He was supposed to be married by now. He was supposed to have eloped. Abby was supposed to be by his side, a wedding band on her finger. It was sitting in his pocket. He’d been carrying it around. An act of defiance, he supposed. Lord knew he wasn’t going to do anything about it. He couldn’t. His life was not his own. It hadn’t been for quite some time. Maybe it never was.
Zack was standing idly backstage along with the rest of the #Blessed cast, some new faces among them, as well as above-the-line executive and associate producers, two big-wig directors who’d signed on for the upcoming season, and the head writer of the show, a nervous-looking Jewish man who went by J.D. White and happened to be a closet atheist—Zack had gotten him absolutely shitfaced two seasons back and learned a lot about the guy.
Hollywood was a strange place especially when located in New York City’s somewhat parallel universe…
The Christian Network had rented out the Javits Center, a huge event space on Manhattan’s west side, for the press junket featuring not only #Blessed, but all of their primetime shows. On the platform stage out front sat a long table with microphones and name placards set up in front of each chair, Zach Canning’s name among them. All the major entertainment news shows had sent reporters, their cameramen setting up in the back and along the sides. Journalists representing a wealth of entertainment magazines and tabloids had claimed the seating area, and the kinetic energy of the place was buzzing.
Zach so wasn’t feeling it. Not at all.
He’d suffered through two days of misery knowing Abby was probably just as miserable but also completely confused. Hell, Zach was confused and he’d had an entire team of people explain to him what was going on and why. She probably hated him, if not because she assumed he’d been in on the ‘out’ in the contract, then because he’d succumbed to the Christian Network’s wishes and didn’t fight them.
Why hadn’t he fought them?
It had been getting less and less clear being able to see the answer to that question.
Zach had been vacantly staring out at the sea of journalists, reporters, photographers, and cameramen from the sidelines. As he stepped away, making room for a team of production coordinators who were in the throes of making last-minute adjustments to the staging area, Zach was slammed with the memory of how mind-bendingly incredible his night with Abby had been.
He’d never had sex like that, but the sex alone wasn’t what had made his night with her life changing. He’d completely, absolutely, and undeniably fallen in love with her during those hours from dusk ‘til dawn. Being with her like that had felt more right than anything he’d ever felt or done or been a part of in his entire life… including being on this show…
That’s what made this so painful and confusing and downright crippling. He wanted to be with her, but he didn’t know who he’d be without #Blessed.
Why the fuck did they make him choose? It had been torture. Like picking which child to save or which limb to cut off—medieval extent anguish.
He’d been trying to tell himself that once he signed the renewed contract with the show, he could get Abby back. Walter and Darlene would forgive him for his defiance. They’d be able to clean up any fallout that might come with him resuming a relationship with the girl who’d stolen his heart. But he knew deep down that his effort to convince himself this would work amounted to a feeble consolation that likely wouldn’t pan out.
He’d taken Abby’s virginity on the promise of marrying her. The next day he’d turned his back on all they could’ve had together and walked away. He was out of his fucking mind to hope she’d ever forgive him for that. And Christ, he pinched the bridge of his nose as the magnitude of it all hit him like a fist to his solar plexus—he’d asked Abby’s father for his blessing.
There wouldn’t be enough booze, coke, and starfuckers in all of New York City to make him forget, not that he had the stomach for his old lifestyle anymore.
She’d changed him for the better.
And in return he’d destroyed her.
The self-loathing he felt was reaching jump-off-the-Brooklyn-bridge proportions…
“My man,” Jamison slapped him good-naturedly on the shoulders, coming up from behind to sneak to the head of the star-studded line that had formed at the sidelines of the backstage area. A devilish grin came over the pretty-boy’s face as he congratulated, “Making headlines. Single and ready to mingle once again. Always a step behind the star of the show.”
“No,” Zach said, shocked. Saddened for Emily. Disturbed that Jamison could be acting as though he’d just bet the farm on an underdog and won. “You’re getting a divorce?”
“Paperwork’s all done,” he enthused. “Signed, sealed, delivered.”
Zach cringed at his friend’s crass use of an expression that so greatly reminded him of Abby he felt his heart twist sharply in his chest.
“My attorney’s dropping it off at the courthouse as we speak. I’m telling you, man,” Jamison went on, zinging with excitement, “This upcoming filming season is going to be like old times. Two wild bachelors taking on Manhattan. Like old, motherfucking times.”
