Page 11 of The Match Faker

Okay, I admit. I’d chosen the wrong person to ‘have fun’ with, but we all made mistakes.

‘Letting your hair down once in a while would be fine. It’s carelessly letting your pants down that isn’t. If you didn’t change your women more often than your underwear, maybe you’d get taken more seriously.’

‘How do you know how often I change my underwear?’ I joked. From the loud sigh that echoed down the phone, she didn’t find it funny.

I knew she was right, though. Producers of serious dramas wouldn’t want to hire me if they thought I was gonna be part of another scandal. I’d be taking the focus away from what really mattered.

‘Did you see the article plastered all over the internet?’

‘You told me not to go online.’

‘Fair. Well, there’s another kiss-and-tell on you. This one isn’t about Sunrise. It’s someone else.’

‘Fucking tabloids! I only have to breathe next to a woman and they run a story about us dating.’

‘So you weren’t getting cosy with a redhead two weeks before the Sunrise scandal hit?’

I paused. Oh yeah…

‘There are photos?’

‘There’s always photos.’

I googled Liam Stone with redhead. Within seconds a string of pictures of the two of us in a compromising position popped up.

I blew out a breath. I’d been acting for years and this wasn’t the first kiss-and-tell that’d come out about me, but it didn’t make it any less frustrating.

A friend of a friend had introduced us and when she’d suggested we check out a new bar and said it’d be private, stupidly I’d believed her. At least there were no photos of us screwing.

‘Shit.’

‘As bad as it is for your career, she gave your ego a good stroking. Said you went all night and were hung like a horse. So that story along with the photos Sunrise leaked would explain why I had a call earlier asking if you’d be interested in the lead role for a new adult film called Rock Hard. Apparently, it’s like Die Hard, but with less clothes.’

‘You’re joking, right?’

‘Nope.’

My jaw clenched. Those damn photos were gonna haunt me forever.

Don’t get me wrong. I knew I’d got to where I was because of how I looked. People reminded me of that every day. Without that shirtless jeans commercial I’d modelled in almost a decade ago, I’d never have got scouted for my first movie.

My appearance was my ‘brand’ (God, I hated that word), which was why I worked so hard every damn day to stay in shape.

Being known for being ‘hot’ was one thing. But having my dick plastered over the internet and getting calls about it from my parents and every Tom, Dick (no pun intended) and Harry was another.

When I worked my arse off in drama class years ago, if I’d known that the biggest story about me would focus on the size of my cock instead of my acting abilities, I would’ve thought twice about continuing.

I dreamt of getting my teeth into gritty roles or maybe even a feel-good, wholesome drama. And now not only was I trapped on a conveyor belt, churning out one predictable action movie after another, I was attracting offers to star in pornos?

But Geena was right. I just needed to stay out of trouble. This story would blow over eventually, right?

Except despite our efforts to stop it, those pictures were still online, so that wasn’t completely true, but whatever.

‘London always feels like home. It’s where I’m most grounded. I’ll keep my nose clean.’

Maybe I could even use this time to work on my…

No. That project would never see the light of day. It was a stupid idea.

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