To Farrin Jacobs, for working unbelievably hard and making the writing process so fun.

Thank you for not just being an amazing editor but a wonderful friend.

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

1 - COURTROOM COUTURE

2 - MOVING ON

3 - NICE GETS YOU NOWHERE IN HOLLYWOOD

4 - A LOT LIKE JAIL

5 - THE SIMPLE THINGS

6 - A MUTUAL FAVOR

7 - KNOW YOUR LINE

8 - WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT LOVE?

9 - MAKE IT RIGHT

10 - ON-SCREEN AND OFF

11 - QUIET TIME

12 - MYSTERIOUS CONTRADICTIONS

13 - FAME IS FAME

14 - IN A PARTY MOOD

15 - A MUCH BETTER PLACE

16 - A BAND-AID ON A BULLET WOUND

17 - PLAYING TO THE CAMERAS

18 - GOING ROGUE

19 - A NEW LEAF

20 - LET THE HATERS HATE

21 - YOU KNOW ME BETTER THAN THAT

22 - KEEP ME STANDING

23 - PICKING A WINNER

24 - GO IT ALONE

25 - SOMEWHERE BETTER

26 - WHAT I WISHED FOR

27 - TALKING POINTS

28 - SO MANY SECRETS

29 - A SATISFYING AMOUNT OF COMMOTION

30 - THE STARS CAME OUT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BOOKS BY LAUREN CONRAD

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Dear Madison,

You probably don’t remember it, but a few months ago I wrote you a letter. I told you that I was your biggest fan. And I really was! My screen saver was a picture of you from the Fame Game premiere. My ringtone was the theme from Madison’s Makeovers. I loved you.

Well, I’m writing now to tell you that I don’t love you anymore. At all. Everything I said in that letter—about how you were true to yourself, how you worked so hard for what you got—I take it all back. Because everything that you said was a lie.

You had it all, Madison. Money, looks, fame. But I guess that wasn’t enough. Stealing is wrong. Didn’t your parents teach you anything?

Sincerely disappointed,

Becca B.

PS: I unfollowed you on Twitter.

Madison Parker stood in the echoing marble foyer of the Beverly Hills Courthouse, her back pressed against the wall and her purse clutched tightly in her freshly manicured fingers. People in ill-fitting suits and outdated shoes hurried past without a second glance at Madison’s uncharacteristically pale face. (Seriously, was there a law against natural fabrics and current-season pumps around here?)

Madison’s own outfit was carefully thought out. She’d taken a page from Lindsay’s book (after all, who had more experience when it came to courtroom couture?) and opted for white, although Madison wore a bra with her ensemble. Her dress hit right below the knee, and she accessorized with a modest heel and pearls. She had a quilted Chanel that would have looked perfect, but instead she’d chosen a simple black bag. “No labels,” her lawyer had instructed her. She’d been charged with theft, and flaunting an expensive wardrobe wasn’t going to help her case.

She sighed. For the last ten minutes she’d been waiting for Andy Marcus, Esq., to emerge from wherever he’d disappeared to in the moments after her hearing. He was probably off congratulating himself, as if it had been his performance that had convinced the judge not to give Madison jail time for grand theft. Madison knew the truth, of course: When she took the stand, with her big blue eyes full of tears and her voice full of remorse, she saw the judge soften. In seconds, she had him wrapped around her finger. (She often had that effect on men.)

She’d practiced what she was going to say for days. She’d even hired an acting coach—the same one she’d used to help her prepare for her guest-starring role on an episode of Family Guy. She had to be prepared, because every word was a lie.

I got caught up in the moment, Your Honor. All the excitement and the glamour and the celebrity went to my head. I’m a small-town girl, sir. I never could have imagined all this would happen to me. I just—I don’t know—when the Fame Game premiere was happening, I wasn’t myself. There was so much pressure and insanity. It was wonderful, but it was also really confusing. I was exhausted and I wasn’t taking care of myself. Like I said, I just sort of forgot who I was. I saw this beautiful diamond necklace, and I felt like I needed it in order to be as special as everyone thought I was. Even though I know that I didn’t. I’m so sorry, Your Honor. I take full responsibility for my actions, and I deeply apologize to you and to my fans and to the wonderful people at Luxe.…

This line of defense was inspired by the recent antics of action star Austin Beck, who, after being caught climbing a flagpole in a pair of women’s underwear, claimed “reactive psychosis” from stress and dehydration. (Surely his weakness for psychedelic drugs had nothing to do with his stunt.)

But defending herself in a court of law hadn’t been easy for Madison. While she was experienced in exaggerations and manipulations, she was not actually a good liar. On top of that, she was unaccustomed to taking blame for anything, even if she deserved it. She’d spent the last five years of her life looking out for number one, and number one had always been Miss Madison Parker. The words “I was wrong” tasted like poison in her mouth.

But when her estranged father, Charlie Wardell, showed up in L.A., rumpled and sweet and ashamed of the way he’d abandoned her, Madison discovered a selfless side that no one thought existed. She rented him a house. She welcomed him into her life. She forgave him for leaving all those years ago. And when he vanished into thin air the morning after the Fame Game premiere, along with the diamond necklace she’d borrowed from Luxe Paris, she took the fall.

Of course she’d thought about telling the truth and letting him suffer the consequences. But he’d already done time for theft. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being locked up again, making license plates for twenty-seven cents an hour or whatever it was they did in there. Not when he’d finally come to find her—to be a part of her life.

No matter what anyone else said, Madison knew that Charlie hadn’t reappeared with the intention of taking advantage of her. She’d offered him money dozens of times, and he had always refused it. “I don’t want to take anything from you,” he’d say. “All I want is to spend time with my daughter.”

She’d been right to believe him—at first. But then something changed. Who knew exactly what had happened? Only Charlie did, and he wasn’t around to explain. Maybe one of his bad debts had come due, or maybe he experienced his own moments of reactive psychosis. All Madison knew was that her father had stolen the necklace and split town. Just tell them you lost the necklace. They’re insured. Nobody loses. I love you always—Charlie, his note had said.

Nobody loses? If only it was that simple! But it wasn’t, because Charlie had been caught on videotape pocketing a pair of Luxe diamond earrings to match the loaner necklace.

(Questions of morality aside, how could he be so bad at stealing? Really, it boggled the mind.)

In the hours after she discovered that he was gone, a deep familial loyalty rose up in Madison. And today, she had pled guilty to cover for him. And for that act of generosity, she got a long lecture from the judge about honesty and personal responsibility, along with three hundred hours of community service. She had to pay back Luxe, too, although they’d given her a little break on what she owed because of the free press they were getting. So generous of them! (They had agreed to “lose” the security tape of Charlie and the earrings, so Madison knew she should be grateful, but she just couldn’t muster up the feeling.)

“Oh! There you are,” said her lawyer, appearing at her side and looking pleased with himself. “I lost you for a minute.”

Madison took a small step away from him. Andy Marcus wore too much hair product and even more cologne. “You’re the one who disappeared,” she pointed out. “I’ve been standing here in the middle of … well, where I can only assume people are sent for crimes against fashion. I’m surprised everyone isn’t walking around here with black bars across their faces.”

Andy laughed. “Down but not out!” he said. “There’s the Madison Parker the world knows and loves.”

“Whatever,” she said, noting his own poor choice in suiting. “We should probably walk out together, right?”

Madison knew what was on the other side of the courthouse doors: a sea of photographers, TV cameras, spectators. A crowd of people waiting to see her. A few of them were her fans, of course. Most of them were not, though, and they waited impatiently, holding signs painted with mocking slogans, itching to unleash what she knew she had coming. While Madison was thrilled to have avoided jail time, there were plenty of people who felt differently. They wanted her to pay for what she’d done.

She thought of Lacey Hopkins, the young actress who’d been in Madison’s shoes more than a few times herself, thanks to a fondness for prescription drugs and petty shoplifting. Would Madison’s career suffer the way Lacey’s did? She told herself that it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. She’d do her community service and be a model citizen from now on.

Andy Marcus’s phone rang. “It’s your publicist,” the lawyer said, glancing at the screen. “She’s calling because you need to make a statement. Or I can do it, if you want me to. I like to think that talking to the press is one of my personal strengths.”

Madison snatched the phone from his hand and answered it. “Why are you calling the lawyer instead of your own client?” she demanded.

Sasha didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, hello, Madison,” she said smoothly. “I wasn’t sure how you’d be feeling, so I thought it would be best to call Andy.”

“I’m great, thank you,” Madison said. “Best day of my life.”

“I’ve been so worried about you.”

“I’m sure you have,” Madison replied. She liked her publicist fine, but she understood that Sasha was actually more worried about herself. It was always a hassle for publicists when their clients got in trouble; they had to field calls from every gossip blogger and magazine out there. It was a headache. And whoever said that all press is good press hadn’t posed for a poorly lit mug shot recently.

“Well, I have great news,” Sasha said.

“Really?” Madison felt her heart lift a little.

“Yes. I just got off the phone with Veronica Bliss, and she has agreed to run a huge spread on you. An exclusive. A sit-down with Madison Parker, with a photo shoot and everything. Isn’t that incredible?”

“So Veronica wants me to tell her Gossip readers all about my troubles,” Madison said, her voice flat. This wasn’t the kind of good news she’d been hoping for. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Andy give her the thumbs-up. God, he was such an idiot.

“Yes. It’s your chance to tell your side of the story, Madison. Your chance to regain some of the sympathy you’ve … well, temporarily lost.”

Madison smiled grimly. At any other time in her life, she would have cut off a limb to get a two-page spread in Gossip. But today? Today was a different story. Today she couldn’t tell anyone what really happened: not Trevor Lord, her boss; not Kate Hayes, who seemed like she’d be a sympathetic ear; and certainly not the entire circulation base of Gossip magazine. Besides her sister no one knew the truth, and Sophie wasn’t going to let that one slip. She was more than enjoying Madison’s fall. Funny how things worked out. “No thanks,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it. Besides, given my history with Veronica, I hardly think it would be a positive story.”

