Chapter 2 Cynthie #2
Taylor hasn’t been seen in public since the story of the red-hot fling leaked, and for good reason .
The article continues. While Hardy (who allegedly broke off the affair) has made a public apology to his wife, groveling hard in a movingly honest interview with GQ , Taylor’s camp has been suspiciously silent, leading to speculation that the woman scorned is not taking her very public dumping well.
Perhaps last week’s announcement that Hardy’s wife—former model, Karyn, thirty—is four months pregnant with the couple’s second child, has contributed to Taylor’s troubles.
“Yeah, do you think?” I murmur. I gaze at the recent photo of Shawn and his wife at a launch event for her wellness line.
She is beautiful, glowing, and he cups a protective hand over her stomach, looking down at her with immense tenderness.
This is the marriage he told me had been over for years.
He must have known she was pregnant when we were together.
I can feel the bile rise in my throat as I force myself to keep reading.
While many of us were shocked by this turn of events, others were quick to point out that the English rose and former sweetheart of the big screen has always had a taste for the bad boys—most famously when she was in an on-again, off-again relationship with serial womanizer Theo Eliott years before he settled down.
“Shit,” I exclaim. “They’re dragging Theo into this mess now?” I look up at Hannah, who is watching me with sympathy in her eyes. “I need to call him,” I mutter, making a mental note to do so later.
Theo and I split up a long time ago, and now he’s one of my closest friends.
When the story first broke, he sent me a giant chocolate fudge cake from my favorite bakery with the words fuck that guy piped beautifully on the top in swirling vanilla frosting.
I laughed and cried at the same time and ate the cake out of the box with my hands like a bear.
It wasn’t my finest moment, but then I hadn’t been having many of them lately.
I drag my attention back to the device in my hand.
With rumours swirling that Taylor is about to be dropped from her next big Hollywood project, it looks like the turbulent times are far from over.
Sources close to the starlet have hinted that her isolation may not be down to the affair alone—there’s talk that this erratic behavior is part of a wider pattern, and friends and family are urging Taylor to seek help for substance abuse.
Whatever the case, it’s rare that the public sees such a dramatic fall from grace unfolding in real time.
It just goes to show—you really don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, and even the most squeaky-clean of celebrities might be hiding a dark side.
I sit for a moment with the iPad in my lap. I’m sure that I should be feeling something right now, but I don’t. I don’t feel anything, there’s just a tingling in my fingers, and a distant buzzing noise in my ears.
“Cyn?” Hannah says, and she gets up, comes to crouch down beside me, and takes my hands in hers. Her fingers are warm… or maybe that means mine are cold.
Hannah bites her lip. “Please, please don’t shut down.
I’m not showing you this to upset you. I’m showing you because it’s time to stop letting that shitbag stomp all over the life you’ve built.
This? This is so far from the truth it’s crazy.
You can’t let such stupid lies hurt you.
You need to get up. You need to fight back now. ”
Her words are soft, but they’re stirring. They reach through all this crackling anxiety. She’s right. I look down at the article, and there it is again—the candle flicker of anger, the tiniest spark of rage. I grab on to it.
I may have made some extraordinarily shitty choices, but that can’t be everything I am. After all this time, all this work… I can’t let this be what it comes to: me slinking off into the shadows while Shawn Hardy faces absolutely zero consequences.
“It’s bullshit.” I don’t realize I’ve said the words until Hannah squeezes my hand.
“Yes!” she exclaims. “It is absolutely bullshit. So let’s do something about it.”
“Okay,” I say, and then I try the word again, firmer this time. “Okay.”
Hannah stands, her smile is sharp. “Good.” Tapping her fingers across the screen she passes the tablet back to me one more time. Now, there’s another face staring out at me. Jack Turner-Jones.
It’s a recent red-carpet snap, and he’s standing, relaxed, one hand in his pocket, laughing at something.
He is undeniably gorgeous. More gorgeous now, even, than he was thirteen years ago.
