BLOCK: Social Media #3 (4 page)

"A TV, or the internet. Because
Buzz Hollywood
is running a story on us right now, and I think you should see it."

"Who the hell are you?"

"I told you—"

"I know what you said, but I’m sorry, you have the wrong number. I have no idea what you’re talking about."

My shaky finger presses end and I just stare at the phone in my hand.

"Everything OK?" Kristi asks, taking possession of her luggage.

I look up at her, stunned. And I lie. Because I’m a good liar. I’ve been telling lies since I was a kid and my world fell apart. I’m good at faking OK. "Fine," I say cheerfully. And suddenly I become Kristi soon-to-be-Mrs.-Blazen. I’m the one with the fake smile and feigned happiness. "Come on, we’re gonna be late if we don’t rush it. Can’t be late for your wedding!"

I let her chat the rest of the way to the gate and then thankfully we are there and the flight attendants take over. Everyone is already on the plane—all of them family and friends of Johnny, minus Johnny, of course. And even though the fact that Kristi has no friends or family of her own on this plane should raise a red flag, or at the very least make me pity her, I can only think of one thing.

Vaughn was cheating on someone when he was with me.

Of course he was, you idiot! He’s a fucking movie star!

The large corporate jet seats twenty, and all seats are filled, but thankfully almost everyone is seated on the long couches that line each side of the aisle. I settle into one of the few chairs near the front and try to calm my racing heart.

I need to see that webpage. I need to know what that woman was taking about. I fish around in my bag for my tablet and quickly do a search for
Buzz Hollywood
. It feels like an eternity before the page loads, but then—there he is.

My Vaughn is on the front page. A split picture of him and a dark-haired beauty who reminds me a lot of Bebe.

Jasinda Gonzales.

Asher’s pregnant girlfriend accuses him of infidelity and sexual abuse. Mr. Asher could not be reached for comment.

Sexual abuse.

Pregnant?

My stomach turns and I bolt up, looking for the bathroom.

"Ma’am," a flight attendant calls out to me. "We’re getting ready to take off, please return to your seat."

I push her out of my way and rush into the bathroom compartment. It’s bigger than a regular plane bathroom, thank God, but it’s still stifling and in that second I know I’m going to throw up. I fall to my knees, flip the head lid open, and puke.

I lose time as everything sinks in. The setup, the lies, the sexual conquest—that I willingly gave in to—and the NDA so I can’t talk about it.

I shake my head and laugh. I fell for him. I fell for my dirty Prince Charming. I swallowed him whole in more ways than one.

"Grace?" Kristi’s concerned voice asks from the other side of the door. "Are you OK? We need to take off but we can’t do that until you’re in your seat."

Great.

I take a deep breath and pull on my everything-is-fine disguise. "Fine, fine!" I say cheerfully. "I just got a wave of nausea, that’s all. It’s gone now, be right out."

"OK, come sit with me if you want. There’s room on our couch."

My answer is the gushing of water from the sink, so hopefully that means Kristi has left to take her seat. I cup my hand under the tap and bring some cool water to my lips. I pat my face and straighten my professional blazer in the mirror, then paint on my smile as I pull the latch back on the door and emerge.

No one even notices, not even Kristi, so thank God for the little things. I scoot past the pissed-off flight attendant and take my seat. "You have to put that on airplane mode, ma’am," the bitchy attendant snaps. "You’re holding up the departure."

I grab my tablet from the floor, the web page at
Buzz Hollywood
still showing the story of Vaughn and his lies, and do as she says so she will leave me alone.

I don’t remember anything about that private corporate jet flight to Vegas. All I know is that I’m walking past a bar on our way out of the airport when I glance up and see Asher’s face on the TV.

It’s
IM2
premiere night and he’s walking the red carpet. Not with me. Not with the woman carrying his baby. But with the biggest party slut in Hollywood.

His ex-girlfriend from when he was a teenager.

I want to get sick again, but I can’t afford to do that. I have to deal. I have to pretend life is perfect.

I’m still living the fantasy.

My Prince Charming is out there somewhere, his name just isn’t Vaughn Asher.

Chapter Four

T
HE
limo
ride from the airport to the Bellagio is agonizing. I sit between Kristi and her future mother-in-law, across from her future brother-in-law, and beam out the fake smile I perfected ten years earlier at her future father-in-law.

I nod my head. I laugh when they laugh. I add in cute little quips when the conversation calls for it.

I start drinking. Heavily.

And when we get to the hotel I go straight to my room. I have one hour to dress and prep for the rehearsal dinner. I need to change into my midnight-blue sheath dress and my discount shoes. It’s professional, not at all flashy. And while the shoes are pretty in a Target sort of way, they do not have red soles.

And that makes me sad all over again, because I really fell for the shoes Vaughn bought for me on the island. I have them with me, but I can’t. Not after the ultimate betrayal I just saw online. And that phone call. That woman, Jasinda, she thinks I’m the other woman.

I hit the minibar, grab a few bottles, fill a glass with ice, and fall back on the bed with my laptop.

Don’t do it, Grace,
that little voice in my head says.
Don’t look.

But of course, I absolutely am going to look. I pull up the webpage and just stare at the picture of Vaughn. It was taken recently because it’s a promo for
IM2
. He’s smiling and happy. His female co-star is in the picture with him, but they cut her off so they could do the side-by-side shot of the girlfriend.

