Mia set the drinks in the cup holders as Brooke pulled out into traffic. A car behind them honked.
“What’s going on?” Dread had leaked into Mia’s bloodstream, causing a rush of adrenaline. She scanned her friend’s face, but other than tightness at the corners of her eyes she looked normal. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. It’s not me.”
“Not your mom.” Mia had hired Lettie after her own mother had passed and had seen her moments ago on the way out the door.
“No, she’s fine.” Brooke had the steering wheel in a death grip. “Mia . . . tell me what happened last night. At the wrap party.”
Oh, the wrap party. Someone must’ve seen what Jax did and told Brooke. She had a lot of friends in the business.
Mia sighed. “I was going to tell you over coffee. Jax had too much to drink. I went outside to get a ride home, and he followed me. He came out of nowhere and laid one on me. I feel just awful, Brooke. I told you I sensed something while we were filming, but he never made a move on me before.”
“So . . . it wasn’t mutual?”
Mia gaped at Brooke. “Of course it wasn’t mutual. He’s a married man. I’d never do that.”
“Sorry. Sorry, I do know that.” She tossed Mia a sheepish look. “But he is Jax Jordan. And he does have that dimpled grin. And that sexy cleft in his chin.”
“Don’t forget the perpetual five o’clock shadow. But he’s married. Anyway, who told you? I didn’t think anyone saw.”
Brooke gave her a look that made her tremble from the inside out. “Oh, Mia. I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Tell me what? You’re scaring me.”
Brooke turned onto Mia’s street and began the winding uphill drive. She slid Mia a sympathetic look. “Someone snapped a picture, honey, and it’s on a celeb page.”
Mia sucked in a breath. But the kiss had lasted all of one second before she’d pushed him away. It couldn’t be that bad.
Brooke handed Mia her phone, already opened to the Hollywood Reporter website. The headline screamed, “MIA STEALS EMMA’S MAN!” Below it were pictures, the largest of them a profile view of a seemingly steamy kiss. She and Jax weren’t recognizable in that shot, but the photographer had gotten a picture right before that kiss in the instant Jax had taken her face in his hands, when she’d been too shocked to move.
“This isn’t . . .”
There were other pictures too. One of them embracing earlier that same evening when the mood had been celebratory. “I hugged everyone!”
Another photo of them walking side by side, laughing together as they left the set one evening.
“This makes it look like—”
“You know how these rags are. They don’t care about the truth. Only selling their so-called stories.”
“Maybe I can, I don’t know, get my lawyer on it. Pay someone off, do something to head this off . . .”
“I hope it’s not too late, hon. You know how quickly these things spread.”
Even before Brooke finished speaking, Mia was opening another page. Her stomach sank as she saw the story was front-page news there as well. The same pictures. The same story . . . a little more tastefully told. They didn’t outright accuse her of stealing Jax from Emma. But those pictures . . .
She closed the page and checked social media. “It’s trending on Twitter.”
She thought of Jax’s wife seeing this, and her gut twisted hard. Emma was pregnant with their first child. “Poor Emma. I have to call and explain.”
Brooke gave her a look. “Explain what? That her husband came on to you, and you rejected him?”
“Well, I can’t have her thinking we’re having some tawdry affair.”
“Leave that to Jax. He can handle himself.”
Despite his bit of flirting on set, Mia liked Jax. He worked hard, and in spite of his celebrity he didn’t act like he was above everyone else.
But Mia wasn’t naïve. Jax wasn’t about to tell his wife he’d come on to another woman.
She looked at the pictures. They told a story—a story that wasn’t true, but people would believe what they wanted. And Emma wouldn’t want to believe this was Jax’s fault.
Neither would anyone else. Emma was America’s sweetheart, following in the footsteps of women like Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, and Reese Witherspoon. Mia was only an up-and-comer.
“They’re making me out to be a home wrecker, and nobody’s going to believe I’m innocent.” Her eyes dropped to the pictures. “This is going to ruin my whole career, Brooke. Everything I’ve worked for.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You know how these stories can be. As soon as something bigger comes along, people will forget. This might not amount to much.”
“I hope you’re right. I should call Nolan.”
She pulled up her agent’s contact and tapped on his number. He’d been expecting her call and did what he was best at, talked her off the cliff. Told her to stay off social media. She expressed her concerns about losing her next role in Lesser Days. Fiona was the role of her dreams, the one she’d been waiting for, and the studio had a reputation for a high standard of integrity. The contract she’d signed had a morality clause.
