Chapter 35
chapter
thirty-five
Stella
A s proud as I was of Gem, I couldn’t stop thinking about the accident. Reckless driving on the part of the paps trying to get a picture of us aside, the fangirls had taken needless risks to flash their tits at Gem. Yes, I understood that they thought he was Seven and apparently his fans were just that obsessed, but it was a phenomenally stupid idea on their part. They’d nearly died, for fuck’s sake.
One of the two paps who’d been there was under arrest. He’d gotten mouthy with the cops and since they’d had enough to book him, that’s what they had done. Good. Maybe he’d develop a brain cell while he was in jail. Honestly, who was going to buy some boring shot of us in a nothing-special Civic on the way to a date? It was an idiotic idea put into action by some idiotic people. My gut told me Dillon was probably involved and that just made it even worse.
Curled up in a chair in the library, I scrolled through social media on my phone. I’d checked in with Dad but he had a doctor’s appointment today. Mom was back from her break and they both seemed a lot happier for having had the time apart.
Dad had also seen the news reports about the accident and the images of me and “Seven.” I’d messaged him from the crash site once I spotted the press helicopter. So then, I’d gotten a running commentary from him in text messages about the angles from the story.
The next-to-last message from him had left a mark: Just promise me that you know what you’re doing, Shutterbug.
Did I know what I was doing?
What started out as a one-night stand—a very good one-night stand and some lucky shots—had morphed into so much more. I didn’t want to go over the mental list of how much more because it would just leave me fighting anxiety all over again. I wasn’t used to this level of emotional attachment.
By some small mercy, when I had slipped into a panic attack after the whole crash mess, it’d hit me when I was alone and I was able to get through it privately.
If it’d been an hour earlier, I’d have been wrapped around Ollie—who’d been livid when he got back and found out everything that had happened. If it had been a couple of hours later, Seven would have had a front row seat to my meltdown. He’d silently plucked me out of my bed and carried me to his, but I’d been too exhausted to ask what the hell he was doing.
Drained, shaking, and defeated, every muscle in my body ached. I mentally made an executive decision to discuss it with him later since taking me to sleep in his room was wildly out of character for us.
He was gone when I woke up, the only evidence that I hadn’t imagined it all being that I was still tangled up in his charcoal sheets with the distinctive smell of him clinging to my skin—almost like he’d bear-hugged me all night long.
Weirdly, they were all gone today. Gem had more stunt work to do.
“I thought this film was finished,” I said when he told me before leaving the house. Seven had finished his scenes weeks ago, and I’d thought he said filming was complete.
“Pick-up shots, Slick,” Gem said with an indulgent smile. “Seven’s finished all of his principal photography, but with me there, they wanted to polish some of the set pieces. We have maybe another week and we should have everything.”
“Be careful.” I’d worried about the work before. After the accident, I couldn’t escape thoughts of just how risky his job was.
“Don’t worry, Slick,” he murmured before he kissed me. “I have the best reason in the world to come home.”
There was a preview screening for the press for Ollie’s new movie today—two of them, actually, a private one on the studio lot and another larger one tonight with the red-carpet treatment. Ollie had been poking Seven and Gem to make sure I got to go or he’d threatened that he’d take me as his date.
Even that didn’t really help me shake the unsettled feeling in my gut. In my opinion, celebrities courted the press and the public. They needed us more than we needed them. But…those girls could have killed themselves with their actions. The paps could have caused more than one accident. If Gem hadn’t been such a good driver or if the trucker hadn’t been aware of what he was doing, it could have all ended so much worse.
The hashtags about the Harrisons and the accident were everywhere. So were pictures, including swoony comments on them about how heroic Seven was. The perfect man on-screen and in real life.
Too bad he was with such a shrew.
Shrew?
I rolled my eyes at the wildly outdated term, but there was a hashtag that caught my attention: #stellamustgo. That didn’t bode well. Nor did the one next to it: #freeSevenHarrison.
Oh goody, that one was trending. Like I was somehow holding him captive? That was new.