I scroll down to read the article.

Ms. Gonzales says her relationship with Vaughn Asher began almost a year ago on the island of Saint Thomas—

I pour the contents of the little bottle into the glass and take a long swallow before I can continue reading. Of course she met him on Saint Thomas. It’s where he gets all his girls.

I wipe my mouth and return to the article.

—where he propositioned her to become his sexual submissive in exchange for money and gifts. "I was required to sign a nondisclosure agreement," the teary-eyed Gonzales explains. "He told me people won’t understand the type of sexual relationship we have together. He said what we had was special and not something he did with just anyone. But I’ve seen him with other submissives on the island. Many of them. He has a sexual appetite that can’t be quenched and he insisted that he not have to use a condom, so of course, I find myself pregnant."

Is he the father?

"He is," she says as the tears roll down her face. "I haven’t been with anyone else but him. And when I told him about the baby, he was very excited. And at first that made me happy, but I now know he’s unfit to be a father. I need him out of my life and I will fight for the right to raise our child alone."

I close my laptop and guzzle the rest of my drink.

What did I think? How did I think this movie-star fling would end? I mean, wake the fuck up, Grace! He’s a user. He says whatever he needs to in order to get his way. He probably has girls stashed all over the world. He probably has dozens of kids, because that whole not using a condom thing she said, that’s true. He never used one with me.

And Jesus Christ, I need to get myself to the doctor as soon as I get home to make sure I’m not infected with some sexually transmitted disease.

I make myself another drink and then strip out of my clothes so I can change into my dress. I struggle with the zipper for a few minutes, but finally contort my body enough to pull it all the way up. It feels tighter than it was at the fitting last week. My body is slim, so the dress looks good, but I really need to put all this Asher stuff behind me and get back into my normal exercise routine. It doesn’t help that Kristi has been taking me out to lunch with her every day, and she eats like a pregnant woman.

I smile at that. I like Kristi, but I hate her husband-to-be. I’ve still never met him. He’s much too busy to concern himself with a wedding. I’ve spent the last two weeks with her planning the big day and that jerk has yet to show up for so much as a cake-tasting. Kristi and I, on the other hand, have been inseparable and she’s starting to feel like a friend. We’ve come to Vegas four times on day trips to iron out wedding details, and everything is perfectly planned, but I can honestly say that this wedding is a disaster waiting to happen.

My phone buzzes and I reach over and pluck it off the nightstand.

"I’ll be up in ten minutes," I tell Kristi, before she can even say hello.

"OK," she laughs. "We have time, but I’m lonely. I’ll do your hair when you get here if you want."

Her request betrays her nerves. Hell, I’d be a bundle of nerves too, if I was marrying Johnny Blazen. If I didn’t see him play football last weekend, I’d think he was fake because I never seen them together. "Sounds good, Kristi. Be right up."

I end the call and grab my purse and then catch my reflection in the hall mirror and stop dead.

I look… tired. Wounded. Used up.

Depressed maybe. My moods have steadily gotten worse since my last interaction with Vaughn. I’ve missed Dirty Heaven, and even girls I hardly talk to online have started sending me direct messages asking if things are OK. Bebe, thankfully, has not noticed much because she’s traveling with the competing members of whatever they do over at her sports club.

"Grace," I say to myself in the mirror. "You…" But I have no pep talk to give myself on this night. I have nothing positive to say. So I just turn away and leave the room.

Kristi is up in one of the upper-floor executive rooms, so I get in the elevator, flash the keycard required to access that floor, and massage my temples with my fingertips to try and ease the tension headache creeping up on me.

The doors open and I step out and knock on the door right across the way.

A faint, “Come in,” is called out to me from inside. The door is propped open with the metal swing lock, so I push through and close it all the way behind me. When I enter the living area, Kristi is setting up a curling iron on the wet bar. She’s so damn cute, she makes me smile. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Sit," she says, pointing to the bar stool. "Did you know I was a makeup artist at Channel 9 before all this crazy Blazen stuff started?"

I shake my head and take my seat. She produces a brush and begins to stroke it through my long hair. "Well, I was. Before Johnny asked me to quit and stay home to be a mother. That’s where we met, you know? I was doing his makeup before he went on
Good AM Denver
, and we hit it off." She lets out a long sigh and begins to twist up strands of hair in her nimble fingertips.

"I didn’t know that. I never watch local news. Too depressing because my neighborhood is always on there. Things I should know, but really don’t want to know. Ya know?” How the fuck would she know? She lives in Park Hill. “Do you miss it? Being a makeup artist?"

"Sometimes," she says with a smile I can see in the mirror behind the bar. "I’m bored at home, ya know? I can’t wait for this wedding to be over so we can live together."

"Why don’t you live together now? I mean, the cat’s out of the bag, right? You’re pregnant, you’re getting married. Why not just get that party started?"

"Hmmm." She pins up a section of hair before continuing. "He wants us to start out right."

"It’s kinda late for that, don’t you think?" I want to stab myself for speaking up. "Sorry." A look of hurt crosses her face in the mirror and a wave of guilt flows through me. "I’m just being a cynical bitch, I guess. I mean, normally I’m not one to rock the boat. I hate confrontation, so I’d never say anything. But this is your wedding, Kristi. This is your
life
."