Disclaimer: I don't own Orlando Bloom or any living person depicted in the story. They deserve my utmost respect.
A/N: With the usual eternal gratitude to
Viv my beta and Aerin my muse, believe it or not, a new chapter of Lessons
in Love.
Enjoy and please let me know what you think.
Hugs,
C.
Chapter 22
Georgina Hammond had a very rigid routine, which she followed almost religiously every day of her life.
In her late forties, she enjoyed her work and the limited amount of power it granted her. Handling clients had always been her strength, even back when she she’d worked a summer-job at a fast-food restaurant.
Now, years and many intelligent study and work choices later, she carefully balanced her professional life (which took over almost 90 percent of her time) and her very discreet but almost nonexistent private sphere. Lack of balance was the cost of being a one-woman representation for some of the top photographers living and working in the USA.
Nevertheless there was this smart, sexy, and loving book editor with whom she shared a low-profile relationship, and she had a few very close friends, one of whom was Verena Devereaux, who was the closest friend she had had in many years.
She and Verena shared a sassy intelligence and a spark of rebellion that bonded them by mutual respect and professional regard. Their common roles as single working women who took pride in their professional lives also made them kindred spirits.
Waking up at 5:00 AM, she spent a whole hour on the stair master while watching world news and going through her daily schedule through her head.
Georgina, handled her clients with an attitude that lay somewhere between a mother hen, slave overseer, and Kindergarten teacher. But George was among the best and only represented excellent professionals, who knew her worth.
Since taking on the Bloom contract she
had also given the task of wide spread media surveillance to her personal
secretary. A thorough search of the web was a daily task, and a subscription
to every rag LA had to offer was considered a standard business expense.
To her pleasure and to the credit of Verena and Orlando, there had been
not a word about him since the incident at the night club. The continued
watch was now more of a formality than an actual concern since there hadn’t
been anything more exciting than sightings of Johnny Depp and Orlando
Bloom being spotted at a local eatery at lunch time.
Almost two hours later George took a quick shower and enjoyed breakfast in the sunlight already filling her apartment. It looked like a damn fine day, and once she spoke to Verena and had the confirmation of the signing of the GEO-contract the day would only get better.
With the optimism that the prospects of excellent business inspired, Georgina Hammond arrived in her office humming “I’m walking on sunshine” and was prepared to tackle the day. That was until she saw her secretary’s face and knew instantly what it meant: trouble, big trouble.
Orlando reached towards the nightstand and switched the alarm clock off. He had been surprised by V’s early arrival and had adjusted his plans for the day to accommodate her being home. And right now there was nothing more for him to do than cuddle up to Verena, who strangely enough, was still fast asleep, probably due to the jet lag. The clock said 7:00 AM, which meant he had still a couple of minutes in bed before he had to drive Zoë to school, as he had been doing while her mother was away.
Orlando noticed he had dozed off when he felt Zoë’s small hand caressing a lock of longish hair out of his face and planting a kiss a his cheek.
“Orli … it’s time for school …” she whispered softly, to avoid waking up her mother.
Sleepily he smiled up at the little girl standing by the bed. “Give me a minute, munchkin. I’ll be ready in a heartbeat!”
Zoë smiled broadly. “Sure, I’ll be downstairs. Hurry, okay? You know how Sister Margaret gets when we arrive late …”
“Of course I know, love. I’ll be with you right away,” he said softly, waiting for Zoë to leave the room. Orlando had no intention of getting up from the bed naked while the little girl was there.
He was carefully untangling himself from Verena when a female hand snaked out under the covers and pulled him close for a quick kiss. He found himself looking into the wide open green eyes of V.
“You stay put, hon. I will drive the munchkin to school. Better rest before you have to go to work again,” she said, her voice still hoarse from sleep.
“But your jet-lag … I’ll drive her and be back in no time, V,” he pleaded, knowing he had already lost. She stretched and got up quickly.
“Don’t tempt me! Don’t worry, I am fine and I’d love to drive Zoë to school. Nevertheless, I’ll be back quickly, and we can catch up on what you have been doing these past few days, besides playing pirate,” she said while she got dressed in clean clothes.
“So I suppose I am forced to stay in bed waiting?” Orlando asked, stretching on the bed.
“Laziness is good now and then …” said Verena, brushing her hair and pulling it into a ponytail with a rubber band.
“This told by the Queen of Multi-tasking?” was his teasing reply.
Verena, now in the bathroom, leaned her head out of the doorway and stuck out her tongue at him.
“Cheeky, very cheeky, aren’t we?” she laughed and disappeared into the bathroom again, emerging after quickly brushing her teeth.
