Hate the Player: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy(95)

And a barrage of other missed calls and emails and text messages from the rest of my team.

Holy moly, where’s the fire?

I unlock the screen and tap the group chat with Billie and Rocky.



Billie: Um…what are you not telling me????



That’s the first missed message, and a link to an article sits below it.

Rocky’s response to said article? Oh my God, Birdie!! What is going on, girlfriend???

I don’t waste any time opening up the link, and right there, on one of the most popular gossip websites in the freaking world, is an article titled “Hollywood’s Hottest Player is Playing with Costar Fire.”

And the first thing below the headline? A picture of Andrew and me, after my stupid red wig had gotten stuck in my helmet and was no longer on my head. We’re standing in front of a gas pump, right beside Paulie’s motorcycle, with our lips locked and our arms wrapped around each other.

Oh my God. My hand shoots to my mouth and a knot lodges in my throat.

With shaking fingers, I keep scrolling through the rest of the article, in which whoever wrote it rambles on and on about how Andrew and I are hooking up. How an inside source has told him that we’ve been hooking up. How I’m going to end up like all the other women who have fallen for Hollywood’s Most Notorious Player. The stupid columnist even joked about me following in Taylor Swift’s footsteps for my next album and just writing songs about my future breakup and broken heart courtesy of Mr. Andrew Watson.

And it is all followed up with more photo proof.

There must be twenty fucking pictures of the two of us at that damn gas station, and even though his mullet disguise is still on, whoever captured us on camera was able to zoom in close enough to make out his unsuspecting face perfectly.

Holy fuck. This is not good.

And it’s exactly why my whole damn team has been demon dialing me all morning.

“Everything okay, sweetheart?” Andrew asks, and I lift my eyes away from my phone to meet his concerned gaze.

“Not exactly.” I sigh and pull up Candy’s contact in my phone. “I need to call my publicist right now.”

Candy answers on the first ring. “Birdie, this isn’t good.”

“We didn’t know there were paparazzi last night,” I mutter, a half-assed explanation that she completely ignores.

“Do you realize the consequences of being tied to a man with a reputation like Andrew?” she questions, and I don’t miss the irritation in her voice. “Normally, high-profile relationships are good publicity, but your wholesome, girl-next-door country music image laced with his decade-long playboy reputation is going to be really hard to spin.”

“It can’t be that bad, right? I mean, surely, we can work around this.”

She sighs heavily into the receiver. “I don’t think you’re understanding the consequences of something like this.”

Normally, my publicist is a fairly straight shooter, but right now, it appears she’s going right for the no-bullshit bull’s-eye. In terms of consequences, I almost don’t want to hear what she really thinks about this, but I know I can’t just put my head in the sand and ignore it.

“Spell it out for me.”

“With the buzz around this movie and the fact that gossip columns have been trying like hell to connect the two of you as lovers, those pictures are going to go viral. By the end of the day, every major media source will cover it. Fans are going to see this plastered all over every social media platform,” she continues.

“But…it can’t be that big of a deal,” I reply. “I mean, all this shit usually dies down within a few weeks anyway.”

“Not this,” she refutes. “For Andrew, sure, but not you. Obviously, you’re the woman in this scenario. And now, everything you ever do is going to be related to your relationship with him. Ten years from now, you’ll be getting questions about Andrew Watson in interviews. This is going to be Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake all over again, but without the denim, honey. You’re going to be tied to him no matter what you do, and your fans are going to judge and his fans are going to be pissed at you and it will really start to get bad once this ends and he gets involved with another woman.”

Once this ends? My mind fixates on those three words.

But Candy isn’t worried about that. She’s worried about my career.

“From here on out, any love song, sad song, breakup song, happy song, any fucking song you write is going to be spun to be about him.”

Dear God.

This is information overload.

I mean, I knew it wasn’t good that those photos leaked, but I didn’t think the consequences of a relationship with Andrew Watson could last years into the future, even if we don’t work out. Especially if we don’t work out.

“Birdie, you still there?” she asks and I nod, but then I realize she can’t exactly see me nodding.

“I’m here, but I need to go,” I lie. “I’ll call you back in a little bit.”

“Birdie, wait. I need to—”

“Candy, I’ll call you back,” I say firmly and hang up.

“Sweetheart?” Andrew’s voice makes me look up from the phone. He still stands by the hotel phone but has made no move to make his planned calls for room service and flight switches. He steps toward me with concern in his blue eyes. “What’s going on?”