Ava

It’s early morning. I’m not sure of the time. I only know it’s morning because the sun is up.

Miley is on the TV, swinging on a wrecking ball and singing her little broken heart out.

I feel your pain, Miley. I really do.

Men are assholes.

Maybe I should get a wrecking ball to swing around on. It might make me feel better.

As you can probably guess, I haven’t slept all night. My eyes are swollen and puffy, and I’m mentally drained. I’ve alternated between bouts of crying and then feeling angry and confused to eating my body weight in chocolate to make myself feel better. I’m an eater when I’m sad.

And I’m definitely sad right now, and this song is not doing anything to help my mood.

But I don’t turn it off. Clearly, I’m in the mood to torture myself.

I look over at the box of chocolates.

Empty.

I sigh.

I clamber off the bed and go over to the mini bar. There are bars of chocolate in it. But the prices are astronomical, and I can’t afford to waste my money on overpriced chocolate, no matter how much I might want it.

“Looks like another trip to the store,” I say to Gucci.

She’s asleep on the bed. I’m pretty sure she didn’t even hear me.

I put my hair up into a messy bun. I pull on my hoodie and push my feet into my flip-flops.

Then, I look down at myself.

I’m wearing my Little Mermaid pajamas.

I consider this for a moment.

Screw it. I’m going out in them. It’s not like I’m out to impress anyone right now. And, honestly, I don’t give a crap what people will think.

I can just be the crazy lady in her pajamas.

I’m just about to get my wallet and room key when someone knocks on the hotel door.

Gabe.

Don’t be stupid Ava. He doesn’t know where you are right now. And he hates you.

I go over to the door and open it without checking the peephole to see who it is, and I find Charly standing there.

“Nice pajamas.”

I open my mouth to speak, and I burst into tears.

“Oh, hell.”

She wraps her arms around me, hugging me tight, and I sob into her shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay.” She soothes me, rubbing my back with her hand.

“I’m sorry.” I sniffle. Pulling away, I wipe my face with the sleeve of my hoodie.

“Don’t be.” She closes the door behind herself and drops her bag to the floor. She takes her jacket off and tosses it on top of her bag.

“I know, but you’ve just gotten here. You don’t need me bawling on your shoulder.”

“Bawl away.” She lifts her shoulder in offering, forcing a smile from me. “That’s why I’m here. So, you can cry, scream, and do whatever you need to, to make yourself feel better.”

“Thanks,” I say, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Gucci gets up, wanders over to me, and climbs in my lap.

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” She tosses her cell on the bed and comes to sit by me. “This Gucci?” She reaches out and strokes her.

“Yeah.” I smile.

“She’s super cute. Aren’t you, Gucci?”

Charly scratches behind her ears, and Gucci, the attention whore, climbs off my lap and onto Charly’s lap where Charly continues to lavish attention on her.

“Have you slept at all?” she asks me.

I shake my head.

“You need to sleep, Ava.”

“I know. I just…I couldn’t.” I rub my hands over my face.

“Have you heard from Gabe since last night?”

As my mouth turns down with sadness at hearing his name, I bite the inside of my bottom lip. “No.”

“Vaughn’s on his way over there now. He just dropped me off, and he’s going to meet Tate and Julian at Gabe’s place. I know you didn’t want him to be alone, so I thought you’d want to know.”

“Thanks, Charly.”

“I saw the news…about Gabe.”

I glance at her. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t tell Bradford Digby anything.”

“I know that. God, you didn’t even tell me on the phone, and you could have because you knew the story was about to drop.”

“I would never share Gabe’s private life with anyone. I just don’t understand how this happened, Charly.” My eyes swell with tears, and I blink them back. “There’s a recording of our private conversation, which Gabe thinks I did. And a contract with my signature on the bottom, giving exclusive rights to Digby.”

“Fucking Digby,” Charly mutters. “That guy has his nose in everybody’s shit. Look what he did to Vaughn.”

