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Shane growls. It makes my skin tighter all over. Makes my blood feel hot and like it’s moving too fast through my veins. “I can see where this is going. He made you feel like a queen because he wanted something from you. Which is bullshit. You know that, right, Ivy? You deserve to be made to feel like a queen all the time. For no reason at all. Because you’re you.”
His voice is rough. His eyes are fierce, locked on mine.
He’s pissed off, arms crossed, fingers drumming on the bar, and I can feel the pleasure of it everywhere in my body. Like a warm shawl, like a big hug, like the stroke of his fingers where I want them most.
It makes me woozy. Or maybe it’s the Sex on a Spire—because my drink is just ice at this point. Someone drank it, and I’m pretty sure it was me.
“I…I forget sometimes.”
“Well, don’t,” he says gruffly. “You deserve all the best things.”
His eyes are dark on mine, and I can feel that gaze everywhere in me. Curling hot and inviting in my belly and also warm and snug in my chest.
“So what was he in it for? The part he eventually got on Bridge?”
I touch my nose. “Yup.”
“Fucker,” he growls.
This Shane. The one who’s animal-angry on my behalf. The one who would hurt a guy who hurt me… I want it to mean what I think it means—I want it so much that I’m hungry everywhere.
“So how long did he hang around after he got the part?” he demands.
“Long enough that it would be tough for people to accuse him of using me to get it. Long enough that I got my hopes up that he was going to propose.”
Long enough that I got my heart shattered, that I had trouble getting out of bed, that I stopped wanting much of anything at all for a while.
“And when the producer approached Anthony about whether he could work with me or whether he wanted me written out…?”
“That fucker,” Shane growls again. “That absolute fucking fucker.”
It feels good, too good, the growl and the anger at Anthony. I want to bottle it so I can snack on it later. I want to lick the anger out of his mouth and hold it close to my chest, and I want to tell him I want this, him—possessive and real.
Real.
I want to tell him I want this, him, to be real.
But I’m saved by my worst impulses by the buzzing of Shane’s phone.
32
Shane
The text is from my dad, and it says, Talked to Allison today. He wants a decision.
“Shit.”
“Shane? “You okay?”
“It’s my dad. I have to make a decision about which project I’m going to work on. He wants me to do the big-money project. I want to do the indie project.”
“Won’t he understand if you say you want to do the indie project?”
“It’s not that. I mean, no, I don’t think he understands. But it’s more that I feel like if I walk away from this project, I’m walking away from the plan he has in his head for me. And—” I hesitate. But she’s been honest with me tonight. I can man up and be real. “Not sure there will be anything left to our father-son relationship if I do that.”
Ivy looks steadily at me, like she’s reading what I’m not saying in my face.
Then she says, “Tell me about your relationship with your dad.”
