This was another story that was written LONG ago and never posted. As I am recovering documents from my old system I am discarding and posting as the story dictates. Thanks again to KareBear1965 for her support and mad beta skills. The updates are coming I SWEAR!
This story is 3 chapters, all being published today! I'm so nice! (Don't get used to it!)
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It's been eight months since anybody has seen actress Isabella Dwyer, dubbed 'America's Sweetheart' for her personality both on and off the set. Her publicity company, Denali and Associates, had no comment. Isabella burst onto the scene just over five years ago earning the title roll in...
I threw the paper down in disgust. America's Sweetheart! Pfffft! Her publicist... I paced the room, running my hands through my hair as I tried to push back the memories of Bella Swan, aka Isabella Dwyer. But it was no use. I still couldn't forget her.
"Oh, pardon me," the sweetest voice I had ever heard said to me as her garment bag knocked my water all over my boots. She grabbed a towel from the table and dropped to her knees to try to clean up the mess.
"It's no trouble at all, Ma'am," I had responded as I reached to take the towel from her hands. Her cheeks were scarlet as she apologized again. Finally, once I had the glass righted on the table, and the water mess as clean as it was going to get, I introduced myself.
"Jasper Hale," I said, offering her my hand. "It's a pleasure to meet ya."
"Isabella Dwyer," she replied, placing her tiny hand in mine.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Dwyer," I said, as I brought her dainty hand to my lips, placing a soft kiss on her knuckles.
She blushed scarlet and bit her bottom lip. We spent the next twenty minutes talking. We weren't Jasper Hale, up and coming country music superstar, and Isabella Dwyer, America's sweetheart, waiting to be interviewed by Letterman. We were Jasper and Bella, a boy and a girl, talking... flirting. She was called on set first. I watched her on screen as she answered the questions and promoted her newest movie. She was radiant, natural. When it was my turn, she listened intently to the questions I was asked, smiling at me the whole time, like I was the most interesting person she'd ever met. She was so beautiful she took my breath away.
When I performed, the song I sang was for her.
After the show, I got the courage to ask her to dinner.
"Jasper, believe me when I say that I would love to go to dinner with you," she warned. "However, no matter where we go, it will be on every tabloid by morning."
We discussed how to get around that and decided to take separate cabs back to the hotel that we were both booked in, and then meet in her suite.
We didn't leave that suite for three days.
We spent all that time cocooned together, talking, eating, and making love. Even then, the only reason we could pull ourselves away was because we both had other commitments. We promised to schedule some time together as soon as possible.
She knew how important it was to me that my music to stand on it's own. I didn't want the publicity of a relationship with her to drive record sales. She swore that she wanted privacy too. It was something just for us... At least that's what I thought until the next day, when the story was front page on every tabloid.
My phone rang non-stop and my record sales skyrocketed overnight. There were no pictures with the story but I knew from the details that it had come from Bella or me.
And I certainly hadn't said anything to anyone that would spill the beans.
"How could you?" I demanded angrily when she called.
"Jasper, I..." she tried to explain.
"I don't want to hear it, Isabella. You played me. You did exactly what I didn't want," I fumed at her, using the name she reserved only for the public. "You knew how important it was for me to stand on my own and you ruined it."
"I'm sorry," she whimpered.
"Yeah, me too," I said, closing my phone.
Sullen. Moody. Asshole. Those were just some of the words used to describe me in the following weeks. Bella tried to call for ten days. I ignored her each and every time. Finally she stopped. My mood did not improve.
Finally, six weeks after our New York madness, I was the opening act for the biggest name in country music, getting ready for my first major concert.
"Jasper?" I heard her voice say, ten minutes before show time.
"Isabella," I snarled as I turned to look at her.
"Please," she said, looking sad and pale. "I need to speak to you."
"I have nothing to say to you," I snarled again, "nor do I want to hear anything you have to say."
"Please," she said again, tears filling her big brown eyes.
"Just go," I said to her, turning away before I lost my will. I would not fall for those chocolate eyes again.