“Can’t wait,” Zach said dryly and not at all meaning it. His friend was far too elated to notice Zach wasn’t on board, but it was just as well.
It was also just as well that Jamison wasn’t aware Zach hadn’t yet been presented with a renewed contract to even appear on #Blessed. It was the dangling carrot, metaphorically speaking, getting him through this press junket. If he showed that he was a Christian Network ‘good boy’—meaning if he could act like his usual, bad boy, heartthrob self, obedient in every way, shape, and form underneath it all while on the surface making a headlining spectacle of himself at every turn to keep #Blessed on the tip of America’s tongue—then Walter would give his agent, Marla the nod and she’d hand Zach the contract. On the spot.
And life really would go back to the way it had been...
…before Abby.
The very prospect of that, however, made him sick with remorse.
This show, this network, his life felt like a prison.
One of the new faces of #Blessed, a bubbly blonde with perky curves and giant blue eyes that to Zach looked scheming, sashayed right up to him, a great big smile on her mid-western face that spelled trouble.
“Zach Canning,” cooed Trisha or Theresa or whatever the fuck her name was. “I’ve been dying to meet you.” He feigned a smile meant to discourage her from attempting any kind of conversation. It went right over her head. “I hear our characters might have a little plotline,” she told him suggestively. He frowned and to his ears her voice grated on his nerves. “A little kissing-in-the-back-of-the-church type storyline,” she tried again to get his flirtatious engine firing.
She was barking up the wrong tree and nothing more than a dog as far as he was concerned.
When Darlene and Walter rushed up to him, he’d never been more relieved to see them in his life… which was saying a lot because he’d fantasized about murdering each of them several times over the course of the last two days.
“A word?” Darlene said urgently as she ushered Zach away from prying eyes and eavesdroppers, Walter padding along tightly behind them. “We have a potential disaster on our hands.”
Why was everything life or death with this woman?
Zach made a point to show no sign he cared about the impending doom that Darlene seemed to think was rolling in. Wasn’t it enough that he’d allowed himself to be manipulated by her?
Walter was going on and on about the calamity that would surely result, not that Zach was paying attention. It wasn’t until he heard Darlene say, “Abby Gallagher could shatter your career,” that he tuned back in.
“What?”
“She’s threatened to violate the gag order,” Walter hissed through his shiny veneer teeth.
“The one thing we overlooked,” Darlene stated, “was that a nobody like Abby would have nothing to lose if she got screwed.”
Anxiously, Walter asked, “Can we throw money at the situation? Two hundred thou perhaps to get her to go away?”
Zach must have looked concerned—intrigued was more like it, proud perhaps—because after telling Walter, “I doubt she’s after money. I think she’s out for blood,” Darlene immediately filled Zach in. “In order to even meet you, I had that girl sign non-disclosure agreements to ensure she’d never breathe a word of the arranged aspect to a soul. There were signed NDAs in place every step of the way. If she goes to the press and tells them the entire relationship was a PR stunt to restore your image…” Darlene grimaced, her whole face hardening with such fury that she couldn’t even bring herself to finish her point.
Walter corrected her, “What do you mean ‘if’? She’s standing outside the Javits Center as we speak! She’s poached Entertainment Tonight and TMZ from our junket! This is a nightmare!”
“Abby’s outside?” asked Zach, feeling his heart punch hard in his chest cavity. His pulse was skyrocketing just knowing she was out there.
“She’s going to make good on her threat,” Walter fretted.
“We’ll sue the shit out of her,” Darlene assured him.
“What’ll that do? The damage will have been done. We need to stop this!”
“I have the police coming, Walter, I told you that! The restraining order is in place and she’s violating it!”
“That’s only going to steal the attention of more press! It’s going to shine a spotlight on this whole thing!”
“I’ll talk to her,” Zach offered, not liking the desperate strain in his tone and hating that he was even asking for their permission. He didn’t want anyone suing Abby and he didn’t want the police to cart her off. He was in love. He just wanted to be with her. This relationship might’ve started out fake, but it had quickly become real for him. If Abby didn’t know that…
This wasn’t about saving his career or protecting the show anymore.
It was about the ring that had been burning a hole in his pocket.
It was about the fact that having Abby in his life was the only thing that truly mattered to him in this moment. If that made him crazy, if that meant he wasn’t thinking straight, or if that got him fired from the show and banned from the Christian Network, from where he was standing those would be small prices to pay.
