“I know.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “The bigger issue is how the fuck someone even took this photo. I’ll see if they can figure out what the hell happened.”
“Yeah, that’s so weird when I couldn’t even use my phone basically the whole time I was there.”
She gave me one last apologetic smile and headed out to run the errand, leaving me standing on the deck with the ocean crashing below. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and fired off an email to my publicist, agent, and lawyer. Having my photo taken at the social club was bad enough, but that image being used to imply I was cheating on Serena with Maddie was completely unacceptable.
I normally ignored shit like this because I knew how hard it was to control the narrative. Gossip sites were very careful with how they worded things, making it harder for celebrities to succeed in defamation claims. Proving a negative was difficult, but even that wouldn’t be good enough because it was written as conjecture, not fact. And if I somehow managed to pass that hurdle, I still had to prove they acted with malice since I was a public figure.
The best I could hope for was a retraction, so I put my team on finding a way to make that happen. Because I was starting to worry that all these moments I thought weren’t a big deal were starting to add up to something I didn’t want to look at too closely.
9
SERENA
Curled up on the couch in my favorite oversized sweater and leggings, I was going back and forth trying to decide whether I’d made the right call this morning. Maybe I should’ve just had it out with Hudson about what I’d overheard then and there. Even if it hurt, at least then I wouldn’t have spent the past five hours second-guessing myself.
And I could’ve told my publicist to start positioning me for a breakup when she texted to ask if she needed to worry about the photo of Hudson and Maddie that’d hit the internet a couple of hours ago. Instead, I’d just told her to ignore the whole thing, like usual.
With his hand on her lower back and her expression when she looked up at him, the picture didn’t look great. But I didn’t think Hudson was cheating on me. Or that he even saw Maddie in a romantic light at all. He just had blinders on when it came to her, which was putting him in positions where people could speculate. Something we’d both agreed to avoid when we went public with our relationship.
It was impossible to avoid becoming gossip fodder when you were in the public eye like Hudson and I were, but being mindfulof how things could look and being open with each other helped mitigate it.
I’d been much newer to fame than Hudson when we started seeing each other, so he’d taught me the ropes when it came to dating in the limelight, which made it ironic that he was the one who’d messed up. But not surprising since Maddie was involved.
The only upside to the timing was Avery wouldn’t be home after school because she had a speech and debate meeting. I had the house to myself for a couple more hours and was hoping that’d be enough time to pull myself together so I didn’t worry her until I figured out what I wanted to do.
The last thing my little sister needed to see was me scrolling through mean comments online, stifling a sob. I knew better than to look, but the screenshots kept coming in from people who thought they were being helpful.
No matter the explanation I knew Hudson would have, it felt like another piece of my life was being chipped away while he kept insisting Maddie was harmless.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table, pulling me from my morose thoughts. Seeing my agent’s name on the screen, I tried to sound normal as I answered. “Hey, Mara.”
“Serena! Have you had a chance to read the script?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. “I just got it a few hours ago.”
“More like five.”
I had learned long ago that arguing with her was futile. Dropping my hand to my side, I admitted, “Only the first twenty or thirty pages.”
“C’mon, Serena. Read faster. I know you can.”
Her wheedling elicited a soft laugh from me, a reaction I didn't think I had in me right now. “What’s the rush? I thought they weren’t even actively casting yet and just wanted to attach my name to the project?”
“I had my script reader put it to the top of her pile. She just sent over her analysis,” Mara explained. “It’s everything the producer said.”
My eyes narrowed as I tilted my head to the side. “So you’re giving me a hard time for only reading the first quarter of the script you literally just sent me…and you haven’t read it yourself?”
She snorted. “It sounds bad when you put it like that, but between the script my reader says is Oscar-worthy, the producer, and the director he talked to today, who expressed interest, this project is going to get green-lit with or without your name attached. We need to jump on this fast before the opportunity passes us by.”
I thought about what I’d read so far. Even with my current real-life drama, the story had captured my interest. Playing a grieving journalist chasing a story across continents, finding truth and love in the last place she expected was the kind of role that could actually stretch me beyond the rom-com heroine I’d become known for. But I wasn’t sure about throwing myself into a career-defining role when I couldn’t trust the man I loved to stand up for me.
“And they’re willing to do a play-or-pay deal?”
“Of course,” she scoffed. “Would I even be calling you if the 10 percent wasn’t guaranteed up front?”
I sat up straighter, the blanket dropping to my waist. “Okay, I’ll read the rest and get back to you by tomorrow.”
“Good. Hopefully, the lure of an awards-season push that can change everything for you will get your mind off how brutal the internet can be. But these things tend to blow over, especially when there’s no meat to the story.”