I heard her start to speak a few times, but finally she thought better of it and turned to leave. I put every emotion I was feeling into my set and the crowd ate it up. After my set, there was a note from her on my dressing room door. I read the first line and crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the trash.
My star continued to rise as I played to screaming fans for three months on tour, and though my career was soaring, I never stopped thinking of my Bella. The note on the door was the last I heard of her; the last anyone had heard of her. The tabloids still posted stories sometimes with outlandish claims that I knew could never be true. But there were no pictures. In fact, Isabella Dwyer dropped off the radar completely, dropping out of the movie she was supposed to star in and vanishing completely. Her home in the Hollywood Hills was sold and all the talk shows joked that she had moved to Antarctica. She didn't attend any of the award shows, or walk any red carpets. She wasn't even photographed walking her dog or grocery shopping. She simply disappeared.
I was both relieved and disappointed by that.
I didn't know if I could handle seeing her all the time. I didn't want to know if she was with someone new, or lots of someones. It killed me not knowing though. But, for better or worse, she was gone and I was on the fast track to superstardom.
Tonight I was home. Dallas, Texas. Headlining my own show for the first time.
"You're on in five," my manager, Edward, said.
"Right," I said, sighing loudly.
"Come on Jasper," he encouraged. "You gotta get your energy flowing. You have to pump the place up. This is your night. This is your chance to shine! You earned it."
I earned it.
Did I really? Was all my success truly mine... or was this all just a product of my relationship with Isabella Dwyer?
I sighed to myself, before shaking my head to clear my thoughts. All that mattered tonight was me and the music.
I went out on stage, and did my job to perfection. The crowd was incredible, cheering, and singing along with me. I even did two encores, before retiring to my private dressing room. I cleaned up a little so that I didn't look like a hot mess, Edward's words not mine, before the big meet and greet with fans. Once Edward gave the all clear, I stepped out of my dressing room to greet the screaming fans. I posed for pictures, signed t-shirts, and played the perfect Texas gentleman. After an hour, I waved to my fans before stepping back into the peace and quiet of my dressing room, leaving Edward and the stagehands to clear the fans out. I sat in my chair and closed my eyes and sighed. This was what I had always dreamed of. This is what I had worked for, but somehow, it felt empty.
"Do you even know what today is?" a small female voice said from behind me.
I turned around quickly and stared at the invader.
"You aren't supposed to be in here," I responded, ignoring her question. I looked her up and down, trying to figure out how the angry little sprite had managed to get into the room. She was tiny, and had dark, spiky hair, and bright green eyes. Those eyes were not happy or excited as all the fangirls that I had dealt with for the last hour. There was something calculating about the way she looked at me. "An angry pixie," I thought to myself, wondering what I had done to offend her. I contemplated calling security but she was so little I decided to just deal with her by myself. She probably just wanted an autograph or something.
"Do you know what today is?" she growled angrily.
"Look, Lady," I said angrily. What right did she have to be angry with me? She was encroaching on my space. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but I do know what today is. It is the biggest day of my life. It's everything that I have worked towards my whole life."
"You are right on one account," she snarled. "It was the biggest day of your life. But the problem is, you missed it."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Didn't you see me out on stage? I didn't miss anything."
"You missed everything that was important," she snarled. "You may have wowed the crowd, Mr. Perfect Cowboy, but that doesn't mean a thing. Celebrity, fame, glory; at the end of the day they mean nothing! Love, people, family; now that's important."
"Look, Lady," I said angrily. "Don't walk in here and tell me what is and isn't important. I already know."
"Do you?" she asked glaring at me. "If you did, then where were you at 7:15 this morning when your son was born?"
"My son?" I asked, scoffing at her. "You obviously have the wrong person. I don't have any children."
"You are wrong about that, Cowboy. You have a son, a beautiful little boy who looks just like you," she said, crossing her arms.
"Look," I said angrily, not liking the false accusations being thrown at me. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but I am about ten seconds from calling security to haul your crazy ass out of here."
