“I miss her,” he said.
They didn’t talk about his mother often. It had been ten years since she’d passed, after a quick and devastating bout with cancer, and they’d fallen into new rhythms. But Ashton still wished she could have met her grandson.
“I miss her too,” Ignacio said, and then he polished off his beer. “But she would’ve wanted you to be happy.”
“I’m fine, Pa. Really.” Although lately, he’d been thinking more about what it would be like to have a companion on this parenting journey, and for Yadiel to have a mother figure in his life.
The fact that these thoughts popped up more since meeting Jasmine unnerved him.
“Well, if you say you’re fine, you’re fine,” Ignacio said, but his face and tone implied he didn’t believe it.
Ashton finished off his own beer and stood. “It’s late. I’ll let you get to sleep.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ll leave after Sunday mass.”
“Fair warning, Yadiel wants to go to a baseball game in New York.”
Ashton gave a brief smile. “I’ll break out the hat and sunglasses.”
“You sure you don’t want a trench coat and a newspaper with two holes cut out, Señor James Bond?”
Ashton smothered a laugh so he didn’t wake the others. “From your lips to God’s ears.”
Ignacio collected the bottles to dispose of them. “Buenas noches, mijo.”
Chapter 27
Jasmine arrived at the studio the next morning in high spirits. The summit had been great press, the show was going smoothly, and Ashton . . . Well, she was trying to avoid examining her feelings too much, but it was safe to say she was happier than she’d ever been with a man. Real happiness, too, where she felt valued and like it was safe to open up to him, not performative happiness that relied on stuff like gifts or PDA. She was scared to hope for more, scared to identify where she was on the Jasmine Scale, and her conversation with the Primas of Power hadn’t offered much in the way of clarity. But in all other regards, her Leading Lady Plan was on track. She’d even received some congratulatory texts from her family after Michelle sent them the video of Jasmine’s Latinx in the Arts interview.
Abuelo Willie: good job nena
Abuela Esperanza: You looked so beautiful! Love you!
Followed by a link to a cream for neck wrinkles.
Most surprising of all, her parents had chimed in on their group text chain.
Mom & Dad: Proud of you, honey!
Even Sammy had apologized for his behavior at the barbecue, and asked if he could get Lily’s autograph for his daughter.
Jasmine was riding high when she strolled into her dressing room. She’d just set her purse down when the door flew open and Lily burst in.
“Jasmine, I’m sorry.” Lily’s face was flushed and she looked to be on the verge of tears. “It was taken out of context, I didn’t mean to—”
“What happened?” Jasmine started to go to Lily, but then a jingle played from her bag. She stuck her hand in and pulled out her phone. Ava was calling.
Lily seemed to be in emergency mode, so Jasmine silenced the call without picking up and returned her attention to her on-screen hermana. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
A text flashed from Michelle. Out of habit, Jasmine swiped to read it.
Michelle: Turn off your phone.
With a dawning sense of dread, Jasmine turned to Lily, who held out her own phone. It was open to Buzz Weekly’s website. And there, above a photo of Jasmine and Ashton taken at the Latinx in the Arts Summit, was the word, REBOUND.
Jasmine’s heart sank as the world narrowed to the few square inches on Lily’s phone. She took it and peered closer. Following the headline were two speculative questions: BEHIND-THE-SCENES ROMANCE? OR LOVE TRIANGLE?
Underneath those, a byline: Kitty Sanchez.
Of course.
“I was chatting with some bloggers at the summit,” Lily said in a rush, tripping over her words. “One lady asked what it was like working with everybody on Carmen. I didn’t think anything of it, you know? She asked other questions too. But she must have asked me about you guys, and all I said was—”
Jasmine didn’t need her to continue. It was right there, a little ways down from the photo.
A source close to the couple tells us they get along really well and spend a lot of time together.
When Jasmine imagined Lily saying the words, they were innocuous. But taken out of context, as an anonymous quote? They were heavy with implied romantic meaning.
Fuuuuuck.
Jasmine continued to scroll, skimming past text and more photos from the event, both posed and candid. Farther down, another photo loaded under the word, EXCLUSIVE!!!
Her breath backed up in her throat. The picture was blurry, like it had been zoomed in too much and taken with an unsteady hand, but it was unmistakably the two of them. They stood close, with Ashton’s arm around her while she smiled up at him, caught in a totally candid—and private—moment.
Somehow, Kitty Sanchez had gotten her claws on the photo taken by the grocery store employee.
“She twisted my words,” Lily went on, sounding anguished. “I really didn’t mean—”
At that moment, Ashton rushed in through the open door, eyes wild and hair disheveled.
“Look at this,” he said, and held out a crumpled issue of Buzz Weekly.
They’d made the cover. The posed photo was largest, probably because it was higher quality, but off to the side were two boxes. One showed a paparazzi photo of Jasmine holding hands with McIntyre as they were leaving one of his concerts. The other was the grocery store photo. REBOUND was printed at the top in bright yellow, the word glaring at her just as accusingly as DUMPED had.
In a detached sort of way, Jasmine wondered why and how gossip rags still existed. Wasn’t the print magazine industry dead?
Lily’s face turned even redder and she slipped past Ashton. “I’ll let you two talk,” she muttered, and beat a hasty retreat, shutting the door behind her.
In Jasmine’s hand, her phone rang again. It was Riley this time. She almost picked up, but Ashton was looking apoplectic, so she sent it to voice mail instead.
“All right,” she said, trying to sound calm. “Don’t freak out.”
“Don’t freak out? How can I not freak out?”
His accent had thickened, and she realized her own Bronx accent—kept under control, for the most part, except on the word “coffee”—was showing. Shit. They were both freaking out.
“It’s not that bad,” she told him. “It will be good promo for the show, and it will blow over quickly.”
These were all things her agent and cousins had told her after her split with McIntyre had blown up, and they hadn’t helped. But she didn’t know what else to say. She remembered the first time she had made it onto the cover of Soaps Monthly magazine. She’d been thrilled. But this kind of exposure? It hurt, and there was no getting around that. For someone like Ashton, who was fiercely protective of his privacy, this had to feel nerve-racking and intrusive.
Ashton opened the magazine and flipped to the article about them. Before Jasmine could tell him not to read it, that it wouldn’t help matters, he said, “I can’t believe they would print this. People are going to think that we—”
“Ashton.” She waited until he looked at her. “We are.”
“I know, but I don’t need anyone else knowing that.” He went back to the magazine, a look of disgust on his face.
Excuse me? Before Jasmine could find her voice to respond to that insulting statement, a sharp knock on the door interrupted them. “It’s Tanya,” said a muffled voice.
Ashton’s gaze flew around the room, as if looking for somewhere to hide. His eyes locked on the bathroom door.
“Who cares if someone sees you here now?” Jasmine hissed at him, giving the magazine he held an irritated flick as she moved past him to open the door. Tanya stood on the other side. In her hands was another copy of Buzz Weekly. Shit, were the paps stationed near the studio’s gates handing them out as people arrived for work?
Jasmine stepped aside to let Tanya in. “So you’ve seen it.”
“Of course I have.” Tanya handed it to Jasmine, who threw it directly into the trash. “I’m amazed they thought this was cover material.”
Or Kitty Sanchez had been waiting to pounce on a new story about Jasmine, and the summit photos plus Lily’s innocent quote had given her what she needed. Out loud, Jasmine said, “They’re using me.”
“That they are,” Tanya agreed. “Ready to spin this?”
“What’s the plan?” Jasmine asked.
“We have some interviews lined up,” Tanya replied. “I won’t lie, if you wanted to play this coy, it would be great for ratings. But I’m not about abusing my actors or making up stories that aren’t there, so the simplest thing to do is say you’re just friends and leave it at that. Good?”
Ashton looked like he was going to throw up, but he nodded. “We need to shut this down immediately.”
Jasmine’s heart ached for him, even as she wished he’d pull his head out of his ass. She understood where he was coming from, but she needed his support on this, damn it. She’d already gone through it once on her own.