I clicked that one first. The sheer volume of posts, links to other social media sites, reels, clock app videos, and more had me sitting up slowly with bile rising in my throat.
There was intense, and then there was this . All of the messages had a clear theme. They didn’t want Seven back with Clara Belle—not all of them anyway. She had some fans, but most were happy they were apart. They didn’t think it had been a real relationship anyway.
But me? Oh, they wanted me gone yesterday. They’d have happily seen me die in that crash.
He’s a ten, except he has an ugly bitch noose named Stella around his neck.
#Steven is a terrible fate for our man Harrison. He deserves better. She’s ruining him.
Those were mild. The more I doomscrolled, the bat-crap crazier they became.
Stella’s a dirty pap. I bet she has the goods on him.
OMG #stellathedevil is she blackmailing him?
We have 2 #freesevenharrison, have u seen this?
The photo accompanying it was blurred, so I had to click to clear it up. It was a photo of Gem, me, and Ollie at the restaurant when Ollie slid in to join us for our lunch date. We were all laughing, but Ollie was holding my hand.
The replies to that particular image began as angry and descended into vile. Oh and look, a new hashtag. #stellatheslut
If you didn’t want everyone to know what you were doing, don’t do it in public. Celebs wanted to be photographed and they wanted the reputation. That was my firm belief for the entirety of my paparazzi career, and I was unapologetic in the images I sold with that belief.
Except…I didn’t want any of this.
I wanted them .
This was—fuck, this was a mess.
As much as I told myself to stop doomscrolling, I couldn’t seem to come back up from this particular rabbit hole. I ended up on some Reddit board where Seven’s fan group seemed to live. The Stella hatred there was next level.
They had pictures of my car. My motorcycle. Someone had found my driver’s license picture. Were they fucking serious? There was a picture of me in high school in my goth phase that had lasted a solid minute. Every single image included something else about me they didn’t like.
I was too tall. Too skinny. Too fat. My ass was round. My ass was flat. I had big boobs. I had no boobs.
“Make up your fucking minds,” I snapped at the screen. My absolute favorite was that I was a clout chaser followed by a gold digger.
Then they brought Dad and wild conspiracy theories into it, and I wanted to throw my phone across the room. Or vomit. Or scream. Or…run.
Everyone knows that once upon a time, Seven; his twin brother, Gemini; and their best friend, Olivier Griffiths, were the hottest tickets. They got the Snatch Squad nickname because they had their pick of girls. They still could, but Stella is going to drag Seven down. I heard that after her father’s accident, Stella Charles started down the celebrity pap road to make the celebrities like our beloved Seven pay for her father’s mistakes. She’s probably blackmailing him with sex pics and videos now.
Assholes. They were all fucking assholes.
This chick just went on and on. She had so many posts. Oh and look, a special set of links to all her platforms. It was more of the same; the vitriol grew more and more heated the closer we got to today. Apparently, she’d been on a crusade about me from the day the first story broke.
Oh, wait, that was on me. After all, I’d sold that picture myself. Fucked yourself, didn’t you, Stella?
When a video popped up on her feed, I hit play. The woman who popped up lip-synched to some disparaging song with text prompts describing me. Worse, she looked like me. Well, the hair was mine and the clothes looked like...
I frowned and hit pause to look at it a little closer. They were exactly like mine. Had she gone out and bought clothes to mirror me? That was…
Fuck my life. Those were my clothes. Stolen out of my ransacked apartment, no doubt.
“Miss?” The snap of a voice jerked me out of the hellscape I had gotten lost in, and I looked up to find one of the cleaning ladies in the door. I swear, these women had stealth powers. They appeared and disappeared without warning. “I need to clean in here.”
“Oh, sorry. Let me get out of your way.” Probably a good idea to take a break. Empty coffee cup in one hand and the phone in the other, I headed for the kitchen. I had to scoot around her because, unlike other times, the cleaner did not shift to let me pass. Maybe I’d been holding her up enough that she finally had to say something. Ugh.
