HDU #2: Dirt (16 page)

“Oh my
God
, total lovebirds, so convincing,”
someone’s mocking voice cooed, prompting gasps and snorts from anyone within
earshot.

The reaction on
the street made Amanda feel as if she were completely naked — and it
wasn’t just the paparazzi anymore.
 
She hugged her sides after letting Liam help her out of the Mercedes in
front of the Flatiron offices of Rambis Pictures.
 
While previously they had attempted some sort of subtlety
with photos, the pedestrians on the sidewalk now stopped and whipped out their
phones to snap guiltless pictures with the flash bright and on.
 
An embarrassing scandal apparently made
the celebrity that much more like a zoo animal.
 
Amanda was learning that rather quickly.

“Hey, can you
pay
me
to be your girlfriend, bro?
I’m about the same as her in terms of looks, right?” A portly older man asked
Liam the question as he passed by with his friend.
 
“Maybe five, six pounds heavier?”

Though his
facial expression didn’t move or even twitch, Liam’s feet promptly changed
direction, heading for the portly man whose smile quickly dropped, his own feet
speeding away so suddenly that it was almost comical.

“
Liam
,” Amanda hissed sternly, her eyes
wide as both paparazzi lenses and pedestrian smartphones caught the
exchange.
 
She caught his hand and
pulled him back to her.

“Hey guys, you
know the gig is up, right?” a Pop Dinner paparazzo called from behind his
flashing camera.
 
“You can stop
this now.”

Amanda tensed as
they approached the front door of the stone building, waiting for a reaction
from Liam.
 
There was none.

“Liam, stop
playing, buddy!” the paparazzo laughed.
 
“Now you can go back to fucking hot chicks — aren’t you relieved?”

Shit
.
 
Yanking his arm with all her might, Amanda barely moved
Liam’s enormous frame as he turned around to head back toward the
paparazzo.
 
It took every last
ounce of her strength to even get his attention — or maybe it was the way
her hand pulled and stretched the sleeve of his henley.
 
Finally, he looked at her, his eyes
vacant.

“Don’t,” she
said through her teeth, as quietly as possible.
 
“Let’s just go see Terrence.
 
We’re in enough trouble.”

Amanda chewed
her lip as they rode up the elevator in silence, unsure of what behavior to
expect from Liam.
 
Since the news
had come out, she had seen his reactions vacillate between calm and total
stoicism.
 
Whichever it was, he was
mostly quiet around her, which drove her close to crazy with paranoia.
 
She’d have assumed a breakup on the
horizon were it not for the fact that in his woodenness, he still prioritized
defending her around
 
hecklers and
paparazzi on the street.

And he had
brought her to this meeting when “do not bring
her
” had been a strict term of the latest phone call from Terrence
— or rather, one of his assistants.
 
Releasing her lower lip from between her teeth, Amanda swallowed with
guilt.
 
She didn’t have to listen
in to any of Liam’s phone calls to understand that his working relationship
with Terrence had become quickly strained, at best, and that his shot at
starring in
The Legends
had been
beyond compromised.

Because of me
.
 
Amanda looked up at Liam as the elevator slowed to a
stop.
 
She studied him and the
concentrated look in his eye, the lack of any sort of wry curve on his lips.
 
Why
do you still want me?
She couldn’t help wondering it.
 
Since last night, every time she put
herself in Liam’s movie star shoes, she couldn’t think of any reason that made
her worth the trouble.
 
It’s not like we’ve said those three words
to each other yet
, she mused, all the while rolling her eyes at herself for
even thinking about the stupid words at such an inopportune moment.

But she didn’t
dwell on the thought for long because by the time the time the shiny elevator
doors parted, all eyes were on them, unblinking as they stared over their
cubicles.

Amanda suspected
that the entire office had been watching the numbers go up on each floor for
the duration of her elevator ride up with Liam, probably having expected them
since Terrence’s most recent call — or just Liam, at least.
 
Though the call that summoned Liam to
the office had been made by an assistant, Amanda could hear Terrence’s wild,
angry shouting in the background of the call.
  
Considering how audible he had been through Liam’s
phone, Amanda suspected that all the people working at his production company
would have heard him as well.

“Amanda?”

Despite the
stress knitting his face, Liam’s voice was easy when he turned around to look
quizzically at Amanda, who had yet to step out of the elevator.
 
She eyed everyone whose stares went
from the both of them to just her.
 
One of Terrence’s assistants whom she recognized from the night at
Chelsea Piers scurried down the hallway in her pointy heels, no doubt in the
direction of Terrence’s office.

“Hey.
 
Come on,” Liam gently urged again.
 
Amanda chewed on the inner part of her
lip, noting that Liam’s three words were the most he had spoken to her since
he’d asked for her promise regarding Casey.
 
To his credit, he had been so occupied by endless phone
calls that he hadn’t slept.
 
Neither of them had.
 
Their
minds were far too occupied, to the point that they still had on the same
outfits as they’d had on last night at Yankee Stadium — Liam in the same
T-shirt and jeans and Amanda in the same gauzy raglan and denim shorts.

“Alright.”
 
Giving up on coaxing her out on her own,
Liam stepped back into the elevator, wrapping his arm around Amanda and placing
his hand on her lower back before ushering her onto the shiny floor of
Terrence’s office.
 
Amanda did her
best to ignore the stares.
 
She’d
become accustom to them since January but these were different.
 
They were stares from people who knew
everything about her, down to the stupid comments she had been leaving on HDU
for years as PrettyKitty29.
 
Never
had she felt so very naked.

As they passed
the desks and cubicles, Amanda stared forward in attempts to ignore the gawking
— as well as the skinny guy in the corner who loudly laughed to his
coworker.
 
