Forever, Jack (11 page)

A small drop of tension slowly seeps from my shoulders.

Audrey looks spitting mad.

Andrew looks to Duane, who nods. “So given that we’d like to protect both of your reputations, and by extension the brand of the
Warriors of Erath
franchise, Ms. Lane will not make
any
accusations of infidelity toward Mr. Eversea. And in return, Mr. Eversea will not enter into any other relationship for the remainder of the contract term.”

Shit
.

My mind is churning. No relationships for the rest of the contract. That’s at least four or five months.

Fuck.

Unreasonable
Andrew looks at both of us, in turn, for a reaction to his proclamation that neither of us can date. At all.

I can see Audrey is bristling, but she’s also quietly smug at winning that round.

No relationships, means no relationships. It means, really and truly, any idea of going back to Butler Cove and figuring things out with Keri Ann may be impossible in the near-term. But surely I can at least go there. Briefly. It doesn’t need to be common knowledge. I’ll have to do a better job at hiding it.

Audrey is clearly on my wavelength. “Wait,” she says, her eyes glinting. I tense further. “If Jack is photographed with
any
girl on more than one occasion, then I will consider, and Peak should too, that he hasn’t held up his end of this deal.”

And I’m sure she’ll make sure there are photographs.

“That sounds tricky. That could easily occur incidentally, too much room for error for us to add that into a contract.”

Thank you, Andrew.

“Fine.” Audrey sticks her chin up. “Then he has to stay away from Keri Ann Butler, specifically.”

God, she’s a bitch.
I try to stop my jaw dropping.
“Wow, Audrey, I never knew you to be so threatened.” I pause and swallow. “Don’t worry, she’s more of a person than you or I put together. You should congratulate yourself, I’m not sure she’d have me anyway after the stunt you engineered.” My chest tightens with rage, and I’m curling and uncurling my fingers under the table.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Sheila interjects, shooting me a warning look and then looking at Andrew. “But Mr. Eversea would like any and all copies of the photographs that Ms. Lane ordered taken without Mr. Eversea’s permission that include both himself and Keri Ann Butler. I’m sure you’ll agree that in accordance with this
amended
contract and to
protect the brand
, the new terms should specify that they should be removed from potential circulation?”

Andrew is nodding, I think, but I barely notice. It’s sinking in that Keri Ann and I are probably done. Done before we got a second chance. Wow. There’s nothing like being told you can’t have something, to really bring the loss home. I release a long breath from my crushed chest, and I’m almost surprised when I don’t hear it whistling through the cracks. Getting to my feet again, I pace back to the window. This room is as suffocating as the dense smog outside.

“I think that would be fair,” Andrew says.

“How is that fair?” Audrey gasps. “That’s my leverage. What about … my safety?” she corrects herself, quickly.

I glance back at her with narrowed eyes. She really is a piece of work.

Seriously
? No one in the room believes her, but she’s still beating this horse.

“Audrey—” Her agent admonishes her.

“Yes,” Andrew cuts back in, “we can address your
safety
issue. We’d like to offer to move Mr. Eversea out of the country for the remainder of the time on the contract. We have a project we could use his help on, in England actually, which we will discuss with him offline after the close of this meeting.”

I turn my head to look at him, gritting my teeth, trying hard to remain impassive. Every damn time someone opens his or her mouth, the hole I’m in gets deeper. I vow to myself then and there that I will
never
get into a situation where someone can control me like this ever again. It’s a promise that burns through my gut like a red-hot cattle poker.
Never
.

Audrey casts her eyes about. I guess she’s trying to work out if I’m being given an advantage. Another project. If she’s being passed over? God knows.

“Do we have an agreement?” Andrew asks.

I turn around and see Sheila give me an almost imperceptible nod. “Yes, fine with me,” I say to Andrew, and then nod at Duane and look at everyone. “Whatever we need to do to move past this quickly and efficiently is fine by me.”

“Well, it’s not fine with me!” Audrey bursts out, childishly. She’s gotten what she wanted, me not to have anything to do with Keri Ann for as long as it’ll probably take Keri Ann to never want anything to do with me anyway. What more can Audrey possibly want?

“Why do I have to look like the evil one in all of this? If we break up now, people will still remember that terrible
mistake
I made. If Jack is all goodie-two-shoes for the next few months, I’ll still look bad. How can that be good for the
Erath
brand?” She points at me then. “And does no one care that I lost a baby because of him?”

My mind churns.
What the hell?
“Audrey.”

She looks at me, stonily.

I lock eyes with her and will myself to be able to see what’s going on in that messed up head of hers. “If you truly lost the baby, I am sorry. Believe me. I’m grieving right along with you. It was my baby, too. But I don’t even know if I have anything real to mourn. And that kills me. I’m sure making me suffer on this topic satisfies you for some God-forsaken reason. I’ve already asked you, no,
pleaded
with you not to control the rest of my life, too, but you seem to have accomplished that as well. Congratulations,” I spit out. “But Jesus, Audrey. You can’t have it both ways. You either don’t want me seen with anyone else, or you do—which is it?”

I have a vague idea based on Keri Ann’s sculpture that she is pretty fucking pissed at me for the way I left. The last thing I plan on doing is rubbing her face in it by being seen with anyone else.

