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“That paper,” I add, hearing the venom in my own voice.
The edge I guess I’ve been holding back for years too.
Bearing the brunt of all their insidious gossip. Not just the paper Olivia works for, all of them. Naomi Pilkington and everyone like her, riding on the back of everyone else’s misery for the sake of a quick buck.
I can see Olivia shrinking back a little, looking at me like I might have a screw loose, but I have a better idea.
If she needs some time to find her way between her work and being with me forever, fine. I can easily arrange that.
“I have a place,” I tell her, relaxing and feeling a smugness come over me.
“A loft apartment. You can use it as long as you like, rent-free and with no-strings while you set yourself up. You can have your own column, website, and channel. Everything you need to be the next big thing in entertainment reporting,” I say, feeling my whole body pulse with the excitement of a new project.
A new idea.
A new life for my queen.
“No strings?” I finally hear her ask me, coming closer now and hooking an arm around my waist.
“How about the fact that nobody’s even heard of me and I don’t exactly reek of contacts in Hollywood as an intern for a gossip columnist,” she reminds me.
Giving me the ‘I appreciate it, but,’ look.
I feel a stab of hurt before I feel myself smile. Before I hear the haughty grunt from my own lips.
Leaning in close before I kiss her, I ask her to trust me and remind her just who she’s talking to.
“I’m Jack Mercury, Olivia. And I have more connections. More favors owed… More dirt on half the state let alone tinsel town than you could ever dream up – or your boss. Just say yes. Tell me you’ll give it a shot and I promise I’ll get on my own knees and beg for your old job back if this doesn’t work out.”
My mom always said I was a born actor, and even I have to admit it’s an impassioned speech, but when I see Olivia nodding her head with her own brow cocked with more than just curiosity, I know we’re in.
I have a chance to show her that she’s more than she thinks she is, as well as setting us both up in something we both know a hell of a lot about.
“But today, right now?” Olivia asks me, her eyes searching mine with logistics as well as burning questions.
“You know how quickly a good scandal, real or imagined can burn somebody, right?” I ask her, feeling my lip curl with excited anticipation.
She frowns and nods, agreeing rapidly.
Impatiently, willing me to get to the point. To get to the real reason I’m suddenly driven to ask her to drop her old life and cross over to mine.
Cross over to me with nothing but a feeling between us.
“Imagine, just for a moment that it’s Naomi Pilkington who’s undone. And with the truth for a change?” I ask her, feeling more of my plan rising up inside me as Olivia starts to get what I mean.
“You want me to go solo and expose Hollywood gossip for what it is?” she asks, suddenly unimpressed.
Sounding like the headline that would never be read because it’s just so boring.
So true even.
“If that’s what you want,” I challenge her. “But! It’ll come with the backing and influence of one of Hollywood’s greatest influencers,” I add cryptically, noting the face she makes, squirming a little of her own now.
“I thought you said you had to use the bathroom?” she groans, twisting her face in time with her body, telling me she’s maybe done with enough fantasy for one day.
“So, you can just snap your fingers and set it up so I can publish a truckload of gossip against the queen of gossip?” Olivia asks, her journalistic interest piqued more than her doubt.
“I can’t. Not on my own anyway,” I confess, looking down at my own feet, not needing the bathroom anymore before Olivia bustles past me.
The call of nature reaching her instead as she makes another face and slams the door in mine before latching it.
“But I know somebody who can,” I add with a sly grin through the closed bathroom door, reaching for my phone from my pocket.
“I know just the person who can.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jack
Before I can even dial my mom, my trusty and beloved agent/manager who I need now to be the biggest spill-mouth in all of Hollywood history. Before any of that even passes my own lips, it’s her who’s calling me.
We’ve always had a weird synchronicity but this is crazy good timing and I try and tell her so but she barks at me before I get the chance.
When mom calls and talks over me, it’s always business. And she has her best business voice on right now.
