All the best fairytale princesses have the most horrific pasts. Mine just happens to be more horrific than most.
Fantasizing over Vaughn Asher was a dream. Meeting Vaughn Asher was a fairytale. Loving Vaughn Asher was my downfall.
The past is always there. Waiting. Waiting to expose you. Waiting to ruin you. Waiting to take you back.
Sometimes not even a prince can save you.
The shouting starts as I exit, but I just flip my sunglasses down and push right through them. I’ve been doing this for twenty-seven years. Some encounters have been more stressful than others, but I’m not the kind of movie star who punches out photographers. They are making a living. Yeah, they are parasites who make a living off me, but fuck it. I really have no beef with them. In fact, most of them are nice when they’re not stalking you.
But then I see that bitch from Buzz Hollywood. She steps right in front of me and sticks that microphone in my face. “What will Jasinda think when she finds out you’re cheating on her?”
I actually stop to laugh. Ray grabs my forearm and tugs, trying to get me moving again. But I shrug him off. “I hope,” I tell the reporter as I look her in the eye, “she feels ashamed of herself. Jasinda”—I am facing the camera now, so I address her directly—“you’re a lying bitch. If you’re even pregnant, I’m up for a DNA test any time you are. I have a wife now and her name is Grace Kinsella-Asher.” And then I turn back to look at all of them as they hover close behind me. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get her a coffee and a muffin. Blueberry,” I add. “Grace likes blueberry. And she likes iced tall sugar-free caramel, nonfat, light ice, Starbucks double shot on ice. At least”—I stop to have a chuckle—“when she has money on her Starbucks app, she does.”
“Does she have money on her app, Vaughn?” a reporter from an internet blog asks me.
He’s nice, and funny. And never too serious about what he prints. “Her coffee worries are over, yes.”
Now they chuckle with me and I turn away and start walking down the street to the Starbucks. Half of them follow, but they stay behind me. Like a little train of leeches—annoying, but harmless.
See, this is how you handle the media. You don’t have to give them what they want, you just have to give them something they can use. Now they have two factoids about Grace to run with. Tomorrow everyone will be drinking that coffee concoction and the blueberry muffins will be sold out.
The day after tomorrow, they will be after the personal details of someone else and no one will give a shit about us until the next movie comes out, or I get nominated for an award, or Grace gets pregnant.
God. that makes me smile like an idiot and when I look over at Ray, he’s shaking his head. “What?” I ask him.
He holds up a hand. “Nothing.”
We turn right at 16th Street and head down towards the Starbucks.
“But,” he continues, “you have a stupid grin on your face. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say you are in love.”
“I am in love.” I let out a breath. “I love this girl. I’m gonna marry her again and get her pregnant, and spend the rest of my life bossing her ass around and pissing her off.” I glance back at Ray. “She likes it. But she also likes to fight it.”
“Mmm-hmm. If you say so, boss.”
J. A. Huss likes to write new adult books that make you think and keep you guessing. Her favorite genre to read is space opera, but since practically no one reads those books, she writes new adult science fiction, paranormal romance, contemporary romance, urban fantasy, and books about Junco (who refuses to be saddled with a label).
She has an undergraduate degree in horses, (yes, really–Thank you, Colorado State University) and a master’s degree in forensic toxicology from the University of Florida. She used to have a job driving around Colorado doing pretty much nothing but shooting the breeze with farmers, but now she just writes, runs the New Adult Addiction and Clean Teen Reads Book Blogs, and runs an online science classroom for homeschoolers.