“I’ll call Spence to give me a ride, V. So you have the car again to yourself and then come to the set later. Is that okay with you?” he asked, watching her rummaging in her purse before leaving.
“Sure, no problem,” she answered absentmindedly, checking her cell phone and plugging it to the charger. “The battery is dead. Somehow I forgot to charge it last night,” Verena muttered under her breath.
“Escapes me how you could be so forgetful, love,” Orlando grinned at her from the bed. “But I could remind you if you had the time …”
“Really? Would we be playing hooky today?” V winked and grabbed her wallet and the car keys.
“I wish,” he said, lunging from the bed and grabbing the woman by her waist, pulling her back on the bed for a long kiss.
Regretfully, she tore herself away from his embrace. “Got to go, honey. Remember Sister Margaret?”
“Yes I know. My regards to Sister Margaret,” he muttered as he watched her get up and walk away. She glanced back at the door and smiled at him before leaving.
Orlando got back to the bed and burrowed under the covers again, snuggling into the pillow where he recognized a faint trace of Verena’s perfume, and his as well. He closed his eyes as he listened intently the usual noises of the house and heard the main door opening and closing again, Zoë’s never tiring chatter, and the sound of the jeep being turned over and then driven out of the garage.
He had been thinking a lot about his conversation with Johnny. At present, his relationship with Verena and Zoë could be defined as “playing house” in the twilight zone. No strings attached either way; it was as easygoing and uncomplicated for everyone involved as they could wish it to be. But the moment of decision approached relentlessly, and Verena and he would have to decide whether they wanted to go on together, and how.
He didn’t know which worried him more: what Verena thought or not having made up his own mind yet. He tried to push the preoccupation away by remembering the previous night. No matter what, he knew it had been soul-touching lovemaking between them, far beyond casual sex. Holding the thought and the memory close to his heart, Orlando gave himself another five minutes before calling Spence and drifted away to sleep.
Verena was puzzled and worried as she walked into Georgina’s office building, her sneakers squeaking lightly on the marble floor.
It was logical that in the first day that she was without her cell phone since she had started using it, George was looking for her desperately enough to call home and then even leave her a notice at the school, where the nuns had been kind enough to pass it to on Verena.
She definitely could not think of anything so severe and urgent that could require her immediate presence in George’s office, except maybe the GEO-people calling her agent about the contract. Would they? Getting ready to face a thunderstorm, Verena took a deep breath and hurried into Georgina Hammond’s office.
Her agent wasn’t pacing the office, as V would have expected, but stood at the immense window, looking out, quiet but tense as a bowstring.
Verena tried a diplomatic approach. “Hey George, I got your notice at Zoë’s school and came here as quickly as possible. What happened?”
Georgina didn’t turn around right away, and there was an uncomfortable silence between both women before the elder woman replied.
“I trusted you. I was there for you always and thought you trusted me. But you left me to figure this out through other means. Tell me, was it worth it? How long have you been screwing the kid?” George asked, her voice cold and loaded with accusation.
V tensed, knowing that she had brought this confrontation on herself and that it could destroy their friendship irreparably. She didn’t bother denying it, but it hurt her the way her agent spoke of her relationship with Orlando.
“I am not screwing anybody, George. I am involved with Orlando, if that is what you mean. And we have been involved since London. How did you find out?” Verena asked, trying to keep the sudden guilt out of her own voice.
“Oh, I did find out. I should have expected it earlier, but I was blind. I trusted you! You are involved with a contracts subject. Jesus Christ, Verena! And he is a damned kid! Are you out of your mind? Couldn’t you just have fucked someone else? Anybody but your subject. You are a pro, or that was what I thought!” George spat, full of venom towards her client.
“I am a pro,” Verena replied evenly, “but I am also human, George. I was wrong not to tell you and confide in the friendship we have, but actually I still am not sure what to do about it. And you should know me better. It wasn’t a matter of a one-night-fling for the fun of it. I am sorry that you had to find out through someone else, I really am.” Verena took a deep breath while every possible course of action crossed her mind. “I take full responsibility of what happened, George. I will sort things out.”
“Don’t you dare come to me with that ‘I-know-what-I-am-doing’ attitude, because we are now in deep shit,” roared Georgina, loud enough to overpower the sound of the office door opening. “You aren’t only fucking the kid, but fucking up his career and yours as well!” she yelled even louder, throwing a tabloid over her desk. It slid off the desk and fell at the feet of Verena.
V was prepared for many things, but not to see a picture of Orlando holding Zoë on the tabloid’s front page with the headline announcing ’Orlando’s secret love child’ to the world.
Her hand trembled as she kneeled on the floor to retrieve the tabloid, her face ashen.
