Authors: Tina Reber
“What?” he said with a venomous bite, letting whoever was calling know his exact feelings about being disturbed. “I
was
trying to sleep.
Now?
Why?” His jaw clenched. “This can’t wait an hour? No. I just woke up. Fine. Give me ten minutes,” he muttered. “I
said
ten minutes.”
Ryan grabbed his clothing off the floor and cursed. I hadn’t seen him this pissed in a long time. “Tar, you need to get up and get dressed.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Ryan looked at me warily as he pulled his jeans up over his naked body.
I started to worry. “Hey. What’s going on?”
His lips puckered with disgust. “Marla and David are on their way up.”
I groaned to myself. Wouldn’t be the first time his publicist and manager disrupted his life at an inopportune time. To say they were overbearing was an understatement. He jostled the clothing around in his open suitcase with frustration, sparking my next question.
“Why?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Photos were leaked,” he mumbled.
A wave of fright pricked at my nerves. “What photos?”
I watched the back of his head sway. “People in the bar took shots of me proposing to you on Saturday,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Pictures and videos are all over the Internet now.”
I drew in a deep breath as his sudden anger about this blindsided me. Ryan was so riled he had trouble picking two T-shirts apart.
You proposed publicly. I figured a few bar patrons would capture pictures on their cells. What did you expect?
“So? How bad is it?”
Ryan signed heavily before looking back at me with apologetic eyes. “Tar, you know how it is. Pictures were on some fan sites and Twitter that night already.”
I stared at my feet, trying to understand. This was not bad news, or was it?
“Taryn.” Ryan interrupted my thoughts, tossing my jeans over to me.
I let out another sigh as I shoved my right foot into the pants leg. “Why didn’t you tell me about this being a problem sooner?”
“Tar—you know why,” Ryan muttered as he slipped a T-shirt over his head. “Let’s not go there, okay, babe? Please?”
“But . . .”
He appeared resigned but tense. “But what? This is not stuff I want you worrying about, that’s why.”
I shook my head. “That’s not . . . I’m just a bit confused. Yesterday when Mike collected us at the airport, he warned me that the paparazzi were going to swarm and I asked him if I should hide my ring. When he called you to ask, you said to tell me
‘never fucking ever take your ring off.’
So if it didn’t matter for me to be seen with this ring and to have people know we’re engaged, why does it matter today?”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “And did you?”
I was momentarily stunned, knowing that that brusque tone wasn’t really meant for me. “Did I what? Keep your ring on or get photographed wearing it?”
He shrugged. “Either. Both.”
I supposed this was information he needed before being bombarded. “Yes, I kept your ring on, as it will
never
leave my finger, but no, I did not allow the repugnant thieves to make their living off of our happiness. I kept my hand tucked in my pocket.”
He nodded once. “Yeah, well, keep that in mind,” he said on his way to answer the door.
Marla Sullivan, Ryan’s icy publicist, greeted me with a half smile, half snarl as she charged into the living room of our suite. Even though it was early in the morning, she was already dressed in a crisp designer business suit. Her short black hair was equally as tailored. An oversized black bag dangled from her red, pointy fingernails.
“Sit,” she ordered.
Ryan glared at her for a moment and then pulled out a chair at the large dining table.
“Weekly Reporter, CV Magazine . . .”
she announced in a scathing tone, dropping printed sheets of paper on the table in front of him. “You’re on all of them. I suppose this is why you’ve been avoiding my phone calls for the last four days.”
Ryan barely glanced at them. He slumped back in his chair and started to rub his forehead, pushing the paper away with his other hand. “I’ve seen them already. So what.”
I edged my body closer. That’s when I saw for the very first time the grainy, dark pictures of Ryan standing on top of a very familiar round oak table and another dark picture of him kneeling in front of me. Candid shots from Saturday night when he proposed to me publicly in my pub were now plastered all over the tabloids. My heart sank in my chest from their blatant exploitation.
