Sweet Downfall (16 page)

“Oh Angie…I’m so sorry…” Sherry hugged her. “How can I help you?”

“No one can help me.”

“Let’s go abroad. Let’s tour Europe. Let’s go to Greece or Rome.”

The thought crossed her mind. She wanted to get away, disappear from society indefinitely.

“Will you really go with me? What about your fashion shows? The launching of your shops?”

“I can postpone them. Yandra will understand. You are more important to me than my career.”

She hugged her sister. Sherry was her main source of moral support at the moment. The rest of her family simply didn’t have any sympathy for her recent plight. Of course, Darry was there, and Lexi, Tisha and Dana. But she felt absolute comfort in her sister’s presence, safe in the thought that no matter what happened, Sherry would still love and accept her, disgraced and all.

“I’ll talk to Dad. We’ll visit Aunt Isolde in Florence. We can tour the rest of Europe after. Before you know it, all of this is water under the bridge.”

She sighed deeply. God, she hoped so.

Chapter Four

"CUT!!”

Jaq shouted the command for the fifth time in the same scene. He jumped from the director’s chair and strode towards the actors playing the scene.

“Is that all you can give me? Come on guys, this is a sword fight, not a goddamn pillow fight! Gwenna, quit fidgeting with your freakin’ hair! You’re a valiant warrior here, not a pin-up girl for Pete’s sake!”

Gwenna winced. Tears instantly pooled in her pretty eyes.

“Aw sheesh!” he cursed under his breath. They’d been shooting as early as 5 AM and now the sun was high up above them, showering them with blistering heat. The scene was difficult and involved a lot of group fights and he knew his actors were already tired.

He sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Gwennie.” He didn’t mean to be abrasive with her but he’d been running on short fuse the past days.

“Why are you so testy? I’m doing my best, Jaq.”

Testy was actually an understatement of how he felt today, or the past days. Hellish was more like it. “I know, Gwennie, but you gotta give me more, okay?”

She pouted and turned away from him.

“Let’s take a break! We’ll resume in an hour!” he shouted.

Everyone made a happy noise.

Romjin McKay, the hottest rock star in this country today who was playing a supporting role in this movie approached him.“I thought you’d never holler the magic word, man! I’m starving and this freakin’ costume is killing me!”

Jaq smiled apologetically. Romjin’s costume was inspired by a medieval knight’s armor. He had it specially crafted by a prosthetics expert in the US. It was heavy and whoever wore it felt like he was slowly being roasted in an oven.

He liked Romjin. The younger man was devoid of any star complex, hardworking and a fresh talent to work with in film. A few years ago, he saw Romjin perform at a local club and immediately signed him in his recording company.

Jaq founded Bad Boy Records with his former Oblivion band mates and was now the biggest recording company in the country that specialized in rock music and all its sub-genres. BBR was also responsible for bringing rock gods from abroad into the country to perform. The most recent gigs BBR promoted were the U2 and Greenday Asian tours and both sold out the newest, most state-of-the-art entertainment venue in the country, the Mall of Asia Arena.

He went to sweet talk Gwenna who was now sulking in a corner. “Come on, let’s have something to eat, Gwennie.”

The actress turned up her nose at him and walked out.

“Trouble in paradise?” Romjin asked.

“Hardly.” He and Gwenna were not a couple, just convenient bed partners whenever they were both available. But she liked to imply to the public that they were an item which really pissed him off. But he was playing the gentleman. This movie will be finished soon and he won’t have to see her again back in LA. She’d be too busy with her own gigs and she won’t have time with him, which would be a great relief.

He clapped the actor in the shoulder. “Sorry, man. I’m just not feeling right today.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

They walked toward the huge tent where the food for the entire cast and crew were laid everyday by various caterers. Today, he was shooting under a small stretch of forest. He’d requested for police assistance. He ignored the reporters calling out his name from a distance. They were still following him everywhere. Easy for them to do because this place was a famous tourist destination and he was just at the right place at the right time for a scandal like this to erupt. They forgot to stalk the other celebrities vacationing in the area and focused their dogged attention on his ass. He wondered when this hoopla will end.

Taking a took a bottle of mineral water, he grabbed a canvas folding chair and went to a spot away from the crowd. He reclined on the chair and stared pensively at the glittering Taal lake below the cliff. The volcano in the middle of the lake with its gaping crater looked good enough to hole in.

He wondered how Angie was coping with the scandal. Even if it was eating him up inside with resentment, he actually heeded what Wayne Defensor told him. The lawyer was right. If he won’t dignify it, the issue will just die a natural death.

But his last encounter with Angie was causing him sleepless nights than any bloody scandal connected to his name. Not even his movie had set him on edge like this.

Why did it have to happen, he’d asked himself so many times. What on earth possessed him to grab her like that and…She didn’t deserve to be treated like that, no matter what she did to him in the past. No woman should ever be treated like that.

Guilt was eating him up inside. He couldn’t perform his best on set with his concentration divided. Guilt was one thing, but he couldn’t take the graphic images of their recent encounter from his mind. He could feel her, smell her, taste her everywhere and it was driving him nuts.

He needed to screw other women. He had to erase her recent memory from his mind and body, replace it with new ones so he would stop thinking about her. But not even the presence of always-ready-for-hot-bootie-action Gwenna had stirred his cock with even the mildest interest.

Fuck, he hadn’t been in a quandary like this in a long time.

It was going to get worse, he knew.

"No. You can’t leave.”

“But Jordan…”

“No one leaves.”

“It will only be a few weeks. Sherry will be with me–”

“So, you will leave me? Alone in the middle of all this?”

