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“I can handle Ryan.”
Ding. “Are you sure?”
Ryan has rescued me 100 times. I owe him one.
I drop my phone back in my purse and ignore a flurry of text message alerts. It's almost 10. Traffic is dead, and the car breezes through the city streets 10 MPH above the speed limit. I rest my head on the window and watch as the yellow lights of storefronts and streetlamps blur into the blue sky. There is so much light here. It's hard to see the stars, but the moon is a silver crescent in cloudless sea.
Sometimes, it seems like it would be easier someplace smaller and quieter, someplace darker, where the lights turn off at nine, and the stars shine until dawn. My hometown is like that. Suburban Massachusetts. Peaceful, quiet, boring. And the weather is awful, too.
But hasn't that been my life the last year? I spend so much time in Ryan's penthouse—let's face it, it's his, not ours—that I barely even notice the blue skies and sunshine. Was the last year really any easier to handle, any healthier, than the last week? Or was it just a different kind of difficult? A different kind of painful?
I check my makeup in a compact mirror. Fuck. I never took it off after we finished shooting. It won't matter. It's dark. Ryan is drunk. He won't notice these obnoxious false eyelashes or the three pounds of concealer.
Oh, like you're worried about what Ryan thinks.
I climb the stairs to their suite on the third floor. There's arguing in one of the offices. It's not loud enough or angry enough to be fighting yet. Hopefully, they haven't thrown any punches yet.
I clear my throat and they both move into the waiting room. Ryan reaches out to me. “About time, sweetheart.” His arms tighten around my waist. He kisses me and shoves his tongue into my mouth and, already, I can smell the alcohol on his breath. Jesus, I've never seen him like this.
I push Ryan away. “Keep it
together,” I say.
“Where were you?” he asks.
“Laurie and I were talking.”
“You've been avoiding me all week.”
“No, I've been busy. I have lines to memorize and rehearse. I don't have time—”
“Don't lie.”
“I'm not,” I say.
Ryan looks at Luke with disdain. “You sure you want your boyfriend to hear this?”
“I don't have a boyfriend.”
“You can't lie to me, sweetheart. I know something is different. I know you're getting it from someone else.”
“Is that a question or an accusation?”
“Why should I ask you anything? All you do is lie.”
“Leave her alone,” Luke says.
“I thought things had changed. I thought you loved me and you agreed to do things my way, but you don't, do you?” Ryan asks.
“That's not true.”
“Then why are you still a fucking whore?”
“I'm not a whore.”
“Did I get something wrong, or are you fucking this asshole?”
“I'm not a whore,” I say.
