Epic (Fierce) Page 18

  “Take their focus off of what I don’t want them to see. It’s all sleight of hand.”

  I was floored. All this time I had pegged him as some ruthless manwhore when he was just playing PING’s game better than they were.

  “It’s why I tried to stay the hell away from you,” he finally admitted. “You’re like a paparazzi lightning rod. No one can wrap their heads around you, so they pick you apart. And unlike Gemma,” he said, referring to his phone, “there’s nowhere you can hide.” He touched my hair. “And you shouldn’t hide, Jordi. You’re the brightest light I’ve ever seen. You should shine for the whole world to see.”

  I dropped my eyes from his. “I thought you resented having to work with me, since I didn’t look like all the girls you’re always photographed with in the press.”

  He shook his head slightly. “I don’t resent you, Jordi,” he said quietly. “Those were your issues, never mine. If anything, I’d probably want more from you than you’d ever want to give.”

  “Griffin….” I started, but he cut me off.

  “See?” he said with a slight grin as he pulled his hand away. “I decided to hide my family, because that was what was best for my son. But Diego shines even brighter than you do. He’s never going to be happy hiding in the shadows. I think you should go public with your story, love. They’re trying to make you ugly because that’s the box they want to keep you in. Show them how beautiful you really are.” He took my hands in his and said in one fervent whisper, “Win. For all of us.”

  Iris was at the hotel within an hour. She had prepared a press release by the evening news, and fielded every interview request that poured in over the hours that followed the announcement. Even PING got in on the excitement, with considerably less vitriol than they usually spewed my direction.

  FIERCE DIVA REVEALS PRIVATE STRUGGLE FINDING HER BIRTHMOM!

  “Jordi Hemphill, one of the finalists who made such a splash on the first season of the megahit Fierce, made headlines again when she announced to the public a very personal journey. It almost eerily imitates that of the heroine from The Journey Home, the Angus Newhouse film creating a lot of Oscar buzz, especially around the song penned for Hemphill to sing for the soundtrack. As it turns out, Jordi could plumb her own depths to bring this song to life.

  At the end of her tumultuous tour earlier this year, Hemphill learned that her parents had conceived with the use of a surrogate. She quietly investigated her questionable family tree, landing finally in Las Vegas, where she found Maya Palermo and Maya’s teenage son, Diego, Hemphill’s half-sibling. Recent rumors romantically linked the pair, forcing Hemphill to make her private struggle public. Both Maya and Diego accompanied Hemphill to the Big Apple, where both Jordi and songwriter Griffin Slade are scheduled to debut the single with a live symphony. No word yet on if these struggles are driving Hemphill and her boyfriend of record, Fierce finalist Jace Riga, apart as they struggle to navigate careers on opposite sides of the country. Sources close to the couple insist that they are stronger than ever, but no word yet if Riga will show up to watch his lady-love duet with another man.”

  I turned to Griffin with a smile. “Just when I thought they could pull off a factual, relevant article...” I let the sentence drop because nothing more needed to be said. PING was PING. All we could ever do was play defense in our own ways.

  Diego finally emerged from the hotel to join us for our rehearsals. His experience with the ever-present paparazzi ended up being way more positive than mine. With his long, dark hair and brooding good looks, he drew immediate interest from the press and the public. Catastrophe Rising capitalized on my announcement with a record number of downloads. Even Graham offered to meet with him once we got back to Los Angeles, which by now was a foregone conclusion.

  Sonny hadn’t said much, which I assumed meant that he was strategizing on how to make this work out in his best interest.

  He was the least of my worries at this point. Everyone and their dog wanted to get an exclusive interview with me to talk about my journey to find my birth mom. I wouldn’t have agreed to anything had they not interviewed Marianne Hemphill and Shane Pearcy, who suggested that the reason I would want to keep Maya under wraps had a lot to do with her shady past.

