KASSIE #3
The next twenty-four hours were the calm before the storm. I stayed focused and centered. Read my lines and watched as the scenes were filmed. Checked my phone constantly. Texted Kassie a lot. Spoke with Annie.
By evening, I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe I had been wrong. Flynn never sat on a story—he jumped in guns blazing, so perhaps what Annie said was right. His visit here wasn’t about me at all.
Kassie was in my apartment when I got home, waiting.
I was exhausted, having barely slept the night before.
She pulled me into the bedroom, letting me drape myself over her like a blanket.
She talked quietly about her day, her presence calming me.
I fell asleep with her voice in my ear, lulling me into rest.
Until my phone rang at five a.m. I startled awake, reaching over Kassie to grab it from the nightstand, my stomach already clenching when I saw Annie’s name. It was two a.m. in LA.
This wasn’t good.
“Annie?”
“Stay calm, Oliver.”
“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.
I shook my head as I reread the horrible lies.
It was already out there. And there was nothing I could do to make it go away.
Kassie was horrified at the article. “Oliver, it’s all lies! None of it is real.” She flicked her finger at the screen. “Well, we are, but that’s beside the point.”
Somehow, her words comforted me.
She leaned near the monitor. “How the hell close was he to get that picture?”
“Zoom,” I replied. “I think he was on the other side of the cedars. Probably on a ladder to see over your fence.”
“That’s an invasion of privacy!”
“Something he doesn’t care about. He has no morals. None.”
“Thank God he didn’t get a nude shot.”
She was remarkably calm.
I tugged on the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. I had no idea this would happen or you’d get dragged—”
She cut me off. “Stop it. This isn’t you.”
“But now you’re stuck. Associated with me.”
She leaned on the table, crossing her arms and regarding me.
“So, some asshole tells the world that the hottest man on the planet is having sex with me, and I’m supposed to…
What? Be upset? Offended?” She tapped the screen.
“I mean, I don’t like my private life out there, but I know for a fact that every woman in this town alone will give me a high five for hitting that. ”
I felt my lips quirk. “Stop it. If we don’t nip this, he’ll find out everything. Our past, if he digs hard enough.”
She pushed off the table, heading to the coffeemaker and slipping in a pod.
“Good God, Olly. Everyone here knows our history. They know my legal history. I don’t give a shit what some stranger in another city thinks of me.
Or of us.” She pulled the cup away, taking a sip.
I didn’t mention the coffee was still dispensing into the empty drip tray or that she had neglected to add cream.
“Use your people. Nip it. Surely your name and the she-devil you call Annie have more clout than a small-time rag reporter. Use Davis. Your costars. Crush him and walk away.”
I blinked in surprise and delight. She was sexy as hell when she was fierce.
She crossed the room, standing in front of me. “And destroy that bitch Sheri. She thinks she can attack my man and walk away? Ha. Let me at her.” Then she shoved the mug into my chest. “And that shit is awful. I need a real cup of coffee.”
I glanced behind her, noticing the small river of steaming coffee dripping over the counter and running to the floor.
Wisely, I kept my mouth shut about that.
She was acting tough and brave, but she was upset.
Aside from the weird coffee thing, she was cursing a lot.
Kassie rarely swore. But I did like the words “my man” falling from her lips.
“Davis has already texted. He’s picking me up.”
“Okay. I’m going to bake pies. I need to roll some dough.”
I pulled her close, fighting down the words that wanted to escape. The feelings that hearing her defend me, refuse to back down, or show me how upsetting this was to her, evoked in me.
I love you was right there.
But it wasn’t the time or the place, and I knew she didn’t want to hear it.
“Thank you.”
“Thank me later. Go be Godzilla and destroy it all.”
I kissed her hard. “Done.”