Ch.19: The Dark Side of Fame

"For the record, I'm not happy about this," Jude said, watching as I checked again that I had my phone and keys.

"Yes, you've said, but I still have to go to work," I said.

Jude caught my hand. "Camden, do you have any idea what you're about to walk into?"

"No," I admitted.

"So why don't you stay home today?"

I noticed that he thought of the loft as my home too, and warmth spread through my chest.

"Because I can't afford to lose this job," I said.

Jude was a multimillionaire and could easily take care of me if I no longer had a job. But even if I wanted that, we weren't in a stable enough place. Neither of us knew what would happen at the end of this trial, and I wasn't stupid enough to throw away my only source of income – however meagre it was – when I might not even be married next month.

Maybe today would be all kinds of crazy, but I still had to face it.

"Okay, but Don is taking you there and picking you up at the end of the day, and if you need anything, you call me," Jude said.

I poked his abs. "Are you worried about me?" I teased.

"Yes," he said.

I'd expected him to tease me back, and the seriousness in his voice and expression took me by surprise.

"I'll be fine," I said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

He grabbed my hand and held it for a moment, and it was strangely intimate. I'd been holding hands with boys since I was eleven, but this felt different. It felt like Jude wanted to say something but he didn't know how, and I squeezed his hand because I didn't know how either.

***

I'd known that everyone I worked with would probably treat me differently now, but I was unprepared for the silence that fell over The Tipsy Swallow when I walked in.

Paul and Mia both froze in the middle of putting away clean glasses, their mouths slightly open as they stared at me from behind the bar. Samantha, who'd been crouched down, rearranging the bottled drinks in the fridges, straightened up, her expression carefully neutral.

"Camden," she said, and she couldn't hide the surprise in her voice. "I wasn't sure you'd be in today."

"Why wouldn't I?" I said.

Andrea emerged from the cellar, a box of tonic waters balanced under one arm, and stopped dead, her eyes locked on me.

I'd worked here for over a year, alongside these same people, and every inch of the place – from the swallows, flowers, and cocktails painted on the walls, to the black-board floor, to the pastel padded seats – was familiar to me. But suddenly I felt like I'd walked into a bar that I'd never seen before.

The Camden-shaped space that I'd carved out here was missing, and the people that I spent three days a week with were suddenly strangers.

It made me feel tense and nervous.

Samantha glanced at her other employees. "I just thought . . ." Her voice trailed off.

I'd never seen her lost for words before, and it deepened that sensation of everything being off-kilter and weird.

"I'd never miss a shift without warning you in advance. You should know that," I said, stung that she thought I'd be so unprofessional.

"We thought you might be at home with your rockstar husband," Paul said, winking at me.

"Is it true?" Mia asked.

"I think by now you know it is," I said.

Paul made an excited eep. Mia and Andrea stared at me like they'd never seen me before. Samantha didn't seem to know what to do with her hands.

"Okay, can we please not make this weird?" I said.

"It's a little late for that," Mia muttered. There was something strangely resentful in her voice, and it took me aback.

I wasn't particularly close with her outside work, but we'd always got on well while we were here, and now she was looking at me like I'd personally wronged her.

Unease gnawed at me. I'd been so sure that I could handle this, but now I wondered if Jude was right and I should have stayed home.

You'd have to have come back at some point, I reminded myself.

I felt everyone watching me as I walked around the bar and into the small staffroom at the back where I could stash my handbag and the elegant grey coat that I'd picked out of Elle's donated clothes. My heart had started to thump, and there was a heady sense of adrenaline rushing through my veins, like my fight or flight response was kicking in.

I wanted to yell at everyone to stop looking at me like an alien. I wanted to run out of the bar and home to the loft. But this was my life now, and it was one I'd freely chosen.

I couldn't run away from it.

Foolishly, it hadn't occurred to me that my colleagues wouldn't be the only ones treating me differently. As customers filtered in, some of them gave me subtle and not-so-subtle double-takes, and I saw a couple of them shake their heads, as if I couldn't possibly be who they'd thought I was. The adrenaline in my chest ratcheted higher because any moment now, one of them would confront me directly, I was sure of it.

