Epic (Fierce) Read online

As it turned out, Jasper Carrington was just as formidable an obstacle to get close to Shelby as her father was. By the time we got to the hospital, we were told by security guards that we were not welcome and would be forcibly removed if we didn’t willingly leave. By the time we got to the hotel, PING had already taken the story and ran with it.

  SHELBY GODDARD COLLAPSES IN STUDIO AFTER AN ARGUMENT WITH HER FIERCE RIVAL, JORDI HEMPHILL!

  “Fierce ain’t just a reality show anymore, folks! A fight broke out today when Jordi Hemphill confronted her former costar after hearing that she and Hemphill’s estranged husband were now engaged to be married. Inside sources confided off the record that the two women battled bitterly in a private studio until Goddard, who had recently been hospitalized for exhaustion, collapsed under the strain of the painful confrontation. Goddard’s fiancé, Edward Nix, was in tears when we reached him for comment. He called his ex ‘poisonous,’ accusing her of willfully wrecking everyone in her path. Hemphill could not be reached for comment.”

  The news didn’t get any better once Eddie and Coy made it to New York to care for her that evening. They’d spill their guts about me to anyone who asked, but conveniently left out how Shelby’s own eating disorder had nearly killed her – again.

  By nine o’clock I heard back from Jacob. He was right in the thick things as Jasper scrambled to turn Shelby’s health crisis into something they could use. He was one of the few who knew the truth, but couldn’t tell anyone about it. Instead he was tasked with coordinating a massive media smear campaign against me, with my sex tape right at the heart of it.

  By the next day he walked right out of his office at Carrington Entertainment nearly ten years to the day after he’d arrived, unable to stomach Jasper Carrington’s spin machine another minute.

  “Who needs to live at Central Park West?” he quipped when he showed up at our hotel. Instead he marched right down Schuster and Beckweth and was hired within the hour as Iris’s assistant. Though I felt responsible, he wouldn’t hear of it when I tried to apologize. “It’s not you, Jay,” he assured, adopting Corey’s nickname for me. We had all grown really casual as we camped out in Iris’s office most of the day, unintentional soldiers in a media war. “I’ve hated my job since I was tasked with spinning Jasper’s affair with Lourdes. I stayed because I didn’t have the balls to change. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, or so they say. But,” he said as he gave me a hug, “I can’t tell you to risk it all if I’m not willing to do the same. You’ve got more integrity than most of us, Miss Hemphill. Or is it Palermo now?”

  I grinned. “Just Jordi. I wasted too much of this year trying to chase down everyone else to tell her who she was, rather than just listen to her in the first place.”

  “We all need to hear from her,” he said. “So keep singing. The right people will hear you.”

  That list dwindled considerably by nightfall, when my naked image was splashed all over every news outlet in the country.

  FIERCE DIVA LETS IT ALL HANG OUT IN SIZZLING SEX TAPE!!

  “If you were waiting to see the sexy new video for Jordi Hemphill’s defiant anthem, ‘I’m Not Sorry,’ it turns out you can get more than an eyeful with a scathing, raw video released anonymously to the press just weeks before the video’s debut. Hemphill and her reality TV lover, Jace Riga, were captured on videotape during their time together at the Fierce mansion. The video shows in living color how our unconventional diva captured her man. This NSFW video is not for the squeamish. No matter what kind of video Roxy Malone has prepared for Hemphill’s second single from her new album, it is clear that that in every way, Jordi Hemphill is not sorry, folks. And she’s ready to do anything to prove how insatiable she really is! Lock up your men, ladies! And your cheesecake!”

  Jace wouldn’t let me read further than that. In fact, he did a bang-up job keeping me preoccupied so that I didn’t have to see the negative commentary that followed my XXX-rated debut. We turned off the phones and put a “Do Not Disturb” placard on the door, as he loved away any feelings of shame or humiliation I may have harbored as my carefully crafted celebrity image imploded over the course of a weekend.

