“Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

“For a drive. I need to get out of here for a bit.”

“But you just got home! Jack, I need to be able to talk to you about this stuff, okay? I need to know that when you’re gone, when you’re on location, that you’re okay. You can’t blame me for being concerned.” I stood in front of him as he stuffed his legs into his jeans and pulled on his shirt.

“You talked; I listened. I hope you heard what I said too. There’s nothing to be worried about, okay?” He planted a kiss on my forehead absently on his way out of the bedroom. I followed him, my mind whirling at how quickly this conversation had turned.

“Wait, Jack, what’s happening here? Are you really leaving?”

“Just for a bit. I’ll be back soon. It’s fine, Grace. We’re fine. I know what you’re saying, and I appreciate your concern. I really do.”

His eyes were hidden from me as he pulled on a jacket and headed out into the night. I stood in the doorway, still in my red lace, shivering in the night air.

“Tell Holly the next time she goes through you to get to me, we’re going to have a real problem,” he said, sliding into his car.

I watched him go, then went back inside. I turned out all the lights, except for the one in the entryway, then padded back to our room. I left the red lace on the floor of the bathroom, slipped into one of his T-shirts, and got into bed. Stunned, I lay on my pillow, more worried than I’d been in a long time.

Sometime in the early-morning light, Jack came home. He came in, I heard him undress, and I felt him climb into bed.

Come over here. Please, come over here, I silently begged, needing to feel his arms around me. After what felt like an eternity smashed into twenty seconds, he wriggled over to my side of the bed, slipping his arms around and under me, hands surrounding my breasts and laying his head on my pillow. I breathed out, letting him hold me.

“I love you so much, Jack,” I said quietly.

“I know,” he whispered back, kissing the side of my neck and going to sleep.

My alarm, set to wake me up for my first day of press interviews, went off thirty-seven minutes later. I looked like hell.

twelve

The press junket was tough. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect it to be so hard. Was I digging ditches? Nope. Answering phones in a call center somewhere for ten hours in a row? Uh-uh. Was this a hard job? Not in the traditional sense, nope. No way. Was that press junket hard? Hard as a motherfucker.

I’ll never watch a celebrity interview the same way. Even though I had prepared for this—I knew what to expect, I felt ready to go—it was hard. You sit in a hotel room, with the windows blocked out behind you, publicity posters sitting all around, and every ten minutes another journalist comes in and asks you essentially the same questions the last thirteen did. And you try to answer them differently but not stray too far from the “script.” You smile and nod and thank them when they tell you they loved what they’ve seen of the series so far, and you wonder if they are really being truthful.

And when they get clever, when they start asking questions and you know exactly where they’re trying to lead you to (Hamiltontown) you smile and nod again, and then evade. Because as much as they would like you to believe they’re in charge of this interview, it’s up to you to keep it on the material that you feel comfortable with.

I’d done well. I was pretty impressed at how I’d handled things. Holly was there. She had conversations with each producer ahead of time, and then again with each interviewer before we began to make sure they stayed on topic and only on preapproved subjects: the series, my costars, my recent rise to fame, adjusting to life in the limelight. They were each allowed to ask one question about my weight—something I had initially been against but was warming up to.

Was my body a little out of control right now? I couldn’t honestly say yes, because while I had abandoned the cucumber-and-air idiocy, I was eating and exercising with the same zeal I had been for the last few years.

I shook my head to clear it, getting ready for the last interview. A beautiful blonde from ENT breezed into the room, shaking hands with me and smiling her perfect teeth at the camera as they miked her. Holly reminded her once more what she could and couldn’t ask, and she smiled again. The camera light went on, and we made nice for a few moments—about the series, my costars, the usual. I stifled a yawn as I went through the motions, thinking about getting a dirty martini as soon as this was all over, wondering if I could talk Holly into joining me. I snorted a little at the thought of her turning down a cocktail, losing my focus, and that’s when the deer-in-headlights happened.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, what do you think about the pictures that we released just this afternoon?”

“Pictures? Sorry, I’ve been inside all day. What pictures are you talking about?” I asked, my eyes fluttering to Holly, who shrugged her shoulders, clearly not knowing what was going on either.

“Oh, of course. You probably haven’t seen them yet, have you? Here, I have some copies with me,” she purred, handing me a stack of prints. Before they were even in my hand, I could see they were of Jack. And a girl. A girl wearing not a lot of clothing. And by not a lot I mean panties and that was it. They were kissing, his hands in her hair and her hands on his chest. Passionate. Intense. Shot after shot of his mouth on hers, on her neck, on her—

I thrust them back at her, my hands shaking. Holly was about ready to climb out of her skin, pacing in a room that was too small for pacing.

“How do these pictures make you feel, Grace? I mean, come on, isn’t it about time you two admit your relationship? Or is it not cheating if you’ve never really said you were an item?”

I stared at her. I was rattled, totally rattled.

“Is this because of the weight gain? Men can be so funny about that, can’t they?” she asked, her face painted with fake concern.

“My weight gain?”

“Oh, well sure. It can’t be a coincidence that just as you began to put on weight, sorry, put back on, that’s when Jack started stepping out all over town? Care to comment?”

Holly stepped between us. “That’s it. This interview is over,” she snapped, shielding me from the camera. “You knew what was off-limits.”

“Oh, please, Holly, it’s what we all want to know, but no one had the guts to ask. This is news. I have an obligation to my audience to—”

“Get over yourself, Barbie. We’re through. Grace, let’s go.”

She turned to me, pulling me out of the chair and walking me from the room, keeping herself between me and the camera the entire time. I was still frozen, shocked but furious with myself for not being able to respond. How had this happened? And what were those pictures? I turned back into the room, looking again at the stack of pictures on the table, the camera following me as I was ushered away, the simpering look on the interviewer’s face as she knew she’d gotten me.

Damn . . . this town was vicious.

Once Holly got me into the other room, she went back in. I could hear her yelling. She was on a tear, and I was very glad to not be on the receiving end of it. That reporter wouldn’t get another interview for years with me, or Jack, or any of Holly’s clientele. I rubbed my eyes and kicked off my heels, trying to center and breathe and come to terms with what I had just seen.

Check yourself here. We don’t know what we just saw.

We saw Jack with his hands on another woman. That’s what we saw.