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She’d been trying to get me to interview her on the red carpet for years and had gone so far as to have her uncle try to pull strings to make it happen. Hell would freeze the fuck over before I ever spoke to her on camera. Most of the people at my network assumed it was because I hated feeling forced into anything. Although I was a real dick about stuff like that, the reason I steered clear of Kerri’s crazy ass was due to the fact that my boss detested her entire family and for good reason. Having her uncle reach out to him to try to get her an interview hadn’t done a bit of good. Her piece of shit uncle knew damn well his family would never, ever be welcome on our network—he had balls even trying.
“What do you want, Kerri?” My tone was a clear indicator of my annoyance. Where she was concerned, I gave zero fucks.
Aside from the fact that she annoyed the ever-loving fuck out of me, my least favorite thing in Hollywood were people who felt entitled to anything and everything they wanted. Kerri was among the worst, and everyone knew it. She wouldn’t have been able to book a gig as an extra without her uncle’s influence.
“Why aren’t you hosting the after Oscars rundown?” she asked, completely ignoring the fact I was scowling at her.
The answer was none of her damn business. My missing the Globes had been a last-minute thing. Because of that, we’d scrambled to find someone to fill my shoes. The comic we’d chosen was a horrible choice, and she’d bombed. Hard.
For most people, that would’ve felt like a win as far as job security went, but being Mr. Hollywood wasn’t my end goal. I wanted someone to be able to take over when it was time for me to move up, so in the aftermath of the Globes disaster, my team and I had gone looking for three people to bring on board. The three people in question were currently hosting the after show, and I hoped they were killing it. That the phone in my pocket wasn’t buzzing with holy shit the ship is going down texts was a good sign.
“We hired new people to take that portion of the night over,” I told Kerri.
“Was there an open casting call for that?”
The answer was no, and she was the reason. Instead of answering, I shrugged.
“Since you’re here tonight, I assume James is okay. How is his recovery coming along?” she asked.
I clenched my jaw to hold back a string of curses. Like she fucking cared.
“Everything is fine,” I answered stiffly.
“I’m surprised it didn’t get more coverage,” she said, her voice sharp. “My uncle asked around when he heard he was out of commission. He was told James had a heart attack.”
She said it like it was a statement, but I saw it for what it was—a question she wanted answered. The urge to tell her to mind her own goddamn business was strong, but I knew that would result in more interest from her.
“It was,” I confirmed.
She searched my face for a moment before she nodded. I knew she was trying to discern if I’d just lied to her. She was right to doubt me because my answer was bullshit, but she and her family would never get information about James from me.
“I’ll tell my uncle to send flowers.”
When I felt my eye twitch, I knew I was dangerously close to telling her to eat shit. Therefore, I simply said, “Whatever.”
I’d warn the staff at James’s house that if flowers came from the Montagues or Andersons, they should be thrown away. The absolute last thing James needed was a reminder of that family.
Kerri pursed her lips and pouted at me, annoyed with my monosyllabic answers.
“I’m starting to suspect that you’re freezing me out on purpose, Vaughny. I don’t know why you’d do that when I’ve been so, so nice to you,” she purred.
My skin crawled at the implication in her words. I’d never laid a finger on Kerri Anderson. If we were the last people on earth, and my job was to repopulate the world with her, I’d stay celibate until I died.
Having had enough, I rolled my eyes at her. “Goodbye, Kerri,” I said as I turned away from her. As I did, I looked down at Allie and saw that the look on her face was one of disgust.
Fuck. I really hoped she hadn’t jumped to the wrong conclusion based on Kerri’s nowhere near reality insinuation.3Allie“Vaughny?” I echoed, wrinkling my nose as though I’d smelled something foul.
Kerri was a spoiled brat who’d never grown past her mean girl days back in high school. She’d been a pain in Morgan’s ass ever since they played fraternal twin sisters on a soap opera years ago. It’d killed me that I hadn’t been able to do anything to help my best friend since Kerri’s uncle was a bigwig producer, and I was a nobody. We stayed away from her as much as we could, but Hollywood was smaller than it seemed, so it was impossible to avoid her completely.