And then someone did.

A woman about my own age, her dark hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, marched up to the bar, her red lipsticked mouth flattened in a hard line. "Is this you?" she demanded, and shoved her phone in my face.

I blinked and focused on the screen. Yup, that was a picture of me, all right. Someone had snapped it on the day that Jude confronted Jake and Kelly – I was just getting into the Bentley, with Jude behind me, while Don held the door for us. Seeing myself on a stranger's phone was unnerving, but at least it was a flattering photo.

"Is it?" the woman said, brandishing her phone even closer, almost hitting me in the face.

My first instinct was to deny it.

I'd never seen this woman before, but there was real anger in her eyes, and her fingers were curled so tightly around her phone that they looked like claws.

"Yeah, that's her," Mia said, looking over my shoulder.

"You're Jude Scott's wife?" the woman said, looking me up and down.

"That's right," Mia said.

"I can answer for myself, thanks, Mia," I said, irritated.

She gave me a hard look under her eyelashes.

The ponytailed woman looked me up and down again, and something ugly flashed across her face. "You? You're not good enough for him."

"Excuse me?" I said.

She leaned forward, spitting each word. "You're. Not. Good. Enough. For. Him. You don't deserve him."

Words failed me.

Elle had warned me how fans could be, so maybe this shouldn't have come as a surprise, but I was floored by the fact that a complete stranger thought it was acceptable to say this. It would have been bad enough if it was something she posted to social media, but to actually say it to my face? I'd have admired her lady-balls if I hadn't been so shocked.

"Is there a problem?" Samantha asked, coming over.

Ponytail gave me another venomous look. "It won't last. Jude will wake up and realise he can do better than you, and then you'll be a nobody again."

I'd heard worse insults from girls at school, but the naked hatred in her voice sliced through my defences and hit me where I was soft and vulnerable.

Another girl approached the bar. Unlike Ponytail, her body language was hesitant and unsure, but she clutched her phone just as hard.

"Is Jude coming here?" she said.

"What? No?" I said. "I'm working."

Ponytail sneered.

"Camden, why don't you take a break?" Samantha suggested.

I mutely nodded and walked away from the bar. The second girl called after me, but I didn't look back, and as I reached the door that led to the staffroom, I heard Samantha tell Ponytail to leave. Her voice was steelier than I'd ever heard it, and that warmed me a little, knowing that, despite how shocked she'd been when I came in, she still had my back.

If Ponytail said anything else, I didn't hear it; I was already closing the staffroom door behind me. I took several deep breaths, trying to calm the tight knot in my chest.

Elle had warned me.

Jude had warned me.

Briefly, I thought about calling him, and my hand closed around my phone before I thought better of it. "Don't you dare," I told myself.

I'd chosen to come into work today, even though Jude hadn't wanted me to. We still had three weeks left of our deal, so I either backed out now, or I sucked it up and got a real taste of what it was like to be Jude's wife. I couldn't know if this relationship stood a real chance until I knew the reality of it.

But it wouldn't be easy, and Ponytail was probably just the start.

***

Samantha had disappeared by the time I came out of the staffroom, but Mia and Paul were huddled by the beer taps, frantically whispering. I heard my name, then Jude's, and sudden anger scorched away the cold shock still lingering from Ponytail's confrontation.

"Do me a favour," I said, marching up to them. "If you're going to talk about me behind my back, at least save it for after work, where I don't have to hear it."

Paul went red and looked at his feet.

Mia rolled her eyes.

"You can't secretly marry the hottest rockstar in the world and not expect us to talk about it," she said.

"I'm still the same person I always was," I said.

But to them I wasn't – it was written in every line of their faces. Marrying Jude had fundamentally changed me and now they'd never again see me as plain old Camden Harris. Now, they'd always see me as Jude Scott's wife. Even if we separated, I'd still be Jude Scott's ex-wife.

That realisation was heavier than I'd thought it would be.

The rest of the day continued in the same vein. We had an influx of customers, but they seemed more interested in taking photos of me, whether I wanted them to or not, or badgering me for personal information about Jude. Twice, strangers demanded to know details about our sex life, which left me speechless. This was even worse than Ponytail and her venom.