“What the fuck.
 
Look.
 
They’re still trying to keep up the act,” he snorted, though
his gaze immediately lowered when Liam simply looked at him.

“I’m not,”
Amanda whispered to Liam when he turned to her, before he could even say,
“Don’t let him bother you.”
 
She
could feel that he was going to.
 
After twelve hours of silent panic, his usual demeanor was slowly but
surely returning and she could once again detect that default, that familiar
feeling she always sensed in Liam’s body — that need of his to protect
her.
 
It had, oddly enough, been a
compulsion of his even back when their relationship was merely a contract.
 
Amanda remembered the first time she
had felt it — in January, at the June Magazine party, while talking to
Casey’s best friend, Jamie.
 
Only
feet away from her, Connor had been exchanging wry looks with Liam that Amanda
had caught, knowing well at the time that he was silently making fun of either
her or Jamie.
 
Guess we were never meant to get along.

Though he’d been
irritated with her just minutes prior, Liam had caught Amanda’s displeased eye
and reassured her that he’d later explain.
 
Which he did.
 
He told you that they were talking about
Jaime, because she and Casey were “the worst kind of people” who “use people
for their entertainment.”
 
You just
refused to listen
, Amanda bitterly reminded herself as they finally reached
the end of the winding hallway and the frosted glass door of Terrence’s office.

“Fuckin’
open
it.”
 
The brusque command came from Terrence after Liam’s knock on
the door.
 
Her shoulders stiff,
Amanda braced herself for immediate screaming the moment it swung open.

But there was
none.

Leaning back in
his Herman Miller chair was Terrence, elbows on his armrests and his hands
folded in front of his chest.
 
He
nodded toward the assistant who stood next to him awkwardly.
 
“Manda.
 
Jenny told me you brought her.”

“Amanda,” Liam
corrected, holding her by the hand and bringing her to stand beside him in
front of Terrence’s massive desk.”

“Right.
 
Amanda
,”
Terrence repeated, gravel in his voice.
 
“There was a reason why I asked you not to bring
Amanda
.”

“And there’s a
reason I brought her anyway,” Liam replied without missing a beat.
 
Amanda took note of his incredible calm
as he spoke to Terrence.
 
She felt
herself as if her jello-like knees might give way beneath her.

“What reason is
that?” Terrence asked.
 
Amanda
couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or snide but she was leaning toward the
latter.
 
Despite that, Liam managed
to answer promptly, undaunted.

“I gave you a
complete transformation for this role.
 
One that even I didn’t think I was capable of.
 
And I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Amanda.”

Amanda blinked,
her gaze flying to Liam with look of surprise.
 
His eyes remained on Terrence.

“I thought it
was because of your brother, not Amanda,” Terrence said dryly.

“The physical
change was.
 
The muscle, the
training.
 
I did all that knowing
Logan’s done a thousand times worse.
 
I couldn’t insult him by giving some half-assed effort while playing a
PJ,” Liam clarified, his voice steady.
 
“But the other part — the husband and the man that John was, who
had his wife and his own family to think about when he was out in Iraq —
 
I wouldn’t know how to be that part of
him without her.”

“That’s
concerning,” Terrence said with a lilt in his voice.
 
“It was your job to deliver me a performance
regardless.
 
Isn’t that what you
actors do?”

“Yes.
 
But we draw from experience,” Liam
answered.
 
He rubbed the back of
his neck and tried to look casual as he shrugged, daring to even crack a
smile.
 
“And as shitty as it
sounds, I never cared about a woman enough to fully understand what John had
with his wife.
 
The only kind of
love I knew was what I have for family, my brother.”

Amanda’s heart
skipped.
 
Wait, what the hell did you just say?
There was a wonderful,
love-related inference hidden somewhere in Liam’s words — one that Amanda
wished she was hearing under different circumstances.
 
Though she looked up at Liam with eyes desperate for
clarification, his continued to remain on Terrence.
 
Turning to catch Terrence’s reaction, Amanda was surprised
to see his expression thawing.

“Well, I’m
glad,” he said though his voice remained curt.
 
“But the fact of the matter is that the image of this movie
just completely changed thanks to you two.
 
Twelve hours ago, this was a film about patriotism, honor,
about authentic grit and bravery.
 
We had all of that going for us until the world saw you conspiring with
someone on the Internet, thinking up ways to trick them into liking and
believing you as John Camden.
 
Now
this scandal is all anyone is going to think about when they hear
A Soldier
.
 
Now we have a massive publicity hole to climb out of before
we can even start convincing people to see the film.”

“It’s an
incredible film.
 
It should speak
for itself.”

Terrence
nodded.
 
“That’s true.
 
This movie is good shit.
 
But it never matters what the truth is,
it only matters what people want to believe and what they want to believe is
either black or white with no in between.
 
So now this movie isn’t the Oscar frontrunner that Liam broke his back
for, that’s directed by a two-time Oscar winner.
 
It’s ‘that movie Liam faked everything for — his relationship
and probably his training too, and it’s directed by that stupid old bat who was
dumb enough to give him a serious role.’”
 
Terrence held is hand up the moment Liam opened his mouth.
 
“And I get it.
 
You guys are real now.
 
I believe you are.
 
I’m a director.
 
I can read body language.
 
Congratulations.
 
But it doesn’t matter if you’re real
because the world has made up its mind about you two.
 
They want to obsess over this con-artist scandal that even
they couldn’t dream up.
 
And
unfortunately for me, this incredible scandal was born from my film so now my
film is being dragged through the mud along with
your
mess,” Terrence laughed bitterly, his face reddening along
with his rising voice.
 
Sensing his
mounting anger, his assistant meekly spoke up.