The Game (9 page)

I had to settle for that answer. Still, it annoyed me that he was out in New York living his life, while I was out here dealing with all the publicity. It was foolish of me. Deep down, I knew that. I was the movie star after all. I'd always wanted to be famous and now I got it.

Rob never asked to be thrust into the spotlight. He just needed a fiancée to keep his mother off his back, whereas I needed one to stave off bad publicity. So it was only fitting that I be the one who had to bear the brunt of press duties. Rationally, I knew all this. But I didn't want to be rational. I wanted to be mad and feel put upon.

Candy grabbed my hand and pulled it toward her so she could get a better look at the ring. I hadn't been expecting her to do that, since she didn't ask, so it was a stroke of luck that I didn't slap her hand away as was my natural instinct. Instead, I smiled politely and tried to sound modest when describing the ring.

"Oooh it's so pretty," she said. "How many carats is it?"

"I'm not sure," I shrugged.

"Did you help him pick it out or is it custom made? It looks very unique."

"It's a family heirloom," I answered.

"Oh, how romantic!" she gushed. "You're so lucky!"

"Thanks," I said.

Candy cut to a commercial break and the interview was thankfully over after that. I pulled off my mic pack and walked toward the dressing room. Arnie and Charlotte were there waiting for me along with one of the PA's.

"You were great out there," Arnie said once I stepped into the room.

I waited until the PA left before I spoke. "Why did you book me on this show again?" I asked shutting the door behind me.

They both looked at me like they were talking to a child. "You know the Golden Globe nomination announcements are in one month. We need to get your name out there so you'll be on people's minds when they make the decision," he said.

"Does that even work?" I asked skeptically.

"It certainly doesn't hurt," he said.

"Not you. You're not the one having to sit through these mind numbing interviews, answering the same stupid questions again and again. I swear if someone else calls me Lady Emilia, or asks me what Rob thinks of this or that, I'm going to snap."

"Speaking of Rob, you need to have a talk with him," Charlotte added ominously.

"What do you mean?" I asked. I suddenly felt a dread forming in the pit of my stomach. Whenever Charlotte looked at me like that, with her arms crossed over her chest, and her voice stern and humorless, I knew something was wrong.

"Look at this," she said, handing me her phone.

On the screen, she had pulled up the webpage of the
Daily Inquirer
. Right on the front page was Rob with his arm around another woman. This one was young and blonde.
Bottle blonde
, I thought spitefully. Her roots were showing. I wondered what excuse he would use to try to explain away this picture. Then I thought idly if I'd look good as a blonde, and immediately hated myself for it.

The picture was a little blurry, with a haze of colorful strobe lights in the background and a mist of smoke, like he was in a club. His face was red and I could see a sheen of sweat on his skin, soaking through his white dress shirt. He had on a goofy drunk smile.

I stared at the picture for a long time, feeling the anger and irritation rise within me.
Business associate my ass!
I wanted to call him and tear him a new one. I took out my phone ready to dial his number, but Charlotte grabbed it out of my hand before I could make the call.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I snapped.

"Saving you from making a mistake," she answered calmly. "The last thing you need to do is to call him while you're still angry. You'll probably just piss him off, and then he'll want to walk out of the contract, and then we'll really be in a bind."

"Fuck that. He's already broken the contract. Did you see the picture? He's humiliating me in front of the world!" I shouted.

"Calm down and stop being so dramatic. Yes, it's a stupid and thoughtless thing to do, but it's not the end of the world. The picture just shows them at a club together. There's nothing more incriminating than that," she reasoned. "I'm sure Arnie can spin the story so it is all innocent."

"He's got his arm around her shoulder and he's drunk," I said petulantly.

Charlotte eyed me curiously and pursed her lips. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous," she said.

I blew out a snort and waved it off. "Please. There's nothing to be jealous of. I'm just pissed that he's gone back on his word. He's basically made me a laughing stock," I said.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked, eyeing me shrewdly.

"Of course!" I said, my voice rising again.

Charlotte had hit a little too close to home. It was already bad enough that I'd admitted to myself I'd begun to have feelings for Rob, but I didn't need anyone else knowing about it. Sometimes Charlotte was too observant for her own good. Thankfully, she let the subject drop, and I had finally managed to get control over my initial anger.

"Why don't I call Rob and set up a meeting? I'm sure we have a lot to discuss," she suggested.

"Fine," I said.

She handed me back my phone while she picked hers up to dial Rob's number. I waited while Charlotte made the call. She was on speakerphone so I could hear the whole conversation. The phone rang five times and I thought he wouldn't answer, but at the last second he picked up.

"Hello?" his familiar deep voice answered.

"Rob, this is Charlotte Hinkel. I'm Emilia's manager."

"Oh, right. I've been meaning to talk to her," he said.

I rolled my eyes and snorted in disdain. If he wanted to call, he could have done it easily. My number hadn't changed in the past few weeks. It was all just excuses. Such a typical man.

Before I could listen to him try to bullshit his way out of the pictures, my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and groaned inwardly. It was my mother. I debated whether or not to take the call. Talking to my mother, or any member of my family really, always led to arguments and hurt feelings. At the last second, I decided to answer. I hadn't heard from her in months and wondered if it was an emergency.

"Hey Ma," I said.

"Gina! It's your mother," she yelled. I pulled the phone away from my ear and grimaced. I didn't know why she always had to shout when she was talking on the phone. It was like she thought the further I was away from her, the louder she had to talk.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Hey, how come you didn't come home for Halloween?" she asked.

"You know I was busy with work," I said.

My mother spoke of Halloween like it was a major holiday that I needed to be home for. It might have been her favorite holiday, but I wasn't about to upend my whole calendar to help her hand out candy to the neighborhood kids. I hadn't been back for Halloween for the past eight years, but that didn't stop her from asking me every year.

