3 Weeks Later

I hadn’t gotten out of bed in . . . days. Several of them. And judging by the state of my grotty old sweatpants, I hadn’t done laundry in a fair while either.

Who cared about laundry when my heart was broken?

After flying back to New York immediately after the premiere, I had used the excuse of jetlag for why I couldn’t leave my bed. After all, I didn’t have a job waiting, so there was no reason why I couldn’t burrow under the covers and hide from the world. But now, the excuse was starting to get stale—even to me.

The truth was that I couldn’t get out of my bed because I was heartbroken. Because despite all my attempts to protect myself by leaving London and Jax, I hadn’t managed to completely guard myself from those unwanted feelings of love.

I loved Jax Hawthorne. I didn’t want to, but I did.

And he made it so easy to love him.

After I fled the premiere and hightailed it back to New York, he called. He texted. He even wrote me emails. I ignored them all; it hurt too much to even think about him. And then he eventually stopped trying, which hurt even more again. I didn’t blame him. I was supposed to be an easy fix to his problem and I had allowed my emotions to get all tangled up in the arrangement. It was my fault.

At least I was away from the set and hidden from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. Sometimes, when I first woke up in the mornings in my old bed, in my tiny apartment, with the sound of garbage trucks outside my window instead of English songbirds, it was as if none of it had even happened. But then, the pain in my chest would return and it all came rushing back.

And I went back to bed.

My parents left worried voicemails. “Penny, sweetheart, just checking in . . . Jax has been trying to reach you too. Call us!”

BEEP!

“Penny, stop wallowing.” My sister tried a blunt approach. “I’m this close to getting on a flight and dragging you out of bed, you know.”

BEEP!

Then there was Mia.

“Hey, babe, I’m worried about you. Please let me know you’re OK, and not in a pathetic heap of pajamas and pizza delivery.”

I looked around the room. She knew me too well. And I didn’t want to keep lying anymore.

I called her.

“You’re alive!”

“Just about,” I sighed. “Look, we need to talk. Can you meet me in Central Park on your lunchbreak?”

“Of course,” she said immediately. “I’ll even buy you one of those terrible hot dogs you love so much.”

I wanted to laugh, but I started crying instead.

“Screw lunch. I can be there in twenty minutes,” Mia said.

Fifteen minutes later we were sitting on a park bench, with Mia watching as I cried into my hot dog, making the bun soggier and soggier.

“The rumor was that you broke it off with him,” Mia said gently after I had stopped sobbing. “Is that not true?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Because none of it is true,” I said, and I tearfully confessed the whole charade.

Mia listened quietly, her eyes getting rounder and rounder as each part of the deception was revealed. When I was done, I buried my face in my hands, unable to face my best friend.

“Do you hate me?” I asked her, my voice muffled.

“Only a little,” she said.

I looked up, anxious, and found her giving me a sad smile. “I wish you’d trusted me enough to tell me, but, I get it.” She sighed. “My job makes everything more complicated.”

“I really wanted to,” I swore. “But Stella had this non-disclosure contract a mile long. If I’d let it slip, they would have owned my firstborn.”

Mia cracked a smile. “I believe you. Rumor has it Katie Holmes’ contract was three hundred pages.”

“Mine wasn’t like that,” I said quickly. “It was supposed to be simple.”

Mia took my hand. “So, you fell for him, didn’t you?”

I nodded, the tears welling in my eyes again. “I was so stupid,” I cried. “The worst part is that I miss him. Even though I know all of it was an act, I still miss him.” I pressed my palm to my chest. “It really hurts. And I want it to stop hurting.”

“I know.” Mia hugged me. “And it will. And if it doesn’t, I can just post that you dumped him because he couldn’t get it up.”

“No!” I protested, laughing through my tears. “Believe me, that was never a problem.”

“Oh really?” Mia arched and eyebrow, and I sighed.

“Talking about the amazing sex won’t make me miss him any less.”

“Good point,” she agreed.

“What is wrong with me? Did I really think I could resist a movie star?” I asked her, throwing my hands up. “His job is to make people fall in love with him.”

Mia paused. “Are you sure that what it was for him? A job?”

I took a deep breath. “That was always the deal. He was clear from the beginning—I mean, we had a contract and everything. But then everything got blurred. I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I forgot that it was all for pretend.”

“I don’t know, Pen.” Mia scrolled through her phone, showing me the pictures of Jax and I at our picnic—the one that I had thought was private. “He doesn’t look like he’s pretending here.”

And if I didn’t know any better, I might have agreed. Jax was looking at me with a heartbreaking combination of tenderness and desire. And the look in my eyes was the same—only I hadn’t been faking it. I had fallen for him. For real.

“I’m sure we’ll see him doing the same thing with Olivia in a few weeks.” I pushed Mia’s phone away.

Mia gave me a sympathetic look and put her phone away.

“At least you got a free trip to London out of it,” she said, trying to be positive.

“Yeah.” I kicked at some of the snow that had fallen onto the frozen ground. “At least I got that.”

Mia walked me back to the subway. Usually I loved New York at this time of the year, but not even the changing of the seasons could cheer me up lately. I knew that it would take time for me to get over Jax—more time than it had taken to get over Greg—but knowing that didn’t lessen any of the pain I felt.