Before Charly met Vaughn, he was dating this actress, Piper Watts. Vaughn, Piper, and Cain Acton—Vaughn’s best friend—were on Digby’s talk show, doing a live interview about their upcoming film. Then, Digby exposed that Piper and Cain had been having an affair behind Vaughn’s back. He was humiliated. He took it quite badly for a while, partying and hooking up with multiple women. But that was before he met Charly.

“I just don’t get it. How Digby could say that it was me when it wasn’t. And it’s not like I can call him up and say, Hey, why the hell are you spreading lies about me?”

“It fucking sucks, babe.”

“The thing I can’t get my head around is how he got a recording of our conversation or my signature on that contract.”

“Signatures can be forged,” Charly says.

“Yeah, but it was definitely my writing. I recognized it.” I sigh.

“Well, have you signed anything recently?”

I shake my head. “No…oh, wait. I did sign something the other day for Gabe’s cleaners.”

“What?”

Lifting Gucci into her arms, she shifts around on the bed, sitting Indian-style, and puts Gucci back in her lap. I move on the bed to face her.

“It was this new form. Sadie, one of the cleaners, asked me to sign it. It’s something that their boss implemented just to prove that they’ve done the work.”

“And you’d never signed one before?”

“Nope. That was the first time.”

“Hmm.” Charly taps her lip with her finger.

“What?”

“Just odd that your signature is on a contract that you definitely didn’t sign, and only a few days ago, you signed a form that you’d never had to sign before. Did you read the form?”

“Not really,” I admit.

“So, it’s possible that you signed the contract giving permission to sell Gabe’s story without realizing it.”

“You mean, Sadie? No. No way. And, anyway, it’s Digby who published the story.”

“Digby doesn’t write his own new pieces. He doesn’t need to. He has a team of trashy writers who do that for him. He’s the face, but there’s a whole slew of rats turning that wheel.”

“So, what? You think Sadie has something to do with it? But why use my name? It doesn’t make sense. And how would she have gotten a recording of our conversation? She’s only at the apartment during the day. And she’s not alone. Barb, the other cleaner, is there, too.”

“Hang on…let me think.” Charly taps her fingers on her temples.

I can almost see the wheels turning in her head.

“What’s Sadie’s surname?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s the name of the cleaning company she works for?”

“Floor-to-Ceiling Cleaning.”

“Catchy name.”

“Yeah, I thought that.”

Charly picks her cell up from the bed and starts tapping away on the screen.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting their number. I’m gonna give them a call.”

“Why?”

“To get her name, and while I’m at it, I’ll ask about that form you signed.”

“Charly, you can’t just call them up and ask that!”

“Sure I can.”

She grins and puts her cell to her ear. “Oh, hi. I was wondering if you could help me. Sure, yes, I’m in need of a new cleaner, as I had to fire my last one. She was terrible. Anyway, I was just wondering what you have in place to make sure that the cleaners do their job properly. Hmm…mmhmm. A friend of mine has a cleaner, and she has to sign off on the job to say that the cleaner has done the job to satisfaction. Do you have that? Oh, you don’t?” Charly gives me a knowing look. “Okay, that’s great. Just one more thing. A friend of mine uses your service and said there’s a woman who works for you who is such a great cleaner—Sadie…something. Black. Yes, that’s right. Oh, she has, has she? Oh, well, that is a shame. Okay, well, thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch.”

Charly lowers the phone from her ear. “Seems Sadie Black left Floor-to-Ceiling Cleaning a couple of days ago.” She taps her nails against the screen of her phone. “She had you sign a nonexistent form a few days before Gabe’s story broke, and then she quit her job. Coincidental? Me thinks not.”

“Oh my God.” My heart starts to pound in my chest. “So, what do you think? That Sadie sold the story to Digby and used my name? But why use my name? And how did she get the recording?”

Charly stares up at the ceiling, thinking. “Where did you and Gabe have the conversation when he told you all that stuff about his past?”

“At his apartment, in the living room.”

She brings her eyes back to mine, a light flickering on in them. “Maybe she bugged his apartment.”

My eyes widen. “Bugged his apartment? Doesn’t that seem a little far-fetched?”