Now more than ever, I understood why Jude had trouble dating. Many of the fans flooding in and out of the bar talked about how much they loved him, but none of them saw him. He really wasn't a person to them. He was a fantasy, and I was a tangible link to that fantasy.

Some of them no longer saw me as a person either. Ponytail wasn't the only one who came just to hurl insults, and even though no one actually threatened me, I was starkly reminded of Jude's stalker.

That person could be anywhere in the crowd. They could be watching me right now.

The Swallow was busier than ever, but the majority of customers were Angels & Demons fans, and they either refused to be served by anyone but me, or they bought drinks and hunkered down at tables, constantly looking between me and the windowfront. It didn't take a genius to guess that they were hoping for Jude to turn up.

I could tell that Mia, Andrea, and even the usually laid-back Paul were getting annoyed as customer after customer refused their service and insisted on waiting until I was free, but what was I supposed to do?

My feet ached from rushing around, and my face ached from forcing a smile, and my stomach was a churning ball of nerves because I never knew if the next customer wanted to gush about how much they loved Jude or the band, or if they wanted to curse me to hell for taking him away from them. Why they thought he'd ever been theirs was beyond me.

I wanted to go home.

I also didn't want to let these people chase me away.

It's just words, I silently told myself. These people are rude and weird and they seem to have forgotten about boundaries, but words can't hurt you.

Until it stopped being words.

I was so frazzled by all the people clamouring to speak to me that I didn't notice the hooded man approaching the bar until he started shoving people out of the way.

"Excuse me," I said, raising my voice. "You need to wait your turn –"

He threw his cup of coffee over me.

I lurched back, desperately swiping at my face – oh my God, what if it wasn't coffee –

"Camden!" Samantha grabbed my hands and forced me to stop. "It's okay," she said.

I stared at her through wet eyelashes, my breath coming in ragged sobs.

"It's just coffee," she said quietly, but her voice trembled, and I knew – I knew – that in that moment, she'd feared it was something worse too.

Samantha put her arm around my shoulders and hustled me out of the bar and back into the staffroom.

I looked back, trying to spot the man who'd thrown the coffee, but he was long gone. Samantha shut the door, and I sagged against the nearest wall. For a long moment neither of us spoke.

"I'm sorry," said Samantha at last.

I couldn't help a bitter little laugh. "It's not your fault."

"I know, but I don't know what else to say."

I wiped my face again, and my fingers came away black with smeared mascara.

"Wait here," Samantha said, and hurried out of the room. She returned a couple of minutes later with a damp cloth.

"Thanks," I muttered, taking it and wiping away my ruined makeup.

"I'll understand if you want to go home," Samantha said.

That would leave The Swallow understaffed, and on a crazy-busy day. Although most of the customers would probably leave if I did, so maybe that wasn't such a bad idea.

But if I ran now, would I ever be able to come back?

I sniffed back the tears that wanted to fall, and wrung coffee from my hair. Usually I loved that rich caffeine smell; now it made me feel sick.

"Camden?" Samantha said.

"Do you have a spare shirt?" I said. Mine was drenched.

"I do, but . . ." Samantha didn't seem to know how to finish her sentence.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said.

"I just think –"

"No," I firmly cut her off. "I'm not letting some mouldy crumb of dickcheese scare me out of my job. Not happening."

"Are you sure?" Samantha asked, studying me.

Nope. I wasn't sure at all. I didn't want to go back behind that bar. I wanted to run home and cry. I wanted Jude.

I shoved those thoughts away.

"I'm not going anywhere," I repeated.

Samantha smiled and patted my shoulder. "I'll get you a clean shirt."

"If anyone has a spare mascara, that would be great too."

"I'll see what I can do."

Samantha walked out of the room. I sucked in a shuddering breath and wiped away the last traces of mascara. I was stronger than the people who hated me. I would not be bullied away.

The next four hours would be hell, I had no doubt about that, but I'd at least face them in dry clothes and fresh makeup.

"Okay, Camden, if Nikki Sixx made it through 1987, you can make it through the rest of today," I told myself.

Bring it the fuck on.