JACE (Lane Brothers Book 3) (107 page)

Chapter
Twenty Three

It was dark. Sasha lay on her old childhood bed, staring at the ceiling. This had been her room before she’d left for college, and now, here she was again. It was like a regression, a step backwards. She’d gone from an independent career woman living alone in Chicago to a pampered Hollywood girlfriend sleeping on silk sheets and taking private jets. Now, she was back where she started. No, it was worse than where she’d started. She’d lost her career and she’d lost the man she loved. She was so disappointed in herself.

Sasha wondered whether there was any chance of a reconciliation between her and Thomas. The undeniable attraction between them had led them back to one another’s arms on more than one occasion. It had pulled them through numerous misunderstandings and setbacks. But Thomas’s last words to her had felt so final:
“This was all a disaster. From start to finish. I should never have pursued you. This was all a huge mistake.”

Ever since she’d left England, Sasha had mulled those words over and over again in her mind. Did he really mean it? From his perspective, had it really been a disaster from start to finish? What about all the good times they had shared? Had he erased them from his memory, or had she built them up into something better than they were? Had she been so dazzled by his fame and beauty that she couldn’t see the situation for what it really was…a disaster?

Or, was this just one of the infamous outbursts Thomas was so prone to have? The man blew hot and cold—she’d experienced that firsthand—and his temper could flare at a moment’s notice. However, that didn’t stop the fact that she’d broken his trust, the one thing that meant the most to him, by lying about what had happened with Chris. In fact, she hadn’t just broken it, she’d smashed it to pieces. After Crystal and Pippa’s deceit, to have her lie to him was the worst thing she could possibly have done. Hell, she probably could have slept with Chris, so long as she told Thomas the truth. However, pretending the kiss hadn’t happened, that was the real problem.

Even though she pleaded with Thomas, trying to get him to see that it was the world that was driving them apart, he’d made it perfectly clear that—this time—she’d driven him away all on her own. This wasn’t the sort of rift that would heal overnight. She couldn’t just dive into a swimming pool and get him all hot under the collar by showing off her glistening wet skin and hair. She had to accept the fact that Thomas Lloyd might never forgive her. He hadn’t even said goodbye as she’d left his hotel room. He’d just let her go.

She’d taken the flight back to her lonely apartment and saw the thousands of missed calls and texts from everyone under the sun…but there was not a single call or text from Thomas. Nothing from him at all. He hadn’t even checked on her. He hadn’t even asked if she’d returned to America. He’d just let her go, like she meant nothing to him at all....

Sasha logged on to her laptop. Since being thrust into the limelight, she’d gained a new compulsion to check on how the media was portraying her. Pippa’s engagement scandal had made it to the gossip websites, presumably via someone at Amore. Realizing she was on the losing team, Pippa had switched allegiance to Chris, turning him into her media puppet. Through him, Pippa had successfully steered the attention away from any kind of scandal and made it appear as though Sasha had been the manipulator and master schemer, and that she’d been the one to blackmail Thomas into proposing to her through the sex tape.

According to Chris, Sasha was in it for the money and nothing more. The fact that Thomas’s sister, Crystal, was the real leaker of the tape had been completely hidden. Pippa had done incredibly well at minimizing Thomas’s association with his drug-addicted, porn-star sister, but in doing so, she had left only one available villain: Sasha.

The world had lapped it up. No one wanted to see Thomas Lloyd end up with some young nobody, some silly floozy playing at being a journalist. It made more sense—and sold more magazines—for Sasha to be some kind of seductress who’d tried to milk Thomas Lloyd for everything he was worth.  

Though Thomas had come out of the whole thing better than she had, it still must have caused him extreme embarrassment. Sasha could only hope it wouldn’t be detrimental to his career. But what kind of man would create a false engagement to someone, just to bury a sex tape, and, more importantly, what kind of movie producer would want to hire such a man?

Sasha’s first place to check online was the celebrity gossip website,
Chit-Chat
, the place where Chris’s video had first surfaced. There were now over five hundred comments on the video, a large portion declaring such things as Chris ‘
is the perfect man
’ or ‘
sexier than Thomas Lloyd.
’ Then, there were the vile comments, the ones that called Sasha a ‘
slut’
, a ‘
fame whore
’, and a ‘
greedy player
.’

Somehow, reading those words about herself never got any easier. It didn’t matter that they were wrong; the fact that there was a consensus amongst so many people hurt Sasha deeply. That Chris had been the one to cause it hurt even more.