  I postponed every public appearance, even the coveted spot on a national talk show to talk about my new family. I knew that under the cloud of this new information, everything I had hoped to accomplish by sharing my story had been sullied, and neither Maya nor Diego deserved that.

  Maya was suitably distracted as we researched online for a new place for her to live in Los Angeles. Our floor was pretty safe territory at the New York hotel, as the hotel staff had been briefed on what was happening and assured us they would keep the press – or whatever masqueraded as such – away.

  As blissfully ignorant of the events as Diego had predicted she would be, Maya greeted me with a big, proud smile and an even bigger hug as I opted to spend Sunday evening in her room, perusing apartments for her in Los Angeles. This was the excuse. I had wanted to take her out to Jersey, in hopes that she would be able to tell me more about my past, but with her fragile health and the looming parasitic presence of PING just downstairs, the best I could do for my new family was keep them sheltered from the storm.

  As I sat with her in the sitting room of her suite, scrolling through several properties to find the one she liked the best, Sonny crossed in from the bedroom to grab another beer from the fridge. His dark eyes were lecherous as he stared at me, his lips around that bottle, as he inhaled me with his eyes. From the way he leered at me like a hunk of meat, I knew instantly he’d seen the tape.

  My blood ran cold as I filled in the blanks in why it had taken him so long to emerge from the privacy of his bedroom.

  I turned to Jace, who gave me a warm, supportive smile. He had no more use for Sonny than I did. He trusted my gut that this was an influence that needed to be edged out of Maya’s and Diego’s lives. Jace had established in no uncertain terms that there was a new sheriff in town, and Sonny – so far – had not attempted to challenge him. Mercifully he said mostly nothing at all as we planned their relocation, except for not-so-subtle hints on where I should rent a place.

  Why was it all the abuse assholes in my life wanted to live near the beach completely on my dime?

  “The beach,” Maya echoed with a dreamy look on her face. She covered my hand with hers. “That’s the very first place we went after we got out of the group home. I wanted to see the ocean, and Joey said we might as well go there first, since we wouldn’t see the shore again once we made it to Iowa.”

  I held my breath as I waited for her to fill in the blanks even more. Instead she had another coughing fit and had to put her oxygen tubes back in. I patted her arm and gave her a smile. Maybe her memories with my father weren’t mine to intercept. But they brought her such joy, I could be nothing but grateful she had had some ray of sunshine in her long, painful, disappointing life. “Do you need to go lie down?” I asked.

  She nodded and I rushed to help her from the sofa in the sitting room to the large bed in the private bedroom. “You’re so sweet,” she said. “My perfect baby girl,” she wheezed before I tucked her into the fine linens, which were likely more luxurious than she’d probably ever known.

  I curled up with her on the bed until she drifted off to sleep. Her grip slacked around my fingers and I kissed her lightly on top of her head before I left her to nap.

  By the time I walked back out into the sitting room, Diego and Griffin had arrived along with dinner. “Has Mama eaten?” Diego asked me, and I shook my head.

  “She’s sleeping.”

  He went to check on her, which made me smile. He had been such a good son this whole trip… and remarkably an even better brother. Griffin and Iris had given Diego a crash course in public relations. He was the only one of us who would go out into public, and though PING pounced all over him, Griffin showed him the ropes in how to ignore their clamoring calls for a comment. Now that it was common knowledge he was my brother, his newfound celebrity status
demanded that he weigh in on my scandal, but he didn’t have to answer any of those demands.

  Though he slipped back under the sullen mask he wore when we first met every single time PING snapped a photo, he managed to withstand their bombardment without reacting like any impulsive sixteen-year-old might have.

  I knew I had Griffin to thank for that, even though our professional pairing might have come to an end.

  By that Monday, Iris called with the news. The producers of Black-Eyed Pete dropped me like a bad habit the minute the sex tape hit the six o’clock news, which opened up my summer whether I liked it or not. My career had officially entered limbo as we rode out the storm.