"Well, what about Thanksgiving? Will you be back home?"

"I don't know, Ma. It's a busy time for me," I answered.

She sighed loudly.
Here we go
, I thought. I settled myself in for another guilt trip. Ever since I started modeling and moved out to LA and my career took off, all my mother did was complain that I never came home anymore. It was as if she forgot all the reasons why I'd wanted to leave in the first place--the blow up arguments, the years of neglect, dad's drinking, and her obvious favoritism for my brothers. Now that I was in LA, and on my own, she seemed to think that it was all water under the bridge.

"Well, how about this weekend? You doing anything then?" she asked.

"Like I said, it's a busy time for me. It's the start of awards season and I've got a bunch of appearances lined up," I said.

It was only partially true. The fact was, I really didn't want to go home. I'd avoided it for the past few years, and my holidays had been much more stress free.

"But it's your father's birthday. His 60th. Everyone's coming over to celebrate, and I know he'd love to see you," she said.

Shit
! I'd totally forgotten about my father's birthday. I felt a little guilty about that, but not enough to make the prospect of going any better. "I'll see if I can take a day off," I said.

"Your grandparents are coming all the way from Florida for the party," she added. "I know Grandpa Jimmy would love to see you too. It's all he does down in Port Orange is brag about you. You know you'll just make his year if you do come."

That did it. There was no way I could refuse after that, unless I was totally heartless, which I wasn't. My mother was the master at the guilt trip, and bringing my grandparents into the equation was a surefire way to get me to go. They were the only members of my family that I actually liked.

"Ok, fine. But I'll probably only be able to come for the party. I'm already booked up for the week," I added.

"Wonderful! Don't forget to bring that fiancé of yours with you," she added.

"What? What do you mean?" I asked.

"Don't act like that. We all saw the papers and that video of your proposal on YouTube. It's only right we meet the man who you're about to marry," she said.

"I--uh--don't know if he'll be available. He's pretty busy with work," I lied.

"He can take a day off just like you. He needs to show himself. What kind of man doesn't meet his bride's family, not to even mention, asking permission for your hand in the first place?"

My mother was starting to get on a roll. I could tell that finding out about my engagement from the papers and not from me, was what was really bothering her. I hadn't meant to keep her in the dark. It just never crossed my mind to tell her. It was all fake, after all.

Now I realized the error of my ways. I should have known she'd want to meet Rob. We were in all the papers, and of course she'd be curious and anxious to meet my fiancé. She didn't know it was all fake.

"I'll see what I can do," I said.

"Good."

We hung up a short while later, after she went through her typical spiel about me needing to eat more to put meat on my bones, criticizing some of my latest fashion choices, and then delving into the latest neighborhood gossip. Apparently Tony Esperanza had gotten his cousin's wife pregnant.
Wonderful
. And she wondered why I never wanted to go home.

Charlotte hung up her call with Rob shortly after I did, so I never got to hear their conversation.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Not much. We've planned a meeting for this Thursday at your place. He says he just wants it to be the two of you. No one else, so Arnie, Carl and I will not be attending."

"Oh. Did he say why?" I asked, a feeling of foreboding creeping up.

"No, he was secretive about it. But he was pretty adamant."

I wondered what was going on. Was he going to try to end our engagement earlier than planned? Did he want out of the contract so he could be with the mysterious blonde? I knew I couldn't let him do that. It would be disastrous. I had to convince him to stick to the plans we had made, and ride this thing out until after awards season. After that, then he could do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted.

Chapter 11: Rob

Over the past couple of months, my life had been growing steadily more uncomfortable. I couldn't move without the press speculating about what I was doing. Anytime I'd been out with another woman, no matter who she was or how completely innocent our interaction, it was followed by more stories of cheating.

I felt a little guilty about putting Emilia through it, but another part of me rebelled at the idea that I had to rearrange my life completely just because of what people would write. Emilia was more than used to the media scrutiny. I was sure she could handle the baseless gossip.

What had set me off was when the bastards started going after my family. I never would have expected that my family would have to deal with the press harassing them when I had initially agreed to the scheme. One incident in particular still got my blood boiling.

My mother had called me a couple of weeks ago, shortly after I had arrived back in New York. Her voice was trembling as she told me she'd almost been in a car wreck. She said there were photographers who had followed her and had chased her off the road. They were outside her car at that moment, taking pictures of her while she was on the phone with me. I wanted to kill them, but I felt completely helpless sitting in my office in New York. There was nothing I could do then but sit and stew.

Once I'd calmed her down, she was able to get back on the road and drive home. I knew that wasn't the end of it though. I couldn't put my family through that kind of harassment anymore. My first instinct was to call the whole thing off with Emilia. I'd been tempted to dial her number right then and tell her I was done playing at this game. The stakes were too high now. What had once seemed like an innocent way to thumb my nose at my mother had transformed into this ugly, intrusive thing that had somehow affected my whole family.

Just as my hand reached out for my phone again, I knew I couldn't do that. First of all, I'd signed a contract. I was a man of my word, and reneging on deals wasn't something I took lightly. Secondly, I knew I couldn't leave Emilia hanging like that. We'd just gotten engaged, and it would be the ultimate humiliation to have that engagement broken off so soon. There had to be some other way.

Ever since getting engaged, something had changed. I couldn't put my finger on it, but everything just felt more...
real
. That's why I had to get out of LA. I needed to go back to my old life and some semblance of normalcy. It hadn't come as easily as I thought it would.

If I thought the press would leave me alone in New York, I was dead wrong. Naively so. They were waiting outside my apartment day and night. They followed me to work, dinners, even when I went to Roman and Lily's. I could still remember the consternation on Roman's face when I had admitted to him the truth about my relationship with Emilia.