Chapter 23

Corey was jolted awake by a simultaneous ringing of the phone and his doorbell. He noticed his headache from the day before wasn’t even close to being gone. In fact, it was worse. He wasn’t sure what to answer first. He glanced at the phone and saw Ileana’s name on the call ID. He decided to get the door first. It was pretty much a no win situation for him when he opened the door and saw Ileana standing there, cell phone pressed to her ear, with one pissed off look on her face.

“We need to talk,” she demanded as she walked past him into the house. He groaned and shut the door. Worst morning ever, he thought.

“What about?” He feigned ignorance only because he didn’t know what else to do.

“You slept with Amelia!” she yelled at him. He wanted to slam his head off of something.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” she shouted. Just as she yelled, she threw something at him. He only had enough time to duck. When he turned around, he saw it was her phone that had been aimed right at his head.

“What the fuck, Ileana?!” he called out. He knew he didn’t have any right to be mad at her right now, but she’d thrown a fucking phone at his head.

“Just tell me the truth for once!” He stayed silent, which was enough proof for Ileana. She let out a scream he didn’t think a human could possibly make. He managed to duck in time to avoid the wallet that was thrown at him next.

“Okay, fine. I slept with Amelia. I’m sorry!” he confessed. She screamed again. This time the makeup compact hit him in the chest. No ducking that one.

“You couldn’t even tell me! You let me find out on fucking TMZ!” Okay, not his smartest play ever. He should have realized that the first thing she did upon waking up was check that website.

“I’m sorry!” he apologized again. She didn’t throw anything this time. Instead she walked up to him and slapped him across the face. He’d seen it coming.

“You were really going to leave me for her?” she asked. Her voice was quiet this time. He’d hardly heard her. Jesus, he felt like shit right now.

“Ileana-“ He couldn’t finish. He didn’t know what to say.

“You didn’t though,” she said. He froze in his tracks. Had her voice just become less angry?

“No,” he said cautiously. He really didn’t want anything else to get thrown at him.

“So you chose me.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was she forgiving him? And what the hell did he do now? He needed to just tell her. As he was finding the words to end things she flew into his arms. “I knew you loved me!” Shit.

He hugged her back simply because he didn’t know what else to do. It’s not like he’d ever been in this situation before. He didn’t love Ileana and he knew it. Even so, it was hard for him to leave her right now. First her grandmother, who he knew she was close to, was dying. Now she’d found out he’d cheated on her with his ex. Even so, she’d decided to forgive him for God knows what reason. He was in deep.

“We’re not okay, but eventually we will be,” she told him when she pulled away. He just stood there speechless. She took that as meaning that things were going to be okay between them. “I have some things I need to get done. I’ll come back over later. Things definitely need to be discussed.”

He just nodded. She kissed him quickly before collecting the stuff she’d thrown and walking out the door. She called out a goodbye over her shoulder and shut the door. He fell back on the couch with his head spinning. He’d never understand women.










“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” I said into the phone to my publicist. Unfortunately I hadn’t been very intelligent the day before. My outburst towards Corey was all over the internet, and probably the television soon enough.

“I get that, but we need to figure out how we’re going to spin this,” Zane said. Brianna was also in on the conference call.

“Maybe you should just say that you two know each other from home, not mention the dating, and say that the conversation was completely out of context,” she suggested. Both Zane and I groaned. That was totally not going to work.

“I don’t know. All I know is the guy I’ve been in love with since I was 16 years old is still fucking someone else,” I spat into the receiver. There was no response for a minute.

“We could say that you two have been friends for a while and he came to you for advice. You got mad at him for some kind of indiscretion,” Zane offered up. Again, I was less than impressed.

“Is that seriously all you can come up with?” I yelled into the phone.

There was silence for a few minutes as the three of us tried to think of any sort of excuse that could play that whole situation in my favor. I’d made a mistake. A big one. I really needed to have stayed calm and not done that in front of people that were going to report it, but I’d been stupid and too caught up in my emotions to care.

“Can you think of anything?” Zane asked. I’d had it with this phone conversation.

“Hey, publicity is what you are trained to deal with. This is your job, not mine. Do it,” I snapped. I hung up the phone as soon as I’d said it.

I fell back onto my bed. I felt like an idiot. What the hell had I been thinking? Not once, not ever, had I felt the need to do anything like that in a public setting. Even so, yesterday afternoon had been different. There was no stopping me then. I guess I was just a product of my emotions, just like everyone else. It was also not something I could necessarily afford since I was in the public eye.

My phone rang a few more times, but I ignored it. I didn’t even bother to see who was calling. The last thing I needed was a lecture of any sort from Zane or Brianna. I eventually just turned my phone off, not interested in anything anyone had to say. When my doorbell rang a little bit later I fully expected to see one of the two of them standing there.

