Touching the Billionaire - Holly Jaymes Page 0,69

for the audition, and spent a few more days hanging out. I thought about going to visit my mother who was back home in Brentwood, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her. I really had nowhere to be or anyone to see. I could make new roots in southern California as even if this role didn’t turn out, I could audition for others.

But, what I really wanted to do was go back to New York to see my grandparents. Whenever my life felt out of control or I was just sad, they were always a safe place to fall. So, I decided to return to New York.

I let Nadine know that I was coming back to New York, but I wouldn’t be going into Manhattan or needing to stay with her. When my plane landed in New York, I went straight to the car rental desk, rented a car and drove to my grandparents’ house in Woodstock.

Being home with them, I was able to get everything I expected and hoped for from them. They gave me the love and support that I needed, and also the time alone to deal with everything that was going on. At least they did for a couple of days.

Three days into my stay, I was sitting on the sun porch with coffee and a book. Although I wasn’t really reading it. Instead, I was trying to figure out if maybe going back into showbusiness was the right choice. After the fiasco with Theo, and then late last night after receiving the message that I didn’t get the part for the movie filming in Croatia, I began to wonder if it was a sign that I needed to do something else.

My grandmother came out to join me on the porch. She had a cup of tea in one of her delicate floral teacups she had inherited from her own grandmother.

She sat down in the designated grandma chair. “I saw Theo Wolfe on TV last night.”

I wondered how long hearing his name, even thinking his name, would make my heart break all over again. I didn’t say anything in response because I couldn’t trust myself to not start crying.

“Nadine told me what had happened,” she added.

“It’s my fault. I guess I should’ve known something like that could happen,” I said.

My grandmother’s soft wrinkly face scrunched up. “Why?"

“Because it’s Theo Wolfe. He has a reputation for loving and leaving his co-stars.”

My grandmother gave me a hard stare. “For somebody who has disdain for the perpetuation of false narratives in the entertainment industry, you seem to have quite easily believed what they say about Theo.”

“I’m not going off what the industry has said, I’m going off the fact that he used me.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” she said dismissively.

My grandparents weren’t ones to mince words or do a lot of placating. They would tell it like it was, but in this case, if she was going to defend Theo Wolfe, she would be wrong.

“I heard him with my own ears, Gran.”

“I still don’t believe he did it. Did you actually talk to him?”

“I heard the director tell him that he did a good job in seducing me to get the performance they needed out of me, but that her only concern was that maybe I’d fallen for him. And then she said, ‘but you have to do what you have to do,’ which he repeated.” To my mind, that was all that needed to be said or heard to understand Theo’s position.

“But did you talk to him directly? Did you give him a chance to explain?”

“Explain what? It was clear as day. He was just doing his job.”

“I don’t believe it,” she said again. “He drove all the way up here just to see you. He wouldn’t do that if you didn’t mean something to him.”

For a split second, I considered that she might be right. But then I remembered him saying that one of the reasons he’d come up to see me was because Corrine had been concerned about the quality of the work we’d done just before that. So now his visit made total sense.

“It was all part of the ploy to get me back into performance mode.” At that point, tears did spring to my eyes. “If that’s what was needed, Gran, then I’m really not a very good actress, am I?”

“Oh my goodness, Madeline Fox, you need to stop. We all know that you’re a very good actress. Just as