“‘So what’? Ryan, you were standing on a table in the middle of a bar! What were you thinking?” She scolded him like he was a child.
Ryan rested his elbows on his knees while he bowed his head, refraining from giving her an answer.
“Well, this certainly counters the shots they got of her standing in the middle of the street in Miami two weeks ago,” she said callously, nodding her pointy chin in my direction.
Leave it to Marla to remind me of the huge idiot I made of myself when I stood in the downpour staring at what I thought was Ryan cheating on me with his co-star, Lauren Delaney, when in fact they were still on location filming.
Ryan straightened and scoffed harshly at her comment. “Don’t even go there,” he warned through his teeth, giving her an angry glare.
It didn’t matter that Kyle Trent, my former bodyguard, and Lauren Delaney, Ryan’s co-star and former girlfriend, conspired together, forming an awkward alliance to insidiously destroy our relationship. The only thing that the press was concerned about was the photographic evidence of my mental breakdown from Ryan’s supposed infidelity.
CAUGHT CHEATING!
all of the headlines announced.
And now, all of the headlines flashed
ENGAGED!
Two weeks of ups and downs and aggravating media scrutiny—
Ryan and Lauren are together, Taryn catches Ryan cheating, Ryan and Taryn call it quits, Ryan’s secret flight to Seaport, Rhode Island
—were now topped off with new photographic evidence that he actually climbed on top of a table.
“Ryan, we’ve had these discussions. Do you want to destroy your career?” She waved her hand in my direction. It was apparent that she meant
I
was the one destroying his career.
“No! Of course not!” he bellowed.
Marla huffed and poked her finger on one of the papers. “Well, I told you to keep this inane decision of yours private. So much for that.”
I gasped in shock.
Inane?
Is she really standing there lecturing my fiancé and implying with the tact of a wrecking ball that his decision to propose to me was stupid and asinine?
“Do you think you could have at least warned me first that you actually went through with it?” She slapped one of the sheets down on the table in front of him. “I come back from Monterey to be completely blindsided by this, too?”
I rolled my eyes at her comment and her overdramatic little meltdown. Her shiny, black patent leather high heels captured my attention. I surmised that her shoes must match the color of her heart today.
“I got caught up in the moment. It’s my business,” Ryan grumbled, taking the submissive position to this domineering bitch. It was the first time I saw him bow down to anyone. This was not the “fuck you, no bullshit” posture he took with the rest of the world. This woman was making him fold like a house of cards in the wind. I pressed my lips into a hard line, holding my tongue.
“Caught up in the moment?” Marla questioned incredulously. “Is that your
excuse
?”
Ryan shot her a dirty look and sprang up from his chair when there was another knock at the door. “David,” he said flatly, his eyes refusing to look up when his manager came into our suite. David slowly shook his head at Ryan, showing his displeasure at being summoned.
My heart rate picked up as I processed David’s overall demeanor. Now both of Ryan’s “handlers” were here to gang up on him. The Witch and the little Slime Ball, here to tag-team him and beat him further into submission.
I’ll be damned before I let them make him feel like crap for proposing to me. I felt my hands curl into tight fists, bracing for what appeared to be a pending battle.
“David,” Marla greeted Ryan’s manager. “Well,” she huffed, annoyed, “let’s talk about damage control.” She uncrossed her bony arms and picked up a few of the printouts, tossing them in David’s direction. “There are two videos of him singing on YouTube as well.”
“I know,” David admitted. “You really know how to stir up a media shitstorm, my friend,” he chuckled out lightly as he feigned looking at the photos. I’m sure by this point he was intimately familiar with them.
Ryan was too busy stewing and staring at the floor to respond. It took a split second after that for David to redirect his glare at me. This was not the first time Ryan’s manager had issues with me and it was starting to become apparent that we all might never get along. This was so
not
good.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this,” Ryan bit out before casting his glance my way.
“I don’t, either,” I added, giving him my support. If this was how they handled happy news, I’d hate to see how they handled a majorly bad shitstorm.
