Chapter 13

Dean

“We should go get some food,” I said to Angelina when we woke up close to noon on Sunday morning.

“That’s what room service is for.”

“I’ve got to get to the theater soon. I’ve got two shows on Sundays.”

“But I’m so tired still,” she said as her soft arms wrapped tightly around me.

I could have stayed in that bed for the rest of my life. We had basically spent the last 72 hours in our own little heaven. Our phones mostly off, the television off and just the two of us talking and making love. We occasionally came up for air, food, and a brisk walk in the neighborhood.

It was amazing how much more enjoyable New York was when you had someone to walk around with. I was really enjoying it a lot more than I had the entire previous year. I was finally starting to see why people loved New York so much.

“I’ve got a problem,” Angelina said as her hand started to move slowly down my body.

“Nope, we have no time for this. I have to get to the show. We have time for food. That’s it, just food.”

“Oh, but I’ve got a problem that needs a solution,” she said in a sexy voice.

Her hand wrapped around me, and I was instantly hard and totally uninterested in going out to eat. The way her fingers felt on my body was like a drug I couldn’t give up. Luckily, it didn’t look like I was going to have to give it up.

“You are bad. What if I’m late?”

“You won’t be,” she said as she kissed me and her hand started to stroke harder.

I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her onto my lap while she guided my body into hers. We had been making love for three days straight, yet I still felt the same desire for her that I had our very first time.

What was going on between Angelina and I was different than most of the relationships I had had my entire adult life. Maybe it was because I was in a spot where I felt ready for something more than a one-night thing. Perhaps it was the perfect combination of me feeling ready, Angelina feeling ready, and both of us taking a step back from the social media world and all those intrusions. Whatever it was, I liked it. I liked how I felt when I was with Angelina because I felt like the man I had always wanted to be.

Even the guys in my investment group had commented on how full of life I seemed to be in recent days. They were exactly right; I was full of life and plans for the future. It was impossible not to make plans for the future with Angelina; I liked thinking about her in my life, and I liked thinking of what we could do together as we got to know each other more.

“You’re going to be late,” she said as her hips rocked back and forth on top of me.

“I don’t care.”

“Maybe I’ll never let you leave this room,” she teased.

“I still don’t care,” I said as I held onto her hips and thrust inside of her.

“I’ll keep you as my personal play toy, hopping on you whenever I need a good orgasm.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a plan.” I laughed.

We were in our own little world when there was a loud banging on the hotel door. It scared both of us to death, and I wrapped myself up in one of the blankets and ran to the door.

“Who is it?” Angelina asked.

“It’s the police,” I replied as I shrugged my shoulders. There was absolutely no reason for the police to be coming to our room. Neither of us did drugs or other illegal things. Plus, we had been in our room for three days so, it wasn’t likely we had caused too much chaos in the world.

“Are you sure they are really police?” Angelina asked as I was about to open the door.

Her concern surprised me, but then again, I wasn’t really sure they were police. They had uniforms on but hadn’t identified themselves at all. I kept the door locked as I talked to them.

“What do you need?” I asked through the door.

“New York City police, we are here to do a well person check on Angelina Kent.”

“She’s fine. We are both fine.”

“We are going to need you to open the door, sir.”

Angelina hurried and put on some clothes as I talked to the men through the door. I didn’t want to be a total ass, but I could understand Angelina’s concern in opening her door. We were both celebrities, and if someone wanted to do a lot of harm, they could do that pretty easily if we just let them into our room.

“Can you show some identification please?”

I watched the police officer through the peephole in the door, and I knew he really was a cop by the annoying look he gave when I asked for identification. But he pulled it out and held it up to the peephole so I could read it. I unlocked the door shortly after.

“I’m fine guys, can you tell me what’s going on?” Angelina asked.

“Miss Kent, can I talk with you in private,” the female officer asked.

“Sir, why don’t you and I go over here and talk?” the other officer said to me.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

It was concerning that they had shown up, but it was more concerning that they needed to separate us to talk to either of us. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but my gut said that her mother was probably involved.

“Sir, have there been any incidents of violence between the two of you?”

“No,” I said although I wanted to laugh in the man’s face.

“Sir, we have had a report of domestic violence. The caller reports you are holding Miss Kent hostage in her hotel room.”