“Are you sure?” Andy mouthed.

Madison waved his question away. “Let’s just make a statement,” she told Sasha. “Something about how I support the judge’s decision and I’m looking forward to starting my community service immediately and putting this all behind me, blah blah blah. You can make it sound good, right?”

“That’s what you pay me for,” Sasha said.

“Well, then you’ve earned it today. Here, Andy can give you the details.” Madison shoved the phone back into her lawyer’s hand. He looked at it in surprise for a second, as if he’d never seen it before. Then he held it to his ear. “Sasha,” he said.

Madison watched him for another moment and then turned to go. She didn’t need to wait for him. She had a life and an image to rebuild … again.

She strode toward the exit, still holding her bag in its death grip, and paused for a moment before the huge oak door. A large, red-faced security guard appeared beside her.

“I’m going to escort you to your car, Miss Parker,” he said. “There are … a few photographers outside.” He was six foot three and well over two hundred pounds, but he looked a little uneasy as he eyed the door. This didn’t help to calm Madison’s nerves.

Own it, she told herself. Own it. The perp walk is the new catwalk, after all.

She gave the door a defiant shove, and the bright September sunlight that came pouring in nearly blinded her. Or was it the burst of what felt like a thousand flashbulbs? Madison couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that she’d never been more thankful for her superdark sunglasses.

She walked down the steps, keeping close behind the security guard as he created a small path ahead of her. People were screaming her name. A woman in a jade-green suit pushed through the crowd toward her. “Madison Parker,” she said, holding out a microphone. “How do you feel about the outcome of today’s hearing?”

Another reporter appeared to her right. “Miss Parker, has Lacey Hopkins offered you any words of wisdom on dressing for court appearances?”

“Hey, Mad,” someone yelled, “what’s it like to be a convict?” (It was the TMZ guy. She didn’t even have to look to know.) The shouts from the crowd grew more deafening. Meanwhile the camera shutters kept clicking and the flash-bulbs popped like fireworks around her. It was exactly the sort of chaos that she usually loved. Usually craved. (Once a reporter had asked her where her favorite place to be was. “That’s easy,” she’d purred. “Right in the center of all the attention.”)

But now, in this moment, she wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Hey, Parker, nice shoes. Did you steal those, too?”

“Madison, are you going to rehab like your sister?”

“Madison, Madison, stealing is a sin—”

Madison tossed her blond hair and held her head high. She took slow, defiant steps to the waiting car. She imagined that the shouts were coming from her fans, the ones who used to scream and beg for photos and autographs as she walked down the red carpet.

The PopTV camera crew had staked out a place right near her car. On Trevor’s orders, Bret, the camera guy, moved toward her. She could practically feel the camera focusing in on her face, searching for any hint of emotion.

Of course PopTV wanted to broadcast her humiliation, the same as everyone else did. But at least their version would be sympathetic. If Madison had to exit a courthouse on TV, she might as well have the shot color-corrected in postproduction, slowed down for dramatic effect, and set to the tune of Kelly Clarkson’s most recent hit.

She reached up and took off her sunglasses. Let them see exactly how strong she was.

A girl—a freckled, redheaded teenager—came running toward her. “I still love you,” she called. “I still do!” And before Madison’s driver stepped in front of the girl and cut her off, she tossed a single red tulip at Madison’s feet.

Madison gazed at it for a moment, lying there on the pavement, and then looked up. Down but not out. And then the unblinking eye of the PopTV camera caught a tiny but resolute smile flickering around the edges of her perfect red lips.

Kate stretched out her legs on the chaise longue by the Park Towers pool and wriggled her toes, admiring the blue polish she’d picked out at Brentwood Nail Garden.

“I always thought blue would make a person look like they had poor circulation,” Natalie said. “Or frostbite. But you actually pull it off.”

Kate grinned at her former roommate. “Wow, thanks. You really know how to pay a girl a compliment.”

Natalie shrugged and popped a grape into her mouth. “What can I say,” she said, chewing. “I was raised by wolves.”

“At least they were wolves with a sense of fashion,” Kate said, noting Natalie’s colorful ensemble, which consisted of a leopard-spotted crop sweater paired with a royal-blue chiffon dress, a wristful of gold bangles, and a pair of navy Oxford-style flats. (Kate had, with some effort, convinced Natalie to ditch her opaque black tights; the girl needed a little vitamin D.)

“I found this sweater at a church rummage sale,” Natalie said. “Awesome, right?”

“It looks designer,” Kate agreed.

“It’s very Marc Jacobs,” Natalie said. (As a student at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, she knew the names of every designer.) “But it cost five bucks.” Then she poked Kate with an unmanicured toe. “Speaking of designer, are you getting free clothes now that you’re a superstar?”

Kate laughed. “I wouldn’t say superstar. But I have been getting some things sent to me.” She thought about the box that ShopAddict, an L.A.-based PR firm that repped some of the hottest designers, had messengered to her apartment and which she hadn’t even had time to open yet. It sat next to a Rebecca Minkoff handbag, several dresses from Alice + Olivia, and a pile of shoe boxes from Kate Spade. And they were all for her. To keep. Simply because they hoped she’d be photographed or filmed wearing them.

“Good-bye, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf apron; hello, fashion plate!” Natalie said. “I’m so incredibly jealous that I don’t even know if I can be friends with you anymore.”

“Oh, please,” Kate said. “For one thing, you have a huge wardrobe of amazing clothes. And for another, I haven’t worked at Coffee Bean in ages.” She took a sip of Evian and reapplied a bit of sunblock to her nose. All this L.A. sunshine was threatening to bring out her freckles. “You’ll probably always be better dressed than me. I have the fashion sense of a teenage boy.”

“Just promise to give me whatever you don’t like,” Natalie said. “I’m begging you.”

“Sure,” Kate agreed. “Come to think of it, I did get this jumpsuit that might be right up your alley… .”

Natalie clapped her hands in excitement. “Only the truly fashion-forward are bold enough to rock the jump-suit. Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

“It’s all yours,” Kate said.

“Brilliant. So tell me everything else,” Natalie said. “I saw you on D-lish.com yesterday. There was a picture of you walking down Rodeo Drive.”

Kate’s stomach still did tiny somersaults when she heard things like this. Really? she couldn’t help thinking. A paparazzo followed me? (And did he get a decent photo?) “Oh, that’s funny,” she said, as if she weren’t dying to Google the picture immediately. She had spent three hours in front of the mirror the other day, practicing smiles and poses after seeing a few extremely unflattering photos of herself on Popsugar.com.

Natalie nodded. “Yep. You were drinking a Starbucks and wearing those cute new brown platforms. Can I just say, it is so weird to have a famous friend!”

Kate laughed. It was weird, weird, weird to be so suddenly well known. It seemed like only yesterday she’d been a Midwestern nobody, working two jobs and living in a run-down Los Feliz two-bedroom, fantasizing about making it in the music industry. And now here she was after three episodes of The Fame Game had aired, lounging beside a beautiful pool, freshly manicured, pedicured, and waxed, and looking at her picture splashed across the pages of Life & Style.

The Fame Game’s producers had warned her that her life was going to change overnight, but it had never seemed real. Even though PopTV cameras had followed her around for weeks and she’d done a photo shoot and talked to reporters … the fact that she was actually going to be on TV and millions of people would watch her seemed unbelievable. And in a way, it still didn’t seem real. The attention was all around her, but it hadn’t completely sunk in that this was her life now. She didn’t even feel that different. Not yet, anyway.

And there were even better perks of fame than good pedis and free clothes. Her single, which Trevor had chosen to be the theme song for The Fame Game, had been in the top ten on iTunes for two whole weeks. She’d gotten calls from three different record labels, all of them expressing interest in her music. (They also wanted to know if she had any shows coming up. Ugh.) Trevor said she wasn’t ready for all that, though; in the world of The Fame Game, her getting a recording contract was more of a second-season story line. Meanwhile, Courtney Love—whose barely comprehensible tweet about Kate’s YouTube video had first brought Kate into the spotlight—seemed to be watching over her like some crazy fairy godmother (O gawd, gurl iss makin it! hitthe top sister, and sned me a postcard!!!! she’d recently tweeted). If Kate ever met the former lead singer of Hole, she was going to give her a big, fat kiss.

Kate reached down to brush a dragonfly away from her ankle. Yes, she was really, really lucky. There was no doubt about it.

But it wasn’t as if life was all sunshine and roses. For one, she had—against her castmates’ advice—read some of the comments about her on the internet. People were brutal. Who is this random chick who thinks she can sing? asked NeNe67. Bru43ski wrote, Why would they cast this girl? She is sooooo boring. Kate, horrified, had stopped right there. Lesson learned. Quickly.

Then there was Luke Kelly, the drop-dead gorgeous Australian actor she’d fallen for at the beginning of the summer. Even though Kate knew she’d been right to break up with him—if a guy wouldn’t own up to dating you, you had to give him the boot, right?—the decision still hurt. She’d thought they had something. Something real.

For a while, Luke had seemed to feel that way, too. But then his attention turned to something fake: his manufactured-for-the-cameras relationship with Carmen Curtis. As costars of The End of Love, Luke and Carmen were the new Hollywood It couple. Kate saw pictures of them everywhere she turned. She couldn’t even buy her over-priced salad at Whole Foods without them smiling at her from the cover of a magazine.

Then, to add insult to injury, she’d learned that Luke and Carmen had hooked up—for real—in the spring. Nothing had come of it, and it was before she’d met either of them, but still. If it didn’t mean anything, why had they both kept it a secret from her?

Kate thought she’d found a true friend in Carmen, but now she felt like an idiot. Carmen had been texting her— at first acting like there was nothing wrong, and then wanting to talk—but Kate wasn’t interested in anything she had to say off-camera.

