Page 29 of Claim to Fame

“So, Hannah, Tessa’s too afraid to ask, but we’re all dying to know how you know Ethan,” Sabrina said.

“Oh, we’ve been friends for a while,” Hannah hedged, suddenly very concerned with adding another layer of swirly leaf shapes to her tree.

“Really? Ethan hardly ever leaves Aster Bay. How did you meet?” Kyla asked.

“Umm we were staying at the same hotel. A few years ago. In Boston,” she said. “We met in the hotel bar.”

“Did he buy you a drink?” Sabrina asked.

Hannah could feel the blush heating her cheeks. “He did.”

“And you’ve stayed in touch all this time?” Kyla sighed dreamily. “That’s romantic.”

“Oh, it’s not—I mean, we’re not—”

“Life is so funny. What are the odds you’d end up here now?” Kyla said, either genuinely confounded by the mysterious ways of the universe or teasing her.

But Hannah knew it wasn’t a mystery—it was karma. She’d spent the better part of a year lying to everyone except Liv and Jennifer and now she was stuck living with a man who couldn’t see past the lie.

All morning she’d swung between being supremely frustrated with his reaction—they didn’t owe each other anything, and it’s not like she’d actually lied to him since you can’t lie to someone you don’t talk to about anything of consequence—and feeling coated in shame and regret. It didn’t really matter if she’d technically done nothing wrong. He felt like she’d lied to him, and that was enough to make her wish she could go back in time to their last meeting and say—

What? What would you say? Hi, Ethan, I’m fake dating a celebrity to help rehab his image—yes, that’s a real thing—but we should still bang?

“It must be a relief to be staying with someone you know,” Sabrina said. “I think I’d be freaked out about going to stay with a stranger. No offense,” she added to Tessa.

“None taken,” Tessa assured her.

"Daemon and Liv are excellent judges of character and good friends,” Hannah said. “I trusted they weren’t sending me to stay with an axe murderer or anything.”

“What she means is my brother-in-law is overly protective.” Tessa dropped her paint brush into the plastic cup of murky water on her easel. “I give up. No more trees for me unless they’re piped in buttercream.”

“Does that mean we can all give up now?” Kyla asked hopefully.

“It is still so wild to me that Daemon Chase is your brother-in-law. I must have watched theSound of Musicremake he was in at least a dozen times just to see that man take his shirt off,” Sabrina said, setting down her own paintbrush.

Tessa snorted. “Don’t let Baz hear you say that.”

Sabrina waved away Tessa’s comment as they gathered their things and made their way to the parking lot. “Sebastian knows. He gets all grumpy whenever he hears the overture now.”

“And speaking of celebrities,” Tessa said turning to face Hannah with a grin that could only spell trouble. “What’s the scoop on Jackson Hayes?”

Kyla flung her arm out, hitting Tessa lightly in the stomach. “Tessa! Ixnay on the Acksonjay.” She turned an apologetic smile to Hannah. “You don’t have to tell us anything. It’s probably not something you want to talk about.”

It wasn’t…and yet, she liked these women. She wanted to be their friend, even if she was only in town for a short time. And friends talked about their boyfriends, even the fake ones. Maybe this would be good practice for telling the story their publicists had crafted.

“It’s not as scandalous as the tabloids have made it out to be.”Unless you call pretending to date for almost a year scandalous.“We met when we were inBridget Jones’ Musicalon Broadway and hit it off right away, but we realized we were better off as friends. The split happened a while ago, we just hadn’t announced it yet because we thought it would be better to wait until after the premiere.”

It was the Cliff Notes version of the joint statement Micah had emailed her that morning. By tonight, it would be all over every news outlet that had carried the story of Jackson’s cheating. At least, she hoped it would be.

“So he didn’t cheat on you?” Sabrina asked carefully.

“Definitely not,” Hannah said with a soft smile. “Jackson’s a great guy. He’s just not my guy.”

Kyla leaned against her beat up Honda Civic. “Is Ethan your guy?”

“I’m—What?” Hannah stammered, her cheeks already flaming.

Kyla glanced around their group. “You met in Boston a few years ago... You’re the woman he saw in Boston last weekend, right?” She turned to her friends. “I’m not the only one who put that together, am I?”

---