  Jace wouldn’t let me read any of the negative reviews. Every time I opened my computer, he’d snatch it away, close it, and do whatever he could to preoccupy me. We all decided that would be a lot easier to do if we headed back to Los Angeles, where we could resume a somewhat normal existence while the drama played out on every social media website. And of course Coy’s face was splashed all over the news, as he ‘surprisingly’ weighed in on this new hedonistic display.

  “How do we know that she didn’t leak the tape herself?” he asked the viewing audience.

  I turned off the TV via the remote just a hair before I threw it through the damned TV screen. I was frustrated when I glanced over at Jace on the other side of the bed. “This is not going away.”

  Even getting back to L.A. was challenging. We had to set up a decoy in order to get my mother and Diego out of the hotel. Jace and I went first, along with Griffin, while the staff lied to anyone who would ask if the Palermos were still registered. They were moved to another floor for the day, and followed us in Angus’s private plane for a late night flight.

  Angus had been very coy about his plans going forward with “Pieces of Me.” I did what I thought was the noble thing, offering to withdraw and even suggesting Kamaria to replace me, but neither Griffin nor Angus wanted to act too hastily. Despite the scandal, the digital single with the symphony had topped the charts as best-selling download since the sold out performance in New York.

  This was our one bit of good news as we boarded Graham’s private jet back to the west coast. Like Black-Eyed Pete, Tempestuous terminated my contract under the pressure of a parental group. Because they catered to a young adult audience, they couldn’t afford to risk their brand on something as controversial as a sex tape scandal for their main celebrity endorsement.

  This limited my income in a very significant way. Roxy moved back the video, and Graham had moved back the album release, to give us a little distance from the scandal. So I had no idea what this wave of negative press would mean for my record sales.

  Until I knew that, I had to be careful with what funds I had managed to save. I would take care of Maya of course, but Jace calmly suggested that Sonny stay in Las Vegas until he had secured employment in the City of Angels, which went over like a lead balloon. He didn’t challenge Jace, though. Apparently he only bullied women and young kids.

  Maya was as happy as I had ever seen her when we rolled her onto the patio that overlooked the ocean from her new apartment in Hermosa Beach. I paid for six months in advance for the furnished apartment in the security building, praying that my career would enjoy an upswing by the time the bills came due again.

  In the meantime, I had a plan. I called Kamaria from New York, telling her that I wanted to invest in her band, Unapologetic B!tches. I had listened to her CD and loved her defiant message on the many shades of femininity. And unlike so many others, whose reputation relied on me towing the line of social acceptance, she was fighting the forces of conformity every single time she opened her mouth.

  Within a day of landing in L.A., I marched to Graham’s office with their CD in hand.

  He greeted me with a big bear hug. “Jordi,” he said as he lifted me right off the floor. “It’s so good to see you.”

  I hugged him back, just as strong. Graham Baxter had long been a father figure to me, and I needed one now more than ever. “I can’t even tell you how good it is to see you.”

  He set me back onto the floor, before walking me to the chair opposite his desk, his arm wrapped around me like a warm security blanket. “I can’t imagine what this must be like for you.”

  “Living in denial helps,” I quipped as I sat. He laughed as he took a seat in his own chair. “Jace won’t let me see a lot of the damage.”

  “He’s a good man,” Graham agreed. “There comes a time in this business when every single artist has to realize that the opinion of others is really none of his or her business.”

  “Easy to say, impossible to feel,” I said softly.

  “I understand,” he said with a compassionate look on his face. I could tell he hated that I was going through this, but just like everyone else in my life… there was precious little any of us could do until the peanut gallery had some other subject to skewer. “To turn our attention to more positive news, Roxy has decided to release the new video. I thought we’d debut it on Fierce.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Do you really want to associate Fierce more with this scandal?”

  “Like we can stop it,” he pointed out. “So why not go with it? I mean, let’s face it. You can’t call a show Fierce and then make it a habit of playing safe.”

  “I’m so glad that you feel that way,” I said as I withdrew the CD and handed it to him.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a band I heard while I was in Vegas. They’re called Unapologetic B!tches.”