“What is going on here?” questioned Orlando from the entrance to George’s office. V felt her stomach clench tightly. This scenario came close to a nightmare.
Georgina turned to the door, her anger now focused on the new arrival.
“Oh, if it isn’t Mr. Hot Shot actor! Pray tell, Mr. Bloom, what in the hell were you doing in Disney with my godchild? And couldn’t you for heaven’s sake have thought about the paparazzi? Where the fuck was Spencer while you were playing ‘daddy’?”
Orlando was torn between the shock of what George was saying and the ire he felt at the way she was talking to him. The sight of Verena kneeling on the floor with the tabloid didn’t help ease him at all.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Hammond. I asked what happened and I didn’t receive an answer, but I will try to answer your inquiries,” he said, struggling to stay calm. “Disney invited some members of the cast and crew to bring their children to the park, which they closed for the day. I didn’t say anything to Spencer or Verena about it and decided to take Zoë along. I didn’t think about the paparazzi. I am sorry. What can we do to fix this?”
Verena looked up from the newspaper to Orlando. Why wasn’t she angry at him? She only felt this lump in her stomach at the image of her child on a newspaper front page.
When Verena didn’t respond right away, Georgina cut back brutally. Her rage and hurt made her attack whoever was in range. “You are sorry that you endangered our hard work of six months? That you exposed a child to public scrutiny because of your thoughtless actions? Or that you were unable to keep your hormones in check and your fly shut around a female long enough to keep her and yourself out of trouble? Sorry does not quite cover the cost of this, Mr. Bloom!”
The words hurled towards him were like physical blows.
Verena stood up, regaining control. “Georgina, stop this or we will regret it later.”
“Will we now? Really? Which part? The contract going down the drain part? Or the fact that based upon her imaginary crush on you Verena has thrown the best work opportunity of her life out of the window? Are you sorry not only for endangering your own career but destroying others’ futures and private lives?” said George to Orlando, not yelling anymore but carrying own full of venom.
V herself was now furious enough to stand up to her friend and agent. “I said stop it, Georgina. I mean it. Let’s handle this as objectively as possible, and then you can continue cursing me to death, for all I care, but leave Orlando out of this.”
The agent turned towards V. “Oh darling, but he got himself into whatever this is, from the moment you both stopped behaving like professionals and decided to hump each other like horny teenagers without thinking of anything or anyone else.”
Verena crossed the room with quick strides and, gripping Georgina’s shoulders shook her hard. “That’s it, George: I won’t take this for a minute longer. Call me when you have calmed down,” she said. Controlling her own anger, Verena turned on her heel and left the room, taking Orlando’s hand as she walked past him and pulling him out of the office.
He let her tow him along until they reached the elevator.
They went inside, and luckily it was empty. Verena stubbornly looked at the floor, her jaw set. He had enough of the whole situation and cornered her. “V, we have to talk about this.”
She looked up into his face. Her eyes belied her calm demeanor. “I know.”
There was a tense silence between them until the elevator reached the underground garage. They entered the jeep, and V asked,” Do you have to go back to the set right away? “
“No. After Spencer got the call from Georgina’s secretary telling him that she had summoned you urgently, he told me and I got permission from Gore to be out until tomorrow, to fix things. So, technically, we have all day to talk,” Orlando explained.
They both knew the conversation couldn’t be postponed any longer, though they had been avoiding it for the past weeks.
“Do you mind if we drive somewhere to talk?” she said, the tension between them palpable.
“Not at all,” he replied, and as she started the car and she set her hand on the stick to shift the gear, his hand closed over hers. Their eyes met, and they both smiled tightly, not saying a word. During the drive neither talked, but both pondered the conversation ahead of them.
Verena drove to the beach where Orlando used to surf with his friends. She parked the car and they both got out.
She led the way to the sand and then spoke. “She is right in some things, you know.”
“Which ones?” he asked, already disagreeing.
“That our relationship isn’t good for your career. And we both know it,” V said, looking towards the horizon.
He wasn’t going to discuss that. He could, but she’d find hundred logical arguments to counter him. First he needed to know something else. “What about your career? The job opportunity of a lifetime? What was she talking about?”
“The trip to New York was for a job interview,” V replied, not going into further detail.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you trust me enough?” he asked. The hurt he felt laced his voice.
“The interview was related to my and Zoë’s future. I saw no need to tell you,” she said, regretting instantly the way it came out.
Orlando took it like a physical blow. Here it was, coming from her mouth, the one thing he hadn’t wanted to hear.
“I see …a future that doesn’t concern me, right? So when the premiere of the movie is over, we are done with each other as well?” Orlando asked.