Audrey narrows her eyes and the cunning I see there makes me realize she has probably planned her final act as the scorned woman. And that is to hurt Keri Ann, too. Because clearly she wasn’t hurt enough.

“Actually,” It’s Audrey’s publicist who speaks, who looks like it’s her time to shine. “I know we said no relationships, but I think it would be better to level the balance here and have Mr. Eversea seen with one or two other
potential
love interests. That way,” she looks around the table with gravity, “people can feel a small modicum of sympathy for
my
client as well.” She pauses for effect, and I see the net that was cleverly cast, closing around me. “The only
other
way to garner public sympathy for Ms. Lane at this point is to talk about the failed pregnancy.”

“Fuck, no!” I explode, causing everyone in the room to jump. Anger and panic at this idea washes through me in physical waves. It’s painful. Or maybe I’m not breathing. Either way, I feel lightheaded. I have a mental image of me suddenly, bone-crackingly, transforming into a massive tiger and eating my way out of this cage of assholes. Not Sheila, she can live. Shit, I need to calm down. Keep my head together.

Sheila nods and says, “We have an agreement. Let’s not make it anymore complicated. No pregnancy mentioned
at all
in return for a few staged paparazzi photo ops. No perceived long-term relationships for the remainder of the contract term for either party. And
we
get the existing pictures. Let’s wrap this up. Mr. Eversea has another appointment with his new representation who was unable to make this meeting, but whom I will inform of all the decisions made today. We’ll be back by to sign the amendment and hear about your plans for the project in England.”

I’m unaware of the meeting she’s referring to, but I need an agent, like yesterday. Especially, if I’m about to sign on to another project with Peak. Thank God Sheila is looking out for me. I pull my chair up to the table and lay my head down on my arms. I am beyond exhausted, mentally, emotionally, and because I haven’t slept more than three hours in the last thirty. The sounds of everyone filing out washes over me.

I am so relieved this meeting is over, even though I’m left for dead on the battlefield. All I won was getting Audrey removed from my life.

I lost everything else.

“Jesus, Jack. Why didn’t you tell me?” Devon is staring at me hard when I open my eyes. I’d been lying there on his couch like I was in a damn therapist’s office, letting the last five months of my life pour out.

“Tell you what?” I ask. “That I was a coward, and I should have fought harder? That I was too tired and depressed to really fight? That I was so relieved to get Audrey out of my life, that I let the person I really wanted to be with slip through my fingers?” I sit up. “Because I didn’t want to face the rejection? Because I’ve gotten what I want for most of my life, but I chose
not
to fight for Keri Ann because deep down I thought I would lose?” The truth hits me hard.

Devon is quiet a few moments. “Is that truly what you think?”

I pick up the water, wishing it were whisky and down it. “I don’t know. The reality is that Keri Ann is as far from the kind of lives we lead as one could possibly get. This bullshit
is
my life. I can’t see it changing in the foreseeable future. Maybe I don’t want it to. I enjoy acting. I don’t enjoy the BS that comes with it, but it’s the price, right? Is there really a place for her in that? A place she would want? Deep down inside me I think that if she had the choice, she would choose
not
to be in that place.”

“You think she’d choose not to a famous guy’s arm-candy over being her own person?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you’re right. It’s going to be damn hard to avoid that.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping me?”

“I am. That part is impossible and will take time. But it sounds like what she said was she doesn’t trust you and doesn’t want to risk you flaking out again. Based on what she knows and what the whole world got to see you get up to in England, I don’t blame her.”

“Did I?”

“Did you what?

“Flake out on her. Before? Could I have found a way around the contract?”

“Honestly, England aside, you probably could have handled it better, and told Keri Ann what was going on, but I know Peak, and they don’t mess around. What with the Internet and social media, their movies are mini-universes with interactive experiences, and that means the cast is part of that world too for however long they deem necessary. Gone are the days when people see a movie in a vacuum and go home from the theater to their movie-free lives.” He shakes his shaggy blond head. “Peak does it so well, their marketing machine is one of the best. And they meant it when they threatened you. I would have done the same thing you did—ride it out. I’d say the fact they even amended your contract with Audrey says a lot about the belief they have in you. Although, they did give you a failing project as punishment. They’d almost written it off …” He looks at me gravely. “But you brought it back from the crapper. I’ve seen the early cuts, and Jack? It’s pretty ‘effing’ awesome, despite your drunk ass. They’re talking awards season. You certainly showed them.”

“Seriously?”

“How is this a surprise to you?”

“It’s not. I heard from people. I guess I didn’t really believe it. I was so pissed about being set up and controlled, I may have gone off the deep end a bit.”

“A bit? Dude, I’d say getting drunk and publicly hooking up every night was a
lot
off the deep end, especially when you claim to be in love with someone.”

“C’mon Dev. I told you what happened with Audrey, that stuff was engineered. Staged. None of it was real.”

“I thought you all agreed to a couple of photo opportunities. What we’ve seen over the last few months seems like a lot more than that.” He sounds incredulous.

“It looked that way, I guess. I wasn’t trying to hurt Keri Ann. I think a part of me must have thought Keri Ann probably didn’t even care anymore. I mean it had been
months.
Childish, I know. Being there, in England, is tough for me. I don’t handle it well.”