  “My husband and I wanted Jordi to know her mother from the start,” Marianne told yet another talk show host. “But she couldn’t stay clean and I had to put my foot down. I had a baby to protect,” she added, clinging with everything she had onto the loving mother label she had cultivated through the taping of Fierce.

  I turned off the program before it ended. If Shane had said anything I likely would have tossed the TV out of the window. Instead I called Iris and told her to book me on whatever talk show had the most credibility. She worked her magic, nabbing an exclusive hour-long interview with one of the most influential women in daytime TV the minute I went back to L.A. the following week.

  In the meantime we had a performance to nail. Unlike the chaos of Fierce, Angus and Griffin made the 12-hour days a fun experience for both Diego and me. Iris stole Diego for one afternoon and he came back looking like a completely new person. He had been completely outfitted and styled, and though he still hadn’t acclimated to all the attention virtual strangers were willing to heap upon him, he was far more agreeable than when we first met.

  He was able to smile and to joke and improvise, the latter of which seemed to impress Griffin whenever Diego would introduce a new note or cord into the song. I could see now that the relationship with Diego helped ease the longing he must have had living so far away from his own son. And Diego attached himself to his idol, soaking up everything Griffin could teach him.

  It strengthened the bond of friendship Griffin and I were tentatively forging. PING still speculated that something was going on between us, especially since Griffin didn’t wear a different girl on his arm every night, but aside from that one moment back in his hotel room he had been a perfect gentleman.

  It made me see that I had filled in the holes of what he didn’t say with all the things I usually said about myself. Since that was negative, I shaded him in a negative light. It wasn’t much different than what PING had always done to me. I knew I had to make it up to him somehow. I put a call in to Graham, and suggested that he recommend Griffin for one of the roles for the animated movie I was due to shoot when I got back to Los Angeles.

  “Don’t tell him it was my idea,” I made Graham promise, and he swore he wouldn’t. But Griffin knew the minute he got the call. He tracked me down backstage during one of our rehearsals.

  “Haven’t you gotten sick of me by now, Hemphill?” he asked as he grabbed a water bottle from the table.

  “Extraordinarily,” I answered with a smirk of my own. “But what can I say? The character is a kangaroo. The actor needed an Australian accent.”

  “Racist,” he accused with a cockeyed grin.

  I smacked him on the arm as I headed back out to the stage.

  By the time the curtain rose that Friday evening, I had never been more prepared, or relaxed, for a performance. Diego and I dedicated the performance to our mother, who had made her own long journey home to the east coast. Tears poured from Maya’s eyes as she watched us perform from her seat right in the front row of a balcony box seat. She struggled to stand with everyone else when we were done.

  It was the most important performance of my career. It really was about my long journey to collect my scattered pieces, and for once I had most of them in one place. I was still teary-eyed when I got to my room that night. I opened the door and found a trail of red rose petals. My brow furrowed as I followed it toward my bedroom. I gasped out loud as I opened the door and found Jace Riga lounging naked on my bed. He had silk red petals all over his lap and a smug, triumphant look on his face.

  “Jace!” I squealed as I kicked off my shoes and sprinted across the room to the bed. I wrapped him in my arms, and he laid me gently on my back as he kissed me long and hard. “What are you doing her
e?” I asked breathlessly between kisses.

  “I wanted to give my superstar a bouquet of roses,” he murmured against my skin.

  I ran my fingers through his hair as I stared deep in those bottomless green eyes. “I’d rather have you.”

  “You’ve had me from the moment we met,” he assured before he kissed me again.

  He spent the rest of the night staking his claim, sliding that one missing piece to my perfect night right into place.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  New York City, NY

  July 21, 2012

  I might have thought I dreamed the entire night before had I not wakened to find Jace’s beautiful naked body next to me on our rumpled bed. I stretched like a cat before crawling up his body to kiss him awake. His arms snaked around me as he roused beneath my fingers and my mouth. I squealed with happiness as he flipped me around his body and pressed me into the bed.

