Page 87 of Claim to Fame

“I’m so sorry, Micah. I thought we were careful. I thought—”

“You don’t need to apologize. But we do need a new strategy. Hiding out isn’t going to work this time.”

Hannah went cold, ice sluicing down her spine. “Why not?”

“For one, they know Ethan’s name—both of them. He announced to the press that you’ve been staying with him. How long do you think it’ll take them to figure out where his vineyard is?”

“They can’t really care enough to come to Rhode Island,” Hannah protested. “I’m not famous enough for that.”

“No, you’re not, but Jackson Hayes is, and he’s left the country again. Like it or not, you and Ethan are very much people of interest to the celebrity news media right now.”

“Then we’ll tell them the truth—all of it.” She paced the length of Ethan’s bedroom, her bare feet leaving indents in the plush carpet. “We’ll tell them Jackson and I were never really together. We’ll tell them we lied.”

“Jackson’s people will never agree to that. It would be your word against his,” Micah said.

“Jackson will tell the truth if I ask him to.”

“Will he?”

Her stomach sank. She wanted to believe their friendship was important enough to him that he’d defend her, especially when it was as simple as telling the truth, but when the truth meant admitting to months of lying and baiting the press…

“Midnight Storm is announcing a new nationwide tour next week. Even if you could get him on the phone from whatever island he’s partying on now, you’ll never get his publicist to sign off on a statement that alienates the press and his fans. Not right now.”

Hannah sank down on the edge of the bed. She knew Micah was right. She’d tried calling Jackson first, but the line rang and rang before clicking over to a voicemail too full to accept new messages, and her texts were still marked as unread. Jackson wasn’t going to be able to save her from this.

“What do we do?” Hannah asked.

“We’ll issue a short statement. Focus on our disappointment that they’ve doxed Ethan by connecting his photo and legal name to his pseudonym. We won’t deny the pictures—there’s no point. We’ll say you’ve known Ethan for a long time and your relationships with both him and Jackson are built on trust and mutual respect.”

“Will it work?”

“No.” She closed her eyes as her stomach roiled, bile rising in her throat. “But we do it anyway. And if anyone asks about this, anyone at all—reporters or baristas or the little old lady who walks her dog down the street—you have only two words for them.”

“No comment,” she whispered.

“Let’s hope someone else does something salacious soon so everyone moves on.”

Salacious.

Ethan had worked so hard to keep his audiobook work separate from his life in Aster Bay, to insulate his real life from thesalaciousnessof it, and now there would be no keeping the two parts of himself from bleeding into each other. More than that, the whole world thought he was a liar at best, and an accomplice in infidelity at worst. And it was all her fault.

“I’ll send over a draft of the statement when it’s ready for you to review. By the time Midnight Storm announces the tour, this will all be in the past. We can’t let this overshadow the momentum you have coming off of the premiere. I’ll line up some auditions for you for the following week. Hang in there, Hannah. This too shall pass.”

She let the phone drop from her hand onto the comforter, still rumpled from the night before, and stared at her hands. Everything was a mess and there was nothing she could do to fix it.

“Are you alright?”

She lifted her head to see Ethan leaning in the doorway, his hands tucked in his jeans pocket. Tears stung her nose and eyes. “Are you?”

“It’s not the way I would have wanted Tessa to find out about my audiobook work, but we’re okay. I’m more worried about you right now, sweetheart.”

“I don’t know why,” she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands. He was across the room and kneeling at her feet before her fingers even touched her face. He gathered her against himself, murmuring words of comfort, soft, low barely intelligible sounds deep in his chest that were soothing all the same. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“If it weren’t for me, no one would know you’re Slade Hardcastle.”

He pushed her hair behind her ear, tutting. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. If that girl hadn’t wanted photos of me, she never would have gotten ones of you.”

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