Twisted Arrangement 4 (18 page)

“It’s a gossip rag. You know as well as I do –” Josh began.

William snorted. “Oh, I know not to believe everything I read. But this isn’t just some accusation out of left field, is it? I suspected already.”

William stared at him, waiting for his next denial. The crew, and now some of the other cast as well, had begun to gather around, whispering. Some were scrolling through their smartphones. Josh had no doubt that the article was online too, and they were now reading it. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Refute it? He didn’t have the energy to manufacture any more lies. That’s why he had sent Emma away. His eyes drifted down to the paper again. Ice crackled in his stomach.

Had she...?

Shaking his head, Josh pushed the thought away. No. Whatever issues they might have, he didn’t think Emma would have gone to the tabloids. She was no Lolly Tate. He didn’t know how or where The Sun Star had gotten their info, but he knew it wasn’t from her.

He trusted her.

The realization struck Josh like a slap. Like a lightning bolt. He blinked stupidly at Ransler, frozen.

And then he heard her voice, and his mind went absolutely and utterly blank. Like a computer that just lost power. Nothing was processing. He had nothing but a blank screen. Emma came from the direction of the parking lot, behind Ransler. Her face was pink, eyes wide, and she called his name.

“Josh! Oh god...” She hurried toward him, breath puffing from between her glistening lips. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and smudges on her cheeks. She looked like hell.

William twitched as if he’d touched a live wire, and rounded on Emma, face darkening. “You should be ashamed.”

Josh wanted to reach out, push Ransler aside, take Emma somewhere private and figure out what the hell they were going to do. He wanted to turn and walk away, to go back to the hospital and pretend this day had never happened. Yesterday too, while he was at it. Why not?

Emma ignored William, skirting him and skidding to a stop in front of Josh. Her too-wide eyes, the whites showing all around and glistening with tears, skipped from Josh’s face to the mangled tabloid at his feet. He stared at her, trying to find words, any words. None came. Josh didn’t know what she saw in his expression. He couldn’t even feel his face at the moment, but her shoulders slumped.

“It wasn’t me, I swear. I didn’t say a word.”

“So you admit it’s true?” William’s voice was a low growl. Emma continued to ignore him, gaze fixed on Josh. She took another step closer, her eyes welling, lips trembling. He might as well have been a statue. He wasn’t sure he even remembered how to breathe.

Her pale, slender hands rose and gripped the front of his shirt. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “Josh, I... Please believe me. I know, god, I know I screwed up
so
many times. I never should have listened to my brother. It’s just a stupid watch! I never should have lied to you. And maybe I never should have agreed to pretend to be your wife.” She hiccuped a sob. “But I didn’t do this. And... I’m not sorry.”

His brow furrowed as he tried to understand her frantic words. Why was she not sorry? As if divining his train of thought, Emma continued, clutching his shirt in fistfuls.

“I’m not sorry about any of it. Because otherwise? Otherwise, I never would have been anything but your party planner. I know you think I tricked you, that Madame Butterfly wasn’t me. But it was! Everything about her is part of me. The mask just let me show another side of myself. I’ve been more me with you than ever before in my life.”

The whispers of the crowd grew louder. Josh’s brain, still short-circuiting, vaguely registered the presence of people around them, some of them with cell phones raised. Emma was oblivious, more words spilling from her sweet, pink mouth.

“I didn’t go to the papers, Josh. I wouldn’t, because it means this is over, and –” She choked on a sob, green eyes bright as emeralds and sparkling with tears. “I don’t want it to be over. I love you.”

He watched her lips shape the words, stunned to hear them drop from her mouth. She
loved
him? Like, forever kind of love? Maybe she just thought this was the best way to save face with Ransler.

She promised she wasn’t going to lie to you anymore
, his inner voice reminded him. Not that he’d needed to hear it. Because, as he’d so recently realized, he trusted her. And now, if she was saying she loved him...

Emma was shaking. Not only could he see it, Josh could feel the tremors reverberating up her arms and into his chest. His heart squeezed and thumped beneath her hands, the bolt of lightning that had struck him earlier crackling there.

This day was beyond surreal.

Josh knew he had to respond, though his mind was still a clean, white, empty page. He willed his jaw, clenched tightly shut, to unhinge. It didn’t. He frowned.

The longer the silence stretched, the faster the tears slipped down Emma’s cheeks. Finally, Josh cracked his jaw. “Emma, I...” He trailed off. Now that he could speak again, he didn’t know what he wanted to say. The circuits in his brain were still sputtering and jumping.

Sniffling, she let go of his shirt and began backing away. The gape-mouthed expressions of the people around them would have been amusing if he wasn’t so focused on her. He lifted a hand, but she was already out of reach. “Wait.”

She shook her head, her dark hair, loose for a change, drifting softly around her shoulders. Emma pushed into the crowd, which parted around her as she stumbled back toward the parking lot. Ransler was still scowling, brows low as he glanced back and forth between Josh and Emma. Like Emma had before, Josh ignored him.

By the time she’d made it to the equipment trucks, Todd was at her side. Her brother slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side, tossing an enigmatic green gaze over his shoulder at Josh.

Everyone was silent as he watched them leave. “Hell.” It was the only word he could think of to describe how he felt at the moment. He was pretty sure that roasting in eternal hellfire while the devil jabbed a pitchfork into his ass wouldn’t be nearly as painful or distressing as his life felt right at this moment. He thought he might even feel the sting of tears in his eyes.

