Page 65 of All Yours

“What’s up?” she answered.

“I had a reporter with a camera show up at the job-site this morning.” I scrolled through the building schematics on the tablet but seeing nothing.

“About the project?”

“Nope. About you.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. Do you think I’m gonna talk to a reporter about you?” I snapped.

“No,” she breathed. “I’m sorry this is so intrusive. But you didn’t help matters last night—”

“She said that management setup your relationship with Sebastian and the whole thing was a fake and she asked for my comment.”

“What? Why would she say something like that?”

“I don’t know. Thought you would, by chance. Did you ever finish the book?”

“No. But I almost burned it several times.”

“Maybe he wrote that in the book.”

“Oh my god.”

“So, you didn’t know he’d said that?”

“No. I don’t look at anything that has to do with him or me in the gossip blogs or on the news anymore. I’m on deadline to give my publisher a new book, so I’m trying to not pay it any mind. And I’m finally making progress on a new story.”

“You should check with that PR lady on what to do.”

“She’s already called and yelled at me over last night. I’m going to ignore it all until it goes away. The less we feed the machine, the quicker they’ll all move on to someone else.”

“That’s what I said at first. But this doesn’t seem to be fading as the weeks go by. It’s possible you need another strategy.”

“No. They want me to snap that way they can all point at me and say, ‘see she’s still crazy after all this time,’ and I will not give them the satisfaction.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sloane

Jonah’s voice rang in my ears, telling me that management set up my relationship with Sebastian. Was it all just for publicity? Why would Sebastian go along with something like that? Did he not like me at all? I grabbed the crap fest of a book off the shelf and held it. An up-close photo of Sebastian’s face stared back at me from the cover.Match Point: A Story of Perseverance and Hope. A Memoir by Sebastian Sinclair.Perseverance and hope? Oh, gag me with a spoon. I ripped the book jacket off and tossed it in the trash, so I didn’t have to look at the photo of his stupid face, took the book to the couch, and started flipping through it.

My parents had taken me out to dinner and told me that I should date Julia. I’d seen her around IMG. She’d been the most well-known woman tennis star in the world for three years at that point, despite only being seventeen years old. But everyone considered her weird. She didn’t socialize with anyone at school. Julia had an insane work ethic- she was first on the court and last. All she did was schoolwork and tennis. At first, I balked at the suggestion when my parents told me I should become her boyfriend. They explained that being seen with her would raise my name, and I’d be able to earn more money through endorsement deals. At that time, I played well enough to get offered a few deals here and there, but this move would skyrocket my name. And it would give her image the sense of normalcy that it needed. Our managers thought it was a win-win for the both of us. It took me a while to get onboard. I mean, I had already graduated and having a high-school aged girlfriend wasn’t the most appealing. But she was close enough to eighteen that it didn’t veer into pervy. She was cute enough but didn’t have a sexy body-waif sized and no boobs. And I thought they also approached her about it. Management set up our date, and I thought she was in on it. After a while, though, I suspected she didn’t have a clue. And they’d trapped me in an awkward position.

I slammed the book shut, my stomach churning. What the hell? My one and only boyfriend was a fake relationship. He’d taken all my insecurities and plastered them into one paragraph. At twenty-seven, I’d never had a legitimate boyfriend. Even Jonah had our relationship thrust upon him. He never asked me out, not really. Tears welled in my eyes. What had I done? I was doing the same thing to Jonah that they did to me—using him for my selfish reasons. To make myself look normal to a society that I’ve never understood. Sebastian was right. I was the weird kid, and I’ve never fit in. And now readers were reading about how stupid I was, too.

My fingers hovered over the keypad on the phone. How did I say this?Jonah, I release you from your obligation to me.I started at the screen for a moment. No, that sounded odd and old-fashioned. I backed the cursor over the words, erasing them, and tried again.It seems my relationship with him was a fake, only I had no clue. It’s occurred to me that I’ve done the same to you. I’ve used you for my public image and now it’s intruding on your work. We don’t need to keep this up. I’ll handle it on my own.I pressed send. This was the right thing to do.

What are you saying?His text message said.

You are not responsible for fixing my life. I’m sorry I’ve dragged you into this mess.

I’m coming over.His reply came.

The gate call box buzzed. Jonah knew the code, and there was no way he’d gotten there that fast. It was probably the same news crew that had showed up at the build site.

I pressed the button. “Yes.”

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