“What the hell do you want?” I asked in shock when I saw Ileana standing in front of me on my doorstep.

“I think we need to talk,” she said simply. I shook my head and began to shut the door in her face. She stopped the door with her foot. I looked at her in surprise.

“I’m not in the mood to talk,” I told her.

“Well, too bad. I am.” I glared at her, and she stared right back at me. This was it. We were about to have it out.

“Then say what you have to say and get the hell off my property.” I was over pretending that I liked her.

“Corey told me you two slept together. I was pissed. I threw things at him. Then I realized something. He’s still with me.”

“Yeah? How long do you think that’s going to last? I’m not going anywhere,” I returned. She smirked at me.

“All I need to know is that he came home to me. He’s not here with you, comforting you over this whole thing. Instead he let me into his house and comforted me. Have you talked to him since this all happened?” I wanted to smack the grin off her face. Even so, she had me there.

“It’s kind of hard to talk to someone you’re not speaking to,” I retorted. It was lame, and I knew it. I was still in shock that she’d shown up at my door.

“Right, I’m sure that’s why. I just came here to tell you to stay the fuck away from my boyfriend. You blew your chance. You left him. You disappeared out of his life. He moved on and he chose me. Learn how to deal and get over it.”

I stared at her in complete contempt. It took every ounce of strength to not punch her. God, I wanted to. She gave me another one of her stupid grins before turning to walk back to her car. That was when I noticed Brianna getting out of her car and looking back and forth between the two of us.

“When was the last time Corey told you he loved you?” I called after her. I saw her body stiffen as she froze in her tracks. I hit a nerve and knew it. She turned to look back at me.

“And how is that any of your business?” she called back with her hand on her door handle. I shrugged.

“I guess it’s not.” I paused and watched her open the car door. “It only took Corey four months into our relationship to tell me he loved me. How long did it take him to tell you?”

It was a cheap shot and I knew it. Corey had told me he’d never told Ileana that he loved her. Ileana glared at me but didn’t say anything. Despite the lack of response, or maybe because of it, I knew that I’d won this battle. She gave me one last dirty look before getting back in her car. I watched her car pull out of the driveway with a smile on my face. Even though I was more than pissed off at Corey for everything, this had become war.

“Was that last comment really necessary, Lia?” Brianna asked walking up to me.

“Hey, she came here. I didn’t seek her out. She deserved every word of it.”

“You’re trying to steal her boyfriend,” she reminded me. I rolled my eyes at her and closed the door behind us.

Chapter 22

About a week had passed since Jordan and I had ended our relationship. It had become public knowledge now and everyone wanted to ask me about it. Thankfully it hadn’t been a bitter or angry break up so it was more annoying than painful to answer the questions. Seriously, how many times can you reiterate that it was an amicable breakup to people?

I also hadn’t heard anything from Corey about his talk with Ileana. She was supposed to be home the day after Jordan was so I couldn’t figure out what was going on. He’d said he was going to end things with her. Why wasn’t he calling me to tell me that he had? I didn’t have a good feeling about the whole thing.

I was tempted to call him and ask him, but I was scared. What if I called and he hadn’t done it? I decided just to wait until he called me, because then I would know that it was over between them. At least I hoped so. It was another couple of days before he finally did call.

“Are you free for lunch tomorrow?” he asked. I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face.

“I am. What did you have in mind?”

He gave me a place and a time and I couldn’t contain myself for the rest of the night. This was it. We would finally be able to be together without any problems. I put a lot more effort into getting ready than I had in a long time. I wanted to look good for our first day back together. When it was time I got in my car and drove to the restaurant. I got there first and had to wait for Corey to meet me after practice.

“Hey!” I called jumping up from my seat when I saw him. I hugged him and gave him a quick kiss before sitting back down.

“How is everything?” he asked as he sat down across from me.

“Good. Great. Fantastic,” I gushed, grinning ear to ear. He smiled back at me. The waitress came over and took our orders a minute later. “It was much easier with Jordan than I expected it to be.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked as he took a sip of his water.

“Jordan actually was thinking the same thing. He’s the one that brought it up.” Corey looked surprised.

“He wanted to break up with you?” he asked. I nodded.

I told Corey about the conversation that we had. He didn’t talk much, or interject a whole lot while I was talking. I figured it was because I was just so happy that I couldn’t make myself shut up. What I didn’t fail to notice by the time our food got there was that he hadn’t mentioned ending things with Ileana yet. I wondered if he’d had a really bad experience doing that.

“You haven’t told me how it went with Ileana,” I finally pushed when we were almost done with lunch. He sighed and took a drink of his water.

