Page 34 of Lucky Star

“The fact of the matter is, I’m not the right type of woman for you.” Before he could interrupt, I held up my hand. “Or rather, for your career. Whether you want to accept it or not, the reality is, you’re now a big star. And even though you don’t want to talk about what that means for us, Broderick and the PR team have thought about it plenty. And what they’ve concluded is that you need to raise your profile. That means hitching your star to someone equally hot.” I paused and sucked in a deep breath, hoping to ease the ache that had sprouted in my chest. “You need someone US Weekly and TMZ want photos of. You need—”

“Don’t you dare say one more fucking word.” Cameron clenched his fists on his thighs, his knuckles white with tension. When he swiveled on his seat to glare at me, my breath stopped short. “I can’t believe you would ask me to do that,” he whispered.

“I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m telling you what’s already been decided. When you walk into that meeting, you’ll have two choices … and acknowledging our relationship isn’t one of them.”

“I won’t do it.”

I appreciated that he thought so, but he couldn’t fight the inevitability of it. If he wanted the part, he’d have to.

Tears welled in my eyes, and my throat ached with the pain of holding them back. “If you don’t agree, they’ll replace you. Broderick already said he won’t allow my relationship with you to fuck up his movie.”

“Fuck him!” Cameron moved to leave, but I latched onto his arm, refusing to let him go.

If he walked into Broderick’s office in this state, he was liable to do something he’d regret.

“Cameron, no! Please.” He halted but kept his hand on the handle, ready to bolt at any moment. “It kills me to say this, but I can’t let you give up your chance at stardom. You’ve wanted this for too long; you’ve worked too hard for it.”

“I want you more.”

“You’ll have me. We just have to keep it a secret for a while longer.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure that’s what they’re going to tell you during the meeting.”

“Fuck.” He dropped his head back to rest against the seat with a defeated exhale. “I need to talk to Julie,” he said, pulling out his phone and texting his agent. “She’ll know what to do.”

“She already knows, Cameron. She signed off on the idea yesterday.”

His shoulders slumped, and he shook his head. “Nice of her to give me a heads up.”

We sat in silence, his chest heaving in and out as he tried to bring his temper and emotions under control. Eventually, he turned to face me again. “Walk me through what you said about earlier—about my options.”

“They’re going to present you with two. The first is to set you up with some beautiful young starlet on a series of romantic dates the paparazzi will conveniently know all about. By week’s end, those pictures will be on the cover of every gossip magazine.”

I paused to let the scenario settle in his mind. But that’s when it hit me too. I thought I’d be able to handle this first option better than the second, but I’d been fooling myself. No matter which path he chose, I wouldn’t be able to stomach it. I slapped my palm against the center of the steering wheel, setting off my horn. “Fuck.”

“Nice to see you’re as sickened by the this as much as I am.”

His comment was no less than I deserved, but I really wished he wouldn’t hold me responsible for this situation. “It’s not my fault.”

“No, you’re just doing your boss’s dirty work.”

Yes, Broderick was using me. But I’d agreed to be the one to tell Cameron because I thought it would be easier if the news came from me. The rationale being that if I explained the reasoning behind this decision in a calm, cool, and collected manner, Cameron would be able to accept that this was just the reality of doing business in this town. If instead I’d sat back and let word come down from on high, he would been worried about me, not what his reaction might possibly mean for his career. This way, I at least took that bit of stress from his shoulders and placed it squarely on mine instead.

“I was only trying to help,” I whispered, expecting a snide response. When none came, I laid out the second scenario for him. “Your second option is, logistically-speaking, the easier of the two. They’ll leak that you and Jillian have amazing chemistry that can’t be contained to just your characters. The studio will hire their own paparazzo to take pictures of you guys hanging out here in L.A. and then again once we’re all up in Vancouver.”

“And how is that better?”

“Because Jillian has her own relationship to worry about, and I’ll be there beside you the whole time.” I paused and twisted the ring on my finger. Eventually, after a moment of silence that stretched too long, I swiveled to face him. “I’ve thought a lot about this since Broderick called me into his office this morning. It could work. Jillian can hang out with us, making it easy for the photographers to capture shots of you together. We won’t be able to hold hands or kiss or anything in public—” he let out an angry snarl “—but once the photos surface, there’ll be reports about how the two of you fell instantly, madly in love. And it’s the better option for the studio too since it parallels a love story as amazing as Xander and Arabella’s.”

“Spare me your sales pitch” he sneered, rolling his eyes. “Xander’s been in love with Arabella since she was a little girl. Me falling in love with Jillian over our scripts is trite fucking nonsense.”

“You’re right; it’s not the same, but they’ll milk it as if it were.”

“I can’t pretend to be in love with Jillian, especially with you right there.”

“You’re an actor, Cameron, and you’re going to spend every day for the next several months pretending to be in love with if not her, then the character she’s playing. You’re going to have to kiss her, and you’re going to simulate sex with her on camera. Consider this an extension of the role.”

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