Let's Stay Together

STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART

“Lauren, there’s something I want to tell you,” Patrick said. “I didn’t want to e-mail it to you or instant message it to you or say it to you over the phone or Skype it or text it to you. I wanted to hold you in my eyes when I said it so I could see your eyes.” He pulled her close. “Lauren Short, I love you.”

She rested her head on his chest. “And I love you.”
Now kiss me to end this scene perfectly!
She closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

No kiss arrived.

She felt both of his hands leave hers.

She opened her eyes.
Where’s my man?

She looked down and focused on Patrick kneeling, a ring box in his hand.

“Lauren, I want you to wear this ring.” He opened the box and removed a small ring, sliding it onto her left ring finger.

“It’s a promise ring, Lauren,” Patrick said, “and this is my promise to you. I don’t have much, and I may never have much, and I may have to get another job so we can have something, but whatever I have is yours and yours alone for as long as you will have me . . .”

Books by J.J. Murray

 

 

RENEE AND JAY

 

SOMETHING REAL

 

ORIGINAL LOVE

 

I’M YOUR GIRL

 

CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF YOUR LOVE

 

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

 

THE REAL THING

 

SHE’S THE ONE

 

I’LL BE YOUR EVERYTHING

 

A GOOD MAN

 

YOU GIVE GOOD LOVE

 

UNTIL I SAW YOUR SMILE

 

LET’S STAY TOGETHER

 

 

 

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

let’s stay together

J.J. Murray

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

For Amy, who has always been a star to me

But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love forever.

 

—Robert Burns (“Ae Fond Kiss”; 1759–96)

1

Former actress Lauren Short normally would have gone on to her next e-mail without replying, but something about the honesty and the heart of the message stopped her.

Chazz
was
fake,
Lauren thought.
Both in the movies and in real life. Patrick nailed that one. If Patrick really knew how fake Chazz was. What’s worse than calling someone fake? Calling Chazz “bogus,” “phony,” and “counterfeit” isn’t enough. Chazz was more than that. He was the fakest person I have ever known.

She sighed and sank deeper into her rented love seat, her feet propped up on a rented coffee table in her newly rented studio apartment in North Hollywood.

“I don’t know what I deserve these days, Patrick, old friend,” she whispered, “but I certainly didn’t deserve to be two-, three-, and five-timed by a man who was with me
and
with a series of
men
behind my back.”

She tried to shake the image of her fiancé, action movie icon Chazz Jackson, and those two men in Chazz’s house overlooking the Pacific only seven nights ago.

She failed.

“In
our
house, Patrick!” she shouted. “In
my
house! Okay, he paid for it, but I lived there for seven years. And oh how I have paid.”

But I kept that place looking good!
she thought
. I kept that place spotless! I made that place shine! But why does it matter so much to me
where
he messed with men? He was evidently messing with them in all sorts of places while I waited for three years, with a ridiculously huge engagement ring on my finger, to become “Mrs. Lauren Short-Jackson.” And then I came home to see the man I gave up my acting career for acting the fool with two men on the Lorraine black leather sofa I bought for him for his birthday!

“I’m surprised the three of them didn’t collapse it, Patrick!” she shouted.

And now I’m talking to a man who isn’t here,
Lauren thought.

“I wish they had broken that sofa,” she whispered. “Chazz should be feeling
some
kind of pain.”

She had just finished watching Chazz play off their disengagement on
Entertainment Tonight
on the rented TV in front of her
.
“Telling them that
he
broke it off with
me,
” she mumbled, “telling them that
we
didn’t see eye to eye anymore, telling them that he would always have a
soft
spot in his heart for me, a woman who he
still
called ‘his favorite leading lady.’ ” She looked again at her iPhone. “He even tweeted that he was ‘single and looking for another future star,’ Patrick! What kind of man does that only a week after a breakup?”

She shook her head.
Chazz’s publicist is certainly earning his keep these days. I’ll bet Chazz is messing with him, too.

She shuddered.

She looked at the TV, the Rent-A-Center tag still attached to the base.
I’ve gone from a ninety-inch flat-screen TV to a twenty-seven-inch antique.

“You know, Patrick, maybe
I
should go on
Entertainment Tonight
and tell them how
I
broke the picture window looking out over the Pacific Ocean with my fists and a well-placed elbow. I shattered that huge window into a million pieces. Maybe I should tell them what
I
saw Chazz doing—and having done to him—with my own two eyes. Maybe I should tell them how fast those other two men were—both of them high-profile actors with wives and children, Patrick—about how they ran out of there with their pants on backward. I wish I had taken pictures. Those pictures could make me a millionaire overnight. Maybe I should tell
ET
that Hollywood’s highest-paid he-man love interest has
really
been acting in those love scenes with women over the years.”

She bowed her head. “But if I tell them all that, Patrick, they may give Chazz several retroactive Academy Awards for his excellent movie
deceptions.
” She opened her eyes and laughed. “That’s what the media does for fun in this town. They turn cowards into heroes and give the fakest people the most praise.”

She sighed heavily.
But if I tell them all that, then I’d have to explain how I didn’t know that the man I was engaged to for three years was gay or bisexual and heavy on the man love—whatever that confused man was.

She looked at the e-mail, amazed she was still getting any fan mail at all. Before she started dating Chazz, fan mail used to flood into her in-box in droves, but except for the last seven days of people wishing her well, there had been only a trickle of fan mail ever since she became engaged to Chazz.

“It’s painful now,” she whispered. “You said it, Patrick. It physically hurts. My chest, back, and neck ache. My head and my eyes pound every time I think about what happened. Whenever I close my eyes, I see Chazz and those men. . . .”

She looked at her left ring finger, at the lighter band of brown skin. “I kind of miss the ring, Patrick. It was a rock and a half. I could have pawned it and bought a small country.”
It cost more than, well, I’m evidently worth. I’m sure some golden seal is now swimming around it and admiring its beauty. I’m surprised I was able to throw it so far. I hope some surfer doesn’t step on it. Maybe it will end up on some beach in Hawaii. I would so love to be there.

She glanced at the full name in the e-mail address.
Patrick Alan Esposito. Okay, Patrick Alan Esposito, I will do my best to try to keep smiling.

“It isn’t as if I’m going to get any movie or TV offers now, Patrick,” she whispered. “I’ve been out of practice for seven years, and the biggest movie star on earth just dumped me. Therefore, I must be used up and burned out.”

She typed a quick reply: