Glitter on the Web (6 page)

We pulled up to my apartment building, which looked even more run-down to me in comparison to Eli’s Malibu mansion. He surveyed it silently, and thankfully made no move to kiss me again.

Of course, without anyone to witness it, there was no point.

I said nothing as I opened the door. “See you tomorrow,” he called behind me, but I slammed the door right on his cheerful proclamation, which felt more like a threat.

Ling signaled to one of his cooks to prepare my usual the second I walked in the door, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to eat. I just wanted to go upstairs to my dinky apartment and pretend that this whole afternoon didn’t happen.

“You okay?” Ling asked as he boxed up some dumplings. He would make sure I ate something at least.

“Fine,” I dismissed. “Long day.”

He nodded. “You’re late tonight. Two nights in a row and I start to worry.”

I smiled at my old friend. “You’re too sweet, Ling.”

He shrugged off the compliment as he handed me a bag, again, free of charge.

I was starting to worry what it all meant. Was he dying?

He dismissed that, too.

“We’ll discuss it on Saturday,” he promised. “Go. Eat. Take a long bubble bath. But not too long,” he cautioned, since he was the one who paid for the water bill.

I had to laugh. That was the Ling I knew and loved. I took the bag and headed for the stairs. As soon as I made the turn, I realized that the limousine still sat right outside. It didn’t pull away until I had disappeared up the stairwell, away from the day, away from the drama…and away from that annoying, entitled, arrogant king of all asshats—Eli Blake.

CHAPTER
THREE

Because I didn’t go to FFF, Clem came pounding on my door just after two o’clock in the morning. Fortunately for her, I had been tossing and turning anyway, so I was already wide awake. She held up her phone, opened to the PING website. That damnable was photo big as life, taking up most of the screen.

“Explain,” she said at once.

I opened the door wider so that she could come in. “It isn’t what it looks like.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” she retorted before plopping onto my second-hand sofa. “Hence why I need you to explain.”

I joined her on the couch. “Rhonda went public with the truth about Eli. It was PR, pure and simple.”

“His idea, I hope,” she said and I gave her a side-eye glare as a reproach for even asking. “I’m honestly surprised you went along with it.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I muttered as I leaned back on the sofa. “He bought some lipstick and shamed me into wearing it, saying I should at least ‘look’ the part if I’m there to make him look good. Then next thing I know he’s kissing me. It didn’t hit me until afterwards that it was all for show. By then it was too late.”

“Boy, he moves fast, doesn’t he?”

“You have no idea,” I grumbled. “I’ve already seen him naked.” Her eyes widened. “I had to go to his house with him to pick up some of the older merchandise to sell. He strolled around naked like it was no big deal. Probably surprised I didn’t fall to the altar of his mighty penis, so that sent him into overdrive, I guess.”

Clem held up her pinky finger. “So… is it…?”

I shook my head. “The needle dick rumor is just a rumor.”

“Figures,” she said and I nodded. It was clear that Eli Blake had a few reasons to be as vain as he was. “So what now?”

“What do you mean, what now?” I asked. “It’s blown over. We go back to the status quo.”

“I take it you haven’t been online in a few hours,” she said, which made my heart sink.

“No,” I confirmed cautiously before I reached for my phone, which I had dropped, and left, on the coffee table after I had walked in the door. It sounded like a slot machine with all the alerts I was getting, so I had turned it off entirely.

“Who’s Carly?” was still trending, and Rhonda had weighed in to let the world know exactly who I was.

“
Carly is a nobody
,” she had tweeted. “
Just a shill from his agent’s office. He doesn’t even know her name
.
He just refers to her as the office cow
.”

So I had been outed, too. Wonderful.

Even better, she had released some covert video of him talking about said office cow in a three-second looping thing where he’s blow up his cheeks to mimic how “fat” I was, saying, “Moo,” for emphasis.

PING was all over it like the smoking gun that it was. It was proof positive that he hated fat chicks, or at the very least… me… which made all his posturing completely useless.

That was when Clem directed me to Eli’s account. He had responded to her tweet with three of his own.

Tweet One: “
Stop lying to everyone, Rhonda. You know she’s the real reason we broke up
.
You couldn’t stand that I wanted to fuck someone bigger than you
.”

Tweet Two: “
The real reason you’ll never show the full video? I was mimicking you mocking her, because it was ridiculous
.”

My jaw clanked open, especially when I read the third and final tweet: “
She’s always been nobody to you. But because of you, I can tell the world about her at last. So thank you.”

I groaned as I fell back against the sofa. “What the fuck?” I muttered at last.

He had tweeted that at 9:47 p.m. By 2:25 a.m., I had 50,000 more followers, with more @ responses than I could read, including those from his own account, where he had thanked me for a wonderful night, using every kiss/love emoticon he could find.

Needless to say I didn’t get a wink of sleep the rest of the night. I was tempted to call in to work that Friday, but I knew I had to act fast before this thing got even more out of control than it already was.

Having a PING photographer greet me as I left my apartment building the next morning only strengthened my resolve.

Frank, however, could have hugged me. “You brilliant, brilliant girl!” he exclaimed as I walked into the office. Roses stank up the joint, filling my desk to overflowing. Whether they were from Eli, Frank or PING was anyone’s guess. I was unable to read the cards thanks to an onset of hay fever.

“Frank, this is ridiculous,” I started but he wouldn’t hear of it. He ushered me into his office and shut the door. “It’s not true.”

“This is better than truth,” he chortled as he rounded his desk. “This is a friggin’ Godsend. Making Rhonda look like a jealous ex, pissed that she was cast away for a bigger girl and slinging sour grapes as a result, that’s pure genius right there. I don’t even need to know whose idea it was.”

“It was his,” I assured.

“Whatever. It works. Even turning off your social media works. Everyone wants a girl they can’t have. Genius!” he added again, far too gleefully for my tastes.

“I turned off my social media because I don’t want any part of this,” I told him.

“Poppycock,” he dismissed easily. “This is your job.”

“My job is to act like some lovesick decoy?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Where’s the harm?”

I gaped at him. “Hasn’t anyone thought to ask me if I already
have
a boyfriend?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

I stammered over my response. “Well… no… but that’s not the point.”

Frank leaned back in his chair. “So what is the point?”

“It’s. A. Lie,” I said, slowly and clearly.

“What’s a lie?” Eli wanted to know as he strolled into Frank’s office, chill as you please, as if he hadn’t just blown my life apart.

“Ah, look,” I smiled big and fake. “It’s my new boyfriend. Go fuck yourself, Eli.”

“But that’s why I have you, sugar dumplin’,” he grinned. “My new main squeeze, with so much to squeeze,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist and squeezing tight for effect.

I rolled my eyes and stepped away from him. “I hate you.”

Eli turned to Frank. “She’s so cute when she’s coy.”

He stood up and rounded the desk, perching on the edge. “You guys better get your stories straight. I have requests for interviews from at least two dozen outlets. Dixie even called. People want details.”

“There are no details. There is no relationship,” I stated emphatically. “I’m not doing it. No interviews. No relationship. No lying. Period.”

“Of course you will,” they both said in unison, which pissed me off even more.

“If you make me do this, I’ll quit,” I told Frank.

“Carly,” he started, but I spun around and headed for the door. Eli met me there, bracing his arm against it so I couldn’t leave.

“Don’t tell me the honeymoon is over already,” he grinned.

My jaw clenched so hard I thought it might actually lock. “Move out of my way or I swear to God I’ll make it effortless for you to manage all those falsettos you hit.”

Again he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, practically a vice to hold me in place as he steered me back towards Frank’s desk. “Calm down, sweetums,” he crooned. “We can make all this work for the both of us.”

I glared at him. “And just how do you propose to do that?”

He pushed me down into the chair. “Money, honey.”

“Please,” I scoffed. “There’s not enough money in the world to pretend I’m in love with you.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I figured you might say that.” He nodded to Frank, who pulled a folder from his desk, one that had been delivered by a courier just that morning. And I knew that because he was leaving as I had arrived. Par for the course with our business, but apparently now it had something directly to do with me.
Wonderful
.

“What’s that?” I asked, though I was scared shitless of the answer.

“It’s a contract,” Frank told me. I shook my head immediately.

“Yeah, I know how that works. I read the books. And I can tell you right now I have no interest in any contracts.”

Eli sat next to me. “Calm your tits, Carly,” he said. “It’s not that kind of contract.”

“Then what is it?”

Frank withdrew the paperwork and slid it across the desk. It was a standard non-disclosure agreement, which, from my initial perusal of the first few pages anyway, didn’t require anything untoward. In fact, I had signed something similar when I had come on board to work for Frank, to keep the lives and business of his clients confidential.

“I still don’t understand.”

“Eli has come up with a great cover, thinking on his feet as always,” he complimented, giving his client a warm smile. “All you need to do is go along with it.”

Eli chimed in. “Your new role is all about not saying anything. You just live your life as normal, and let everyone else fill in the blanks accordingly.”

“And why would I do that?”

Frank handed over a check. I nearly swallowed my tongue. Not only was it for one million dollars, it was made out to me. My gaze pivoted to Eli, who wore an amused grin.

“‘
Not for a million dollars
,’ is easy to say when you’re not looking at a check with six zeroes and two commas on it.” Before I could ask him where or how he got the money, he explained, “Tempestuous will be using my new song, ‘
She’s a Winner
,’ in all their ads, and I’ll be using their models and their clothes in the video, which we’ll debut on
Fierce
. It’s mutually beneficial for everyone, fat or thin. Even you can’t hate that.”

So it wasn’t exactly blood money. Still. “And what exactly are you expecting for this kind of money?”

“Like I said, it’s not that kind of contract.” He flipped through the document, to the more relationship-specific clauses, that simply said I would maintain the normal outward appearances of a traditional relationship. “All I need from you? Just play along. Show up with me to some premieres. Travel with me on occasion. Hell, you could even move into the house. Be a lot better than the rat trap you currently call home.”

My blood boiled as I listened to him. “I’m not moving in with you.” It took me a minute, but I slid the check back to Frank. “And I’m not ‘playing along.’ The whole thing is ludicrous. Why would you even want me, anyway?” I asked Eli. “I’ve made it no secret that I hate you.”

He shrugged as he leaned back in his own chair. “I could get any girl to do this, including any one of those ten I had you invite to the show yesterday. That was the original plan, anyway. But the fact that you hate me is an asset. At least I know you won’t fall head over heels in love with me, which would make ending the whole thing harder than it has to be. When it’s all over, you’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

“You’ve got that right at least,” I snapped.

“I tell you what… you can even be the one who breaks up with me. Dump me in a most glorious and public fashion. Make me eat my heart out, if you can,” he added with that smirk I swore was going to make me punch him right in the face. “But in the meantime, I need a decoy. And it makes sense that it’s you. You’re not a fan. You’re not famous. But you’ve been in my life day to day for the last seven months. It’s not a difficult relationship to fake.”

“Please. You didn’t even know my name until yesterday.”

“Nobody cares about the details,” he promised. “People see what they want to see, like I told you. And they want to see me with a girlfriend who isn’t a size-0.” His eyes glanced over my ample figure, as if he had the right to do so. “That’s you.”

I crossed my arms in front of me and turned away from his liberal stare. “I’m not doing this,” I told them both again.

“Is there someone else?” Eli asked.

At first I wanted to lie, but I had already told Frank the truth. “No. But what if I meet someone? What if you do? How long are we supposed to keep up this charade anyway?”

Both Eli and Frank shared a look. Frank was the one who said, “A year.”

My heart sank. A year? Twelve months, four seasons and three hundred and sixty-five days of Eli Blake? “Are you out of your fucking mind, Frank?”

He shrugged. “A quick affair and they can keep testing Eli’s integrity.”

“Of which he has none,” I asserted, but Frank ignored me.

“A year is a respectable time frame for any relationship, especially in this business. One year of plus-size lovin’ and everyone will believe every word he sings for the rest of all time.”