“That’s why I asked you to lunch.” I felt my heart stop for a minute. What the hell was going on? “Things with Ileana are complicated.”

“What do you mean, they’re complicated?” I asked, my voice rising a little.

“Her grandmother’s dying.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. On one hand I felt terrible for her. I knew what it was like to lose a family member and as much as I disliked Ileana, I’d never wish for anyone to go through that. On the other hand I was wondering what the hell that had to do with Corey breaking up with her.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but what does that have to do with this?” I asked.

“Meels, I can’t break up with someone who has a family member dying.” My eyes widened and I sucked in a breath. He hadn’t ended things with her.

“So, what, you’re still dating?” I spat at him.

“What do you want me to do?” I saw a glimmer of something in his eyes. I couldn’t figure out what it was. He looked guilty. Well, he should.

“Corey, it’s been over a week since we agreed to do this and you’re just telling me now?!” I yelled. I noticed a few tables turn their attention to us, but right now I didn’t care. I was angry.

“We had games, and Ileana’s been around a lot and I just didn’t have time.” They were excuses. I struggled to think of something to say when realization hit me. I knew what that look in his eyes was.

“You slept with her!” I screamed out. A hush fell over the restaurant as I saw the look on Corey’s face. He looked busted.

“Amelia, this is not the place,” he started. I didn’t want to hear it.

“Fuck you, Corey! You brought me here.”

I got up from my seat and grabbed my purse. Without another word I turned and walked out of the restaurant. Let him pay the whole bill. It’s not like he couldn’t afford it. I was seething when I got outside. I could see some members of the paparazzi standing outside waiting for me. I handed my ticket to the valet and waited for my car to come around while ignoring the questions being shouted at me.

“Amelia, let’s go somewhere and talk,” I heard Corey say as he walked out next to me. I spun around on him.

“I have nothing to say to you right now.” He sighed as I glared at him.

“Yes, you do. I’ll just follow you home and we’ll talk about this.”

“Right, sounds good. Come on over, Corey. You can pretend that you want to talk to me, but we both know it’ll be about five minutes before you’re trying to get me in bed!” I yelled. Cameras were flashing and video was rolling. Right now I didn’t care.

“Amelia, come on,” Corey said looking nervously at the paparazzi who were recording the whole exchange.

“Don’t tell me to come on! You slept with Ileana!” I screamed.

“She’s my girlfriend!” he yelled back. I saw my car being pulled up.

“One you were supposed to be breaking up with for me! What the hell is wrong with you? You’re a fucking liar. You sat there and told me that you loved me. I left Jordan for you!”

“You said you were ending things with him anyway. You said he wanted to do the same!” Corey yelled incredulously.

“That’s not the point. The point is you lied to me. You’re an asshole. I don’t want to see or talk to you ever again.”

I ripped the car keys out of the valet’s hand and threw some money at him. Then I got in my car and tore away from the restaurant nearly running over a few members of the paparazzi on the way. They would have deserved it.










Fuck. Shit. That was all Corey could think when he’d finally come clean to Amelia. He couldn’t remember her ever being that angry at him before. He was shocked when she started yelling at him. Even so, he knew he deserved it.

Fuck. Shit. That was what he thought when she continued to yell at him outside while those tabloid leeches recorded and snapped photos of them. He was in deep shit with both Amelia and Ileana and it was now public knowledge.

He ignored the questions directed towards him as he got into his car and drove away. He debated whether he should go after Amelia or not. His decision was to just go home. She’d never yelled at him like that before. And to think, he’d been scared of Ileana. Ileana’s anger didn’t even touch the venom coming from Amelia.

He pulled up to his house and groaned when he saw Ileana’s car in the driveway. This was really not the time. He thought about driving right past so he wouldn’t have to deal with her until he saw her getting out of her car and waving at him. Fuck. Shit.

“Hey, Hun!” she called when he got out of the car. He grimaced when she kissed him. “You’re home later than normal. Where’d you go?”

“Lunch,” he replied walking past her and into the house. She followed him in.

“You should have called me. I would have gone with you.”

“Too late.” He sat down on the couch and rubbed at his temple where a headache was forming.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. Everything.

“I’m not feeling great. I have a headache.”

“Aw, anything I can do for you?”

“Leave.”

“Excuse me?” She sounded shocked, angry, and disappointed. He didn’t care right now. He needed to figure things out.

“I’m going to take a nap. You should probably go.”

She glared at him, but stood up. Without a word he watched her walk out the front door. He got up too and went to his bedroom. He stripped down to his boxers and fell into bed. He wondered how long it would take Hollywood gossip queen Ileana to find out about his lunch.