Verena didn’t reply. What could she say? How could she find out if he wanted a real future together or if his jealousy and pride were talking?
“We never discussed a common future Orlando,” she said, shrugging. Then she remembered the tabloid. “And you didn’t even consider telling me about your visit to Disney with Zoë? Are you aware that now that photograph is being sold and seen all over the city, it will reach the Internet in a couple of hours? What were you thinking?”
Orlando was hurt by the implication that he would move on and her dismissal of him as a part of her and Zoë’s life. Actually Verena hadn’t considered him for a single minute, except as to chastise him about the visit to Disney.
“I thought that we’d have fun at the park … and we did. Johnny took his kids there too…” he started to explain.
“Why don’t you see what a disaster this is? Zoë is my child, not yours, my most precious possession and you flashed her around like she was your play thing. How responsible was that? Now that headline will cost us …” V trailed off, frustrated. She had entrusted him with her child and he had fucked up, undoubtedly with the best intentions, but nevertheless … And didn’t he understand the damage the rumor of a secret child could make to his budding career and image?
Orlando’s scarce patience snapped. “I wish Zoë was mine! I love her as if she were, but there is nothing I can do to make you see that, is there? No matter what I do or how hard I try, it is never good enough! I don’t fucking care about my career, Verena! George and you care more than enough for everyone else involved about your precious contract.”
Was that what he thought of her? Verena felt her ire rise. “If you cared about your future and acted like an adult, Orlando, there would be no need to hire someone like me, right? And I didn’t ask you to be Zoë’s dad. We are done with playing the happy family game. You ought to think about your future, and I should think about mine.”
There they were, throwing accusations at each other’s heads, both hurting for feelings untold and fears unveiled.
“I am perfectly capable of handling my own life, Verena. And I don’t need to prove this to you or anybody else,” he continued, his voice now cold and angry.
She turned around, closing her eyes. Maybe it was better this way. “No you don’t have to prove anything to me. Neither do I have to prove anything to you,” she said, keeping her voice as neutral as she could. They hadn’t talked of love or commitment, and she wasn’t going to bring those things up.
“Indeed, I do not,” he hissed. Verena hadn’t mentioned whether she had feelings for him, and he was not going to make himself vulnerable to her by disclosing his.
“So I presume that once we handle this, your latest fiasco, you will not require my services any longer? V said.
Orlando heard her words and they gave him the last nudge he needed to give in to despair. She wanted to find a way out, it was obvious. He assumed she had accepted her dream job in New York and the contract was now an inconvenience. Clutching the last shred of pride he had left, he said, “I see no problem with ending the contract as of this moment, Verena. You and I are free to move on.”
It hurt so bad, as if it were physical pain. Her mind screamed for him to tell her that there was more between them, so much more, and that they could fight for it. But he didn’t say anything else, and, straightening her stance, Verena forced herself to sound impersonal and professional. “As you wish, Orlando. I will take the required steps to diminish the damage of your last stunt. From now on you will be able to float or sink your career on your own, without further assistance from me, or the excuse of me or Zoë.”
Orlando was torn between reaching out and pulling the woman close, forcing her to admit to or even lie about loving him. He thought about shaking her until there was nothing of the bitchy attitude left, until she was just his Verena. But he had no right over her, she had made it perfectly clear. How could he have been so wrong?
“I am grateful for your vote of confidence, Verena,” he said bitterly. “And to prove my point, I will leave your house as soon as possible.”
“Be my guest to do as you like, Orlando. Take the car, I will return to Georgina’s office and earn my pay for a last time,” V said, her voice strained.
He shrugged. “I don’t need anything further from you, Verena. I just need you and your agent as far away from me as possible. You belong together.”
She turned around so quickly that he didn’t see her hand coming until it made contact with his cheek, slapping him hard.
Verena stood there shaking with such rage and despair as she had never felt before in her life. “Get out of my life!”
Orlando´s face stung from the blow. His eyes were angry slits as he rubbed his cheek and said, “With the greatest pleasure.”
Then he turned and walked away stiffly, leaving pieces of his heart in every step he took away from her.
Verena watched after him until she saw him hail a cab on the street. Once he was gone from her sight, she sat down in the sand and gave in to her own pain. She wept for herself, for him and Zoë, and for the future they didn’t have together.
A.N.: No, I really don’t want to receive dead threats or tomatoes but they are a part of a writer’s daily life, even if it is a simple amateur wannabe writer like me. So please leave some feedback.
This chapter’s content was different (I even managed to surprise my beta) and then the muse came and … well, you see it for yourself. Blame it on Robbie Williams’ “Sexed up”.
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