"He has tufts of blonde hair on his head and the bluest eyes you have ever seen on a baby. He has his momma's nose, but everything else is all you," she said, raising her eyebrows as if to challenge me.
"I hate to disappoint you but that is quite impossible," I said to her, turning away. "Now, I have given you enough of my time. You can show yourself out."
"I stayed with her all through labor," she said, ignoring me. "I wiped her brow, gave her ice chips, held her hand, and rejoiced with her when he was finally born after the longest, hardest 20 hours of either of our lives."
"I don't know who told you that he was mine," I said angrily to her. "But it simply isn't possible."
"She didn't tell me a damned thing," the pixie growled. "But as soon as I saw him this morning, I knew."
"You need to leave," I said to her, opening the door to prove my point.
"Elijah Whitlock Swan," she said quietly as she moved towards the door. "Six pounds, ten ounces."
I froze. Swan? That couldn't be!
Well, I guess technically it could be... it really was the only possibility. "Bella..." I said, looking at the pixie. Her chest was heaving and her fists were balled up in fists. "How?"
"Well, you may not be a rocket scientist, Country Boy, but I'm sure you know how babies are made," she replied, still glaring at me.
"Did she send you here?" I asked angrily. How could she try to ruin this for me?
She snorted rather ungraciously before leveling another icy glare my way at me once more. "No. I had hoped she would tell me but she said nothing. It wasn't until after I confronted her with my knowledge, that she cried and told me everything. I told her I was going to come and kick your sorry ass tonight, but she begged me not to say or do anything."
"Yet here you are," I said. "Maybe she didn't want you to confront me because it isn't true."
"Oh it's true," she said. "But a girl can only handle so much rejection from the man she loves."
"Rejection?" I scoffed. "She fucking did the one thing I asked her not to do."
"What? Spill the beans on your relationship?" she asked, placing air quotes around the word relationship.
"Yeah," I said. "She knew what it meant to me to stand on my own."
"You are so self righteous," she said.
"Self righteous?!" I demanded. "How do you figure?"
"You were an insignificant little country bumpkin and Bella was commanding ten million dollars per film. She had her pick of roles and directors. All of Hollywood was at her feet," the pixie growled. "What reason did she have to make anything public?"
"It had to be her," I said. "There is no other option."
"She had no reason for it to go public!" the pixie growled. "She has always been a private person. She lived for it. The only one who had anything to gain from it was you… and ummm… those around you."
"She had to have," I reiterated. "Nobody else knew anything about it except..."
"Except who?" she said, crossing her arms. "Edward Cullen?" She spit his name out like it was the vilest curse word. "Oh, I know all about him. He's your manager and best friend since college, right? But. wait, who is he shacking up with? Oh yeah, that's right... Tanya. And what does Tanya have to do with any of this? Think about it... Tanya Denali...Bella's ex-publicist."
"Ex-publicist?" I asked. I knew that Edward was dating Tanya. I had just never realized that Tanya had represented Bella.
"It was a set up Jasper," she said shaking her head at me like she thought I was stupid. "Think about it. They arranged for you two to be on Letterman together hoping that sparks would fly. You had both been booked into the same hotel, same floor and for three days, when you only needed to be there for one taping. Don't you find that the least bit suspicious?"
"I... I never thought about it," I said with a sad sigh, playing back all the details of that time.
"When do you go on a publicity event without your agent?" she asked.
"That's the only time," I said, starting to believe the angry pixie woman.
"You are so dense! Edward was so anxious to get your name up in lights that he was willing to use any means to do so. Tanya, well Bella had her name in lights, a relationship with you meant nothing for her career. No Tanya had her hand in this because she was so anxious to get Edward."
"He wouldn't do that to me," I said angrily. "He knows how I felt about earning my own way!"
"So Bella would? Think about it! What did she have to gain from your relationship being made public?" Alice asked. "Not a damned thing! But Edward and Tanya... they certainly gained a lot."