“Life is different, all right,” Kate said, rolling over onto her stomach and letting the sun warm her back. “It’s mostly great, though.” She felt like she was reminding herself of it as much as she was telling Natalie.

“Oh, hey, you guys,” chirped a voice. “What’s up?”

Kate turned back over and saw her costar Gaby Garcia approaching them, wearing a pair of six-inch strappy sandals and clutching one of her trademark spirulina smoothies.

“What is that?” Natalie asked. “It looks like you put Oscar the Grouch into a blender.”

Kate laughed, but Gaby only looked confused. “Gaby,” Kate said, “you remember Natalie. She was my roommate before I moved here. Natalie, you remember Gaby, my fellow Fame Gamer.”

“Hi,” Gaby said. She sat down on a chaise longue and sighed. Her brow twitched almost imperceptibly, which was—thanks to all the Botox injected into her forehead— her best version of a frown.

“What’s the matter?” Kate asked. “You look upset … I think.”

Gaby took a sip of her smoothie and sighed again. “It’s Madison,” she said. “I’m worried about her.” She slipped off her high heels and contemplatively rubbed at her toes. “I mean—wow. Like, I’m really worried? I just … like …”

Kate waited for Gaby to finish her sentence, but then realized that nothing more was forthcoming. “It’s pretty crazy,” Kate said.

Gaby turned her brown eyes to Kate. She bit her over-plumped lip. “I tried to talk to her about what happened with the necklace, but she totally shut me down. And I tried to ask her about my diamond earrings, too. I mean, those were totally on my dresser until her dad came over. And then he leaves, and suddenly they’re gone. I was all, Like that’s really a coincidence! But then after the whole necklace thing, I’m thinking maybe Madison took them. I mean, it was obviously one of them, right? And of course she didn’t want to talk about that, either.”

Gaby stopped and took a deep breath. It was a long monologue for her.

Kate nodded. “Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s a hard thing to talk about.”

She had tried to talk to Madison, too. In the first days after the Fame Game premiere, when it seemed like their whole world was exploding in flashbulbs, Madison had been practically invisible. She’d been a no-show at the morning-after brunch, and she’d spent ten minutes at the informal cocktail party for cast and crew before making a French exit out the back. And no one had seen her since.

Kate had figured she was just taking a break from things, lying low in Charlie’s bungalow, and ringing up quite the LAbite.com bill. But then things had gotten weird: Suddenly Madison was nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Her photo was on every celebrity website and on the cover of every gossip magazine. And they all accused her of the same thing: theft.

It was so unlike Madison to avoid attention—they’d all thought something was up. Sophia had said Madison was upset because their dad had to leave town unexpectedly. Kate could tell how much Madison adored Charlie, so that explanation made sense. But Kate, for one, certainly hadn’t expected the headlines: STARLET STEALS STONES; MADISON MAKES OFF WITH MILLIONS. Kate’s reaction had been shock, quickly followed by confusion. Really? Madison had stolen and sold her loaner necklace? Really? One could argue that Madison was a lot of things: cruel, sly, manipulative, and selfish. But an honest-to-goodness thief? It didn’t sound right. The girl had a collection of Birkins that rivaled Victoria Beckham’s. Why would she steal a diamond necklace when she had a wardrobe worth double that in value?

Gaby set her drink down on the concrete. “Between Madison and her father … well, you know what they say: The apple doesn’t fall far from the pie.”

“I think the saying is ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,’” Natalie suggested.

“Whatever,” Gaby said. “Same thing.”

“I find it all really hard to believe,” Kate said. “I don’t get why she’d steal a necklace and then sell it. Did she actually think she wouldn’t get caught?”

“Who knows with that girl,” Natalie said. “She lied, slept, and cheated her way to the top in the first place. Is this really so out of character for her?”

Kate looked up at the big windows of Madison’s and Gaby’s apartment. She could see the passing clouds reflected on their shiny surface. Madison hadn’t been living there for a while now, but she still thought of it as Madison’s and Gaby’s place. Maybe she hadn’t known Madison as well as she thought she had. It wasn’t like they were good friends or anything, but she’d started to like her. She’d thought everything was cool with them. So the more Madison avoided her, the more Kate began to think she really was guilty. Maybe it didn’t make sense that Madison would have stolen the necklace, but it made even less sense that she would say she’d stolen it when she hadn’t.

Kate leaned back and rearranged the Egyptian-cotton towel she was using for a pillow. She didn’t want to think about Madison anymore. Obviously the girl didn’t want to talk, and maybe she never would. “Mad’ll be fine,” Kate said. “It will do her some good to see things from the bottom for a change.”

Gaby shot her a look of surprise. “Ouch,” she said.

Kate shrugged. She knew that didn’t sound like something that the nice girl from Columbus, Ohio—the one who couldn’t bear to pack her old teddy bear in a moving box because she was afraid she’d hurt its feelings—would say. (Instead she’d carried Paddington to her new apartment in her purse, with his legs sticking out like some furry kidnapping victim.) But she had reached out to Madison and got a whole lot of nothing in return. So, moving on.

On second thought, maybe fame had made Kate feel different. But just a tiny bit—and anyway, she didn’t have much of a choice. In this business, it was kill or be killed. A girl needed to develop a thick skin or she wouldn’t get anywhere.

“I miss her,” Gaby said softly.

Kate reached out and patted her knee. “She’ll be back, Gaby,” she said. “Madison Parker will always be back.”

“Roll that rack over to the wall, will you? And the other one can go by the doorway. You don’t need to get to your dining room anytime soon, do you, Carmen?” But Alexis Ritter, lead costume designer for The End of Love, which Carmen was due to start filming in a matter of days, didn’t wait for Carmen to answer. “Well, whatever,” she said. “Shouldn’t eat during a fitting anyway.”

Alexis clapped her hands briskly, startling her poor assistant, who nearly tripped over a pair of thigh-high leather boots decorated with fringes, buckles, and spurs. Carmen eyed them with trepidation. Was she going to have to wear those?

“Just put the rack right there,” Alexis said. “For God’s sakes, there! Come on. We’ve got a lot to do and not very much time to do it in.”

Carmen couldn’t believe the number of tunics, dresses, gowns, leggings, scarves, and capes being wheeled into her house. (Her dad was out of town, so her mom had agreed to let the PopTV cameras film for a few hours. Carmen was glad her parents didn’t see eye to eye on this whole Fame Game thing.) The costume budget for The End of Love alone must be three times what it cost to make The Long and Winding Road, the arty, indie movie that had been her first big-screen experience.

Alexis glanced at Carmen, giving her figure a once-over. “So this is you,” Alexis said. “Your size, which you plan on staying for the entire movie. No juice cleanses or carb binges, do you hear? It’s important that your weight doesn’t fluctuate, because there’s a lot of boning and corsets involved here, and they need to fit perfectly.” She ran her fingers through the white streak in her ebony hair.

“Uh, no, I mean, yes. I’m staying this size,” Carmen said, glad that the PopTV crew, which had set up in the far corner of the room, had not begun filming yet. “No crash diets in my immediate future,” she joked.

Alexis nodded, unamused. “Good. I want to get you into the ball gown from the opening scene first, because that has some complicated stitching going on. Boning, laces, whatnot. A sort of futuristic corset, with a busk front, so that your costar can tear it open in that first moment of passion… .”

Carmen blushed slightly. A moment of passion with Luke Kelly, in front of who knew how many cameras, while wearing one of these insane garments. It was going to be … interesting. But she didn’t doubt that she was up to the challenge.

Then Alexis made a series of angry-sounding phone calls as Carmen stood around, shifting her weight from foot to foot and feeling like a trespasser in her own space. Eventually Carmen plucked her own phone from its place on the mantel and tried, for what felt like the millionth time, to get Kate to text her back.

It had been over two weeks since the Fame Game premiere, and Kate and Carmen had barely spoken. It was starting to bum Carmen out. She didn’t know how she was supposed to act around Kate. Were they still friends? She’d thought everything was going to be okay, but then came the night of the premiere. Kate had been friendly when they were all on the red carpet, but by the end of the evening she was acting as if she couldn’t stand the sight of Carmen.

At first Carmen was totally confused, but then Fawn had come rushing up. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell Kate about your hookup with Luke,” she’d said breathlessly.

Carmen paled. “What?”

Fawn had put her arm around Carmen’s shoulders. “I assumed you’d told her already, so I just sort of mentioned it in passing. You know, about how cool it was of her not to mind you guys fake-dating, when you practically almost did date…. Oops!”

Carmen had wanted to ask Fawn what the hell she was thinking, but she wasn’t surprised. Fawn loved gossip of any kind and wasn’t always careful with it. She didn’t mean any harm, though, and Carmen knew that.

Remembering that night, Carmen shuddered. What a terrible way for Kate to find out. No wonder she was angry.

But what did it mean for them now? Was their conflict a problem for Trevor’s planned story line, or was this the exact sort of drama he wanted for his show? There hadn’t been a fight, exactly—but obviously there was a lot unsaid between the two of them.

Assuming her text would go unanswered like the rest, Carmen decided that she might as well ask Laurel for a bit of advice. The producer was drinking a giant mug of coffee—as usual—and staring at her BlackBerry. Carmen remembered her doing the exact same thing back at Palisades Charter High School, when Laurel was a senior and already interning at PopTV. “Hey,” she said, smiling as Carmen approached. “You ready to get into character?”

“Into the costumes, anyway,” Carmen said. “But that’s a lot of clothing. Am I supposed to try on all of that?”

“Probably not,” Laurel said. “But don’t ask me. Ask Alexis.”

“I’m scared of her,” Carmen whispered. “She has that whole Cruella de Vil thing going on.”

Laurel looked at Alexis thoughtfully. “Yes, I see it,” she said. “Definitely. Trevor will love that.”

“She’s probably going to make me wear a cape made out of puppy fur.”