Surprisingly, it was William Ransler who put a hand – almost comfortingly – on his shoulder. “Son, why don’t you come back to my trailer. I’ve got some Lagavulin. We can talk.”

“About what?” Josh’s voice was a rusty screen door. He couldn’t imagine what else the older man could possibly have to say to him. And he sure as hell couldn’t think of a word to say in his own defense. Emma loved him? The thought was... too big. William actually chuckled.

“Fake relationships and real marriages.” He tugged Josh the few steps to his still open trailer door, and led him inside.

***

Emma scowled at the list of upcoming events she needed to write up press releases for. Fall would be here before they knew it, and there were an endless round of wine tastings, Labor Day events and Halloween parties to deal with. Not to mention Thanksgiving and Christmas were on the horizon. Sure, it wasn’t even September yet, but you had to plan ahead when you worked in the party planning business. Picture Perfect had to be... well, perfect.

She should inventory the stock in the warehouse too, and make sure they had enough... something. Tears stung her eyes and the back of her nose again, for what had to be the seventeenth time that day. And it wasn’t even lunch.

“Better than yesterday,” she reminded herself, sniffing. And that was true. Yesterday she’d run to the bathroom crying three times already by this point in her day.

It would get easier, she knew, though it didn’t feel like it right now. She’d fallen in love with her fake husband. And she hadn’t realized she was in love with him until the minute their scam was revealed. Then, she’d confessed said love to said the aforementioned fake husband on a film set and he’d rejected her in front of the entire cast and crew, including the stupid super star they’d pretended to be married for.

This whole thing was William Ransler’s fault.

Hot liquid trails burned their way down Emma’s cheeks. Whimpering, she pawed at the tears and angrily wiped them on her sleeve. She was not going to break down again. She was
definitely
not going to lock herself in the bathroom again. She was moving on.

Her coworkers were all walking on eggshells around her already, and she’d only been back at work for two days. And lord bless Clarice Davenport for taking her back the moment she’d gotten Emma’s hollow voiced call at nearly midnight the night Emma had left Josh’s house. The house she’d, ridiculously, come to think of as her own.

She missed Chewie’s soft puppy snores. Cooking dinner last night in her tiny kitchen only reminded her of the enormous kitchen at the mansion, and Tina’s sunny smile as she fixed breakfast and said ‘Mornin’, Mrs. O. Sleep well?’

She missed the warm, solid weight of Josh beside her in bed.

Emma’s breath hitched. She couldn’t bear to think even one thought about Josh, or they’d snowball and she’d be buried in an avalanche of memories and spend another afternoon weeping in the bathroom.

Her cell phone rang and she winced, ignoring it. She needed to get a new number. Ever since the story went viral, and some horrible person had posted her tearful confession to Josh on YouTube, she’d been hounded endlessly by the press.

Only here at work did she get even the slightest amount of peace. Todd tried his best to keep the reporters at bay, but they’d been camped around her little house on Montecito day and night.

Clarice had put a security guard at reception, and Emma wasn’t doing client intake, so anyone asking for her was turned away. She spent the last day and a half, when she wasn’t crying in the bathroom, doing paperwork.

Eventually, the furor would die down. Some other scandal would come along. Hollywood had a short memory. Emma wished she could say the same.

But no. She be stuck for the rest of her life reliving the look on Josh’s face when she’d reached the film set. Shuttered, blank, unfeeling. Not only had he already known about the article, but from the hard glitter in his blue-green eyes as he stared down at her, she was pretty sure he thought
she
had sold the story. Just like Lolly. She wasn’t even surprised, really. Josh had always been clear about not trusting her.

And then, when she’d confessed that she loved him, he’d just... stared. As if the very idea that she could have feelings for him was so absurd that he couldn’t even process it. When he’d finally managed to speak, the low, pitying tone of his voice was enough to tell her he didn’t feel the same.

Of course he didn’t. He didn’t trust her, and he’d always said he couldn’t love someone he didn’t trust.

She couldn’t hold back the ragged sobs anymore. Once again, Emma bolted down the hall to the ladies’ room and locked herself inside, letting the tide of grief wash over. Thankfully, no one was inside this time. Yesterday, she’d bowled into Sascha Cadigan as she’d dashed into the restroom with her hand over her mouth to muffle the sobs.

The redhead’s smile looked sympathetic, but her eyes gleamed with a sort of wild satisfaction at Emma’s misfortune. Because Emma had interrupted her attempted seduction of Josh the first day he’d visited the Picture Perfect offices, no doubt.

It didn’t matter. The other woman’s cattiness couldn’t hurt her any more than she was already.

With her forehead pressed to the cool metal of the stall door, Emma cried. She cried until her head throbbed and her throat ached. She squeezed her eyes closed as she pictured her future. Without Josh.

How had she been so stupid? So blind? It had been willful denial, she knew. She’d wanted to ignore her feelings because loving Josh scared the hell out of her. Loving someone meant that they had the power to destroy you, just by going away. Just like he had done. Josh wasn’t dead – thank god! – but she’d never see him again. Even if he found out that she hadn’t sold the story to the tabloids, their fake marriage was still over.  The imaginary life they’d built together over the last month was gone.