Pippa had told Sasha she’d be reviled after Chris’s interview got out, and she was right. Someone had taken stills from the leaked sex tape and drawn huge, red arrows highlighting all of Sasha’s imperfections—her cellulite, a spot on her left thigh, a visible vein. But even now, looking at shots of Thomas’s head between her legs reminded Sasha of the ecstasy she felt being with him.

She felt a tingling sensation spread up through her legs. Thomas had made her come harder than she ever thought was possible. That the moment had been picked apart by total strangers still couldn’t take away from the reality that she’d experienced.

Feeling aroused at the memory and craving what Thomas had once given her, Sasha found a link to the original sex tape. She’d never willingly watched it; she’d just seen flashes of the grainy footage that Kelly had shown her back in the Atomic office. Realizing it was the closest she was going to get to Thomas, she hit play.

Thomas’s kitchen appeared before her. The footage started at the point where he took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply. It was a passionate kiss, one that should have proved to the viewer that there was a real connection between them. If Sasha had just been using Thomas, there was no way she’d have been able to fake that kind of arousal…unless she was a better actor than he was!

Sasha watched on, feeling the vicarious arousal she’d experienced at the time. A thrill of excitement ran through her, as she watched from a new angle the moment Thomas had swiped his arm across the kitchen countertop, sending items crashing to the ground. Even though it had happened to her, Sasha could hardly believe that he’d had such an insatiable desire for her body. Her lips parted, and a little sigh escaped her mouth as she watched him lift her in his strong arms, inch her back onto the countertop, and hitch her dress up to her hips.

Watching her own joy on screen didn’t alarm Sasha or make her feel embarrassed like she thought it would. In fact, it aroused her. She felt the wetness grow between her legs as she remembered what Thomas had done to her body, of the things he’d made her feel. She slid her fingers down to her clit, as she watched Thomas sink to his knees and pull her panties down to her ankles.

Touching herself now reminded her of the feel of his tongue on her clit, of the way he licked her like an ice cream, so gently, so precisely, as though savoring the taste of her. Her eyes widened, as she watched Thomas slide his fingers into her and the way she responded by pulling her knees up either side of his head and flopping backwards onto her elbows. Her body responded in the real world, too, by heating up, throbbing, wanting more. She began rubbing herself faster.

Sasha watched herself climax on-screen, throwing her head back and crying out. It looked amazing and brought the memory rushing back to her, edging her closer towards an orgasm in real life.

She could hardly tear her eyes away from the sight of Thomas rising to his feet and using his fingers and thumb to bring her racing towards another immediate climax on-screen. She watched herself remove her dress and bra and lay—completely naked and willing—in front of Thomas. Her fingers began to move quicker against her clitoris, as she realized she was racing towards a real life orgasm.

Then she watched the moment Thomas slowly ran his tongue across her nipple. It had been enough to push her over the edge back then, and it was enough to do so again today.

Her body quivered and spasmed, as the climax hit her hard and fast. She threw her head back, reveling in the sensation. Thomas Lloyd could still make her orgasm—even when he wasn’t in the same country as her.

Her orgasm faded, and she tipped her eyes back to the screen to see her past-self slumped forward into the arms of Thomas Lloyd. Jealousy bit her. She watched the screen enviously, as Thomas slung his arms around her ass, pulling her into him like a prized possession, and her legs circled around his waist, as though never wanting to let him go. She watched, as he carried her out of shot to what she remembered as one of the most amazing moments of her life.

However, in the real world, Sasha was completely alone. There was no Thomas to hold her in her afterglow. There was just her, in her dark bedroom, alone.

Chapter
Twenty Four

Feeling lonely and ashamed, Sasha was about to shut down her laptop when she saw something that made her stop. Through the blur of filthy, disgusting, and downright abusive messages beneath the video, one comment struck Sasha. It was from a user called ‘
Mrs. Lloyd
.’ It said: ‘
Once I find out where that woman lives, I’m going to decapitate her
.’

Sasha remembered a similar comment that Thomas had shown her once before. She was certain it was from the same user. It had said: ‘
Whoever that bitch is, I’m going to cut her head off with a rusty chainsaw. Thomas is mine.
’

Sasha felt cold all over. Though the original message had rattled her, she’d felt somewhat safe with Thomas. He had security and drivers and a team of people to look out for him. But now she was alone, and a total stranger wanted her dead. How could someone get so wrapped up in someone else’s life—a person they’d never even met—to such an extent that they wanted to harm them?

The more Sasha looked, the more she saw threatening comments from the same user. They popped up on every spin-off article on
Chit-Chat
, on every YouTube reposting of the original video, even on previous videos of Thomas Lloyd from way before Sasha had even met him. ‘
Mrs. Lloyd
’ had made her online presence known in the comments section of every single article, picture, and video of Thomas Lloyd on the internet. That meant she was more than just a fan, she was a stalker. Her comments also appeared progressively angrier and more threatening. One said: ‘
I’m going to hunt you down and make you suffer
.’

Sasha slammed her laptop shut. Her heart was racing. Without the electronic blue glow, she plunged into total darkness.

She lay back on her bed, trembling. She had to remind herself that it was just bravado, that it was probably just some pathetic person feeling powerful behind the protective anonymity of the internet. But what if they did hunt her down? Chris had made it clear that he and Sasha were high school sweethearts. If he blabbed about which high school that was, it wouldn’t take long to narrow down which town Sasha grew up in. That she’d returned to her roots to escape the media circus was inevitable. She might as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs.

Suddenly, Sasha was gripped by anxiety. Had she put her mom in danger by returning to her home? Should she leave just in case? But if she did, where could she go? She’d already written to the landlord of her Chicago apartment, saying she was breaking her lease and moving out. There was nowhere else to go, no one else to whom she could turn. Unless…

Sasha reached for her phone. She flicked it on and the comforting glow of technology lit her bedroom. She scrolled through her list of contacts until she got to the number of Kelly, the editor of Atomic Magazine.

Kelly had tried to milk the whole sex tape scandal. She’d even promoted Sasha after it had leaked, thinking the publicity would be good for the company. It didn’t matter to Kelly that Sasha had run off to a secluded island with Thomas, nor that she had later headed for England. All Kelly needed was her name on the Atomic website, and then she just had to sit back and let the website hits and the ad clicks roll in.

Sasha hadn’t wanted to use her newfound fame before; it had seemed crass to profit from her association with Thomas. However, that was before she was threatened by a crazy, fanatical internet stalker. Things had changed, and that meant Sasha would have to compromise, even if it meant lowering her personal standards.

She hit dial. The phone purred once, then twice, in her ear.

“Well, well, well,” came Kelly’s voice from the other end. She was clearly a little tipsy. Probably half way through a bottle of wine at home with her beloved feline friends, the way she often spent a Friday evening. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again.”

Kelly had never been one for greetings. Sometimes Sasha wondered whether the woman had ever said ‘
hello
’ in her life.

“What can I do for you, Miss Sasha Jones?” Kelly added.

There was no beating around the bush. Kelly was a shrewd business woman. She appreciated it when people got straight to the point.

“I need money,” Sasha said, aware of how sheepish her voice sounded. She quickly added, “I’ll work for it.”

There was a pause, followed by a tipsy sounding chuckle. “I don’t doubt for a second that you’d work for it.”

Sasha felt herself lifted by hope. “Then you’ll take me back on?”

There was another pause, filled with the unmistakable sound of Kelly lighting a cigarette.

“I’m not sure you’re what Atomic Magazine is looking for at the moment,” she said in one exhalation, adopting a managerial tone, as though explaining why Sasha had been unsuccessful in an interview.

Sasha baulked. That wasn’t what she was expecting to hear.

“But I thought you wanted the publicity?” she said.

“I wanted the publicity of Thomas Lloyd’s fiancée,” came Kelly’s rebuke. “Not the woman who supposedly blackmailed him.”

Sasha mentally rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Kelly. You know better than most that that’s not true. Thomas and I were legit.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,” Kelly said, before Sasha heard the sound of her taking another sharp drag on her cigarette. “It’s what people think. You know, the public, the little people who buy the magazine. Right now, the world thinks you’re scum. There’s no place on my magazine for you, Sasha. I could give you Jason Michael’s number. He’s the editor of Ladzz! Magazine—if you didn’t know.”

At that, the phone went dead.

“Bitch,” Sasha muttered under her breath.

As if she’d stoop as low as to write for a misogynistic piece of trash like Ladzz! It was the sort of magazine that had two female writers out of a staff of thirty, and both of them looked like blow-up sex dolls.

Exasperated, Sasha threw her phone down on the bed. Maybe she was being melodramatic? There was always going to be stupid, obsessive fans out there. ‘
Mrs. Lloyd
’ wasn’t going to harm her; she was just getting a thrill out of trolling her. She didn’t need to reach the depths of Ladzz! Magazine just yet.

She vowed not to look at any of the vile crap on the internet anymore. Google searching her name was making things worse. She just had to wait it out until the next scandal came along and swept this one under the rug.

Mind made up, she curled up under her duvet and thought about Thomas as she drifted off to sleep.