  “Good morning, stranger,” he offered with that sideways smirk I loved so much. “I wanted to be here for the concert,” he said as he traced a finger down my arm. “But I was tied up in the studio, finishing that last track.”

  My eyes flew wide open. “You’re finished?”

  He nodded as his head bent towards mine. “Finished with the album,” he said as he kissed me once. “Finished with the auditions for the tour,” he continued with another kiss. “Finished with promotional photos,” he murmured before his third kiss. “The way I figure it, we have a two week vacation until you start filming Black-Eyed Pete. We can be together every minute of every day. If you can stand it,” he grinned.

  I let out another squeal before I pulled him down to me. “Stand it? I may never let you go again.”

  His mouth covered mine and my body came alive under his kiss. He groaned deep in his throat as my nails trailed down the solid muscles of his back. He fit so perfectly against my soft curves I could hardly hate them. He worshipped every square inch with his tongue or his fingers, until I writhed underneath him, begging for him to slide inside my body and put me out of this exquisite misery.

  He teased me mercilessly, taking his sweet time with each carefully placed kiss. I was incoherent by the time he slipped his hard body into mine. My legs crossed behind him, urging him deeper. He lifted my knees up in both hands as he buried himself within me. We exploded together in muffled cries, before collapsing against each other, sweaty and sated.

  He gathered me into his arms as we lay cuddled together in the afterglow. I luxuriated in how real and solid he felt in my arms. I almost envied those who could share every night together like this with their lovers. While it was extraordinarily helpful that Jace was in the same business that I was, so he could understand the weird rules that came with our world, our careers had kept us apart more than they had brought us together. But neither of us would have ever asked the other to forfeit his or her career. It was as important for us to perform as it was for us to be together.

  It made us who we are.

  The biggest complication, aside from the loneliness, was how the public around us filled in all the missing pieces. They saw what they wanted to see, and it usually had very little to do with us. We could either get mad about it or respond to it with humor, which was generally Jace’s M.O. When I murmured that I wished we could stay like that forever, he quipped, “That could cut into your boy toy habit. Up to two at a time now, is it?”

  I responded by tickling him until he begged for mercy. “Sorry! Sorry!” he said through helpless giggling until I finally stopped. He gave me that playful side-eye glare. “One at a time?”

  I pounced with more giggling, which led to more kissing, which led to Round Two. After he wilted beneath me a helpless puddle of goo, I informed him that he was the only boy toy for me.

  His hands cupped my hips as he arched deeper inside me. “Then maybe we should make it official,” he said.

  I traced his face with my finger. “You know I want that more than anything, right?” I asked softly.

  “But?” he filled in.

  I slid from his body. “But I’m not even twenty and I already have one divorce under my belt.”

  “That marriage didn’t count,” he said as he traced my back with his fingertips.

  My eyes met his. “To the world it did.”

  He propped himself up on one elbow. “When are you going to stop letting public opinion drive how you live your life?”

  “Seriously? You can see what these people do to me and still ask me that question? They manufactured an affair between me and my underage brother, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I actually have a theory about that,” he said as he reached for his phone. He scrolled through the phone until he found what he was looking for, then handed me the device. It was opened to an article that said Shelby Goddard had been hospitalized for “exhaustion.” It was dated a week before.

  “Is she OK?” I asked immediately.

  He shrugged. “We’ll never know, because that story got buried under your being ‘busted’ with a sixteen-year-old kid staying in your hotel room.”

  My brow furrowed. “Are you saying that they did it on purpose?”

  “It just seems a little convenient. And look at this,” he said as he pulled up another news article. It was regarding Coy Goddard, and some racist comments he uttered at a private fundraiser.