As I stood there naked and wrapped only in a sheet from the bed, I did my best to take the man’s questions seriously. But if he had glanced around the room he would have clearly seen that we were just a couple hanging out and making love in that hotel room. There was no sign of struggle, no items used to tie someone up. Plus, Angelina was clearly not harmed in any way at all.

“She’s my girlfriend, and we are simply making love officer. I think someone in her family is just upset that she’s not returning their calls.”

“Perhaps, but we need to follow protocol. My partner is talking to Miss Kent now and will get her version of what is going on here.”

“Wow, okay, but it’s going to be the same as my version.”

Then there was loud laughter from the bathroom. I heard Angelina literally having a hard time breathing, she was laughing so hard. I just looked at the officer and raised one eyebrow as we waited for the ladies to come out of the bathroom.

“Yeah, I know, it’s pretty tough having her as a mother,” Angelina said to the officer when they opened the door and came back into the main room.

“It appears everything is fine here,” the female officer said. “We are sorry for intruding. We hope you understand we just have to follow through on concerns like this.”

“It’s alright. I’ll call my mother so she’s not sending in the marines next.” Angelina smiled and shook hands with the officers as they made their way to the door.

“Sorry for the intrusion,” the male officer said and shook my hand.

I could have been a total ass about it, but I did understand that they had jobs to do and checking up on Angelina was just part of it. It really sucked that her mother would do something like this, though, and I had no idea how I was going to deal with it. Angelina’s mom was a powerful woman, and I suspected if she really didn’t like me she would go to all possible lengths to make our relationship difficult.

“Well, that got you out of bed.” I laughed. “Should we go eat?”

“After your shows. I think I’m going to take some time and return some calls. Give everyone the fluffy feel good conversations they need to let me be for a little bit.”

“Sounds good to me. Maybe I’ll even call my agent and check in. I know she’s left like a dozen phone calls.”

“You know this is the longest I’ve gone without posting something to social media. People probably do think something is wrong.”

“I appreciate you taking some time just to be here with me. This is hard to figure out, and I know we will find a balance that works for the both of us. Let’s talk about it some tonight while we get sushi, how’s that sound?”

“Perfect,” she said as she kissed me goodbye.

Her lip was healing up nicely, and the bruising around her mouth was almost totally gone. It had been a really eventful week, but something told me that this would be pretty typical for us if we decided to date. Not the chaos around her split lip, but the constantly being busy and trying to sneak time for ourselves. I really didn’t know how celebrity couples managed to stay together.

I had started arriving through the tunnel under the theater, and it was perfect. Sometimes I even waited at the building across the street and watched the paparazzi before I slid inside and down to the basement walkway. It was rather hilarious to me that I was right there within their sights yet no one bothered to look across the street because they were too busy waiting for me to walk right up to them.

“You doing alright?” Cat asked as I sat next to her in the makeup room.

“Yeah, I’m going great, why?”

“Your Twitter feed has been a little scary this week. Today I got worried.”

“My what?” I asked in total shock.

I had not been posting to Twitter at all. I had very specifically not been posting to any social media outlets because we were trying to figure out what was going on between the two of us. I slowly opened my Twitter app to see what the hell Cat was talking about.

“It wasn’t me posting,” I said as I started to scroll through the feed.

“Were you hacked?”

“No, it’s got to be my agent. This shit is ridiculous.”

“God, I’m so glad it wasn’t you posting. I was starting to think I really didn’t know you at all. Your agent is pretty crazy, though; does she think that’s how people really talk on Twitter?”

“I have no idea.”

I stopped talking and read through each of the posts that had been made to my page throughout the week. It was pretty cringeworthy material.

D_Morrison: Nothing as cool as dating a girl like @AngelinaKent. I feel like a young man again. All the twenty-something love me.

D_Morrison: We met using @InstaMatch and it was a total surprise. Seriously guys you have to check that app out. Girls like @AngelinaKent are on there!

D_Morrison: In talks with @WarnerBros for a new mega-hit movie.

D_Morrison: Maybe we should start our own reality television show @AngelinaKent?

It was starting to make a lot more sense why her mother had sent the police over to check on Angelina. She had probably seen that last Twitter update and was worried I was trying to pull Angelina away from their reality show and into a new one. Add in the fact that Angelina wasn’t checking her phone or her messages, and it probably looked pretty bad.