We passed by a newsstand, and a familiar face was plastered across the cover of one of the weekly tabloid magazines. It was Jax.

“Come on, Penny.” Mia tried to pull me away, but I needed to see what was being said.

Jax looked terrible. The photos were of him in out and about in London and on the set of Pride and Prejudice, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days—dark circles under his eyes, his gorgeous hair mussed—but in a “I don’t give a shit” way, rather than his usual “just got out of bed” way.

Stars! They’re Just Like Us! the headline read. British Heartthrob Jax Hawthorne deals with his broken engagement by going out to bars and getting pissed.

As much as I wanted to believe that Jax really was upset over the broken engagement, I couldn’t help wondering if this headline and these photos had been manufactured by Stella. Maybe all of this was part of the act—that he’d get sympathy for being dumped. That it would help his image.

The idea that this was all fake as well made me sick. Had anything between Jax and I been true?

Mia eventually pulled me away from the newsstand and put me in a cab back to my apartment. I was more than ready to go home, crawl under my covers, and not move for about a week or so.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at my place, I found that I had guests waiting for me on the front stoop. Paige, and her boyfriend, Dash, both of them looking concerned and holding pints of ice cream in their arms.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, self-consciously smoothing back my hair, even though I knew I looked terrible. “I thought you were in California.”

“We were,” Dash answered. “But we thought it would be a good time for a visit.”

Paige threw her arms around me. “We were worried about you,” she said, hugging me tightly.

I managed a smile, and the three of us went inside, where we made quick work of one of the four pints of ice cream that had been brought from my favorite ice cream place.

“OK.” Dash cleared the empty cartoon and stood in front of Paige and me, rubbing his hands together. “This is your mission, should you choose to accept it.”

I gave Paige a sideways glance, but she was grinning up at Dash like a fool in love. Which is exactly what she was. I should have felt a twinge of bitterness or even jealousy, especially after everything that had happened with Jax, but it was hard to feel resentful of the relationship of two people who were totally perfect for each other.

“OK.” I crossed my arms. “A mission?”

“Yes.” Dash tapped his chin. “A mission.” He thought for a moment. “I’m going to find us the best Chinese food in Manhattan. And while I do that, you two”—he pointed at Paige and me—“are going to compile a list of movies that will make us all laugh so hard that we’ll be sick.” Dash held out his hand. “That is your mission. Do you accept?”

Paige exchanged a look with me and crossed her arms.

“That depends,” she said. “What exactly will you be ordering when you find the best Chinese place in Manhattan?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “And be forewarned—there is a correct and an incorrect answer to this question.”

Dash scoffed. “Obviously I’ll be order Kung Pao chicken and pork chow mein.”

Paige smiled. “Then your mission has been accepted,” she said.

She held out her hand for a shake, but instead, Dash pulled her up off of the couch and into his arms, giving her a kiss that left them both flushed.

“Get a room,” I grumbled. “But Chinese food, first.”

With a salute, Dash grabbed his jacket. “Movie marathon,” he reminded us. “Comedies. Not romantic comedies.”

Paige waved a dismissive hand at him, one that said she would pick romantic comedies if she wanted to pick romantic comedies. He shook his head one last time and was gone.

“Dash is a good guy,” I told Paige as we snuggled down on my couch together.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “He’s pretty great. Especially when it comes to his take-out delivery services.”

I laughed and put my head on my sister’s lap and began flipping through channels, looking for something to watch. Dash had told us to find comedies, but there was a pretty good chance we would all just end up watching The Real Housewives. Dash would pretend to be upset about it for about ten seconds and then he’d settle in and start talking about his favorite. Paige had found a good one, and I was pretty glad that both of them had come all the way from California to see me.

I was especially glad for the company when Jax popped up on my screen.

“Shit, let me change the channel.” Paige tried to wrestle the remote out of my hands, but I held fast. It was live TMZ footage of Jax arriving in New York.

“Shh,” I told her, “let me see.”

He still looked terrible—maybe even more so—but that didn’t make me feel any better about anything. In fact, I felt worse. Because stepping out of the airport, only a few feet behind him, was Olivia. They weren’t touching, or even looking at each other, but the implication was clear. And TMZ didn’t waste any time in plastering graphics over their image that read: Jax Hawthorne mends his broken heart by hooking up with his Pride and Prejudice co-star? Will Darcy and Elizabeth find real love in real life?

Paige finally grabbed the remote and shut it off. “Are you OK?” She gave me an anxious look.

“Sure,” I lied. “I guess he’s moving onto Phase Two now.”

My heart ached. Even though part of me had been expecting it, I still couldn’t believe that it was happening so quickly. It made everything that had happened seemed suddenly, painfully real.

“10 Things I Hate About You!” Paige suddenly exclaimed. “That’s what you need. Followed by Josie and the Pussycats and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”

“I thought Dash said no rom coms,” I said weakly, trying to scrub the image of Jax from my mind.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Paige replied.

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.” She gave me a hug. “Everything’s going to be OK. Eventually.”

But I knew she was lying. After all, how could anything be OK, without Jax?