Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Landon laughed. “It’s not a death sentence, Garrett. Grow the fuck up.”
“Can you help me or not?”
“I don’t think anyone can help you,” he said smugly.
“With Jasmine Portillo,” I enunciated, sick of this shit. So two of my friends had gone from happy bachelors to sodden suckers in the last year. It wasn’t a virus. I couldn’t catch matrimony.
After a few more infuriating comments, Landon told me he’d look into it.
“Anything that discredits her, or I can use to keep Destiny’s name out of her mouth.”
Landon’s eyes gleamed, and I could practically see the words forming on his tongue. Some shit about keeping my dick out of Destiny’s mouth. I didn’t want to hear it. Mostly because I didn’t want to picture it.
Not here in Landon’s little family friendly paradise anyway.
I stood up abruptly. “Thanks, man. I owe you one.”
Landon waved me off. “What are friends for?” he said begrudgingly, as though he were really wondering.
I went out the backdoor so I could check out the progress Emma and Cami were making on the garden. Emma grabbed my hand and showed me everything she’d done and everything she was planning to do in the spring, and it was cute. Maybe having a family wasn’t so bad.
But it still wasn’t for me.
16
DESTINY
Garrett may have wanted to keep me in the dark, but the news that Jasmine Portillo might have been in on Geoffrey’s scheme didn’t stay a tightly guarded secret for long. The media hadn’t picked up on it yet, but the rumors were making their way through Hollywood like a game of telephone. Candy, another party friend I’d barely talked to in the last few months, called me about it first.
“She was the madame,” she said, her bubble gum-sweet voice unusually authoritative.
By the time the rumor circled back around to me, it carried a disturbing new twist. Jasmine had used me as bait. You want to star in your own TV show and make millions like Destiny Pollock? Well come with me, honey.
I squeezed my eyes closed tightly when I heard that one. If it were true…
I couldn’t even finish the thought. It made me sick to my stomach. I also knew it was only a matter of time before the rumor morphed into something even uglier. That I had been in on it. I spent an entire day off curled up in my bed, the covers literally pulled up over my head, regret and shame turning my stomach inside out.
How many times had people warned me to stay away from Jasmine and the rest of the squad? I cringed to think of how I’d snapped at Noemi, who had tried hardest of all to get me to stop. If only I’d listened to her, or my mom, or my agent. But I’d thought it was harmless fun. I really thought that. Sure, it wasn’t going to do anything for my career, but I’d spent my whole life doing things for my career. I wanted to have a little fun.
Throughout the day, my phone lit up intermittently. My mom calling. Noemi calling. A few texts, checking in on me. I let each call go to voicemail and couldn’t even bring myself to open the texts. Once, there was a knock at my door, but I ignored that, too. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, much less see anyone.
And then Garrett called.
For reasons I didn’t want to think about, my heart rose out of the dark cave it had sunk into when I saw his name scroll across the screen. Before I could think it through, I answered.
“Hi.”
“Where are you?” He sounded harassed. “Noemi is worried.”
I sat up, pushing the blankets off me. “Why?”
“Why?” Garrett’s voice was exasperated now. “Because there’s a rumor going around that you were Geoffrey’s yacht girl bait, and apparently you’re not answering your phone or your door.”
“I answered just now,” I pointed out. “So tell her I’m alive and then go work your magic. Make the town think I’m Mother Theresa by this time tomorrow.”
“I don’t work miracles, Dez.”
He’d never called me Dez before. I liked it. It reminded me that I wasn’t some monstrous Pied Piper who had inadvertently led girls to creepy old men with big boats. I was just…Dez.
“I do think you need to be seen with Andrew,” Garrett said, cool as you please. Like we’d never kissed, like he’d never told me not to let Andrew touch me.
“You do?” I repeated skeptically.
He paused, then said firmly, “I do. He’s the right move.”
And I’m not.
It was unspoken, but we both heard it as clearly as if Garrett had spoken it out loud.
“If he even wants to be seen with me,” I said rhetorically. Andrew had already told me he couldn’t come to the Halloween party before this broke. Even though his number had come up on my screen a few times today, I was half afraid he wasn’t calling out of concern but rather to tell me that, going forward, I was persona non grata. I hadn’t even been able to check his text messages on the chance that was the case. I did so now, while Garrett was suggesting places Andrew and I go that we would be seen without it being obvious that we were trying to be seen.