"He wouldn't..." I protested, though not as vehemently. I couldn't believe that Edward would do this to me, but the pixie was right. Bella gained nothing from this.
"He did," the pixie confirmed. "She had all the proof but you wouldn't even take her call."
"I can't believe this!" I said, closing the door and falling into a chair again. I scrubbed my hand over my face as I tried to process everything. "I have a son?"
"You have a son," she said.
"What do I do?" I asked nobody in particular.
"That's for you to decide," she said, self-satisfied smirk in place. "But if you want any part in his life you'd better get crawling. You have a lot of kissing up to do if you want any part in his life, especially when you wouldn't even call her yourself. You had to make Edward do it."
"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling absolutely sick.
"After her note. You couldn't even call her yourself," she said. "You had to have your manager do it."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, feeling incredibly confused.
"To tell her you wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. You couldn't even be bothered to make the call yourself," she snarled.
"I didn't even know she was pregnant," I said, staring at the angry pixie again. "She never said a damned thing."
"Of course she didn't SAY anything," she said, looking at me like I was a complete idiot. "You wouldn't take her calls. But she tried to come and see you in person, which you also rebuffed. So finally, she left you a note., hoping to get some response from you. Even then you couldn't respond yourself, taking the chicken's way out and making your manager call her."
"I never made anyone call her. I got her note, but I never read it," I said, putting my head in my hands. "I threw it in the garbage... I was so angry..."
"You didn't read it?" she asked, sounding almost sympathetic for a moment.
"No," I said. "I was angry. I was betrayed. I didn't know..." She stared at me, as if she was going to get more information from me that what I was saying.
"Well, now you do," she said finally.
"I have a son?" I asked, letting it really soak in.
"And I have a broken hearted best friend," she said.
"I can't believe Edward would call her and say nothing to me," I said. "What did he say to her?"
"He would and he did," she said. "He left a wonderful voicemail on Bella's machine. He told her to take care of things and that you wanted nothing to do with her or 'the mistake she was trying to pin on you'."
"Oh God!" I said, standing and beginning to pace. "You can't be serious."
"Dead serious," she said, her little fists balled up. "I listened to it myself this morning."
"I... She... Oh God! She must hate me."
"I know I do," she said, glaring at me, before sighing. "But as much as I despise you. I love her, and my nephew. I have watched her pining for you for months. I was there when she fired Tanya. I was there when she gave up all her career commitments to try to keep the tabloids from finding out about her pregnancy, to make things easier on you. I followed her as she sold her California dream house and bought a little ranch outside of Dallas so 'her child would be raised with southern values'. And I held her as she cried over and over again that her son would never have a chance to know his daddy."
"What do I do?" I asked her. "I messed this up so bad."
"That's up to you. I'm going home to sleep. She's at Medical City, room 1704. I'm sure the nurses will take one look at you and let you right in... if not, there's a password... Whitlock."
Whitlock. My real name. The name Edward had said wasn't 'star material'. I don't even remember the angry pixie leaving, or even how much time passed before Edward knocked on my door. As soon as he stuck his head in, I felt my anger rise.
"Jasper," he said happily. "You killed it!"
"Thanks," I said, trying to figure out what to do or say to him.
"God! You should be on top of the world right now and not this sullen, moping little dickhead. You got betrayed by a woman, so write a song about it and move on," he said, clapping me on the back. "You gotta get over this shit."
"What?" I asked him.
"Oh come on, Jasper-man. You've been like this since everything that went down with that actress chick," he said.
"Bella," I told him. "Like you don't know."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked defensively.
"Why didn't you come to New York with me?" I asked him.
"I was busy," he replied quickly.
"Why was I there for three days?" I asked him again.
"It was just the way the flights worked out," he said again.
"You're telling me I couldn't have gotten home from New York the next day?" I asked him.
"Yes... no," he said. "I don't remember Jasper. It was a long time ago."
"Maybe Tanya will remember," I said to him.
"Why would she..." he started to ask.
"She represented Bella at the time, didn't she?" I asked, interrupting him.
"I..." he said, his eyes the size of saucers.
