Page 20 of My Sexy Rival (Stars In Their Eyes 2)
That we were scum.
I hung up with Anaka, blocked my number, and called Keats, hoping I’d catch him off guard. There was just something about a call from a private number that made Los Angelenos pick up their phones.
“Keats here,” he said, and I wanted to smack him. He was playing the part and talking like a businessman, even though he was an actor like everyone else.
“I wanted to commend you for your performance,” I said as I climbed up a series of switchbacks on the trail.
“Excuse me? Who’s this?”
“Just the ‘girl after your own heart,’ remember?” I said, quoting himself back to him.
“Oh, Jess. Good morning.”
“Not such a good morning for Nick Ballast, though, is it? I know what you and your brother did. I know who your brother is. Jenner’s publicist. I know you guys have something on Avery, and so your brother and Jenner blackmailed Avery to get on the movie.”
“Whoa. You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
“But none of them are wrong. So they’re not really assumptions. It’s kind of scummy, don’t you think?”
He laughed so hard it was as if he was barking through the phone line. “You take pictures of actors and directors cheating with each other and I’m scum?”
When he said that, I smiled, because I remembered I had a trump card. The person who takes the pictures almost always does. I wasn’t going to play it yet, but play it I would. “But the point is someone got hurt here. Nick Ballast had nothing to do with any of this. With you, with Jenner, or with Avery. And now he lost his job because of what you guys did. That’s just wrong.”
“Nick Ballast is a big boy. I have a feeling he’ll be just fine.”
“You can’t know that. Besides, Jenner’s plan won’t work if everyone knows what’s going on, right?” I asked, showing the corner of that trump card. Let him squirm.
I could hear Keats rustling around, maybe getting out of bed, standing up, starting to worry. “What do you mean?”
“Jenner’s leverage was that he’d keep Avery’s affair a secret in exchange for the role in The Weekenders, right? If everyone knew Avery was fooling around with Riley, Jenner would have no leverage to get the part in the first place,” I said, even as I wondered how Jenner had known that Avery and Riley were hooking up. How would Jenner have been privy to that info? “But if the pictures got out…”
“You’re not going to share the pictures, Jess,” Keats said, but his voice wavered. He didn’t know what I’d do. He didn’t know me.
“I have the copies. I have the files. I could get them to any photo agency and onto any site in seconds.”
“But you won’t,” Keats said, and now his voice was firm and commanding. I slowed my pace. “Because I anticipated this might happen. And that’s why my brother and I picked you. Not because of your shots of Riley and Miles. Because you’re putting yourself through college, and then medical school by taking pictures. We researched you, Jess. We did our homework,” he said, and a chill ran down my spine. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think J.P. and whatever agencies you work for would be happy when they hear you backstab your clients. Because I’m your client, Jess. Whether you like it or not. You deposited the money. You were paid. You want all the photo agencies in town to know you take their money and then turn around and threaten them?”
Silence gripped my throat, like a hand clamping down. I seared inside from the hot shame of his threat. And from the harsh truth of his statement. I wanted to punch him. Not only because he was hitting below the belt, but because he’d found my weak spot, and was using it against me. My Achilles’ heel. My dreams, my hope, my future of medical school and the way I paid for it—the way I had to pay for it. I felt like Avery Brock. I felt like that dick of a director because Keats had leverage on me now.
He was right. I couldn’t turn on him because then I’d be known for doing just that. I’d never work in this town again.
“You go ahead and run those pictures and I’ll make sure every photo agency knows how you do business.”
“You’re an ass,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah. Probably. That’s why I’ll be good in this business. It’s cutthroat.”
“And what are you going to do when other photogs take pictures of Avery? You know someone else will catch him on camera with Riley. It’s the inevitable law of Hollywood hooking up,” I said, scrambling to regain some kind of foothold.
“The deal will be done by then. The movie will have started shooting with Jenner in the role. We moved first, and we moved fast, and that’s what matters. Avery won’t replace another actor.”
