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‘We had a photo taken of us in a pool, big deal.’
‘Ben shoved you away when you kissed him. It looked...weird. And then the next night you were all over each other, and it was almost too much. And the next night Ben nearly punched a photographer—really, Olivia, you have him to blame. The man’s a loose cannon.’
‘No, he’s not,’ Olivia snapped. She turned away abruptly, tried to sort through the feelings churning inside her.
She was angry, definitely, but not at Ben or herself. She was angry with the producers, who were putting her through these paces and for what? Nothing, apparently, since she hadn’t got the role.
She was disappointed too, Olivia acknowledged heavily, because she’d wanted that role so very much. And yet even as she stood there, everything in her taut and tense, she realised she wasn’t nearly as disappointed as she would have expected to be. She wasn’t devastated.
Which was surprising and a little strange, because acting had been so much about proving herself. To her family. To her mother. But Ben had shown her that you really did have to let go of the past. And securing an amazing role wasn’t going to bring her mother back, or atone for her own sins.
Sudden tears stung her eyes as she thought of Ben. They’d spent most of the past twenty-four hours together but they still hadn’t talked about the future in any way. She hadn’t admitted that she loved him, hadn’t had the courage.
She took a deep breath and turned around to face her agent. ‘Well, naturally it’s a blow, but...’
‘Uh-oh.’ Melissa was scrolling through her phone and Olivia frowned.
‘What?’
‘Someone blabbed about the fake relationship,’ Melissa said grimly. ‘And that really isn’t going to be good for your career.’ She looked up at her almost accusingly, and Olivia had to bite her tongue to keep from pointing that the fake relationship had been her agent’s idea.
‘It’s in the news?’
Melissa nodded and handed her the phone. Olivia scrolled quickly through the article, picking up the unsavoury highlights. Someone had overheard Ben talking about ‘handling the situation.’ An unnamed source said Ben had seemed irritated with Olivia, ‘hardly a man in love.’ And on and on.
It might have been an unnamed source, but Olivia had a pretty good guess as to who had spilled the beans. Ben’s crushing-on-the-boss PA.
She handed the phone back to Melissa with a shrug. ‘I suppose it was bound to happen.’
‘Bound to happen?’ her agent repeated, her voice rising. ‘Olivia, do you know how this is going to look?’
Olivia planted her hands on her hips. ‘Why don’t you tell me, Melissa? Since it was your idea in the first place.’
‘Only as damage control.’
Olivia shook her head, too tired to argue about it. ‘It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. And I can guess what it will make me look like—some crazy bimbo who makes up relationships with celebrity chefs.’ Thanks to the ‘unnamed source,’ the article had been just a teeny bit biased against her.
‘You don’t want people to see you as a joke,’ Melissa warned.
‘Of course I don’t. But I also don’t want to jump through any more damn hoops. I’ve been proving myself to this industry, to everyone, for years, and I’m done. Either I’m a good actress or I’m not. And if someone wants to cast me in their film, they’ll cast me because of my talent, not because of some stupid story in the press.’
‘It doesn’t always work that way, Olivia.’
‘Well, it should.’ And without another word, she whirled away from her agent and stalked out of the room.
Her cell phone started ringing as she headed downstairs to the lobby to look for Ben. She glanced at the screen and saw it was Isabelle and offered a silent prayer for strength before answering the call.
‘Hey, Isabelle.’
‘Have you seen the papers?’