"You set me up," I said to him.
"I thought you two would hit it off," he sputtered. "I didn't know..."
"You knew how important it was for me to stand on my own and you set me up. Then you were the one who released the information to the tabloids. You knew how hurt and angry I was. I blamed her, Man, and you let me. Instead of standing up and saying it was you, you let me blame her. I trusted you!"
"Jasper," he said. "I didn't know. I didn't know that you wouldn't want it publicized. I thought it would help..."
"And when I pushed her away. When I was hurt and feeling betrayed you sat there and comforted me..." I said, truly wanting to hit him.
"Jasper..." he said.
"Edward, just stop," I said.
"Jasper," he said.
"When she came to see me, that night. You read her note. What did it say?" I asked him.
"Jasper, I'm sure I have no clue. You threw it away," he started to sputter.
"And I never told you that. The only way you could know is if you saw it in the trash," I said. "I know you read it. What did it say?"
"Jasper..." he said. "You have to understand. I had your best interests at heart."
"Did you? So keeping the fact that she was pregnant from me was in my best interest?" I challenged.
"Who knows if it was even yours," he sputtered. "You don't know those Hollywood types like I do."
"I knew Bella," I said. "I should have been given the choice."
"You threw the letter away," he said.
"And you called her and told her that I wanted nothing to do with the mistake?" I asked him. "You had no right!"
"Jasper, you didn't want to see her," he sputtered.
"And you encouraged that. You knew that she knew the truth and that if I spoke to her that I would too," I said to him.
"Jasper, look where you are. You don't need a scandal. A bastard child..." he said.
"Get out!" I said, staring at him. "I don't even know you. Get out and never come back. I don't ever want to see you again. You're fired."
"Jasper, you can't..." he said.
"I can and I did," I said.
"Jasper, we've been friends for years," he sputtered, blanching visibly. "You can't just throw that away."
"I didn't throw anything away, Edward. That was all you," I snarled. "You went against my wishes, you lied to my face, and you hid the fact that I was about to be a father from me... You are not the honest, trustworthy friend that I've trusted for years. You're nothing."
"I..." he started trying to explain
"Goodbye." With that I stood up, grabbed my cowboy hat and marched out of the room. I stepped out of the dressing room and headed out the back door. I hailed a taxi and headed for Medical City.
It was almost midnight when the taxi pulled up to the entrance. I almost decided to chicken out and wait for morning, but the thought of waiting one more minute to see her, to apologize for everything, was too much to bear. The corridors were mostly deserted and I made my way up to the maternity floor without an issue. The lights were low in the unit and there was one lone nurse at the desk.
"Hi there," I said to her. "I'm looking for room 1704."
"Visiting hours are over," she said, barely even looking up at me. "It's almost midnight."
"Yes Ma'am," I said to her. "I... My name is Jasper Whitlock."
"Whitlock?" she said, raising her eyebrows and actually looking at me.
"Yes, Ma'am," I said, pulling out my wallet and showing her my Texas Driver's license.
"Are you that boy's daddy?" she asked.
"Yes Ma'am," I said.
"Right down the hall, last door on your left," she said. "Don't make me regret it."
"I swear," I said, praying I was telling the truth.
I walked down the hall with my hat in my hands and knocked gently on the door. There was no answer so I pushed it open far enough to peek inside. There was a soft light on in the corner of the room and I could see Bella asleep in the bed. Her beautiful mahogany hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and there wasn't a trace of make-up on her face. She was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I stepped in quietly and stood next to her, drinking her in. Then I saw movement to her left, in the little plastic bed beside her. Her son. My son. Our son. I moved over to him, compelled to take a look. He was awake, his little eyes blinking rapidly as they tried to adjust to the light. Alice was right. Looking at him, there was no doubt that he was my son, not that I had any before walking into the room. He started to fuss as his little face scrunched up and I just followed my instincts and leaned in and picked him up.
"Hey," I whispered to him, once I had him nestled into the crook of my arm. "I'm your daddy."