Player in Paradise (9 page)

I check all the gossip blogs as soon as I wake up. Thank God there are zero paparazzi photos of Austin at LAX. At least he knows how to stay under the radar when he needs to. I haven’t heard from him since he departed last night, and I think it will be easier to go through the day without checking in on him. I just hope that he hasn’t drunk himself into oblivion back home.

Priscilla emails me to confirm all the arrangements we’ve prepared, from clothing to food to décor and photography. I’m shocked she didn’t fly in herself for the occasion, but I’m proud that she trusts me enough to handle the event on my own. It really sucks that I’m going to have to let her down later.

I fib and tell her everything’s on schedule and going to plan. I go through the motions with the resort’s wedding director, who acts like she’s the one getting engaged to a movie star. My head swims with details, taking my mind temporarily off the fact that I’m about to have my head blown off by Cassidy in a few short hours.

Mandy sends me a text
letting me know she has the media alert ready for distribution. I feel bad that she’s going to have to stay late in the office for nothing.

My stomach is in knots, but everyone’s too busy to notice that I haven’t eaten anything all day, nor would they probably care. I compulsively check my phone for any new messages regarding Austin’s whereabouts, but no one seems to be worried about him right now. For today, the attention is all on Cassidy.

A hair and makeup team arrives on schedule and I usher them into her suite.

“I know, isn’t it gorgeous?” Cassidy’s mom says, showing
off the giant diamond ring to whoever will take a peek at it.

I pace back and forth with my arms crossed so no one can see me shaking.

“Don’t you have something you should be doing?” Cassidy asks me as a tall Hawaiian man curls her hair.

“Um, yeah, of course.”
I pull out my phone and start texting to no one.

“Maybe you should m
ake sure Austin’s getting ready; you know how he gets.” She rolls her eyes.

“Sure, yeah.”
I dash out of the room. Go check on Austin, right.

I head back to my room and get ready for the night. If I’m going down,
then I at least want to go down in style. My fit and flare orange dress looks great with my tan skin, and I put on the shell necklace for good luck, although I’ll probably need a lot more than luck to live through tonight.

I meet up with the crew at the restaurant and Cassidy joins us in a long,
flowing-pink dress. Her high-heeled sandals bring her to nearly six feet and her hair falls in loose ringlets around her perfectly made up face.

We all chat with the
wedding director and make sure all the hotel guests have cleared off the beach.

“So where’s Austin?” Cassidy’s mother asks me.

Bile rises up my throat. I’m going to vomit, I know it. I swallow hard to keep the contents down and try to act casual.

“Um, he should be here
any moment. I’ll go check…”

I run off again, this time to the restroom. I can’t hold it in any longer. The mix of nerves, stress, not eating and Austin crushing my heart to pieces unloads itself into the toilet. I s
truggle to get up from the hard floor. I hold a towel under the faucet and dab myself with the cold moisture before exiting the bathroom.

“Olivia!” Kai walks
toward me in his hotel uniform. “How goes it?”

Great, just what I need right now.
“Hey, Kai.” 

Before I can wave, he’s already swallowing me up in a tight bear hug.

“Are you ok? You don’t look so good.”

“Thanks.” Good to know that I not only feel like shit, I must look like it too. “Yeah, I’m fine…”

“Maybe you should sit down.” He grabs my arm to steady me. I didn’t notice till now that I was swaying.

He guides me to the nearest chair and I take a seat. I need to unload before my guilt sends me to the ER, and he seems like the perfect contender. “Austin left.”

Kai crouches down beside me. “I’m sorry. He was kind of a jerk though, no?”

I laugh. “Yeah, I guess. But, that’s not the problem. The issue is, he is supposed to propose to Cassidy right now, and well, he’s not here…and my job basically depends on it.”

His hand creeps closer to my arm. “Oh man, that’s not good. Is there anything I can do?”

I stand up before he can touch my sk
in again and pace through a few tables and chairs. Maybe there is something he can do.

“Is there any way to cause an evacuation of the hotel?”

“Uh, possibly, but not without getting in a lot of trouble…”

I stop dead in my tracks. He has an idea?
“Really? What can we do?”

“The only thing I can think of is to pull a fire alarm. But it won’t give you much time since the fire fighters will arrive and know that there isn’t actually a fire here.”

“What if we actually did start a fire?”

“Olivia,
I hope you’re joking…besides, I’d be out of work if this place burned down.” He rises and places his hands on my shoulders as he looks me in the eye. “I really think you need to get some rest.”

I wave him off. “I’m fine, promise. Just don’t give me any matches.”

He flashes a smile, but I think he’s genuinely worried. Maybe he should be.

“Alright, just have the staff page me if you need me, k?”

I shake my head. “Uh huh, thanks.”

Back to reality it is then.

Although I’m heading into a grave where I’m about to be buried alive, I approach Cassidy’s mother calmly, and break the news as quickly as possible. “I checked everywhere, but I can’t find Austin.”

“What do you mean you can’t find him?” she shouts. As her face turns red, I feel mine turning white. Am I going to be murdered in a five-star resort?

Cassidy comes running over at the sound of her mother’s shrieks. “What’s going on?”

Mommy dearest points an accusing, French-tipped finger in my face. “She can’t find Austin.”

Cassidy blinks once. “What?”

It’s not a shout or a scream, but a harsh tone that pricks my skin like a million tiny bee stings.

“He’s not here, I…” I back away slowly, raising my hands up to cover my face, hoping to block any oncoming throws.

Cassidy holds her palm up to silence me. “I had a feeling this would happen. Just have the photographers take photos of me with the ring on, and we can set some time in a studio together to re-enact the proposal.”