My hands shook as I dialed up Bella’s number. I didn’t bother to listen to her voicemail messages because frankly, they didn’t matter at all to me. What mattered was that Bella had taken it upon herself to put information out there about me as if she was me, and that wasn’t alright. If she had posted messages on her own Twitter about what she was setting up for me, then that would have been one thing, but she had purposely misled fans with tweets like they were from me. I didn’t deceive my fans; I was always honest with them, and that was one of the reasons they loved me still after so many years.

“Who do you think you are?” I said calmly when she answered.

“Dean! It’s so good to hear from you. How are you doing?”

“Bella, you’ve been posting on my Twitter.”

“Yes, Dean. I was posting on it since the account was started. Remember, I told you that before.”

I knew she had told me that, but I thought since I was posting on there she would have stopped. Now that she mentioned it, I really didn’t know what she had been posting on the page before I knew about it either, and I didn’t like that at all.

“Don’t post on any of my social media again.”

“Dean, you hired me to protect your business interests. Building on this relationship with Angelina is in your best interest. You can have millions of new fans in an age range that you normally wouldn’t have access to. Instead of sitting around and hiding, you should be online, and so should she.”

“Building my career is always on my mind, but I’m not going to do it at the expense of Angelina or anyone else. I said not to post on my page and not to make a statement; if you can’t listen to my request, I will hire someone else.”

“Now, now Dean. I’m just trying to make sure this little vixen doesn’t totally take you down with her social media crap.”

“Careful Bella,” I said as she continued.

“No, I won’t be careful. This girl is playing you, Dean. It’s no secret that she wants a career in movies now. She’s done with the whole reality thing, and now she’s going to latch herself onto you so you can help her get some movie parts. I won’t sit by and let this lying sleazeball of a woman take over your chances of making a comeback.”

I should have been surprised by how Bella was speaking to me, but after so many years in Hollywood, there wasn’t much that still surprised me. Luckily, I knew enough to make my exit slowly and not blow up at her right there on the phone.

“I’ll be back in Los Angeles next Monday; we can talk then. For the time, being please honor my request and no social media or statements. Deal?”

“Yes, but I’m not responsible for the aftermath that you’ll have to deal with.”

I hung up the phone and immediately called Angelina, but she didn’t answer. It felt dirty the way Bella was using my public persona, but the thing that pissed me off the most about it was that I hadn’t been paying attention at all before I met Angelina. It should have bothered me just as much then, but I was too wrapped up in feeling bad about my spot in Hollywood.

The only thing I could think of was that Angelina was going to talk with her agent and her family, and they were going to tell her about the tweets. I still hadn’t even checked my Instagram. The anxiety was building up as I felt my happiness slipping away. What had started as an easy way to earn money from Instamatch had turned into meeting someone I really cared about. But she didn’t know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t have used her like it looked like I was doing. I hoped she knew I wouldn’t do something like that, but I just didn’t know for sure.

Bella seemed to think by adding Angelina’s name to my tweets it was going to pull her fans into me. She also clearly believed I needed Angelina’s base of fans in order for me to be popular again, but that wasn’t true. I felt it deep down, and I wasn’t about to sell myself out just to be popular again.

My phone rang, and I instantly answered it.

“Angelina, I just found out Bella has been posting to my Twitter,” I said before she could say anything.

“Dean, I don’t think I can do this.”

“No, no, no, Angelina. It was just Bella. She thought she was helping me. I’m firing her. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“It’s more than that Dean. I need some space that’s it, just some time to figure out what it is that I really want. My whole world is spinning right now. I’m too wrapped up in what everyone else wants from me and can hardly stand what my life is becoming.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“But you do Dean. Everyone wants something from me. You don’t want me to post about our relationship; my mother wants me to post all the time, and my agent wants me to bring you to public places for photo ops. I’m over it all. I need to think. I need to get myself straight.”

“Okay.”

I couldn’t argue with her logic. It did seem like a good idea for her to get her head clear and decide what she wanted. Our love affair had been fantastic, but maybe it wasn’t enough to keep us close to each other after we both moved on.

“I’ll call you,” Angelina said solemnly.

“I’m sure we will see each other around Hollywood,” I said softly. “But call me, okay Angelina? Take some time and then call me.”

“I’ve got to go, bye Dean.”

Just like that, she was gone. I knew it wasn’t just because of the tweets that had gone out, but I was still furious with Bella. In my gut, I knew that Angelina was at such a big turning point in her career that she did need some time to herself. Selfishly, I wanted to be there with her, though.