Chapter 21 #2
“Please don’t do this,” I begged, deliberately placing my buzzing phone in my pocket. “It was just a miscommunication. I’ll make sure Gloria doesn’t overstep again. When I said that—what you heard when you got here, I wasn’t criticizing or—”
“It’s okay,” Joan repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.
But none of this was okay.
“No.” I could hear a desperate edge in my voice, feel it reflected in my thundering pulse. I was grasping, trying to hang on to smoke.
And she was already gone.
“I know you didn’t mean anything by it when you called me a farmer,” she said. “It’s the truth.”
“Right, but—” I tried again.
“It’s not a surprise to me. I’ve always known exactly who I am, Ian. And now you do, too.”
Her face was a mask, closed off and impatient. The words, the final nail in the coffin. Joan hated wasting time. I knew this about her. And it was clear that she wouldn’t be wasting any more of it tonight on me.
I could feel her writing me off—in her heart, in her mind, in her whole fucking life.
My phone would not stop buzzing. The sound was stark, offensive.
“You should go,” she said. “It’s your big night.”
Everything about her, from the severe frown on her face to the tight set of her shoulders, screamed that she was worn thin and jagged around the edges, like a dry ink pen scratching across paper, with nothing left to give.
I stared at her, trying desperately to figure out what to say, how to fix this. But she wasn’t even looking at me anymore.
The urge was there to take her hand, to hug her, kiss her. But this fucked-up disaster made it feel like the last night I might get to do any of those things, and I didn’t want it to be like this.
So, with pressure building behind my sternum, I opened the door and stepped out.
Darren waited a few feet away. He must have caught up with me.
Eddie J came over immediately, shutting the door and straightening my tie. “You’d better get back over there. She’s blowing me up now, too.”
I could hear his phone vibrating with angry accusation.
“I don’t want to leave her,” I said hoarsely. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”
My assistant sighed. “I know. But you are contractually obligated to be at this event. I will make sure she gets back to the beach house safely. I promise. I’ll take care of her.”
Resigned, I stepped away. Darren led me down a more direct route to the theater. We didn’t talk, and I was grateful. I felt hollowed out and so damn angry at myself for letting this happen.
All the inner rage found a new target when we stepped inside. Gloria waited in the lobby.
She was already talking, but I didn’t hear the words.
“You’re fired,” I told her.
My manager abruptly stopped speaking and glanced around us. She urged me away from the crowd, and I followed.
“You cannot be serious,” she hissed when we had relative privacy. “All of this over some farmer and a spray tan. Over someone who doesn’t even—”
“Not another word about Joan,” I said, and I thought it was a miracle that I sounded so calm. “You’ve done enough.”
Gloria’s dark eyes narrowed to slits. She opened her mouth, presumably to deliver another zinger, but instead I lowered my voice and said, “Not another word at all, or I’ll tell everyone how petty and jealous and vindictive you are.
How all your girls’ girl empowerment is just bullshit.
You were wildly unprofessional today, and this wasn’t the first time.
I’ve overlooked things because you did your job. ”
“My job? I made you everything you are,” she insisted, vitriol leaking out of every pore.
“No, you haven’t. I’ve gotten where I am on my own talent and hard work.
I was your only client for a reason. I was the only one who’d put up with you, and you made enough money off of me to set yourself up for life.
But you’ve always had a bad habit of ignoring what I want.
You made decisions behind my back. You worked for your own best interests.
You didn’t support me in assuming custody of Georgie.
You told me my nephew would negatively impact my career and to let someone else who didn’t have eighty-eight million followers raise him.
And tonight . . . you probably cost me the only other thing that’s ever mattered to me. ”
With that, I stepped around my former manager and went back to work.
My stomach sank as soon as I walked into the beach house. I knew she wasn’t there.
Joan’s things were gone, and my sweatshirt that she’d worn was folded neatly on the end of my bed.
It had been na?ve to imagine that this might have been a fun night of dress-up and playing pretend.
Bringing a date to any event meant drawing attention.
Even if everything had gone to plan—the optimistic, unrealistic one in my head—I still would have been exposing Joan to widespread judgment and media attention.
What had I been thinking?
Maybe I’d wanted the whole world to know she was mine. Maybe I’d wanted her to know it, too.
But that had been a cowardly and selfish way to go about it—vicious, too. Throwing Joan into shark-infested waters without a life raft.
I rubbed a hand over my jaw in mute frustration as I took in the emptiness of the beach house.
I hadn’t looked out for her. Hadn’t taken care of her the way I’d promised. She’d been insulted, humiliated, and angered, rightfully so. I’d ruined more than an idealistic night out, more than our public debut.
I’d ruined everything.
It was late, but I pulled out my phone.
I paced in the kitchen as I waited with my device pressed to my ear.
She answered on the fourth ring. “Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
I toyed nervously with the elastic around my wrist. “Can I ask where you are?”
A beat of silence. “I’m at the airport.”
“I’ll come there. We can talk. Please don’t leave this way.”
I was halfway down the stairs to my garage when she said gently, “No.”
My feet slowed to a stop.
“I need some space, Ian.” Her voice was soft, but unapologetic. I knew her well enough to recognize how hard she was trying. She was making an attempt to let me down easy.
The phone was clutched so tightly in my hand that I knew there’d be marks on my palm. I made myself breathe when all I wanted to do was argue, plead, and beg on my knees.
I thought of one of our earliest conversations, back in Kirby Falls, running on a dirt path. Joan had scolded me, telling me I couldn’t go around doing whatever I wanted just because I was famous. She’d said that my wants and desires weren’t any more important than hers. And she’d been right.
So, I lowered myself slowly to the third stair from the bottom.
“I’m listening,” I said.
Finally, she sighed. “I think I just need some distance.”
“Please don’t let one thing ruin your time here. It was good. We were good. Even in LA,” I reminded her.
“It’s not just one thing. This is your life.” A very deliberate pause. “Your real life. I just don’t see how I fit into that. Not even with a spray tan.”
Frustrated, I fought to find the right words.
This trip was supposed to show her the reality of being with me. And I guess, in the end, it had done just that.
“I love you,” I told her hoarsely. “I love you, and none of this—Hollywood, my career, the fame—matters as much as you do.”
Joan was quiet. I heard an airport announcement in the background as the weight of her silence settled into every crack in my heart.
“That’s not true, Ian. And I wouldn’t want it to be.
That shouldn’t be what love is. Carving out space, throwing things away to make room for something else.
That’s not love. That’s making concessions.
Building resentment. And even if I understood that sort of love—which I don’t—I could never say that my life doesn’t matter, that my family and the orchard don’t matter, just because you exist.”
“I know. You’re right. I know that. I don’t expect you to change yourself for me.”
Joan huffed a humorless laugh. “There’s some blond hair stuffed under a ball cap right now that would disagree with you.”
I closed my eyes.
“I need some time,” she explained. “I need to go home and figure some things out. Can you respect that? Please?”
“Yes, of course. If that’s what you need.” But my heart was in my throat, making it difficult to breathe.
“Thank you,” she said, and her voice caught on the final word.
“Joan,” I begged.
But her voice firmed itself. “Listen, I’m getting ready to board. Good luck with the tour. We’ll talk when you get back.”
And then she was gone, and I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself.