Falling into Forever (Falling into You) (25 page)

“I don’t love you.”

His body shakes slightly. It would be imperceptible to almost anyone else, but I’ve spent the past two years of my life memorizing every movement of his muscles. He’s hurting, and every impulse that I have is telling me to throw myself into his arms and try to forget that this whole night even happened. There’s a good chance he won’t remember anyway. I’m halfway across the room when he turns back to me, his face contorted into a rueful little grin.

“What a sick little game you’ve been playing, Hallie.
”

“I didn’t mean to…”

“Save it. I never want to see you again. Don’t call. Don’t write.”

“Chris.”

“Don’t say my name. Because I can promise you that in a few days, I won’t remember yours. I’m planning to forget that you ever existed.”

I pick up my suitcase
and force my legs, which have turned into stone, to move.

“Take care of yourself
. Please.”

With that, I shut the door between us.

I manage to make it to the elevator before I shatter.

CHRIS

5 Years Later

Chicago

I’ve had five years to think about the things that we said to each other in that hotel room. I’m no closer to figuring out what I could have done differently, other than not letting alcohol and fame turn me into a total jackass. But it was already too late for that by the time we got to London.

The old maxim is that time heals all wounds, but this particular wound has stayed fresh. It doesn’t help that I pick at
the edges every once in a while. I guess some small part of me is still hoping that I can conjure up an alternate version of events, some reality in which she doesn’t utter those words:
“I don’t love you.”

The sun is starting to dawn over the horizon, but it doesn’t feel like a new day. It feels like the same old shit.

I clench my hand into a fist and punch the wall in my hotel suite.

Nothing is resolved. My apology, five years too late, hadn’t magically rewritten history.

Pull it together, Jensen.

I bury my head in my ha
nds before standing up and pacing back and forth. I’ve given her enough time to think. I can’t keep doing this again and again. There’s only one way to fix this, and it doesn’t involve pouting. I grab my jacket, because I fully intend to pound on her door until she answers. There has to be something to say. Anything to say.

I’m halfway to the door
when I hear a voice and the click of a lock.

“
Jensen!”

The sight of Marcus standing in the middle of the room enrages me.
I take the opportunity to use some of the less popular swear words. Even he looks impressed.

“Are you finished, Jensen?”

“How the hell did you get a key?”

“You’re not the o
nly one that can be persuasive.”

H
e’s smiling a bit too brightly, which means that he’s lying. He must be here to see if I had been drinking. I’m some kind of drunk, but it’s from the lack of sleep and Hallie’s particular brand of intoxicant. Not alcohol.

“
Did I pass the test?” I ask sarcastically. “See? No alcohol bottles. I don’t smell like the bar. And I promise, there aren’t any naked girls hiding under my bed.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame, because Hallie Caldwell seemed sure as shi
t bent on finding you.”

“Get out of here
, Marcus. If you came to haul me off to rehab, I’m afraid that you’re probably sorely disappointed right now. Go.”

I glare at Marcus
and slam the bathroom door shut between us. I place my hands on either side of the sink and stare into the mirror. Great. On top of everything else, I look like shit. The five o’clock shadow has turned into a full-on beard. My eyes are wild, and I look like I haven’t slept in days. Which, of course, I haven’t.

“I didn’t come to drag your ass to rehab. We need to talk,” he calls out, his voice drifting out from under the bathroom door. “Jensen. Come out.”

There’s an uncharacteristic seriousness
there. I open the door, but not before glancing at the gold-plated mirror one more time. The mirror and the marble shower look exactly like those in the twelve hotel suites before this one. When did I stop noticing the sameness?

I stare into
Marcus’s ashen face.

“
What is it, Marcus?”

He takes a deep breath and then his phone rings. He glances down at it and then looks apologetically at me.

“I have to take this one, Jensen. Don’t do anything stupid right now. Just sit right there and give me a second.”

“No fucking way, man. Come on, get out of my way.”

He shoves an iPad into my hands. “Sit the fuck down, Chris. Look.”

He picks up the phone with a resounding, “Shit” and moves over to the window.
There’s something about the way he says it that makes me sit down. I slump back into the couch and finger the iPad, but Marcus’s conversation catches my ear.

“
Did you get the name of the guy who posted it? What? Stop. No, this isn’t an opportunity. No. Jeff, you fucking don’t know anything about it, so you need to fucking shut your pie hole before I decide to fire your sorry ass. You don’t know shit about shit. You’re supposed to be on top of these things. It’s been floating around the internet for the last fifty-seven minutes. Do you know how long fifty-seven minutes is? I thought we had a PR team who was supposed to take care of this. But the way I see it, you don’t seem to be doing a very good job managing the crackpots. I can find someone in five seconds who could do better. There’s a desk clerk at this fucking hotel who’s never done an iota of PR in her life who could have done better. There is one thing you can do. Get the security here immediately…I know and I don’t care. This is going to be a fucking disaster. We’re in major damage control mode, Jeff. Call Serafina. She needs to get her ass on this immediately.”

Marcus turns back to me
, holding the phone to his ear and motioning frantically to the tablet. I pick it up and show him the password screen and he shakes his head.

“I have to go, Jeff. He hasn’t even seen it. Yeah, I know. I’ll tell him. If it’s not
down from that fucking website in the next ten minutes, someone is getting fired. You have no idea how much I want that person to be you.”

He hangs up the phone and turns to me.

“I told you that I didn’t want the security team, Marcus.”

“We’ve got bigger problems, Jensen.” He takes the iPad from my hand and enters the code and hands it to me. “Look.”

I take a deep breath.

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah, man.” His phone rings again and he glances once at me before lifting it to his ear. “I have to talk to Serafina. We’re going to get it taken down. I promise. Just give us a few minutes.”

It’s some scandal blog, awash with garish colors and bright headlines, but I’m not looking at the latest photos of whatever celebrity’s miraculous weight loss.

Instead, I stare at the hundred pictures arranged haphazardly around a larger image of Hallie and me standing at the elevator the day before. A knit cap is pulled over my face, but there’s no doubt that it’s me, looking lovingly into Hallie’s eyes. Pasted over the picture, in big, red letters, is a single headline:
Caught in the Act: Chris Jensen and Hero Teacher’s Wife.

I’ve seen mo
st of the other pictures before. They’re mostly shots of Hallie after Ben’s accident and pictures of the two of them together, in addition to stock photographs from movie premieres and the Thailand movie promos and the James Ross set. There are a few that my eye lingers on a little bit longer—a picture of Hallie and me at a party in Prague, a shot of the two of us on a beach, one of us dancing in a Vegas club. Christ, where did they find those?

I give Marcus a searching look, but he shrugs his shoulders helplessly befor
e barking more orders at Serafina. Just as I’m about to rip the phone from Marcus’s ear to demand answers, I see a link at the bottom of the page that stops my heart.

Oh, She’s a Ho
: Hallie Caldwell. A Scandalous Affair. A Secret Love Child?

There’s a picture of Hallie and Ben holding the outstretched hands of a
tiny girl with deep brown curls, but a thick red line is drawn through Ben’s face and mine is superimposed over it.

I glance at Marcus, and the stricken look on his face matches my own
, even as he continues to talk to the publicist.

“
I’ll look. I haven’t seen that one yet. But I have to go, Serafina. Yeah, get it taken down if you can. Yeah, I think it’s probably too late for that. Uh huh. We’ll handle the security. He needs to get out of here as soon as possible.” After he hangs up, he settles onto the couch next to me.

“I wasn’t lying, Jensen. We have to get you out of here as soon as we can.
You shouldn’t read that shit. It will rot your brain.”

He
’s trying to hide the worst of it, but I already saw the headline. And the picture. Just as he lunges to snatch the iPad from my hands, I take it back, clicking the link and holding it just out of his reach.

Hallie Caldwell Ellison is
the widow of Benjamin Ellison III, otherwise known as “Hero Teacher,” who authored the best-selling
Rage
series before dying in the tragic bus accident that captured the attention of America last year. Hallie hasn’t spoken to the media since her press conference she held shortly after leaving the hospital, when she asked for privacy for herself and her family after the devastating events.

The Ellisons
have a daughter, Grace, who is now four years old and has been kept out of the limelight until now. However, sources tell us that she’s the inspiration behind “Grace of My Heart,” the new single from pop sensation
4Sure
. Her parentage has come into question with the recently discovery of photographs of Hallie with mega-movie star Chris Jensen, who is best known for playing James Ross in the remakes of the popular 80s action franchise. FFG Studios, Jensen’s production company, recently optioned the first screenplay in
Rage
series, which Hallie Ellison completed after her husband’s death. It wouldn’t be the first time Jensen has mixed business with pleasure. His latest conquest was Lena Fair, the prima ballerina currently tearing up the stage in
Coppelia
for the
ABC Ballet Company
in New York, but Lena was just the latest in a long line of pretty faces to show up on his arm.

Hallie and Ben Ellison ignited a media firestorm when the pre
ss dubbed them America’s Couple after pictures of the pair from high school seemed to confirm their Hollywood love story without a happy ending. However, Hallie’s been keeping a few secrets of her own. Sources tell us that she and Jensen have been engaged in a long-standing affair that began nearly seven years ago, and that Hallie cheated on Ellison numerous times during their marriage. The two apparently have love nests all over the world, including New York and Chicago, where they’re currently sharing a hotel suite.

See for yourself. But we think the supposedly grieving widow looks all too comfortable in the
arms of the movie star. She seems to have a particular taste for fame, which is ironic given her constant and repeated requests for privacy. But maybe Hallie Caldwell is a better actress than we ever could have imagined. Perhaps Chris Jensen could take a few lessons from her.

We’re currently interviewing a number of sources with first-hand knowledge of the Jensen-Ellison coupling and will report the details as soon as they’ve available.

Stay tuned!

I
hand the tablet to Marcus wordlessly. He shakes his head as he takes in the pictures, but I can tell that he’s not surprised.

“How bad is it?” I ask, sinking back into the sofa.

Despite the horrific headline, they haven’t managed to dig up anything much, other than the fact that Hallie has a four-year-old daughter named Grace who lives with her in a hideaway somewhere. Apparently, not in one of our secret love nests. Shit. A child. A four-year-old child. I do the math in my head with a sinking feeling. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t have that kind of deception in her, unless I had been mistaken.

Damn it.
Why hadn’t she told me?

“Bad. We can try to get the website to take do
wn the pictures, but the damage has been done. You come off looking like the guy who’s been fucking hero teacher’s wife. To be frank, it doesn’t matter that he’s dead. He’s too much of a saint, and you’re too much of a sinner, for the public to forgive you as easily as all that. She comes off like a slut. There’s enough photographic evidence of the two of you from a million years ago that this isn’t going to go away quietly or soon. You have to admit that it looks like what they’re saying it looks like. And the real story is so fucking convoluted that no one would believe it.”