“You and Johnnie Walsh?” Ally’s expression was upset and a little accusing.
“No!” I protested, cringing as I watched the footage again on the laptop open in front of us. Ally and Lena stood either side of me at Lena’s kitchen table. Ugh, I didn’t want to watch, except I couldn’t look away because I still didn’t quite believe it.
The video was dark and poorly lit but there was no mistaking the figures of myself and Johnnie locking lips.
“Sure looks like it,” Ally said. “What’s Faith going to say, Chloe?”
I hated hearing the disappointment in her voice. Of our little group, I knew Ally understood my views on relationships better than the others. She was a good Italian girl who’d grown up in a big family in New England. Like me, she wasn’t one for casual flings.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. I hadn’t had the courage to contact Faith yet, but I had little doubt she’d already seen it. The thirty-second video was all over the internet.
I collapsed into the chair closest to me. “What am I going to do?” My voice was pleading, but I didn’t care. Nor did I care about the tears pooling in my eyes. “Can I get one of my lawyers to demand they remove the footage?”
Lena gave me a sympathetic look and sat down beside me. “You could, I suppose, but in my opinion, the damage is done. It could take months of legal battles, plus you don’t even know who this ‘SleazyCeleb105’ is who posted it on YouTube.”
I sniffed and swiped at my eyes. “Surely we can find out?”
“Maybe, but it could take weeks to get to the bottom of it. If it were me, I’d let it die down.”
“Die down! They’re saying we had sex!”
Lena sighed. “I know. And you’ll have to brace yourself because they’ll say a whole lot worse besides—even if you do manage to get the video removed, that won’t change.”
“Mama’s going to kill me,” I practically sobbed.
I’d all but fled the house when I’d seen the footage. My publicist had contacted me about it first thing this morning when I was still suffering a mean hangover from the night before. Mama had been calling and messaging me ever since, but so far I’d been too shocked and overwhelmed to talk to her. Instead I’d escaped to Lena’s house where I’d found Ally was visiting, too.
“No, she won’t,” Ally said. “They can say what they want but it’s pretty clear it’s just a kiss. Can I ask you something though?”
I sniffed again. “Sure.”
“Why did you kiss him?”
“I didn’t kiss him!” I screeched.
Ally and Lena shared a look over my head.
I felt like I was the naughty child who’d been caught out, but the stupid thing was, I wasn’t. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. Even if the whole world thought the worst of me, I needed my two closest friends to understand.
“It wasn’t like that. He was disappointed when he heard Gabe and I hadn’t got together—not that it’s my style—and insisted on giving me a birthday kiss. I figured there was no harm in it, even though it seemed kind of odd after he’d just been with Faith. But he seemed really upset for me so I told him he could kiss me on the cheek.”
Ally bit her lip. “Um, I know the video is dark but that’s not your cheek he’s kissing and that’s his hand down your—”
“Yes, I know, alright! He kissed me on the cheek and the next thing I knew his lips were on mine, his tongue was in my mouth and, and—”
Ally frowned. “His hand was down your front.”
“No!”
Ally gave me a reproachful look.
“OK, fine. I was still a bit drunk and I might have kissed him back for just a second!”
“Video goes for thirty seconds.”
“And what that video doesn’t show is that a second after he groped me, I slapped him, alright?”
For the first time since we’d watched the video, Ally smiled. “You slapped him?”
“Yes! Hard. It made my hand sting.”
“Awesome.” Her smile didn’t last long and her brown eyes filled with concern. “Please tell me he didn’t try anything after that?”
I inhaled a shaky breath. “No. No, he didn’t. He apologized profusely actually. I think we were both still a bit drunk to be honest and he just got carried away.” Like I had, for a brief moment. I was only human. Having Gypsy Hour’s front man kiss me passionately had given me leave of my senses—but not for long.
I shot the laptop an offending look like it somehow had something to do with my downfall. “But the video doesn’t show that, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Lena said softly. She was looking past us out the window to her estate’s perfectly manicured grounds. “Which makes me wonder about the person who posted this. Surely they saw the whole thing but they chose to upload only the kiss.”
“Can you ask Marc to look into it?” Ally said. “I know he doesn’t do the investigative stuff anymore, but he’s so good at it.”
Lena’s gaze returned to us. “I know he’d make an exception for you, Chloe. If you wanted him to.”
I nodded, feeling immediately reassured at the thought of having Lena’s partner, Marc Romero, look into this horrible mess. Marc was a former Marine who’d served in Afghanistan. Upon his retirement he had worked as a security specialist for Hollywood celebrities. That was how he’d met Lena, because she’d been the victim of a stalker. More than one stalker, in fact. For a long time Lena had claimed she’d disliked Marc. But when things had gone horribly wrong on the set of a recent movie, she’d been forced to work more closely with him. Somehow in all of that, they’d fallen in love. I think the whole thing still mystified Lena in some ways. Marc was brooding and quiet, and at times terribly stubborn, but I’d always thought they’d made a good match.
“Please,” I told her. “Please get him to look into it. I’ll do whatever he needs.”
“Of course.” Lena smiled and released my hand. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will be OK.”
“Yeah, I’ll get back to you on that.”
Ally stood up and walked around the counter. “Right. This calls for food. What’s it to be?”
I smiled in spite of myself. Ally’s cooking was legendary. She used to run her family’s Italian restaurant back in Providence and found it therapeutic to feed us whenever she could.
“It’s barely ten in the morning,” protested Lena, probably thinking about the latest movie she was starring in, which required an intense workout regime.
“So, brunch then,” said Ally. “Let’s see what I can come up with.” She turned and buried her head in the refrigerator behind her. “Got any bacon in here?” we heard her say.
“God, I hope not,” said Lena, making me giggle. Lena’s smile faded as she contemplated me. “I take it you didn’t get the chance to know Gabe better last night?”
I shot her a look of despair. “I got to know him a little, but what chance do I have after this?” I’d been trying so hard not to think about Gabe. When he found out about the video I was pretty sure any respect he had for me would be gone. Gosh, I’d been there and I knew it was all a horrible misunderstanding, but I still felt ashamed.
“I’m sorry, Chloe. Just let things settle down, you’ll see.”
I wished I had Lena’s patience and experience. Instead all I had was a major PR disaster and a hopeless crush on a guy who was now unlikely to give me a second glance.