Make Believe by Genevieve Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

face.
    He looks so relieved.  I grab his hand this time and pull him over to the sofa.
    “Sit, it’s now my turn,” I smile at him.
    Simon appears with the drinks and places them on the table in front of us. I clutch mine and take a sip. Dutch courage! I feel it burn as it goes down.
     
    Chapter 5
    “Elliott I need to ask you something, something important. But now’s not the right time. Just remind me, OK?”
    “You’re being very cryptic, Miss Ing. Should I be worried?”  he smirks.
    “Maybe…all in good time, Mr. Tate.You first. What’s going on, Elliott?”
    “It’s nothing, it’s just all this drives me crazy sometimes!” He gestures around the room. 
    “What, your lifestyle? Your fans? Hudson? What?”  It’s so hard to get a straight answer out of him.
    “It’s everything combined. It just drives me nuts. It’s the fact I can’t go out for dinner and not be photographed. I’m not even allowed to choose who I date; it all has to be manipulated.  I find it so frustrating sometimes when an asshole sticks a camera in my face and I can’t retaliate and smack them in theirs! It takes some restraint to ignore it.  Take, for instance, yesterday. I’m going to be honest with you, Jess, so please don’t be offended.  It was Hudson’s idea that you come to the charity auction. He knew that a story was going to break this morning about me and some bitch. He was doing damage limitation with it. You had no history to speak of.  There’s nothing nasty in your past that will affect me.”
    I look at him. “How do you know I have nothing nasty in my past?”
    “I know because Hudson ran checks on you before we employed you. He does it to everyone. We have to be careful with our employees so that nothing gets leaked to papers, hence the contracts.”
    What is he talking about? He doesn’t make sense. Hudson told me it was Elliott insisting on the checks, not him. That bastard was lying to me. I feel my self-esteem drop straight to the floor at the realization that Hudson was already manipulating me.
    “Jess, I’m sorry if I scared you. We have to do it to everyone It’s nothing personal.”
    “No, it’s OK. I understand,” I replied, but I didn’t understand. I felt used. What other revelations did he have to tell me?
    “You see, you coming to the auction meant that our pictures would appear in the papers at the same time the bitch’s story was breaking, therefore diverting hers. We would take precedence and hit the front page first!  People would be more interested in who you were and how we met rather than “Look at that asshole, Elliott Tate, fucking up someone else’s life again”. But now tomorrow’s papers are only going to feature secret pictures of us, and the shit’s going to hit the fan. God knows how it’s going to affect filming. Hudson’s going to do his nut!”  He looks exasperated.
    The phrase “fucking up someone else’s life” doesn’t leave my mind. I need to ask him about it.
    “Elliott, what do you exactly mean about messing someone else’s life up? You can’t leave me guessing like that,” I smile.
    “Can’t I? I don’t do it anymore, it’s way too dangerous.  I used to love the fact that every time I went out drinking, I could get laid!  It was simple. Girls would throw themselves at me, literally! I’d have to peel them off me. I am now still shocked at what lengths these ladies go to for my attention. They would pretty much do anything I asked - no matter how dirty!”
    My mouth falls open, I feel myself tugging on my necklace as he relays his words. Why am I so goddamn naïve!
    “Like what?”
    “Anything – literally, Jess! Whether it was kiss another woman or have a threesome. Any kind of kinky shit! Whatever I was in the mood for, they would oblige.  But the last girl it happened with has just sold her story to the papers. And I admit it was terrible. If only she had said something before, I would never have been a part of it! She was