“Or kittens, maybe. But seriously, you don’t get nominated for three Oscars for costume design without being tough,” Laurel said. “You know just as well as anyone, nice gets you nowhere in Hollywood.” Her phone buzzed, and she glanced down at the screen. She frowned, tapped a few keys, and then met Carmen’s eyes again. “Dana’s always telling me I need to be more of a bitch if I’m ever going to be promoted.”

“Can I talk to you about something?” Carmen blurted.

“God, yes, why am I babbling about myself?” asked Laurel, putting her BlackBerry down and turning the full brightness of her attention to Carmen. “My job is to listen to you.”

Carmen smiled wryly. She knew that Laurel’s job was to listen to her so that she could report it back to Trevor. But whatever—those were the rules of the game. What she needed right now was a sympathetic ear, even if that ear was attached to Trevor’s current protégée. Carmen took a deep breath and began to tell Laurel about the situation with Luke Kelly. But almost before she got to the end of her first sentence, Laurel put a hand on her arm.

“I know,” she said softly. “Kate told me that they were dating. That it was her on the back of that motorcycle in the Gossip magazine photo. Not you.”

Carmen looked at her in surprise. “She did?”

Laurel nodded.

“Well, the thing is, there’s more to the story. I hooked up with Luke,” she said.

Laurel’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

Carmen hurried on. “It was way before they were dating. We had a little too much wine one night at a party and we made out and it was no big deal. But Kate found out, and now she’s not talking to me.”

“Aha,” Laurel said. “I knew something else was going on between you two.”

“Kate wasn’t even a twinkle in Trevor’s eye back then!” Carmen went on. “How can she blame me for something that happened before she even existed?”

Laurel laughed. “She did in fact exist, Carmen. You just didn’t know her. And I have to say, I understand Kate’s side of things. You didn’t tell her, and you were her friend. She probably feels betrayed. Not by the kiss, but by the fact that you kept it a secret from her. Keeping a secret can turn something into a much bigger deal than it ever should have been.”

“Hello, Dr. Phil,” Carmen said drily. “I didn’t see you come in.”

Laurel smiled. “Hey, I’m a reality-TV producer. Knowing people is part of the job. Trevor knows more about interpersonal psychology than your average PhD.”

Carmen had to agree with that. Trevor did always seem to be one step ahead of them, didn’t he?

Laurel sipped her coffee, then set the cup on the windowsill near the little bonsai tree that had been a gift from Carmen’s best friend, Drew. “Kate wasn’t born into this world the way you were,” she said. “She doesn’t understand all the rules. She doesn’t know that illusion is sometimes more important than truth.”

“You’re getting really metaphysical on me,” Carmen said. “It’s too early in the morning for that.”

Laurel laughed. “It’s eleven a.m. That’s not early. But anyway, I think you should apologize to Kate. Sincerely. I’m telling you this as a friend. Trevor is very interested in what’s up with you two. Your developing friendship was giving the show its heart—he’d mapped out the rest of the season with you two as besties. So, if you can’t fix it, I’m sure that Trevor will try to orchestrate some knock-down, drag-out fight, preferably on camera.”

“In a pool filled with Jell-O,” Carmen said. Laurel snorted, and Carmen put her head in her hands. “It’s so complicated,” she said.

“Look,” Laurel said. “You need to get this thing taken care of quickly. If Trevor gets wind of a love triangle, then he’s going to want to run with it. And it’s probably not going to paint you in the best light. Kate is the one wronged here, and she’s the resident nice girl.”

Carmen was about to ask Laurel if Kate was the nice girl, what did that make her … when she heard Alexis call, “Where is my actress? My Julia?”

“Whoops, gotta go,” Carmen said, rushing off. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

Laurel smiled. “Good luck,” she said.

Once Carmen and Alexis had filmed their hellos for the PopTV cameras as if they hadn’t just spent an hour in the same room while it was being set up, the costume designer proceeded to stuff Carmen inside a gown made from a strange material that Carmen had never seen before. (The dress reminded her of a golden, tight-fitting Hefty bag, with threads of silver running through it.) Carmen was still thinking about what Laurel said. Maybe it wasn’t enough to just text Kate things like HEY GIRL, WHAT HAPPENED TO U? and SHOULD WE TALK? If she wanted to mend what was broken, she was going to have to try harder and make an honest attempt at apology (even if, in her heart of hearts, she still didn’t think she’d done anything wrong).

Carmen gazed unseeingly at the abstract painting on the wall as Alexis manhandled her, tightening laces and stays. She should probably try to be more open and honest in general, she thought.

Yes, openness and honesty. She would make this resolution now, months before the new year. Be more honest. Eat more vegetables. Read more books and fewer blogs. There. Now she could sleep in extra late on New Year’s Day.

Of course, there had to be limits to her honesty. For instance, she didn’t have any plans to stop fake-dating Luke yet. For one thing, their “relationship” was keeping their names in the tabloids, and for another, she liked hanging out with him.

“Ow,” she yelped, as Alexis stabbed her in the ribs with a pin.

“Sorry,” Alexis said insincerely. “I’ve got to get this belt tighter.”

“Tighter?” Carmen said breathlessly, as Alexis gave another tug on the dress’s shining gold laces. “I feel like a sausage.”

“Ha! The golden wiener,” said a voice, and Carmen looked up to see Fawn standing in the foyer and smiling behind an oversized pair of Chanel sunglasses.

“Thanks a lot,” Carmen said.

Fawn shrugged. “Just telling it like it is. You know that brutal honesty is one of my best qualities.”

Carmen laughed, which was difficult because Alexis was currently squeezing her inside the dress. “Yes, and shamelessness. I mean, do those Daisy Dukes even cover your butt?”

Fawn, grinning, ignored this; she was looking at the PopTV cameras. “Didn’t know you had your fitting today,” she said. “I just stopped by to say hi.”

But Fawn knew perfectly well that Carmen was filming her fitting today; they’d talked about it on their hike the day before. And obviously someone had miked her on her way in. Funny how Fawn had developed a habit of casually dropping by whenever cameras were rolling. Not that Carmen minded. It was fun to have her actual friend be a part of her fake reality every once in a while.

Fawn waltzed into the room, flung her glasses on the couch, and put her feet up on the tiny part of the coffee table that wasn’t covered with costume accessories. “So I have a little information that might be of interest to you,” she said, “concerning one of your friends.”

Carmen thought first of Kate. Had Fawn heard from her? Then Alexis gave her a sharp poke in the ribs. “Put your shoulders back,” she snapped. “You’re not going to slouch like that on camera, are you? You’re a princess. Also, who is this person and why is she here?”

Carmen stood up straighter. She should probably be imagining herself as Julia Capsen, post-apocalyptic princess, even as she was being fitted. But she was dying to know what Fawn had to tell her. “Spill it,” she said to Fawn. To Alexis, she said, “She’s my friend. It’s fine.”

Alexis sniffed. “That means nothing to me. Daisy Dukes here can have five minutes and then I need silence.”

“So,” Carmen said, turning to Fawn, “tell me.”

Fawn couldn’t hide her smirk. “That bottle-blond bitch has been convicted of stealing that diamond necklace, and she has to pay back the store. Plus—this is the good part—she has to do like a million years of community service at Lost Paws.”

Carmen wasn’t sure she heard Fawn right. “Los Paz?” she asked. “The Mexican restaurant on La Brea?”

Fawn let out a delighted cackle. “No, dummy, Lost Paws. It’s an animal shelter. I just read it on TMZ.”

“Well, that sounds all right,” Carmen said. “I’d rather walk a stray dog than chop cilantro. I hate cilantro.”

“Oh no,” Fawn said, shaking her head. “My friend Jeff went there once, and he calls it Lost Cause. You won’t find any rescue bichons frises there. No cute little teacup poodles, unless they’re missing an eye and have a thing for eating your underwear. They take dogs that bite, cats that pee on your pillow … It’s like San Quentin for pets.” Fawn could hardly contain her glee. “It’s soooo good, right?”

“Wow,” Carmen said, as Alexis grappled her out of the golden dress and tossed a pair of leggings at her. “I mean, it’s not like I’m her biggest fan, but poor Madison.”

“Poor Madison nothing,” Fawn said. “That girl got off easy. She may have to spend the next couple months accessorizing around a pooper-scooper, but she committed a crime—a serious one—and she isn’t getting any time.”

Carmen looked pointedly at her friend as she struggled to pull the leggings over her calves. What was all this material they were using—had space engineers woven the fabric? “May I remind you that you might have gotten something similar, had not a certain person stepped in and taken the blame?”

Fawn’s eyes widened and she turned briefly toward the PopTV camera before stopping herself. “Oh, please. That tank top was worth less than two hundred bucks. I would have gotten a slap on the wrist.”

Oops, Carmen thought, remembering the camera. Well, no going back now. “But you didn’t have to get that slap,” she pointed out. “I got it instead.” If Trevor decided to use this footage, then the world would know that Carmen wasn’t a shoplifter after all. Maybe her dad would finally stop being mad at her for taking the blame for Fawn.

“Suck in your stomach,” Alexis hissed, and Carmen immediately complied.

Fawn sighed. She was clearly annoyed that Carmen had brought the matter up on camera, but was trying not to show it. “I know, and you’re an absolute angel. Do you have any Zone bars around here? I’m starving.”

Carmen couldn’t help but laugh again, which prompted Alexis to frown deeply at her. Fawn was so … Fawn. She was self-centered and gossipy, but she was also funny and smart. And she was a good actress, too. When they first met in that acting class in WeHo, it was Fawn who’d been the best student. As Carmen listened to her friend rooting around in the cupboards and drawers, she wished, under her breath, that Fawn would get a break one of these days. Her voice-over work was paying the bills, but Fawn wanted to be seen. Maybe if she made it past Trevor’s edit, someone would notice her.