  He laughed. “It’s a name that gets your attention, isn’t it?” he asked as he flipped over the CD and assessed the band’s image on the back.

  “They grab you by the balls,” I agreed.

  He walked over to the sound system on his far wall. “Sounds painful,” he said with a playful smirk. “I think I like it.”

  I laughed as he cued up the first single, “Lose My Number.” It was the story of a one-night-stand that lingered one night too long, and it was full of attitude and humor and attitude. He didn’t say anything as he listened to the first song in its entirety. The next track was called “A-Hole,” which made Graham laugh at loud at the fun call and response added into the live recording.

  By the time he made it back to his desk, he was treated to the third track, “L!mp D!ck,” which basically derided any man who needed a size-0 girlfriend to do the deed.

  God, I loved Kamaria.

  There were tears in his eyes from how hard he laughed as he listened. He turned off the CD. “You certainly have my attention,” he said. “What’s your plan?”

  “I want to produce them. I want to bring them into the mainstream. They’re a festival band for now but I think you can agree that their music is solid. And I know in my gut there’s an audience for them. They just need the exposure.”

  “And they’re in Vegas?”

  “They were. I flew them in last night.”

  He laughed. “You learned well, Grasshopper.” He opened his calendar. “Think they could be ready to perform on TV by, oh… I don’t know… the third week in August?”

  “They’re ready to perform now,” I responded instantly. But then I pounced all over the time frame. “Why August?”

  He grinned. “Well, I was thinking… if you’re not busy… I’d like to book you to perform ‘I’m Not Sorry’ live on Fierce on August 22.”

  “You sneak. When were you going to tell me?”

  “I already told you, Jordi. You’re family. And we want to celebrate your birthday with the biggest fucking party on network TV. Invite your friends. In fact, invite your family. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about your brother. I may want to snatch him up before anyone else gets a chance to.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Graham…”

  He walked around his desk and pulled me to my feet. “We’re going to get through this, Jordi. If nothing else, believe that.”

  He spent the entire afternoon
with me as we developed a plan of action to salvage my career. It seemed ridiculous that, in less than two years, my career had essentially bottomed out courtesy of the PING/Coy Goddard smear campaign.

  By contrast, Jace, whose career clearly wasn’t as negatively impacted as mine, managed to sell out several venues when pre-sales for his concert tour became available in early August. He assured me that he would support us through the rest of the crisis, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to steer my own life raft, rather than cling behind someone else’s speedboat. This was why I had to find a way to do something simply for myself, rather than depend solely on The Journey Home single.

  I was even more empowered when “I’m Not Sorry,” enjoyed more success than I had ever dreamed possible the minute Roxy released the video. Though it didn’t match the success of Jace’s singles, which rose once again on the charts thanks to his constant publicity with the scandal, I was surprised that my meager offering had garnered as much positive press as it did. Feminist journalists especially responded well to the message we were trying to sell, even despite the challenges we faced.

  It was a message that said any woman could be sexy without apology. It was way more empowering than PING’s message: that I was a fat cow who deserved to land on my face in the gutter. They wrung every single drop of publicity they could out of sex tape by finding any and all reasons to trash me on social media. This included the hurtful #howtoknowyouhadsexwithjordi hashtag, which was so disgusting I couldn’t even get past the first comment. Jace took my computer away and blocked every single hurtful update that had been sent directly to me.

  Likewise Graham was undaunted by all the critics. In keeping with our “unapologetic” mentality, he clanged every bell about my upcoming performance with my Unapologetic B!tches on Fierce in time for my 20th birthday. By no coincidence, it would air the same day as my national interview with Dixie, the undisputed Queen of Daytime Talk Shows.

  Fierce producer Shannon McKenna worked for Dixie way back in the day, so she promised to walk me through the process. They would close the set and advise the audience to be respectful, especially in light of the fact that Maya could not physically attend the taping due to her poor health. She had been on oxygen from the moment we moved her back to Los Angeles, fighting off yet another lung infection from all the air travel.