Page 104 of The Hollywood Switch-up

“The woman who’s been on your set for the past month. The woman who performed that scene today.” He held Isabelle’s gaze. “Is not.”

Isabelle didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

“Her name is Erika. She’s Anneliese’s twin sister. She’s been here since week one, covering for Anneliese.” He paused. “And Martin knows. And he’s using it against her.”

“Using it how?”

“Martin pulled her aside on set yesterday and whatever he said broke her. She’s been flinching when I touch her, shutting me out, lying about being fine. She told me this morning she’s scared of something she can’t tell me about yet.” He paused. “Something Martin did.”

Isabelle stood. Walked to the window.

“So the morals clause doesn’t apply to someone who doesn’t have a contract.” He said it before she could. “The studio’s entire legal threat is built around Anneliese. If the woman on set isn’t Anneliese, the framework collapses.”

Isabelle turned around. “You’re ahead of me.”

“I’ve had a long morning.”

“The legal angle is the short game. The longer problem is Martin.” She crossed her arms. “His leverage depends on the switch staying secret. If the studio knows about the switch and chooses to accommodate it, his hold on her disappears.”

“Which puts Martin in a corner. He either escalates or he loses control of her.” He leaned forward. “And men like that don’t give up control.”

“No. He doesn’t.” Isabelle was careful now. “Which means the studio needs a reason to protect the switch instead of punishing it. They need Erika’s performance to be worth more than the liability.”

“Pull the dailies from the last two weeks. Then tell me it’s not worth protecting.”

“I’ve seen the dailies.” Her face shifted—not warmth, exactly, but the absence of calculation. “The studio will see it too, if they’re looking at the right footage.”

He waited. The negotiation was coming—the part where Isabelle laid out what she needed and what it would cost.

She sat back down on the couch arm. “In eight years, I’ve never had this. Someone inside Martin’s orbit, experiencing his pattern in real time, with someone outside that orbit who already knows what it means.”

“She’s not a witness, Isabelle. She’s a person.”

“I know the difference.” Quietly. “I’ve spent eight years learning it.”

The silence between them had a different quality now.

“I’ve been trying to protect her from the full picture for days and all it’s done is leave her alone in it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Talk to her. Lay out what you know, what you’re building, what the options are. Let her decide.” He met her eyes. “But if at any point she’s in danger, I’m putting a stop to this. I don’t care what it costs the case, the production, or your eight years of work.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” She walked toward the door. Paused. “For what it’s worth, I think the fact that she’s held this together as long as she has, under this much pressure, tells you everything about who she is.”

“I already know who she is.”

“I know you do.” She opened the door. “That’s why I came to you first.”

The door closed behind Isabelle, and the villa was quiet—the silence after a detonation.

Joder.

He’d just told a studio executive that the lead actress on a fifty-million-dollar production was a fraud. That the woman he was in love with had been living under a false name for weeks. That the director they all worked for was using blackmail to keep her compliant.

There was no taking that back. He sat on the couch. The drink he’d poured for himself when Isabelle arrived was still on the table, ice melted, untouched. He left it there.

Alex was right. He’d never been good at the hard parts. He showed up and smiled and let other people do the work that required patience, strategy, and the willingness to sit still while something played out. And now he’d made a move that required all three, and the woman it would land on hardest was the one person on this island who hadn’t asked him to save her.

ERIKA

She’d learned to function inside the wreckage. Stick to Olivia’s script, hit her marks on set, smile past the barricades, lie to everyone except the man sleeping beside her.