“These Cheerios expired last year,” Fawn called. “Also, I don’t get this fat-free half-and-half crap. It’s half what, and half what else? Just drink the coffee black, for God’s sakes.”

Alexis looked up at Carmen from the floor, where she was adjusting the cuff of the leggings. “If you don’t get her out of here in the next minute, I am going to throw her out the window.”

Looking into Alexis’s fiery black eyes, Carmen could almost believe this.

“Hey, Fawn,” she called. “I sort of have to deal with this now. Want to meet later?”

“Always,” Fawn said, coming into the room with a handful of Zone bars. “You don’t mind if I take these, do you?”

“No,” Carmen said. “I don’t. If I want to wear these costumes without passing out, I’m going to need to eat air for the next few weeks. Air and lettuce.”

“Don’t lose more than three pounds,” Alexis said sternly. “Or I’m going to have to do this all over again.”

Having this costume fitting had seemed so glamorous until Carmen was actually in the middle of it. In reality, it was about as pleasant as a trip to the dentist.

“I won’t,” she whispered.

“That’s what I want to hear,” Alexis said. Then she smiled, and it was like being smiled at by a spider.

“Later,” Fawn called. She let herself out, but then poked her head back inside. “Oh, and those leggings you’re in now? I swear I saw it on that guy over on Robertson who wears Rollerblades and carries a boom box on his shoulder.”

Carmen raised her hand as if to wave good-bye to Fawn, but instead she gave her the finger.

“Kisses!” Fawn called, and then she was gone.

Carmen shook her head in amusement. It was appropriate that she worked in entertainment, because she certainly knew a lot of characters.

Madison sat in the parking lot of Lost Paws, sipping the cooling dregs of her nonfat latte and gazing grimly at the dirty white building in which she would be spending three hundred court-ordered hours. Its paint was stained and peeling; steel bars covered its small windows. On the other side of its chain-link fence was a mini-mart (Slushees only fifty-nine cents!) and a dingy-looking Laundromat. It was a Southern California no-man’s-land—a place of barren streets and merciless sun.

Her phone buzzed on the seat next to her. ICED COFFEES BY THE POOL LATER—YOU IN?

The text was from Kate. Madison appreciated how she reached out now and then—her concern seemed genuine (unlike, say, Sasha’s). But Madison would not be joining Kate in the sun this afternoon. For one thing, she had to walk dogs all day, or whatever one did at a shelter. And for another, Madison didn’t want to encourage a real friendship with Kate. She might be tempted to confide in her then, which was an obvious no-no. Madison couldn’t afford to look back; she had to keep looking forward.

But the view forward was so depressing! Seagulls picked at little hills of trash while airplanes, descending into LAX, rumbled and roared overhead. She glanced down at her Rag & Bone skinnies, her Miu Miu top, and last year’s black Chanel flats. She thought she’d dressed down, but no: She didn’t even have the clothes in her closet to dress this far down.

Madison figured that working with the animals wouldn’t be too bad—even in a dump like this—but she wished it didn’t have to be filmed. Because every second Trevor showed Madison being punished was another second that the Fame Game viewers got to judge her. Or label her a criminal. (Or see her in an old pair of shoes!)

She’d asked Trevor if he could skip filming the whole community-service business, and he had laughed.

“Madison Parker asking not to be filmed?” he said, leaning back in his Aeron chair. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Don’t pretend I’m being unreasonable,” she’d argued. “This isn’t exactly the image I’ve worked toward.”

“Then you shouldn’t have pocketed a diamond necklace.” He scanned her face for a reaction, but she gave him none. “Listen, do you want to be on the show or not?” Trevor had asked. But it wasn’t really a question, because he already knew the answer. “This show is about your life in L.A. And right now, Madison, this is your life.”

Of course he was right. What else was there to say? She’d gotten up to go. But Trevor had stopped her at the door. “Oh, and Madison?” he called. “Move back into your apartment. That’s about enough hiding out at your dad’s place.”

She gritted her teeth. He knew everything. “No problem,” she said, making her voice breezy. “I’ve really missed tripping over camera cords all the time. Bret never puts everything away. You know that, right? I’m going to start selling your equipment on eBay.”

Trevor shrugged. “Well, apparently you could use the cash….”

She’d said nothing to that; she’d just clenched her fists and left.

Trevor hadn’t known it, but he was already getting what he wanted: She’d been planning on moving back into Park Towers. Not because she missed Gaby and her horrible boyfriend, Jay. No, Madison simply couldn’t afford the rent on the bungalow anymore—not with the Luxe payments.

Madison gave herself one last check in the rearview mirror before gracefully stepping out of her car. She made her way toward the crew van so they could slip a mike on her before documenting day one of her humiliation. The sound guy didn’t say anything as he peeled the backing from a strip of tape and quickly secured it to the inside of the neckline of her top. Come to think of it, none of the crew had had much to say to her since her incident with Luxe jewelers.

Laurel gave her a cool glance. “Can you get back in the car and pull out of your parking spot?” she asked.

Madison nodded silently. She knew what they wanted: one long shot of her driving in, stepping out of the car, looking up at the Lost Paws sign, and then walking in. Trevor would be milking this day for everything he could. And Madison had no choice but to let him.

She wasn’t inside the building for more than thirty seconds when a bubbly, silver-haired woman whose name tag read Glory said, “You’ll be wanting these today.” She thrust a pair of thick plastic gloves at Madison’s chest and smiled.

Madison took the gloves from her slowly, with narrowed eyes, wondering what sort of job required them. Glory winked at her. How did she manage to be so cheerful here in this small, dirty employee-break room, where even the smell of bleach and burned coffee couldn’t cover the rank tang of animal urine?

The other new volunteers—who had apparently all arrived early, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed—included a seventy-something woman, as tanned and wrinkled as a golden raisin; a pair of twins around Madison’s age, with lank, dark hair and goth eye makeup; and a middle-aged man with forearms the size of Christmas hams. No one, in other words, that Madison was eager to get to know.

But the guy who stood quietly in the corner was a different story. He had light brown hair, sea-green eyes, and a body like a Greek deity’s. If she’d known that volunteers could look like that, she would’ve been giving back to the community all along. Who was he? Madison wanted to know. And why was he off to the side, so carefully avoiding the cameras?

Glory moved to the front of the room; all eyes followed her. “Lost Paws relies on its volunteers to keep its doors open,” she told them. “And while not all of you are volunteers,” she added, looking in Madison’s direction, “I hope you will all have a great experience during your time with us.”

Madison rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, which was stained acoustic tile. “Can’t wait,” she muttered.

Glory either didn’t hear her, or else she chose to ignore Madison’s lack of enthusiasm. “We accept challenging pets,” she went on. “Lost Paws is the place that people come when they have no other options. When you meet some of these animals, you’re going to have to remind yourself: It might be ugly or it might be mean—or, honestly, it might be both—but every animal in here deserves to be taken care of and loved. Remembering that makes a big difference. These animals are in some of the most difficult circumstances of their lives. They’re in cages. They’re frightened. Even though we do our best to try to take care of them, we are a shelter. We are not a home.” She looked at all of them, her vivacity suddenly muted. “Our job is to make this feel as much like a home as possible.”

Madison suppressed another eye roll. Was this lady for real or was this speech for the cameras?

“Sounds good to me,” said the guy with the giant forearms. “I dig it.”

Madison decided instantly that she hated him.

“So let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves, all right?” she said.

Forearms said his name was Stan. The twins were Hazel and Ivy, and the raisin said that her name was Sharon. Madison felt she needed no introduction, but she offered her name anyway. It was clear that neither Stan nor Sharon had heard of her before (well, she never claimed to be a hit with the Geritol crowd), but Hazel and Ivy gazed at her with what seemed like awe.

Madison offered them a small, haughty smile, which neither of them returned. She assumed that they were star-struck. Maybe, if she was feeling generous, she’d give them an autograph later.

“So we’re going to divide and conquer now,” Glory said, before the gorgeous guy had had a chance to say his name. “Let’s get you your assignments.”

Madison looked down at her industrial-strength gloves and wondered why she was the only person who had been given a pair. They looked like the kind of thing you’d wear if you were going to clean up hazardous waste.

Glory’s voice was brisk and efficient. “Stan, I’m going to give you to the Great Danes. They need a walk—and a strong person to do it. Sharon, you’re going to work with me in intake, greeting people and getting them started on their paperwork. Hazel and Ivy, you’ll be in the Family Room, which is where we work on animal socialization. All right, shall we?”

“Excuse me,” Madison said briskly. “What about us?” She indicated the hot guy in the corner.

Glory shook her head. “Wait here. I’ll take you to your duties after I introduce Stan to the Great Danes, Billy and Spike.”

She turned and left, with the other volunteers following her. As Hazel (or was it Ivy?) passed by her, Madison readied herself to smile again. She had to be nice to her fans, even under these unfortunate circumstances. But the girl stared out from beneath her greasy bangs and said, “Scarlett should have challenged you to a cage match, you backstabbing bitch.”

Madison flinched. That wasn’t what she’d expected. But she sat up straighter and smiled. “Sure,” she said sweetly. “And I would have kicked her skinny, angsty college ass.” Then she turned away and stared at the ancient coffeemaker and the dusty vending machine until Glory returned.

When she did, Madison held out the gloves. “These must be for Stan, right? The guy with the arms? Because they’re giant.”

Glory smiled pertly. “Nope. They’re for you. Try them on.”

Reluctantly Madison did as she was told. What was she going to have to do? The gloves were much too big and they smelled like a petroleum by-product. She flexed her fingers. “I feel like my hands are paws.”

“Then maybe it’ll give you some empathy for the animals,” Glory said.

“I have plenty of empathy,” Madison retorted.

“Oh, I’m sure you do, dear.” But bubbly Glory sounded pretty darn sarcastic.

Madison decided not to pick a fight. She could convince these people of her compassion some other time. Or … not. Whatever. “Anyway,” she said. “Show me which cute little puppy you want me to walk.”