Just as Zach sidestepped, his tight green eyes locked on the exit doors clear across the crowded Javits Center, Darlene blocked his path and warned, “You’re not going to fuel this fire by talking to her, Zach.”
On stage, the announcer greeted the press and began introducing each actor and actress as they entered and found their seat at the long table.
“You are going to go out on that stage,” she ordered just as Zach’s name was announced over the PA system.
He didn’t move, didn’t even blink as he glared daggers at Darlene.
“Step aside,” he stated.
She immediately warned, “If you leave, if you talk to her, then you’ll be choosing a nobody girl over the career you’ve worked so hard to build. Walter will not hand you that contract, do you understand?”
He stared at her for a long beat, and hated that he felt his resolve wavering. He hated the power they had over him. Hated how unsteady his voice sounded as he told her, “Maybe I don’t care.”
“Zach,” she barked, “if you don’t get your ass out on that stage, I promise you, you will go back to your white-trash life, to your drunken whore of a mother, to the bedbug mattress you used to sleep on, to the father who used to beat you and tell you you’re nothing, and guess what? He’ll be right. If you walk out of this building just to talk to that girl, you will return to your life as a nobody. America will forget about you in the blink of an eye.”
She let that hang for a good long moment.
“Is that what you want?” she challenged.
Zach swallowed hard.
The announcer repeated his name from the stage and Zach’s co-stars were now glancing over at him to see what the hold-up was all about.
Darlene had cut him off at the knees. She’d done the one thing that had always had the power to keep him in line. She’d reminded him of who he really was.
And as irrational and horrible as it might seem, he believed her.
It was his greatest fear because he knew it was true.
He knew that if Abby saw who he really was and where he really came from, she never would’ve fallen in love with him.
Zach was nothing without this show.
It was with a heavy heart that he turned for the stage and made his slow, sickened, crestfallen way along the table and took his seat in-between the other puppets who had sold their souls to escape their painful pasts.
But as the applause for him died down, he didn’t force a fake smile or wave or even preface what he was about to say.
It was supposed to be a brief greeting. Endear the press to him with a few humorous words like the other stars of the show had done. But when Zach opened his mouth, the floodgates opened as well, and he couldn’t stop himself from speaking the truth—from his heart—no matter how terrified it made him, no matter how loud the voice in his head begging him to shut up screamed, no matter the immense risk he was taking of making Darlene right and throwing it all away.
“I fell in love with a woman named Abby Gallagher,” he began then paused for the flare of feedback that had suddenly shrieked through the PA system to die out. “I hope she can hear what I’m about to say.”
Darlene gasped from the sidelines and Walter cursed, but Zach couldn’t hear them and wouldn’t care if he did.
“This whole thing started because I wanted to show my cousin a good time. I had a shitty childhood. He had a worse one. I rented a yacht and threw a party for him, carte blanche, and he’s gay and his guests were gay and somehow all you people took photos and printed headlines about how I must be gay. I want to thank you for that, because if you hadn’t gone off and done your usual, assumption-filled, shoot-first-and-fact-check-later thing, the head of the Christian Network and my publicist wouldn’t have freaked out and concocted a crazy plan to restore my image.”
His co-stars all stared at him, wide-eyed with intrigue and somewhere backstage Walter was yelling, “Stop him! Someone get him out of there!” but nobody was paying attention or even cared.
“Walter Mason and Darlene Pinkerton got me and Abby to sign a contract where she would pose as my girlfriend, and I was all for it. I wanted my image restored just as badly as they did.”
Gasps and shocked utterances billowed out from the crowd of reporters and journalists, his co-stars looking equally stunned.
“It wasn’t fake for me,” he went on. “It might have started out that way, an arranged solution, but it wasn’t fake. Not for me and not for Abby. We were supposed to elope and I’m telling you, Abby, if you’re listening, I wanted nothing more than to marry you. I didn’t know the rules would change. I didn’t know they could. The Christian Network isn’t going to renew my contract with Hashtag Blessed because I’m saying this. I’ve wrestled with the reality of that and—” he made a point to meet Darlene’s appalled gaze from where she stood, furious and helpless, at the sidelines. “I don’t care. If I have to throw all this away to be with the woman I love, then that’s an easy choice to make. I’m just sorry, Abby. I’m so fucking sorry it took me this long to realize that.”
Wasting no time, with his gaze once again locked on the exit doors in the distance, Zach rose from his chair and started off in a damn hurry to find the most precious thing he’d ever had in his life.
He just hoped Abby would still be out there.