“Maybe. But some people will do anything for a story. She could have bugged Gabe’s apartment. Gotten the recording of your conversation. And then sold the tapes to Digby.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why she used my name. She’d want the glory for herself, right?”

“Not necessarily. Because illegally recording a huge movie star’s private conversation about his personal life and then publishing it in the press would, without a doubt, lead to a huge lawsuit for whoever did it. But if his girlfriend recorded the conversation and she sold the tapes to a journalist and signed a contract to give him exclusive rights to the story of the century? It would keep the journalist’s nose clean, and he could run the story without repercussions.”

“And, if a lawsuit did happen, it would land back on the girlfriend who recorded the conversation.”

“Absolutely right.”

“Holy shit.” I press my hands to my head.

“Got to give it to Digby; it’s clever as hell. If it wasn’t so fucking deceptive and it wasn’t you and Gabe he was screwing over, I might actually be impressed.”

“I just can’t believe this.” I tug at my hair. “I can’t believe he would go so far for a story.”

“Digby’s a shark with no morals.”

“So, we get that Digby’s behind the whole thing, but where does Sadie fit into the picture?”

“She probably works for him. So-called journalists like Digby have spies everywhere.”

“That’s nuts and a lot scary.”

“It’s the life of a celebrity, I’m afraid.” She sighs, knowing all too well what it’s like for Vaughn.

“I’m going to look up Sadie online and see if I can find anything out about her.” I get my cell, bring up Google, and type in her name, but all that comes up are some Facebook profiles, and none of them are her.

“Check Digby’s website. She might actually be a writer for him. He should have a roster of employees on there.”

I bring his website up. In the search bar, I type Sadie Black and press Enter, but nothing comes up.

“Check Gabe’s story. See who the writer is.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to see it.” I put down my phone. I’ve avoided looking at the story. The last thing I want to see is the reason Gabe and I are no longer together.

“I’ll look then. I want to know who the writer is.” Charly starts tapping on her screen. “Hmm. Weird.”

“What?” I sit up straighter.

She meets my eyes. “The person who wrote Gabe’s story is called Sandy White. Sadie Black. Sandy White. Similar or what?”

I grab the screen, looking at her name, reading it aloud, “Sandy White, writing for Digby’s Dirt. You think that Sandy could be Sadie?”

“Let’s find out.”

Charly pulls up another search engine and types in Sandy White, Digby’s Dirt.

A bunch of news stories on other celebrities fill the screen.

“Go on to Images,” I tell Charly. “See if there’s a photo of her.”

Charly clicks on Images. A bunch of pictures of different celebrities come up that link to the stories that this Sandy White has written.

Charly scrolls through the pictures, and one catches my eye.

“There. Stop.” I tap on the picture, enlarging it. My heart is hammering in my chest. “That’s her. That’s Sadie.” I jab my finger at the picture.

She’s dressed up, her hair down and curled, looking really glam. Different to how I saw her in her cleaning uniform, but it’s definitely her.

“Chat show host Bradford Digby, actor Chester Handel, and journalist Sandy White at the 2016 Teen Choice Awards,” Charly reads the text beneath the picture.

“Sadie is Sandy.” I cover my mouth with my hands, getting to my feet in disbelief. “I can’t believe that she did this. That Sadie or Sandy or whatever the hell you call her and Digby did this to me! What am I going to do?”

Charly looks up at me. “You have to tell Gabe.”

“He won’t listen to me, Charly.” I shake my head. “Right now, I’m the last person he wants to see.”

“Then, I’ll tell him,” she announces.

“What?” I say, surprised.

“Yeah. I’ll go see him. I’ll tell Gabe what we know about Digby and Sandy, the cleaner formerly known as Sadie.”

“Charly…I really don’t want to put you in the middle of this. Vaughn is Gabe’s friend. I don’t want to cause problems between you guys.”

She takes my hands in hers. “You’re not causing any problems. That fucker Digby and his bitch sidekick caused problems when they did this to you and Gabe. Ava, you’re my friend, and I help my friends. Hos before bros every time, right?”

She grins, and I force a smile.

“Every single time,” I say as I give her hands a squeeze.