Over in the corner, that gorgeous guy made a noise in his throat. Was it a cough? A laugh? Madison couldn’t be sure.

“Uh, right,” Glory said. “Come with me.”

The cameras followed them down a narrow hallway lined with laundry hampers and mop buckets. Wild barking was coming from somewhere, and from somewhere else, a terrible, high keening that sounded almost human.

“Here we go,” Glory said brightly. She opened a heavy metal door and gestured for Madison to walk in.

The room was windowless; it held stacks of metal cages. The air was thick with excremental stench, and Madison nearly stumbled from the olfactory assault.

“But there aren’t any animals in here,” she said, her voice tight. She didn’t want to open her lips very much because she was afraid of letting the horrible smell into her mouth.

“Nope!” Glory said. “But there will be. And that’s why I need you to clean these cages.” She pulled a bucket and a giant bottle of bleach down from a shelf. “The water in that faucet is cold,” she said, pointing to the small industrial sink. “If you want hot, you’ll have to hoof it back to the break room.” She gave Madison what was clearly an insincere smile. “All set, then?”

Madison was so shocked that she didn’t even know what to say. And by the time she thought of something—Wait, what? Are you kidding me? Get me a kitten to pet, stat!—Glory was gone.

She stood silently in the dank, smelly room, surrounded by metal bars and shining locks. She looked in panic at Bret, the cameraman, and noticed he had a bandana wrapped over his face to mask the smell. It felt, she realized suddenly, a lot like jail. But jail, no doubt, was nicer.

“I’m not doing this,” she yelled to the empty room. “I am so not doing this!”

It was all she could do not to turn to Bret and mouth “What the fuck?” There was no way in hell she was going to clean all these cages. She remained motionless in the center of the room for a minute, and then she stormed back into the hallway. The camera quickly followed behind her. She found Glory by the front desk, showing one of the twins how to work the computer.

“No way,” Madison said. “You can’t make me do that.”

Glory looked up, her eyes glittering. “Oh, but yes, my dear, I can. This is your court-ordered community service. You can either clean those cages, or you can go back to the judge and see what other punishments he can find for you. I hear they need people at the morgue….”

Madison shuddered.

“Anyway,” Glory said. “I don’t make the job assignments. Ryan does.”

“Who’s Ryan?” Madison demanded.

“You’ll meet him later,” Glory said. “Now go clean.”

The next three hours were pure hell. Madison nearly passed out twice from the stench of the dirty cages. She broke a nail, and the soapy water destroyed her Chanel flats. (She made a note to wear her Jimmy Choo hunter boots the next time around.) And no one came to check on her, to see if she was hungry or if she needed help or if she could use a break. She threw a mini fit around lunch-time, but only the PopTV camera paid any attention.

By the fourth hour, Madison was cursing to herself. “I think we’re done here,” said Bret. “The smell is kind of getting to me. And they said it’ll probably take you the rest of the day to finish.” He looked thrilled to be leaving, and no wonder.

So now Madison was utterly alone. Until she turned around and saw the hot guy she’d spotted earlier, leaning in the doorway.

“Oh, hey,” she said, giving her hair a toss and trying to muster as much sex appeal as possible (which was not much, considering her state of disarray). Maybe Trevor had hired this guy to spice up her community-service story line. “Did you come to rescue me?” She smiled.

The guy shook his head as he took a step into the room. He did not look charmed by Madison’s smile; in fact, he was looking at her the way she’d look at gum stuck to the bottom of her Louboutin. “I’m Ryan,” he said. “And no, I didn’t.”

Well, that was enough to wipe the smile off her face. He wasn’t another volunteer at all. “So I have you to thank for this fantastic job,” she said, suddenly finding Ryan a lot less attractive.

“Fun, isn’t it?” he asked, offering a small smile. Dimples appeared in his tan cheeks.

Five hours ago, Madison might have fantasized about reaching out and touching one of those dimples. Or thought about running light kisses along his collarbone, or slipping her hand inside his shirt and feeling the warmth of his smooth skin. Instead she suddenly wanted to hit him with her purse. The big one with lots of hardware.

“I’m in charge of the volunteers,” Ryan said. “And you too, of course. I’ll be signing your attendance sheets and reporting on your progress to the judge.”

“Well, I hope you’ll tell him that I did a stellar job today,” Madison said bitterly. “And that I ruined a pair of six-hundred-dollar shoes in the process.”

“I’m pretty sure no one cares about that but you,” he said. He walked over to the cages and ran a finger along the now-gleaming bars. “Not bad,” he said. “Better than I expected.”

Madison ignored this. “How come you weren’t on camera?” she blurted.

“I didn’t sign a release,” said Ryan. His voice was brusque. “I don’t like cameras.”

“Huh. I thought that was practically a prerequisite to living in L.A.”

Ryan gazed at her. His green eyes were cool. “Not everyone’s a fame whore,” he said. And then he turned and left.

Madison reached down, took off her ruined shoe, and threw it after him. She missed, though, which was probably a good thing. No need to add assault to her charges, too.

Kate eyed her cocktail with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. It looked delicious, but then the bartender had referred to it as a Nutty Bloody Scotsman, which had given her pause. It had whiskey and blood-orange juice or something, which sounded fine enough—but why nutty? Why bloody? Whatever happened to nice drink names, like the Tequila Sunrise or the Pink Lady?

She stirred the pinkish liquid with her cocktail stick and gazed around the dimly lit room. So far she and Gaby and Carmen and Madison were the only ones in it, unless you counted the bar staff and the PopTV camera crew. But the Library Bar at the Roosevelt was so tiny that it almost felt crowded.

Gaby had just filmed a spot here for her new job as the host of some late-late-late-night party-and-lifestyle show, and Trevor took the opportunity to get two scenes out of one location by gathering the whole cast here after Gaby’s shoot and turning it into a girls’ night out. It was the first time they had filmed all together since the premiere, and Kate was nervous. (That was how she’d ended up with the Scotsman: “Surprise me!” she’d told the bartender.) Things were tense with Carmen and awkward with Madison, and being able to have a satisfying conversation with Gaby was never guaranteed.

She snuck a glance at the exit. What if she just pretended like she didn’t feel well? Would Laurel let her leave? It was doubtful. Plus she hadn’t faked illness since third grade, when her mom stopped falling for it.

So Kate reached for her drink and bravely took a sip. She turned to Gaby, who was sitting next to her. “Not bad!” she said brightly. “Actually, it’s pretty good. What’s yours?”

“I got a Bad Habit,” Gaby said. “I don’t know what’s in it, though.”

“A Bad Habit? That’s appropriate,” Madison noted. “If only your glass had a picture of a tattooed guy on it.”

Gaby sniffed. “I don’t only date guys with tattoos,” she said. “It’s just—what’s that word?” She looked pensive for a moment. “A coincidence. It’s just a coincidence.”

Carmen laughed and tried to meet Kate’s eyes, but Kate looked away—not out of anger so much as confusion. Now that a little time had passed and practically everything in her life felt different, exactly how mad at Carmen was she? Kate had been ignoring her texts and messages because she wasn’t sure how to answer that question. A moment later, her BlackBerry buzzed. The text was from Laurel. TRY NOT TO LOOK LIKE UR BEING TORTURED.

Right! This was fun, wasn’t it? Girls’ night out!

Kate thought of the first time she’d gone out with her castmates, when filming had only just begun. That was the night she met Sophia, who was now officially part of the Fame Game lineup, although in a supporting role (which Kate knew annoyed her). It was also the night she’d met Luke Kelly.

Almost imperceptibly she shook her head: Best not to go down memory lane. Best to focus on what had changed for the better rather than for the worse. For instance, her wardrobe. Granted, she still needed helpful texts from Laurel (DRESS CUTE: MAYBE NEW NUDE DRESS & GIVENCHY BOOTIES?), but still. The old Kate wouldn’t have even known what Givenchy booties were. It was a miracle Luke had spent more than a minute with her.

Gaaah, stop thinking about Luke, Kate told herself. But the fact that she couldn’t was what made things still weird for her with Carmen. Carmen probably saw Luke every day, either at work or on a fake date. Of course, after Kate learned that the two had history, their attraction seemed a little less fake.

She fixed a bright smile on her face. Her job was to make conversation and have enough fun to fill four minutes of airtime, max—how hard could that be?

She took a deep breath and dove in. “So, Madison, I saw your picture in Life & Style the other day,” she said. But then she bit her lip in dismay. She was such an idiot: How could she have forgotten that the editors had Photoshopped Madison into a prison jumpsuit? Kate coughed loudly and tried to recover. “Your hair looked amazing,” she gushed. “Aren’t you the spokesperson for Joolie heat-styling spray?”

Madison nodded slightly as she crossed one slim, tan leg over the other. “I have a lot of endorsements,” she said. “Unlike some people.” Her eyes darted toward Carmen.

Carmen smiled slyly at this. “And maybe, thanks to your work at the shelter, you’ll get even more. Like, for a pet product or something,” she said.

Madison scoffed. “Weren’t you the face of that zit cream a couple of years back, Carmen? Of course, that wasn’t so much an endorsement as it was a testimonial, because no one had any idea who you were without your mom by your side.”

Kate saw Carmen’s cheeks flush. She’d had no idea that Carmen had done commercial work; she always seemed so … indie.

“TV ads pay great,” Carmen said, her voice sharper. “If you do enough of them, you can afford to buy your own diamonds.”

Madison inhaled and stiffened. Kate waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She just turned away and took a sip of her pink-tinged drink.

Awkward, Kate thought. Suddenly the already-small room felt claustrophobic.

The exchange had quickly put a damper on whatever goodwill the girls had managed to build up, and now no one was saying anything. Well, if tense silence was any interest to Trevor Lord, he’d have plenty of it, Kate thought. Maybe he’d have Carmen do a voice-over. We were all supposed to go out and have fun, but Kate and I weren’t talking, and Madison certainly wasn’t in a party frame of mind…. At least we had Gaby to lighten the mood.

