Page 80 of A Simple Love

“What is it?” I asked, sitting up.

“They posted a story. Full of shit, but there are pictures. I’ll send you the link.”

“Let me get my laptop.”

I sat at the table, switching on the machine, and stared at the online gossip rag and the headline.

Two-Timing Playboy Hitting It “Hart” Again.

I scanned the article quickly, my fists clenching at the lies. I cursed as I looked at the pictures.

Me falling off the horse.

Sheri cupping my face, the background manipulated to look as if it were an intimate moment.

Kassie and me in the hot tub, her face luckily not to the camera, but obviously a different woman.

There was a video of me walking out of the hospital, my gait off. It, too, had been manipulated to make me look more drunk than a man in pain.

The article was no better. I was a problem on set. Drunk. Handsy. Uncooperative and angry that I wasn’t the leading man. Screwing my costar as well as the mysterious local woman. Perhaps others. Seducing my way across the small town. An endless headache to Davis.

I was on a downhill spiral no one could stop. The superstar looking for a comeback and failing. It even contained the pictures of Vic and me in the fucking fountain, stating I was a woman-stealing prick, basically.

And none of it was printed in plain English. The article hinted, suggested, quoted “sources.” There were innuendos and theories. Nothing concrete.

Nothing real.

“Fuck!” I roared. “Annie, I swear to God, none of this is true.”

“I know that. I already spoke to Davis and Malcolm. My team is on it as well.” She paused, inhaling. “I’ll be there this afternoon. I’m leaving for the airport.”

“It’s that bad?” I questioned. Annie rarely left LA. She hated traveling.

“We’re going to contain it. Hit the paper and Flynn with everything.” She inhaled again. “Sheri is involved. She has to be.”

“Because I fucking said no?” I asked incredulously.

“Because word on the street is how brilliant you are in this role. You’re outshining her.”

“So she started a smear campaign? Doesn’t she know it will hurt the film? Davis? Not just me?”

Carl’s quiet remark about snakes not liking to be cornered whispered in my head.

“How the hell are we going to prove that?” I paused as another thought occurred to me. “Jesus, do you think she had something to do with the incident with Rusty?”

“Yes.”

“That’s psychotic.”

“Many in the business are.”

I swallowed. “What do I do, Annie?”

“You go to the set and keep your head up. Refuse to even acknowledge this. I’ll be there later. We’ll handle it.”

I stared at the screen, feeling sick. “Okay,” I mumbled.

“We’ll stop this,” she vowed and hung up.