He’s filled out for his role in Blood/Lust , packing on the muscle and broadening in the shoulders.
Where he used to be clean-shaven, he now sports an attractive shadow of scruff along his square jaw.
His light brown hair is swept back, a little longer than it used to be, and his eyes—a vivid, arctic blue—have tiny crinkles at the corners that didn’t used to be there. He looks happy.
“I just can’t believe… Jack?” I don’t take my eyes off the picture, unthinkingly touching my finger to his face. “You really think this plan of Gayle’s is the right move?”
“I do.” Hannah moves back to her seat, crosses her legs.
“Let me tell you why.” She’s got her organized voice on, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she considered a PowerPoint presentation to go with this particular pep talk before deciding she didn’t want to overwhelm me. I bet there were pie charts.
“For better or worse, your image has always been the unimpeachable, English rose. Classy, understated, wholesome.” She ticks the words off on her fingers. “It’s an image that we’ve built your brand on, one that people recognize.”
I nod here, because I’m not stupid: you can’t be in this business for longer than five minutes without understanding that public perception is everything.
The real Cynthie Taylor has very little to do with what the fans and the press see.
I may not particularly like the image Hannah is talking about, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t used it to my advantage.
Together with Gayle and a whole team of publicists we’ve carefully crafted this persona over the years.
It sounds cynical, I know, but I prefer to think of it as business.
“It’s exactly why the press have jumped all over this scandal with so much glee, and why it’s not dying down.
” Hannah gestures to the iPad. “Staying out of sight isn’t working, because they’re building stories around that, filling the space with more nonsense.
What we need is for them to see you happy, healthy, thriving. ”
“I get that,” I say, nodding slowly, “but is now a good time to be seen out with another man? I mean, isn’t there a danger it will feed into the idea of me as some sort of… maneater?” I grimace. I hate having to think like this.
“That’s why Jack is the perfect solution,” Hannah says earnestly. “He’s not some random guy. He is—as far as they know, anyway— the guy. The first guy. The one who got away. Gayle is right that the press will go nuts for this.”
I turn this over in my mind. It’s starting to make a worrying amount of sense.
“And,” Hannah continues, “instead of them getting the picture they want—the one of you looking sad and harried in your dirty tracksuit…” The look she gives me here is pointed.
“This is very nice athleisure wear!” I protest.
“… they get a picture of you looking happy with an insanely handsome man,” she continues blithely, ignoring me. “One who has been carrying a torch for you, for thirteen years, because you’re so damn wonderful that he never got over you .”
“Hmmmm,” I murmur. “Yes, I do quite like that part.” I frown. “Except for the fact that it’s Jack. Why does it have to be Jack?” The words come out on a whine.
“Maybe he’s not so bad anymore,” Hannah says diplomatically. “Thirteen years is a long time.”
“Not long enough,” I mutter, staring down once more at the picture of him, at those crinkling blue eyes. My heart beats a little bit harder.
Because of hatred , I tell myself.
“There are some upsides you haven’t considered,” Hannah says.
“Like what?”
“The idea is to get the whole cast and crew back together, so that means working with one jerk you hate, but a lot of people you really, really love.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. Jack’s presence aside, making A Lady of Quality was one of the most fun and important experiences of my life.
“And,” Hannah says, leaning forward, eyes enormous, “the script is absolutely fucking brilliant. You’re going to be thanking your lucky stars they let you out of your Iron Maiden contract.”
“Really?” I sound dubious.
“It’s on there.” Hannah gestures to the tablet in my hand. “Read it and see for yourself. But, honestly, Cyn, Gayle isn’t just blowing smoke… This could be really good for you.”
“Fine, I’ll read it,” I say, “but I’m not making any promises.”
Hannah smirks. “I’ll make you another coffee.”
I curl up in the chair, arranging a cushion behind my back, and take one last, long look at the photo of Jack.
One thing is for certain: if Jack Turner-Jones is going to make a reappearance, my life is about to get even more complicated.