If the whole thing weren’t suddenly so uncomfortable, Kate would have smiled to herself. Who knew what this night would look like when it appeared on the nation’s television sets? All she knew was that right now it was pretty unpleasant.

Kate didn’t understand, really, why it had to be like this. Sure, Madison had been sort of snubbing her. But she obviously had a lot on her mind. It wasn’t like Kate ignoring Carmen’s texts—Kate knew she hadn’t done anything to upset Madison. And Carmen was probably exhausted from filming, which was why she was being sort of bitchy. But what, really, was Kate’s own problem? What did she have to complain about? She had a hit TV show and a hit song: She ought to feel a little better! Why in the world couldn’t she just relax and enjoy herself? Tell a joke or a funny story?

She cleared her throat and started to say something, but then stopped. The fact was, she had her own anxieties to worry about, besides making pleasant small talk. For one thing, Trevor had told her that she was going to have to play some real shows one of these days. “Open mics aren’t for people with top-selling singles,” he’d pointed out. “We’re getting you an actual gig.” Thinking about that made her feel sick.

And for another thing, this whole interpersonal stuff was tricky. It seemed like all of her castmates had secrets and touchy spots. Skeletons of various sizes rattling around in their walk-in closets. With Natalie, everything had been so easy. They trusted each other implicitly. But with these girls, Kate felt like she never knew what they were really thinking.

“So, have you gone on any hot dates with Luke lately?” Gaby asked Carmen.

Speaking of skeletons and secrets! Kate rolled her eyes (but subtly, and not so the cameras could see it). She was getting pretty good at guessing how these scenes would go.

Carmen shifted uncomfortably in her seat, while Kate had to pretend like she wasn’t anxious to hear Carmen’s response.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she smelled a pungent essential oil that was perhaps best described as a combination of lilac, cinnamon, and … mud? Kate didn’t even have to look up to know that Madison’s sister had arrived. But she did look up, and she saw golden-haired Sophia beaming at all of them, silver bracelets clinking noisily on her arms and peacock-feather earrings brushing against her toned shoulders.

“Namaste, chicas,” Sophia said warmly. “What are we talking about?”

“We weren’t really talking about anything,” Carmen said quickly. “Have a seat.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Sophia said. She made a beeline for the spot Carmen already occupied—at Laurel’s instructions, perhaps?—which meant that Carmen had to scoot over so that she was sitting inches from Kate.

“Hi,” Carmen said quietly.

Kate didn’t answer for a moment, and she then said, with a bit of an edge to her voice, “Hi yourself.” She wasn’t going to offer anything more.

It seemed to Kate as if she could feel the camera’s devilish red eye boring into the side of her skull. So far, this evening out had been about the longest night of her life (and they had only been at the Roosevelt for twenty-three minutes).

Sophia leaned forward, removed her sandals, and flexed her bare toes. “So you are not going to believe who came into Kula Yoga this afternoon,” she said.

“Are you seriously taking off your shoes?” Madison asked, sounding horrified. “What are you? An animal? We’re in public!”

Sophia ignored her sister and took a delicate sip of what Kate hoped was seltzer. “Rob Schappell! You should see the abs on him. He’s got, like, a twelve-pack.”

“I thought you were too enlightened to notice that sort of thing,” Madison said.

“Oh, sis, you’d have to be a nun not to notice. Honestly, it disrupted everybody’s practice.” She giggled. “Not that I’m complaining.”

She fingered a large crystal that hung on a chain around her neck. She looked, Kate thought, lovely and healthy and impossibly statuesque—maybe there really was something to this yoga business. Kate herself had no experience with it. Yoga hadn’t been big in Columbus; it was more of a Zumba kind of town.

“What’s so interesting about yoga, I’m finding,” Sophia said, “is that the simple things are the most challenging. Breathing correctly, for one. You think, how hard is it to breathe? We do it all the time! But the fact is, it’s extremely difficult to do it right. And Savasana—corpse pose?”

“I always fall asleep in Savasana,” Carmen offered.

Maybe, Kate thought, Carmen was trying to make up for being mean to Madison by being nice to her sister. Though considering Madison’s and Sophia’s rocky past, it wasn’t clear whether that’d be an effective strategy. But maybe that was the point? She sighed. Once again, interpersonal stuff: tricky.

“Well, it’s so important that in addition to quieting the physical body, you must also pacify the sense organs,” Sophia said.

Whatever that means, thought Kate.

Madison rolled her eyes. “I never imagined I’d have such an evangelist for a sister,” she said drily.

Sophia turned to her. “You really should try it. It would help you process some of your rage.”

Madison burst out laughing. She laughed so long and so loudly that Kate began to wonder if she was faking it. “You’re killing me,” Madison finally gasped.

Sophia raised a knowing eyebrow but said nothing.

“Can we go back to the part about the twelve-pack abs?” Gaby asked.

“If he’s single, I already called dibs,” Sophia said. She nudged her sister playfully in the ribs. “Though I might lend him to Maddy. There are other ways to work out rage besides yoga….”

At this, Madison’s laugh was definitely sincere.

What do you know? The sisters actually seem to be getting along better lately, Kate thought, watching them with a tiny glimmer of envy. (Jess, her own sister, was great, but she was just so damn sporty—all she wanted to talk about was her free-throw percentage and how many crunches she’d done.)

Kate had never realized how much Madison and Sophia looked alike, too—like twins, but with radically different senses of style. Madison had poured herself into a scarlet bandage dress, while the maxidress that hung loosely off Sophia’s shoulders resembled a tie-dyed tent. If Mattel ever made a Hippie Barbie, they should look to Sophia for inspiration.

“I’ve got a celebrity story for you, too,” Kate offered. Because she really should give the camera something, and she didn’t want to talk to Carmen. And because she needed to at least look like she was having fun.

“Oh, goody,” said Gaby, rubbing her hands together. “Please tell me it’s about that British guy who just starred in Infinite Action. He is so hot! I mean, not that it matters to me—I’m totally in love with Jay.”

“Of course you are,” Kate said. “How could you not be?” It was hard for her to say this with a straight face. Jay spent his days playing video games and his nights drinking cases of MGD. He was a cretin. It was impossible to understand what Gaby saw in him, except for maybe his washboard abs. “Anyway,” Kate said brightly. She quickly took another sip of her drink and then proceeded to tell them about how, when working at Stecco the other night, she had had the “privilege” (according to her boss) of waiting on Gemma Kline and Carson Masters, who had flown in from London for some megastar charity event. “So Gemma—who, when she says she doesn’t do Botox, is lying—said to me, ‘I have numerous allergies. When I’m exposed to certain inflammatory foods, my adrenal cortex goes haywire.’ And I’m picturing some cartoon robot, you know, where steam starts coming out of its ears and then it explodes? So I’m like, ‘Great, that’s fine, we can deal with that. What can’t you have?’ And she lifts up a pale, bony hand and starts ticking off fingers. ‘Dairy, wheat, gluten of any kind, soy, yeast, nuts, garlic, and anything that’s acidic. Tomatoes, for instance. Or lemons and other citrus.’ And I’m like, ‘Um, okay, what can you eat?’ And Carson—who also totally Botoxes—sort of rolls his eyes and says, ‘Lettuce. Lettuce and steamed fish.’ So that’s what Gemma gets. Fish poached in vegetable broth and a pile of wilted spinach. It tastes awful, you can just tell, and she gets charged seventy-five dollars for it because it’s a special order. I know I’m not from this town, but why would you go to a fancy L.A. restaurant if you can’t eat anything they serve?”

Madison smiled gently, as if this were a very stupid question. “To see and be seen,” she said. “Think of all the girls on juice cleanses who still show up for lunches on Melrose. They just push their salad from one side of the plate to the other. But they’re there, Kate, and so are the paparazzi.”

“Point taken,” Kate said. “But she could just go get coffee somewhere if she wants to be seen. Or, like, walk anywhere along Robertson.”

“You act like wasting seventy-five dollars matters to her,” Madison reminded Kate. “When in fact it means as much to her as a grain of sand does to the Sahara.”

“Right. I forget that kind of thing because I’m not rich and famous.”

“Well, you might be one of these days,” Madison said. And then she winked at Kate. “Almost as famous as me.”

Kate laughed. Madison suddenly seemed like she was warming back up again. Maybe, thanks to that pink cocktail she was sipping, she’d magically hit a turning point in her personal emotional drama. Then maybe she’d stop with the whole weird and cagey act she’d been working for the last few weeks. Maybe there was hope for her and Kate to be friends.

Gaby piped up with some sort of inanity, and Kate was trying to decide whether it was worth paying attention to her or not when she noticed that Carmen’s best friend, Drew Scott, had arrived.

He loomed in the doorway, dwarfing everything around him. He was wearing a pressed blue Oxford, but Kate could see a tattoo peeking out near his wrist, right above his vintage Casio watch. He caught her eye and winked.

“Ladies,” he boomed, striding toward them with a giant grin on his face. “Is anyone here drunk enough to kiss me yet?”

Kate and Carmen both laughed as he plopped down right between them and put an arm around them both.

“Gaby is, I’m sure,” Madison said under her breath.

Kate snickered. Drew certainly had the tattoos to be Gaby’s type.

“What’s with the button-down?” Carmen asked Drew, plucking at his sleeve. “French cuffs and everything. Have you gone square on us?”

“You look like Jesse James’s accountant,” Kate added. She was happy to see him and even happier that his arrival meant she no longer had to sit next to Carmen.

“Uh, I’m still waiting for the kisses.” Drew laughed.

Kate saw Carmen smile, and then, as easy as anything, she leaned over and planted a giant one on his face, right near his mouth. Kate bit her lip. Drunk or sober, she was way too shy for something like that.

