came back looking like a completely new person. He had been completely outfitted and styled, and though he still hadn’t acclimated to all the attention virtual strangers were willing to heap upon him, he was far more agreeable than when we first met.

He was abl
e to smile and to joke and improvise, the latter of which seemed to impress Griffin whenever Diego would introduce a new note or cord into the song. I could see now that the relationship with Diego helped ease the longing he must have had living so far away from his own son. And Diego attached himself to his idol, soaking up everything Griffin could teach him.

It strengthened the bond of friendship Griffin and I were tentatively forging. PING still speculated that something was going on between us, especially since Griffin didn’t wear a different girl on his arm every night, but aside from that one moment back in his hotel room he had been a perfect gentleman.

It made me see that I had filled in the holes of what he didn’t say with all the things I usually said about myself. Since that was negative, I shaded him in a negative light. It wasn’t much different than what PING had always done to me. I knew I had to make it up to him somehow. I put a call in to Graham, and suggested that he recommend Griffin for one of the roles for the animated movie I was due to shoot when I got back to Los Angeles.

“Don’t tell him it was my idea,” I made Graham promise, and he swore he wouldn’t. But Griffin knew the minute he got the call. He tracked me down backstage during one of our rehearsals.

“Haven’t you gotten sick of me by now, Hemphill?” he asked as he grabbed a water bottle from the table.