It was over. All of it was over. No wedding. No reality show. No lover. No more ‘honey bee’. They were done. And the worst part was, Lizanne didn’t even know if she was crying because Trina was gone, her because she had humiliated her on her way out.
Chapter 10
Rose
The drive back down from the Hollywood Hills was a slow crawl through a nightmare. Rose steered with one hand, the other hovering near her phone as it spasmed against the center console. Every time the screen lit up, it felt like a fresh blow: a new headline, a jagged notification from a gossip app, or another frantic check-in from Kayla.
She’d just dropped Daisy off at daycare when the first notification had come. She didn’t know how many there were now.
She reached the bottom of the canyon and pulled the car into a dirt turnout near a row of mailboxes. The noise was too much to process while moving. She tapped the notification from theL.A. Gazette, her pulse loud in her ears.
BREAKING: KATRINA HOLMES SPOTTED LEAVING SHARED HOME WITH CONNORS. SOURCES SAY WEDDING IS OFFICIALLY CANCELED.
The words were like a gut punch, pinning her to the driver’s seat. Her phone shrieked again. Quinn.
“Tell me you’re watching!” Quinn’s voice was high, vibrating with an adrenaline that made Rose’s stomach turn. “Rose, it’s a bloodbath. Trina and Marcus Lance—there’s video from a club in West Hollywood. They’re coming out of a side exit like they’ve been married for a decade. And the best part? Marcus Lance! The guy whose birthday partyyouplanned. You practically choreographed the affair!”
Rose leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. The plastic was scorching from the afternoon sun, but she didn’t pull away. “Quinn, stop.”
“Everyone is losing it. The blogs say it’s been going on since March. Eight months, Rose. It’s brutal.”
“I know,” Rose said. “I just dropped off Daisy and was on my way there. There was no point driving up the hill, there are cars everywhere. News vans. It’s a mess.”
“Well, yeah, the house is a fortress. But man, theWedding of the yearis a smoking crater. Holy shit!”
“The wedding is off, Quinn.” She forced the words out, trying to anchor herself to the reality of her bank account. “Which means I’m out of a job. The biggest contract of my life just evaporated.”
The line went quiet. She could hear the shift in his breathing as the gossip-high finally cooled. “Oh. Right. I... I didn’t think of it that way. Rose, I’m sorry. I got caught up in the drama.”
“Other people’s drama. I have to go.”
She sat in the silence of the car long after she hung up. Her mind drifted back to the vineyard. The look of hurt when Trina had left and the way Trina hadn’t been interested in anything much. She wasn’t sure if she should feel sorry for her or not. Had she been clueless? Or was this some sort of deal?
Hope sparked. Maybe this was an arrangement that wasn’t meant to go public. Maybe there would be a wedding after all. Celebrities weathered worse storms than this. Plus, they hadn’t caught Trina and Marcus actually making out. The affair wasn’t confirmed.
Was it?
Rose put the car in gear and drove toward her apartment. The streets of Los Angeles remained stubbornly normal. People walked dogs; they sat at cafes; they waited for buses. It felt wrong that the sun was still shining when her future had just been erased.
The air in her apartment felt stale, heavy with the scent of unwashed dishes and old popcorn. She sat at the small desk in the corner of the living room and flipped open her laptop.
The numbers on her business banking portal were the only thing that didn’t lie. Her contract with Pat was ironclad: a 20% non-refundable deposit. That money was already there—more than she had seen in one place in years. But it would only make a small dent in the debt she owed to Meridian and her credit cards.
She pulled out her phone and texted Pat.
Do I assume the wedding is canceled?
There was no answer. Irritated, she turned on the TV. The entertainment channels were full of the news. The more she watched, the more the glimmer of hope she’d felt evaporated.
There was footage of Trina coming out of some apartment in Beverly Hills and then…the questions:
Are you still getting married in three weeks?
Rose held her breath. Trina had seen Lizanne. Maybe they had sorted it out?
Trina turned, lifted her sunglasses and shrugged. “Not a chance.”
Not. A. Chance.