Drew turned to her. “Nothing from the left? Spurned by the singer-songwriter! In that case, I’ll take matters into my own hands.” And before Kate could say a word, he planted a sweet, warm kiss on her cheek.

Immediately she blushed and put a hand up to her face. “Gotcha,” Drew said, grinning and pleased with himself.

“Y-you,” she sputtered. She swatted him on the arm, and he laughed.

“Sorry. Had to take a little liberty there. I just came from a work party. That Miller64 must have gone to my head.”

“Wow,” Carmen said. “You guys really live it up at Rock It! Records.”

“You know it.” Then just as quickly as he’d sat down, he was up again. “Who wants another drink?”

“Oh, I’m sure someone will come by to take your order,” Carmen said.

Drew waved her off. “Ladies, I’m here to service—I mean, serve you.”

Carmen rolled her eyes at him.

“You’re sweet,” Gaby said to him.

“It’s true,” Drew said. “I’m probably the sweetest guy ever.” He held up a hand to stop Sophia’s syrupy cooing. “But I’m manly, too. I’m, like, masculine and tough. But I’m really, really nice. Right, my Carm?”

Carmen—“his” Carmen, whatever that meant— smiled at him. “You’re the best.”

Drew held out his arms. “So now who wants to kiss me?”

Sophia and Madison were laughing, and both Gaby and Carmen were smiling up at Drew, and even Kate felt the glimmer of a grin tugging at the corners of her lips.

How quickly the atmosphere in the room had changed! And they had Drew to thank for it. He’d simply walked into the room, happy and confident, and had magically, goofily diffused the tension. There was no more silence. No more staring down at your own feet. Suddenly everyone was talking and giggling and acting as if they’d been besties forever.

Kate could really learn something from Drew, she thought. She needed to lighten up. Take things less seriously. Remember that life was fun. Fun! To not enjoy it was not only stupid, it was downright irresponsible.

When Drew returned from the bar, Kate reached forward and raised her glass. “To friends,” she said. Because that’s what she hoped they all were (even if they got mad at one another now and then). Or could be. Or could act like, for the next hour anyway. Besides, Trevor loved a good “cheers” moment; any toast always made the episode. Kate might as well beat Madison to it this time.

Everyone lifted their glasses and clinked them together. “Friends,” they repeated. “Friends.”

Stepping out of what had been a long and scaldingly hot shower, Carmen Curtis pulled a plush bathrobe around her, cinched its waist, and slid her feet into fuzzy slippers. She gave her dark hair a quick towel-dry and then walked into the living room of her trailer.

Calling it a “living room” was generous—it was about a hundred feet square, aka about half the size of her bathroom at her parents’ house—but Carmen was thrilled to have it. Her own movie trailer, with her name on the door and everything! It wasn’t glamorous, but it was all hers. She didn’t have to do anything but sit inside it to feel like she’d hit the big time already.

Or lie down inside it, she thought, flopping onto the cushioned bench under the window. She was utterly exhausted. Today’s shoot had gone over by three hours, putting it at a thirteen-hour day, and her call time tomorrow was six a.m.

She was tempted to take a nap, but instead she reached into the pile of magazines and newspapers that the PAs regularly replenished for her. Reading a trashy tabloid could be just as rejuvenating, right? Plus, she was curious to learn about the actress Samantha Mulder’s in vitro triplets and Lacey Hopkins’s latest scrape with the law. Heck, maybe there’d even be a mention of Madison Parker.

On the top of the stack was a copy of this week’s Gossip magazine. Glancing at it quickly, Carmen was startled to see one of the cover lines: LITTLE CC NO MORE, it said, right above a photo of her (dressed to the nines, thank goodness) shopping in Beverly Hills. The accompanying article was four paragraphs, all of which heavily quoted an unnamed “friend of the actress.” “Things are going really well for Carmen,” this “friend” reported. “But she’s stressed about all the pressure. She’s starring in The End of Love opposite Luke Kelly, who, in addition to being her current crush, is a more experienced actor. So she goes for a little retail therapy!”

Carmen bit her lip. “Current crush”? “A more experienced actor”? Normally her publicist was the source for these little pieces. But this definitely didn’t sound like something Sam would say. It was weird. She squinted at the picture. It wasn’t her best, but it wasn’t her worst, either. She could live with it.

Then she threw the magazine up in the air, rolled over onto her back, and kicked her legs in the air with glee. Live with it?! Hell! She was loving it! So what if the picture wasn’t perfect? So what if the article wasn’t completely accurate? Gossip magazines never got their facts right. As for the “friend,” these rags tended to use that term rather loosely. It could have been anyone claiming to know her. But still: What a crazy and thrilling thing. She mattered to people—people she had never even met and probably never would! And it wasn’t because of whose daughter she was anymore. It was because of her. It was so incredibly bizarre and so crazily amazing that she felt, for a minute, like she might jump out of her own skin.

Suddenly no longer tired, she got up and stood in the center of her living room. She was about to commence an impromptu oh-my-God-I’m-famous dance when a knock sounded on her door.

“Who is it?” she asked, startled and extremely glad she hadn’t already begun said dance.

“It’s your loooover,” said a voice that she immediately recognized as Luke’s. “Your lover … on-screen—and in real life.” Then Carmen heard a laugh. “Can I come in?”

She sat down and composed herself, checking her robe to make sure she wasn’t showing too much cleavage. “Yeah, it’s open.”

He stepped up into the trailer, even more handsome now that his face had been scrubbed clean of its makeup. “Did I hear cackling in here?” he asked.

Carmen widened her eyes and placed her hand so that it covered her picture in Gossip. “What? Me? No!” She smiled. “I’m just relaxing with some tea!” She nodded toward the mug of chamomile she’d made for herself and then forgotten about. “Do you want some?”

Luke looked at it and wrinkled his nose. “Is that herbal tea? Because, as a subject of the British crown, I must frown upon anything that is not Earl Grey or PG Tips.” He laughed. “Also, forget tea—it’s happy hour. Do you have any tequila?”

Carmen pointed him toward her mini refrigerator. “I don’t know. Do I?”

Luke walked over and perused the fridge’s shelves. He held up a tiny plastic bottle, like the kind they served on airplanes. “Patrón!” he said. But then he exhaled and put it back. “Actually, I’m too tired to drink it. If it wouldn’t call my manhood and patriotism into question, I’d absolutely have some tea.”

Carmen patted the seat beside her. “Sit,” she said. “Relax.” When he complied, she said, “I can keep it a secret if you want the tea.”

He smiled and yawned. “You’re a love.”

That was what Carmen’s grandma said to her, but with Luke’s sexy accent it sounded totally different. Totally better.

His eyes fell to the cover of Gossip magazine, which she had forgotten to keep covered. “‘Little CC no more,’ huh?” he said, green eyes twinkling. “Check you out.”

She yawned, too—it was contagious—and then giggled. “I’m sure the article, if you want to be generous and call it that, talks all about you, too.”

Luke shrugged. “Probably,” he allowed. “Seeing as how I’m your loooover.”

“Stop saying it like that.” She laughed.

“Loooover,” he whispered, grinning.

Carmen threw a pillow at him. “I saw us on D-Lish,” he said. “Not that I, uh, check that or anything.”

“It’s so weird,” Carmen said. “Don’t you think?”

Their pictures were all over: Perez, Just Jared, Life & Style, Celeb! According to Cassandra Curtis, who— incredibly—had a Twitter account that she actually checked regularly, “#LukeandCarmen” had trended high for the last eight days. Their fake relationship was making them a hot topic. Because what was more fun than a new Hollywood couple? Especially one playing lovers in the next Colum McEntire blockbuster?

But it was strange, too, because it was just more acting. Sam had even suggested that Carmen walk off set holding hands with Luke. The paparazzi had been camped outside every End of Love location lately, hoping to get photos of the two of them leaving. Carmen had always made an effort to avoid their lenses. After a day of acting in caked-on makeup, obscure hairstyles, and fitted costumes, the last thing she wanted was her photo taken.

Besides, she couldn’t stand those creeps. It was one thing to show up to a red carpet—polished, brushed, powdered, and fitted—to pose for photographers with press badges. But the street photographers that waited outside celebrities’ homes and hid in bushes across from elementary schools? They were a different breed. The idea of giving them exactly what they wanted didn’t sit well with Carmen, but after some persuading she had reluctantly agreed.

“They’re going to get their photos one way or another,” Sam had pointed out. “Might as well make it on your terms.”

Carmen had mentioned the idea to Luke earlier that morning, in a break between scenes, and at first he’d seemed unsure. He’d gazed out over the set, a wistful look on his face, and Carmen wondered if he was thinking about Kate. But then his manager had called with news about a script that Scott Rudin wanted Luke to read—some political thriller or something—and Luke had mentioned the cute-couple photo op.

His manager had been shocked at Luke’s reluctance. “It isn’t a coincidence that all these offers are rolling in after you two have come out as a couple,” he’d said. “Your star is on the rise, and Carmen has a lot to do with it! You’re a known quantity now. Go with this, Luke.”

So Luke had agreed. And why wouldn’t he? Since Kate had basically told him she never wanted to talk to him again, what did he have to lose? It wasn’t as if he could piss her off much more than he already had.

But the more Carmen thought about it, the weirder she felt. Because Carmen probably could piss her off more. Based on their hesitant but not totally unfriendly interactions at the Library Bar, it seemed like there was a chance for Carmen to repair the damage that the faux-dating had done. Like—if Kate would ever call her back so Carmen could apologize.

On the other hand, what good would an apology do if Carmen kept flaunting her fake romance with Kate’s ex? Following Sam’s PDA instructions in order to get tabloid coverage would probably make her apology seem pretty bogus. Carmen thought back to her costume fitting and her resolution of being more honest. Maybe she and Luke should come clean—or feign a breakup. Which wasn’t exactly being honest, but it was close enough.

She cleared her throat. “So I was actually thinking about this whole you-and-me business,” she began.

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