Like Brooke, Nolan assured her this would pass. That addressing the gossip would only fan the flames. Better they hope for another scandal to come along and steal the headlines.
When she got off the phone she told Brooke what he’d said.
“You know what?” Brooke said after a brief silence. “You have a break in your schedule right now. You could skip town for a little while.”
“That makes it look like I’m guilty.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She slid Mia a look. “At least filming is done, and you won’t have to see Jax anymore.”
“We’ll still have all the publicity when the movie releases.”
“Awkward. Hopefully this’ll blow over by then.”
Brooke slowed as she came around the final corner before Mia’s rambling ranch. But as they rounded the bend they saw the cluster of vans parked on the street in front of the driveway. News vans.
“Get down,” Brooke said.
Mia dove for her ankles, her heart drumming against her thighs as Brooke gave the car gas. “Did they see me?”
“I don’t think so.”
Great. A media circus in her front yard. How long would they stay? How was she going to make herself go home? She’d been photographed many times, but not like this. Not as the center of a scandal.
“Is anyone following?” Mia said into her knees a full minute later.
“I don’t think so. They don’t know my car. That’s illegal anyway, isn’t it?”
“Doesn’t mean they won’t do it.” They weren’t allowed to shoot on private property with telephoto lenses either, but that hadn’t stopped them from publishing an unflattering picture of Gwyneth Paltrow emerging from her pool last week.
Brooke made a couple more turns, heading back down the hill. “I think it’s safe to come up now.”
Mia cautiously sat upright. They were in a quiet part of the neighborhood, at least a mile from the scene at her house. What was she going to do? Where was she going to go? If she went home she’d be trapped there unless she wanted the hassle of the reporters every time she came and went.
“I’m going to have to go away and hide out for a while,” she said resolutely. She’d have to juggle some things on her calendar. Benefits, luncheons, appearances. Her standing appointment with her “little sister” Ana Maria from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Missing this one grated most of all.
“Maybe that’d be for the best,” Brooke said. “You could stay with my mom.”
Mia imagined the paparazzi surrounding Lettie’s house in the quiet little subdivision of LA. “I’m the last thing she needs. Until all this dies down.”
“What about . . .” Brooke gave her head a hard shake. “No, never mind. That’s a stupid idea.”
“What?”
“Nothing really. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Brooke.”
“All right, but when I tell you, you’ll think it’s a dumb idea too. I was just remembering the confirmation you got—your honeymoon trip in North Carolina . . . See, I told you it was a stupid idea.”
Wesley had booked them at an inn on Bluebell Lake, and it had been nonrefundable. Mia hadn’t realized he hadn’t canceled the reservation until she’d gotten an email a couple days ago.
Maybe this was a sign from God. “Well, at least that would be someplace quiet. Not to mention already paid for.”
“Sweetie . . . it was supposed to be your honeymoon.”
“And now it could be a little vacation—on Wesley’s dime.”
Brooke gave her a look.
“It was your idea.”
“It was a terrible idea.”
Wesley had pushed for Lake Cuomo in Italy for their honeymoon, but Mia had wanted to go to the town where her mother had grown up. Katherine had left home at eighteen to pursue her Hollywood dreams, changing her name and cutting ties with her family.
Mia’s father had left when she was five and, especially after her mother died, Mia craved those familial roots everyone else seemed to have. Maybe her grandparents were gone, but she’d always wanted to visit Bluebell, where they’d lived until they passed away. Imagine her surprise when she found out that the inn they’d owned was still there.
When the topic of the honeymoon had risen between Wes and her, she’d pushed the issue. And since Mia had graciously conceded to Wes’s mother in almost every aspect of the wedding plans, Wesley let her have her way.
Bluebell Lake was tucked away in a quiet little town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the perfect spot for a honeymoon. And the perfect place to disappear to. How would it feel to go to the place where she and Wes were supposed to honeymoon? Not good, she was sure. But at this point she really didn’t have the luxury of avoiding pain and regret.
“I’ll need a flight,” Mia said.
“Mia.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“What about your clothes and things?”
“I’d rather buy new than go back home and become bait for those vultures.”
“I could send my mom to get them.”
“I’m not having Lettie deal with all that.”
The idea was making more and more sense. Maybe going on her honeymoon alone was a strange idea, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was also the right idea. There was something about the dot on the map that had always felt like home.
“It’s settled then,” Mia said with more bravado than she felt. “I’m going to North Carolina.”