  COY GODDARD’S APPROVAL DIPS AFTER “TAR BABY” COMMENT

  “Tea Party favorite, Republican Coy Goddard from Tennessee, was videotaped making a provocative analogy using Uncle Remus’ “Tar Baby” character to describe how dangerous it was to get too close to the “wrong” element in Washington. Given the pejorative ways the characterization has historically been used, detractors immediately jumped on the usage as a direct insult to the 44st President of the United States, however Goddard further expounded on his analogy by saying ‘the friendlier we are with those who advocate an alternative to more traditional family values, the more we muddy the waters with destructive, liberal mindsets that would tear conservative America asunder.’”

  “What an idiot,” I muttered.

  “Check the date,” Jace suggested.

  “Yeah, so?”

  He pulled up PING’s website and pointed to the date of Coy’s “explanation” for what he had said. It was the very day I had been photographed arguing with Griffin in the restaurant in my hotel.

  I still wasn’t sold. “Potato, potahdo. Like voters care about what some reality TV star is doing.”

  “You think not?” he challenged as he pulled up a graph of Coy’s popularity among voters in his district. Every time I fucked up publicly, he enjoyed a boost in his approval rating. “Face it, Jordi. He’s constructed his entire campaign around you. Ever since Shelby went into the hospital, he’s deflected his own failure as a parent by blaming the entire entertainment industry for the downfall of traditional America. He went on every talk show that invited him and cultivated this very specific message. That wasn’t an accident, Jordi. People began to raise money to get him to Washington, to fight against the social change they find so frightening. And here you are, the perfect poster girl for alternative America. You don’t fit into any handy, little box. He has something to gain by seeing you fall. If you succeed, it proves that their fear mongering is baseless.”

  I shook my head, even though much of what he said echoed what Griffin had told me about publicity sleight of hand. I just couldn’t buy that it was that calculated… or pre-meditated. “These are the same bullies who used to make fun of me in school. There’s no diabolical master plan, Jace.”

  “No?” he asked as he pulled up his Twitter. Once again #jordiwho was trending, which surprised me given my triumphant and completely uncontroversial performance the night before. I scrolled down the feed to piece together what was going on. After a smattering of congratulatory posts, I finally realized, with a sinking heart, what had happened.

  FIERCE TRAGEDY TURNS TRIUMPHANT! REALITY STARS ENGAGED!!

  “Coy Goddard, the fathe
r of Reality TV sweetheart Shelby Goddard, announced that his daughter would be marrying her steady boyfriend, and soon-to-be-ex-husband of her Fierce rival, Jordi Hemphill. Sources say Eddie Nix popped the question in New York City, where Shelby is recording her first album under Jasper Carrington’s label. The patriarch of the Goddard clan beamed with pride over the pairing, saying that with a bride who could honor him in a more traditional marriage, he expected great things for his future son-in-law. Nix has worked tirelessly in Goddard’s campaign, and is expected to be Coy’s right-hand-man once he wins his seat and heads to Washington.”

  “Oh, no,” I groaned as I threw the phone onto the bed. “Oh, Jace.”

  He pulled me into his arms. “Sorry, babe.”

  “We can’t let this happen,” I muttered against his chest.

  “How can we stop it?” he asked. “She’s so far buried in that life and with those people that she’ll never hear the truth even if you tell her.”

  “I’m not going to tell her,” I said as I disentangled myself to grab my own phone. “I’m going to show her.”

  The enormity of what we were going to do filled the room. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked softly.

  I scrolled through my contact list. “I don’t think we have a choice anymore, Jace. She’s already been in the hospital once. You think either Coy or Eddie will care what kind of strain she’s under? They’ll keep using her for their own selfish gain until it drives her right into the grave. I can’t live with that on my conscience. And neither can you.”

  He couldn’t argue. We showered and dressed while we waited for Jacob and Iris to arrive for lunch at our hotel suite. Jace detailed his theory to both of them, and they both nodded that it made perfect sense. “When Jasper began his affair with Lourdes, he was quick to invent a romance between Vanni and Lourdes to keep all the gossipmongers at bay,” Jacob said. “It helped get his new band in the headlines and it kept the heat of speculation off of him. He’s a master of smoke and mirrors.”