Page 3 of Crocodile Tears
“Which is how the zoo became a movie set,” my little sister replied.
I shrugged. “I guess I’d sell my soul to the devil to keep our dad’s dream alive.”
“Oof,” Wren said with a light laugh. “This guy couldn’t have always been that bad if you two were friends as kids.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling a weary, little ache in my chest. “People change, I guess.” The sweet and nerdy boy I’d once known was gone.Deacon Harrowwas a brand now—an actor, a pretender, and I should've known better than to call him after fifteen years, but desperate times had called for desperate measures.
I looked to see the gaggle of girls still hadn’t disappeared. “He’s not here!” I shouted again. “And even if he was, you should pick better people to worship. Deacon Harrow is a piece of?—”
"Okay," Wren said, grabbing me by the arm and steering me back toward the kitchens. “How are you going to survive the next three weeks of this?”
“Easy,” I said, walking ahead of my sister. “Stay far away from the crew and avoid Deacon Harrow at all costs.”
“And if youdobump into him?” Wren asked. “Think you can manage not to murder him?”
I gave my sister a sideways glance. “I make no promises.”
Chapter Two
Deacon
I smiled out at the ocean as the breeze cut through my clothes, not because I wanted to, but rather because the ferry was passing by our sailboat and one too many cell phones were pointed in my direction.
Maybe they were just taking photos of the view of the island, or maybe they were about to sell my photo to a tabloid . . . or most likely both. And if I frowned for even asecond, I knew I'd wake up to some headline about “bad boy Deacon Harrow is looking sad after his latest breakup with supermodel Kate Schofield."
Little did they know that the nineteen-year-old British supermodel and I had never been dating. We’d been set up by our publicists for a couple opportunistic photo ops together while I’d been on a press tour in London. And soon I'd beyetagainlabeled a “playboy and heartbreaker" to keep my name in the press while filming this new romantic comedy.
And then my rom-com co-star, Ivy Blanc, and I would start our greatest acting gig yet: not the movie itself, but navigating the media storm afterwards to make everyone think we were madly in love and get more butts in theater seats.
Contracts had already been signed, my personal life leveraged for lots of money, sold to the highest bidder. I was no longer a singular person, I was abusiness, and there were a lot of people vested in keeping Deacon Harrow LLC running.
As the ferry passed and the prying eyes pulled out of view, my posture eased and I stared down at the choppy water. “Clear.”
“All good.” My agent—Zeke—army-crawled out from under the white leather bench as if it were perfectly normal to hide from paparazzi so they could get a better shot of his client. “Why the sad face, D-man?”
"Not sad, just not smiling," I replied, rubbing my sore jaw.
"This isn't about the whole Zap thing, is it?"
"No," I said tightly. "Although that's not necessarily helping my mood.”
Zeke shook me by the shoulders, pulling the neckline of my polo shirt askew. "Loopy is already all over the Zap stuff, brother.”
“His name is Luca,” I said. “You’d think after six years, you’d know my assistant’s name.”
“It’s a nickname, D-Money,” Zeke chided. “Anyway, he’s got a conservation organization in LA that is going to make you their new poster boy, and they’re going to send some money over to the turtles?—”
"Skinks—”
"Whatever," he said as he frantically texted someone. If I had a nickel for every time I’d seen that man without a phone in his hands, I’d have ten cents. The only person worse than Zekemight be my publicist, Cody. "It'll all be old news, my man. We had this whole Kate breakup in our back pocket for just such an occasion. She even pretended to cry walking out of Nobu the other day, so we are golden. I should send her a fruit basket.”
Great. The media thought I was the sort of guy who made beautiful, young models cry. And what was even more concerning was that that was somehowhelpfulto my public image.
I gripped the railing tighter, even as I nodded along to Zeke’s debriefing. It wasn't worth fighting him on this. I wasn't my own person anymore. I was just a cog in a bigger machine, and too many booby traps were laid out before me for me to deviate from our plans.
"Listen, save the sad puppy schtick for the cameras, m’kay?” Zeke said. “We've only got two days to par-tay before I've got to catch the red eye back to LA. Your team is already at the house getting ready, we’ve flown in a chef who used to work for Henry Cavill,andyour trainer is letting you have two cheat days in a row so we can have some real fun. Now, if only this island had a strip club, right?”
I looked at Zeke and let out a long-suffering sigh. He spoke like an amalgamation of eight different kinds of douchebag, but he was the best in the business so I tried to ignore it.