In the kitchen, I stared at the immaculate state of the space. The coffee from earlier was gone and the pot cleaned out. Apparently, she’d already finished this area.
I needed more coffee, though, so I started a fresh pot. While I waited for it to brew, I opened up the notifications on my phone to stare at the updates to the hashtags that had populated in the last few minutes.
The doorbell rang, and I glanced at the wall monitor. No one had buzzed up to the gate. But the cleaners didn’t either, so maybe it was more staff. I found Jerry at the front door, his phone at his ear, and he gave me a harried look when I opened it for him.
“No, Marcus, I’m not sending them to New York for that opening. Seven already said he would do the Los Angeles, London, and Sydney red-carpet premieres. He’s going to be on planes for four days. So New York will have to be a pass…”
“Come on in,” I murmured softly as Jerry strode right past me. I closed the door, relocking it, and then waited for him to look at me.
“Sorry,” he said, covering the mic on his phone with a finger. “Almost done. Just resume whatever and I’ll follow you.”
“Seven isn’t here. Nor is Ollie or Gem.”
“I know,” Jerry said with a nod. “I’m here to see you.”
That didn’t bode well. Cycling through all the reasons he could be here to see me, I headed back to the kitchen. Thankfully the coffee was done brewing.
“Fantastic,” Jerry said. “That’s what I like to hear. Yes, he’ll absolutely be bringing Stella with him. So they can get lots of pictures. The press is just loving the two of them right now and I have no doubt they’ll be stronger than ever by the red-carpet date.”
I shot him a look. He almost sounded genuine, despite the fake dating being his idea in the first place.
“Sounds good. Just remember what I said: vet the paps we let in. No more daredevils.” Then he was off the phone.
“Where am I going?” I asked. “And do you want coffee?”
“I’d love a cup. I’m supposed to be cutting back.” One of those statements wasn’t like the other. “I’ve only had three so far, so I can’t hear colors yet.”
A snort of laughter escaped me and I poured him a cup.
“You should stay off the fan sites,” Jerry said with a wave toward my phone. It was still open to one of the ugly Stella- hating hashtags. “In fact, I’d avoid anything that involves your name in a hashtag. You’ll never see anything you like.”
“So I’ve discovered. You didn’t say where I was going…” I took a sip of my own coffee. It wasn’t really helping with the jangling of my nerves.
“To the red-carpet premieres. Seven’s star is rising, and we’re really close on that contract. Carriage Pictures is far more amenable to a couple of conditions now, particularly after the accident. They want to lock Seven in.”
“It was good publicity, I suppose.” That made sense. After the car crash, he was being hailed as a hero and the news was gushing over how kindhearted “Seven” was to stay and help. He’d also gotten some calls from a couple of directors that were hot right now, including one that preferred to only work with the same set of actors on every movie. The man also eschewed the studio system and did things his way.
Two years earlier, Nolan Kristoffsen left the studio he’d had a business partnership with for two decades and took his film business elsewhere. Then the first film released with that studio swept all the awards, the accolades, and made nearly a billion dollars.
His call had been one Seven had taken personally, and he’d positively glowed afterward.
“Exactly,” Jerry said. “It’s rising and rising fast. We don’t want it to flame out. A lot of people are going to claim he’s an overnight sensation, but you and I both know this is years of hard work in the making.”
“No argument there.” Seven was insanely dedicated to his craft.
He gave a small nod with a slight smile. “Good, because I need your help.”
“My help?” I blinked. “To do what?”
“To convince Seven that you have to attend all these premieres.”
I frowned. Suddenly that smile on his face was somewhat more sheepish. “It sounded like that was already the plan.”
“It’s my plan,” Jerry said firmly. “Not Seven’s. He’s already vetoed having you attend because he doesn’t want you to have to face that media gauntlet. Red carpets for a movie of this size will be wild, but I think you can handle it, Stella. You’re tough.”
Seven said no? That was insulting. Wasn’t me showing up at these things fairly crucial to the whole fake-dating bit? Of course, we weren’t so fake now…now that he’d been inside me.