Those words cut her anew, digging deeper into her conscience. “I’m not leaving you, Jordan–”

“Then don’t.”

He turned away.

Angie stared at his back in mounting frustration. Jordan was a man of few words. He was normally gentle and formal, almost never raising his voice no matter how bad the situation. Jordan’s remoteness now only emphasized how angry he was. But she couldn’t understand why he would prefer to face the scandal head on than just lay low from the public for a few months.

She cannot bear to be with him. Looking him straight in the eye was becoming difficult every passing day. She had betrayed her fiancé with the man who had caused them all this public embarrassment. The guilt was just killing her.

She wanted to come clean but she just couldn’t bring herself to confess something that will cause Jordan even more pain and humiliation when he had not even recovered from the first one.

God, how did she get herself into this terrible, terrible mess?

“I can’t show myself in public just yet, Jordan.”

He faced her again and for the first time, she saw an implacable side to his nature. “And why is that, my dear? You have nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about, right? You are the victim here. It happened a long time ago, when you were young and didn’t know any better.”

“Jordan, please…”

“Why, are you ashamed, Angie? I saw the video. You were a willing participant in it and in the making of it.”

Oh God, how many times would she have to hear this? For her past mistakes to be rubbed in her face over and over?

“You looked like you were really enjoying it, too.”

She bowed her head to conceal her self-loathing. If Jordan could hurt her like this with a transgression that she had nothing to do with, what would he tell her after she told him that she had sex with Jaq Montero recently? He would probably never forgive her.

“If you can’t accept me now as myself, Jordan, just tell me. We don’t have to prolong the agony. I will understand. Please, let’s not hurt each other like this.”

“You really loved him, didn’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Didn’t you?!” his voice cracked like a thunder. It was the first time she ever saw him lose his temper around her.

That loss of control made her crack, too. “Yes! I loved him! He was my first love! Is that what you wanted to hear?! How much I loved him?! Yes, I loved him very much! You saw that video! It said it all!”

His breathing became ragged, his light brown eyes blazing with fury. She had never seen him show such naked emotion, as if he wanted to kill someone. Her.

“Jordan, I’m so sorry…”

“You’re not leaving the country. We will face this together. I won’t allow Montero to make me look like a fool in front of the entire nation. That video changes nothing. He may have had you before but you will be my wife in a few months. Mine, you understand?”

Strange, but she no longer felt good at Jordan’s possessiveness. Whereas before it gave her a sense of emotional security, it felt like a prison cell now than a manifestation of his love for her. He was treating her like a possession instead of a human being.

“Tomorrow, we will attend Kit’s wedding.”

She blanched. “Kit’s wedding…?

His smile was cruel. “Yes, Kit’s wedding to Bettina Palermo. Kit and I are planning to do business together. We must be there.”

She shook her head, recoiling at the thought. “I can’t go with you.”

“Why? Because Montero will most likely be there? He’s Kit’s friend. He’ll be there.”

“Why are you doing this? You’re deliberately hurting me, Jordan.”

“No, Angie. I want us to face this trial together as a solid couple. We’ll show them that goddamn video doesn’t affect us one bit. That will not break us up.”

“But that’s not true. That video is tearing us apart, can’t you see?”

“Only if you will allow it. I don’t want to look like the poor loser in this. You destroyed a huge part of my name, Angie. Restore it. Show to the damn world how much you love me, how excited you are to be my wife. You owe me that.”

There was no rebuttal for that kind of clear-cut logic. Yes, she did owe him. She owed him more than he will ever know. She had a bigger debt to pay to him aside from that damn video. She cheated on him.

“I will pick you up tomorrow at seven PM sharp.”

She nodded wordlessly.

Jordan left without another word.

She slid onto a chair weakly. The thought of seeing Jaq again after what happened to them in his house left her faint. How would she be able to endure it?

Chapter Five

KIT DEL BIANCO’S WEDDING TO
Bettina Palermo was lavish. Occasions like this would gather some three hundred guests from the elite in this country.

Jaq had never belonged in this very small society. Never wanted to. But some cosmic fluke thrust him in the middle of these folks for a decade now and he never got out.

This wedding reunited the Zeta Upsilon members, his fraternity in college composed of the most loaded, most powerful and well-connected scions of this country. In fact, he was the odd man out in that brotherhood. Until he’d leaned who his real father was and he felt a bit of affinity. Just a bit.

Kit and Ina recited their sacred vows in a cathedral earlier in front of an archbishop. By the looks of it, Kit had found his dream girl, a woman who looked kind of familiar at first glance. But surely, it was the first time he’d seen her. Bettina seemed to be a great woman. He was happy for Kit.

All in all, it was a really jovial affair. If only Angie didn’t turn up with Jordan at the reception.

It went downhill for him since then.

Seeing them together in person had a different impact, far different from just seeing them in pictures. Fuck, they even had matching attires! Jordan wore an inner shirt that matched the color of Angie’s aquamarine gown, only a shade lighter.

Their clothes mocked him.

They were a pair. Engaged to be married.

As he stared at Angie standing beside the man who would be claiming her as his wife soon, Jaq felt a violent emotion rip through him. He was afraid to acknowledge the feeling. But he knew what it was. Possessiveness. It was raw, primitive and territorial. Someone was trying to take away what was his.

He finally admitted it to himself. Yes, Angie was his. Then and now. What they had was an incurable disease of wanting each other despite the lies, hatred and betrayal. It was sick, to still want someone who had hurt him in an unforgivable way. But he wanted her still, despite everything.