David sort of shrugged it off. “It’s not really, Taryn. What you have to understand is that Ryan’s career is potentially riding on how well
Reparation
premieres. This is his first major motion picture lead role outside of the
Seaside
franchise, and the critics, the major studios—everyone is waiting to see if he can carry a film on his own. This premiere is big, and it’s all about image control, that’s all. This is nothing new, Ryan.”
Image control?
I glanced back at one of the printouts. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand. What does our engagement have to do with any of that?”
Marla’s head jerked in my direction. “Well I’m sure you’ll start to care when he’s offered subpar roles and the money isn’t there anymore.”
I could have done without her “isn’t it obvious or are you too stupid to realize it” glare.
Ryan’s fist hit the table. “Do
not
talk to her like that,” he warned, pointing his finger at her.
“Marla—”
David said, attempting to quell her temper.
“I couldn’t care less how much money he has. Despite what you think, my feelings for him aren’t tied to his fame or his fortune. Are you trying to say he won’t get offers and people will stop coming to see his movies because we’re engaged?”
I noticed Ryan’s lips twitch with that.
“No, no.” David tried to dismiss my assumption, halting me with his hand. “Aaron and I have been—”
Marla interrupted. “Ryan’s career is only beginning to blossom. His future prospects all stem from the decisions he makes now. Do you want to see him fail?”
My spine stiffened further. “Of course not!”
“Jesus Christ,” Ryan groaned, but she ignored him.
Marla continued to address me. “Then you’ll both need to accept that the public’s perception of his status and behavior greatly affects his marketing viability. He needs to remain low-key and professional at all times—without scandal or opportunistic individuals taking advantage of his good fortune.”
Her last words felt like a slap. “Are you insinuating that I’m one of them?”
Ryan sat up, arching into defense mode, but stopped when it looked like Marla was going to apologize. For a moment, I thought she would attempt to be civil.
“In this business, negative impressions can linger for years, in some cases having irreparable consequences on an actor’s career. Ryan is here to do press for his movie, not to be inundated with questions about his ridiculous display. His moment of indiscretion is now hugely overshadowing the premiere of
Reparation
. You forget that he is being paid by very influential people to promote the movie, not to explain why he climbed on a table,” Marla informed us harshly.
She turned her glare on Ryan. “How many times do I have to remind you that you do not want this kind of press?”
“I know what my responsibilities are!” Ryan snapped angrily.
“Then you should have controlled yourself and realized that standing up on a table in the middle of a crowded bar was a bad idea!” she zinged him back.
Ryan stretched his fingers as if he desired to choke her. “Do you
really
want to keep pushing me on this? I get the point.”
“Well, someone’s got to keep on top of your behav—”
Gaaaaahhhh!
“Enough! Just stop it!” I broke in. “I don’t care who you are. You will not take one of our most precious memories and turn it into something he should feel guilty for doing. I will
not
allow it.”
I stood behind Ryan and rested my hands on his shoulders, actually fearing that if I let go of him, table, chairs, and bodies would go flying. “So he stood on a table and asked me to marry him. So what? You’re making it sound like he was high on dope and clubbing baby seals when he did it. Surely this, this
disclosure,
can be turned into something positive.”
Marla stared blankly at me, apparently surprised that I had the guts to speak again.
She turned her attention back on him. “Ryan, perhaps it would be better if David and I continued this meeting with you privately to discuss our action plan. I’m sure your Taryn has other things she needs to attend to.”
“Excuse me?” I glared at her, completely astonished that she would even think to remove me from the discussion. This bitch had some nerve.
Ryan pulled out the chair next to him, startling me. “I don’t think so. Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of my fiancée, too. This affects her life just as much as it does mine.
I’ll
decide what doesn’t require her involvement, not you. Got it?”
Marla stared at him blankly.
“Got it?” he said with punctuated force.
Marla breathed out her unhappiness and righted herself in the chair. “Of course.”
Relieved, I took a seat and patted his thigh in private to thank him. He covered my diamond-clad hand with his own.