Page 48 of Lucky Star

Chapter Eighteen

Cameron

When your best friend told you to stop acting like an asshole and apologize to your girlfriend, a smart man would heed the advice and beg for forgiveness. But no one ever said I was all that smart.

I’d tried forgiving Sarah for what I still believed was a major betrayal, but every time I felt my resolve softening, one of us would say or do something that snapped me right back to Bitter Land, population one. The worst was when she looked at me with such disappointment in her eyes, as if the situation had been my doing. Sure, it was all in service to my career, but she’d been if not the architect of this farce, then at least its lead engineer. I hoped with time that I’d be able to look at her and not feel my anger rise, but I wasn’t there yet.

In the meantime, I kept myself as busy as possible by throwing myself into work. Unfortunately, when I’d agreed to the escalated timeline for mine and Jillian’s “romance,” I hadn’t understood how all-encompassing it would be. I’d only considered the few hours a week I’d have to go on fake dates with her while pretending not to see the paparazzi hovering ten feet away from us. What I hadn’t counted on was having to act like I was in love with her all the goddamned time.

Since people came and went from the set at all hours of the day who could rat us out if they suspected our relationship wasn’t real, I’d taken to hiding in my trailer. A week ago, Jillian had been photographed “sneaking” in, and now she spent more time in mine than in her own. Frankly, I thought she was a little too invested in this faux relationship, but with Murray in London, I figured maybe she was just lonely. When I knew Sarah was going to be on set, I toned my interactions with Jillian down, but if she wasn’t, I played my role to perfection.

I’d never been a huge flirt, so when it came time to turn on the charm, I channeled Mike trying to get a girl to go home with him. Jillian would laugh hysterically when I’d jokingly try one of his lines out on her, and those were the times the paparazzi loved best—me smiling down at her while her head was thrown back in a throaty laugh, her hand resting on my forearm or bicep. Soon, gossip spread beyond the set that I couldn’t take my eyes off her or keep my hands to myself. I never once touched her inappropriately or crossed a line I wouldn’t be able to come back from, but that didn’t stop people from seeing what they wanted to.

After a few weeks, blogs and magazines started sharing “eyewitness accounts” from “anonymous on-set sources” that corroborated what the photos showed. If I’d known who the source was, I might have cornered them and told them to keep their trap shut, but all I could do was grin and bear it.

The other day, I’d inadvertently overheard two costume assistants talking about mine and Jillian’s romance. One of them confided they’d learned the “anonymous source” feeding the gossip sites was none other than Broderick’s assistant. Hearing this, I felt like throwing up. Instead, I retreated to the on-set gym and knocked around the punching bag until I thought my arms would fall off.

It wasn’t enough that Sarah had pushed me into this, but now she was acting the part of gossip pimp as well?

Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever forgive her. And the more that thought echoed in my head, the easier it became to distance myself from her until our relationship had dwindled into one of polite indifference. During the few meals we shared, I’d listen to her talk about her day, and I’d share snippets of my own, all the while wondering how I could have been so wrong about us. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her anymore.

That would have been easy.

The gut-churning reality was despite those nagging thoughts on trust and betrayal, I still loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in my life.

And so she continued wearing my ring.

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