Austin was right when he said she was insane.

“Brilliant, Cass, what a perfect idea,” her mother says.

Before I can voice my opinion, the crazy duo turns and walks away. They motion to the wedding director and huddle together to discuss what I can only imagine as a giant PR scandal in-the-making.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck. I scramble to call Mandy as I watch the craziness that is a one-person engagement unfold.

“PWR Group, Mandy speaking.”

“I need your help!”

“
Liv? What happened?”

“Cassidy is proposing…to herself.” I stifle a laugh after hearing how truly absurd it sounds out loud.

“What?”

“Austin didn’t show up and now she’s making the photographer take photos of her on the beach showcasing her bling.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“I wish that I was.”

“Oh my God; what a nut job!”

“I know. But what the hell am I supposed to tell Priscilla?”

“Well, it’s not your fault that Austin didn’t show, right?”

“I…don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Is it my fault? Should I have put my foot down and dragged him back to the hotel with me? Would he have agreed to a bargain? Limitless booty calls for this one favor?

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Nothing, it’s just…I’ll talk to you about it later. I’m too freaked out by Cassidy right now. What should I do?”

“I think you have to just go with it, unless you wa
nt to talk to Priscilla…”

“No, I’m already nervous about coming into work on Monday. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s my last day there.”

“Come on, don’t say that.”

“I’m serious, this week started off great and ended in disaster. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this stuff.”

“Stop it. You kick PR ass.”

“Thanks…”

“Now go give Cassidy some valium and get on your plane tomorrow morning. I’ll take care of the media.”

“You’re the best, see you soon.”

“Bye!”

I end the call and continue to watch the insanity
unfold in front of me. We’ll have to flub the engagement date in case anyone sees Austin milling around L.A., although I haven’t heard any news about his whereabouts all day. I’ll take that as a good sign that he isn’t out partying or hooking up with other girls. I know we’re not a couple, but I still feel jealous as I picture him out with his usual posse of Hollywood bimbos.

Cassidy pulls out
her cell from her designer purse and takes a photo of her jewel-encased finger.

“Wait!” I yell, rushing over to her side.

“What’s your problem? I’m just broadcasting the pic to my fans.”

“Don’t you think we should tell Austin first? Do you want him to find out from social media?”

“I don’t give a fuck about Austin.”

“Well, you sho
uld, he is your fiancé now.” I feel like I could shoot fire out of my fingertips. How dare she treat him like he’s a prop in the movie of her life. “At least let me try to contact him to give him a heads up.”

She smiles at me with her extremely white t
eeth. “I don’t think so.”

She hits a button on her phone and I can only assume that the photo is now circulating the web and will appear on every gossip site and social media feed in about ten seconds. 

Shit. Shit. Shit.

As I expected, my email instantly blows up with requests from media for photos and interviews with the happy couple.

“I need to get to work. I’ll be in my room if anyone needs me,” I announce.

I quickly walk over to the elevators as I scroll through the emails p
iling in. I hop in and close my eyes. All I want to do is go to bed and make the drama go away, but a text alert interrupts my fantasy.

It’s a message from Austin.
“What the fuck is going on???????!!! Call me ASAP!!!”

The last thing I want to do is talk to Austin right now, but I know I have to get it over with. I enter my room and sit at my desk, taking deep breaths to physically prepare myself for what I anticipate
to be the call from hell.

I scroll to his name in my contacts and
hover my finger above the call button for a few seconds before forcing myself to tap it.

He picks up before the first ring. “Explain.
Now.”

“Well, hello to you too.
”

“Seriously, Olivia, I thought we agreed not to do this.”

“We did, but she didn’t.”

I’m met with s
ilence. Too much silence. My heart races and I pace around my empty room. I wonder if he’s doing the same.

“Fuck,
” he says quietly. He sounds more disappointed than mad, and it makes me feel even shittier.

“I know…”

“Did you at least try to stop her?”
he asks.

“Of course!
But come on, this is Cassidy we’re talking about. You know her better than I do…”

“
I guess there’s no stopping a madwoman on a mission, huh?”

“Exactly.”

I fall back
onto my bed’s soft comforter. I wish I was falling back into his arms instead.

“What should I do?”
he asks.

That bitch is taking hold of his life and he can’t really do anything about it without looking like an ass.
So I give him the best advice I can in this messed up situation. “Don’t leave your place anytime soon. I’m sure there’s a swarm of paparazzi already outside, and things will go smoother if they still think you’re in Hawaii. And don’t answer any questions from media – forward them all to me, okay?”

He exhales loudly and the breathy static sends a chill up my spine.

“And Austin, don’t worry. We’ll make this work.”

“I don’t want to make this work, Olivia.
I don’t want to be with her.”

His
words break my heart. “I know…but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“Maybe
there is. We can come up with a plan to get out of this. I’ll have my driver pick you up at the airport and take you to my place with my stunt double tomorrow. Will that throw off the paparazzi enough to make them think that I came back the same time as Cassidy?”

“Maybe
. Wait, you want me to come to your house?”

“Yeah, we need to
work out a plan. And I’d like to see you again…”

I rub my cheeks, realizing that my face hurts from smiling so wi
de. “Ok, I’ll come over to brainstorm with you.”

“Good. Have a nice night,
Liv. Dream about me, k?”

I laugh. “Of course, dream about me too.”

“Mmm, you don’t want to know the kinds of dreams I’ve been having about you, boss.”

I giggle at his horny confession. “
Goodnight, Austin!”

“Night, babe.”