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“It usually is,” I replied, through gritted teeth.
“The senator told me you were here.” He smiled, slapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s talk Living Dangerously and your role in it. Since your stint in rehab was gossip, filming starts in India. Got your passport handy?”
I squeezed Aspen’s fingers. Holy shit. I got it. I got exactly what I wanted. The film role.
She pulled free. I looked to her, wanting to explain. To tell her the truth. She smiled brightly. “Congratulations. You got exactly what you wanted.”
“Let’s get a drink and talk logistics and malaria shots ‘cause I need you on a plane in forty-eight hours,” Chris said, completely unaware of the undercurrent of emotion between me and Aspen. She took the opportunity to leave, fleeing out the open front doors. As Chris led me back into the party, I watched Aspen disappear.
She’d fulfilled her role. Her part was over. As she said, I got exactly what I wanted. Then why did it feel like I lost everything?
42
ASPEN
* * *
As the car I requested sped through LA to the airport, I pulled up my banking app in my phone. I swiped away my tears. I’d been all-out crying by the time I was picked up down the road from the party.
I had no idea how much a one-way ticket back to Montana was, but it was going to make a dent in my savings. Which was already pretty small. But I couldn’t stay here. Not with Luke.
Not with what I just figured out about him. About what he admitted.
He planned our meeting at the bar in Hunter Valley.
Planned it!
He used me to get access to my mother, just like everyone else. God, I changed my name. Hadn’t talked to them in a decade and she still was the reason men wanted me.
I thought Luke was different.
I thought I’d changed. I thought I’d cleansed myself of my stupidity when I buried that ring. But no. That in itself was just another dumb Aspen move.
My banking summary came up. I blinked, wiped the tears because I thought I read it wrong.
No, I hadn’t. Holy shit. I’d never seen that much money in my account.
At some point, Luke had deposited fifty thousand dollars through a mobile payment service. The one I used for the studio. The one that listed it as a payment option on my business website.
As Luke promised, I had the money to pay Duncan.
The huge sum of money that he gave me for the “in” with my mother. For the film role he just got. It was nothing to him. Chump change, and I was the chump.
I felt cheap. Used. Bartered.
Dumb.
Mallory was right. He was an amazing actor.
43
LUKE
* * *
As soon as I walked in the front door of my house, my cell rang.
“Tell me my people are wrong that you and Aspen Lane met her parents tonight,” Mark said, sounding pissed.
