Page 59 of Knot Their Starlet

“Are you—you’re coming with me?” I ask, blinking at him as he slams the door shut behind him.

“Yes,” he snaps.

“Oh.”

“Don’t oh me, Andromeda,” he hisses, baring his teeth. They’re unnaturally white from the veneers I know he got done a decade ago after Gina made an offhand comment about his smile. “What in the world were you thinking?”

My knuckles turn white as I cling to my phone. It feels like my only lifeline in this suffocating moving coffin. I stare out the window, needing to face away from Stuart. The last thing I want is for him to see the slight tremble in my chin from the realization that I don’t even know who I’d call for help.

The person I’d always text or call for rescue used to be Ezra, and I’m definitely not calling him anymore.

“Are you even listening to me?” Stuart raises his hand in front of my face and snaps.

He fucking snaps at me. Like a child. No, like a dog. I don’t think most people snap their fingers in children’s faces.

“I’ll listen when you have something important to say,” I snarl in return.

My sharp words only seem to infuriate him even more.

“You’re lucky your mother had prior engagements and didn’t have to witness this behavior. What do you think she’d say if she saw you behind the camera taking charge like that?” He spits out the words like he’s cursing at me.

“That’s what you’re upset about?” Sometimes, when I’m dealing with Stuart or my mom, I seriously feel like I’m insane. Nothing they’re saying makes sense, but they take themselves so seriously I can’t help but feel like I’m the one in the wrong.

Stuart’s expression falls flat, all that fiery anger turning ice-cold in a single instant.

I count my lucky stars that he’s a beta, because I know if he were an alpha, I’d be choking on his dominance right now in the enclosed space of the car.

“You truly cannot be that stupid or uncaring,” he bites out. “You know how your mother gets when it comes to your—your father.”

“So that’s why I can’t touch anything more than my phone camera?” I scoff. “Seriously?”

“What in the world has gotten into your head recently?” Stuart scowls. “You pretend like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about, Andromeda.”

I do. My father was a film director. A successful one, too. Apparently, he was big on documentaries.

Maybe that’s where I got my fascination with cameras and videography from. Not that I’ve had a lot of opportunity outside my own social media and the occasional vlog I edit to explore that interest. I asked for a camera for my 10th birthday and my mom threw such a big fit. Big enough that she threw up in the toilet from how upset she was. I had to hold her hair back.

I never asked again.

“Was he really a demon?” My voice comes out far smaller than I think it should be, talking to Stuart when he’s in this mood. He may be a beta but the man has a ridiculously iron will. “Why is anything associated with the guy automatically evil? I barely even remember him.”

Stuart slams his fist down on the leather seat between us.

The impact reverberates through the seat, and I jolt from the impact. My heart immediately leaps into my throat as my breath seizes in my chest.

My fight or flight response kicks in, settling on flight. It takes the last little hold I have on the logical part of my brain to convince myself not to throw myself out of the moving car. A strangled half-laugh, half muffled-sob leaves my throat.

My mom has threatened to throw herself out of the car before. On multiple occasions, when the world is too overwhelming and she needs to escape.

I’ve never understood the impulse until now.

“Never say that around your mother.”

I’m not confident in my ability to speak without making a fool of myself, so I just offer the man a silent, jerky nod.

That seems to be enough to satisfy him. Probably because anything submissive fits into his worldview of what omegas should be.

Which is strange, considering the last thing I’d consider Gina to be is submissive, and he’s chased after her like a dog for years.