“Why didn’t you?—”
“I know, Marco.” She pressed two fingers to her forehead. “I should have told you. I made a decision, and I kept it close. I’m sorry.”
He breathed out. “Okay. Okay, listen. We’re going to handle this. I’m calling your publicist right now. We’re getting in a room today, all three of us, and we are going to get ahead of this before it sets.” His voice had shifted into the efficient, moving-fast register she’d heard from him in crises before. “Don’t speak to anyone. Not a journalist, not a friend with loose lips, nobody. You say nothing until we’ve worked out what we’re saying. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“I’ll call you back in twenty minutes with a time and location.” He paused. “And Jasmine? Whatever we need to do, we will do it. You have a career worth protecting. Let’s go protect it.”
She ended the call and sat with the phone in both hands. It was nice of him to say that, but she wasn’t sure her career could be saved at this point.
The entire world as she knew it was falling down around her. She was being made out to be a gold digger on national television. How did a person come back from that sort of thing?
Nate was across the room, his own phone to his ear, speaking in a low, rapid voice. She watched him while feeling out of touch, only picking up words here and there. Was this fibro fog?
Or was she dissociating?
Her phone buzzed again. Eden, this time. She let it ring, felt terrible about it, and still let it ring anyway, because she had nothing to say yet. She was still working out what had happened. Ten days of something real, and thirty minutes of everything else, and right now both of those things were sitting in her chest simultaneously, and the weight of them together was considerable.
The television was off, but she could still see the photograph they’d used. The diamonds, the laugh, the woman who looked exactly like what they were calling her.
Had she thought about the money? Yes. Had it been part of the calculation? Of course it had; she’d never pretended otherwise, at least not to herself. She had a mother to protect and a body that was failing her and a career with a shorter shelf life than anyone outside this industry understood, and a hundred million dollars had been the answer to every fear she had about every one of those things. She had taken it with her eyes open.
But she had also told Nate about the most frightening thing that had ever happened to her. She had listened to him admit that no amount of success had stopped him from feeling like nothing. She had kissed him on a sidewalk in Silver Lake and thoughtthis one is just ours.
None of that was in the emails that had been leaked. None of that was in any of the coverage. The people commenting on her life didn’t have the full story.
And they probably didn’t want it, because then they’d have to go find someone new to vilify.
Nate came off his call and looked at her across the room. She could see him working out what to say, but before he got anything out, her phone rang again.
Marco, again. Too soon for the meeting time. She felt the wrongness of it before she answered.
“Hey,” she said. “Where shall we?—”
“It’s not about the meeting.” His voice was different. The crisis repair register was gone. What had replaced it was somethingshe’d heard from him only once before, the night that indie film’s funding had collapsed twenty-four hours before shooting was supposed to start. Careful and quiet and sorry. “I just got off the phone with the studio.”
Her hand tightened on the phone.
“They’re pulling you from the project,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Jasmine. They cited the scandal and the insurance liability. I pushed back hard, but they have the clause, and they’re using it, and there’s nothing— I need you to know I tried every angle I had, and there was nothing…”
She stopped hearing him after that.
Taylor Hartner. The role that had been hers. The fitness test she’d dragged her aching body through because she’d wanted it so badly her chest had hurt.
Gone.
She became aware that Marco was still talking. She made a sound that seemed to reassure him that she was still on the line. He said the meeting was still on. They would figure out next steps. She was still one of the most respected actresses of her generation. And this was not the end of anything.
But she knew he was lying. Or, at most, being hopeful. Because she used to be respected, and now she was a national joke.
“Thank you, Marco,” she whispered. “For everything.” She ended the call.
Nate was watching her from across the room. He’d heard enough to understand. She could tell by the way he’d gone still.
She looked at him, and the room, and the dark screen of the television, and the courtyard beyond the window. The role was gone, and her career and reputation had just been pulled out from under her.
She’d started the day on cloud nine, feeling like the world was her oyster.
