Page 121 of The Hollywood Switch-up

The reefs were everything he’d promised. Sun-drunk and salt-crusted when they surfaced, his arm around her waist in the shallows, laughing at nothing, and she thought, this is what it could be like if I just tell him the truth, and for the first time in weeks, she believed it.

Back on deck, her phone buzzed. She almost ignored it—probably Olivia with another scheduling question—but it buzzed again, and again, and again.

She picked it up. Fourteen missed calls. Twenty-three texts. All from Olivia, Annie’s manager, Annie’s best friend, the woman who never panicked about anything.

The most recent was a link. No message, just: CALL ME. NOW.

She tapped it and Scandalville loaded—the podcast she and Anneliese used to mock over wine—and the headline was there before the page finished rendering.

EXPOSED: Inside the Morgan Twin Switch-Up—How Two Sisters Conned Hollywood’s Hottest Production

She read it standing up with the coffee still warm in her hand and Stefan still talking about the afternoon dive three feet away, and her artist’s eye did what it always did under pressure—went clinical, detached, started cataloguing details like she was studying a reference photo instead of watching her life detonate. Call sheets with Anneliese’s name on days Erika was on set. Rehearsal schedules that didn’t match. Multiple sources on set, on record. Timeline discrepancies going back to week one. Someone had built this carefully. Someone with access to every schedule, every call sheet, every piece of production paperwork that only a handful of people could touch.

Martin has access to all of that.

The thought was there and gone—because she scrolled down and Stefan’s name was on the page and Martin’s wasn’t, and the thought dissolved.

Statement from the representatives of Stefan Cruz:

She read it once. Read it again. Made herself read it a third time because the words kept colliding with the man standing three feet away and she couldn’t make them fit in the same world.

Mr. Cruz was made aware of the deception approximately three weeks into production⁠—

He’d known. For weeks. While the callus on his thumb traced her cheekbone. While he said te amo with her face in his hands.

—and reported this information to the studio immediately through appropriate channels⁠—

Reported. Like she was an incident he’d flagged and filed.

—despite ongoing challenges created by Ms. Morgan’s erratic and unprofessional conduct, Mr. Cruz remained committed to the integrity of the production⁠—

She set the coffee mug down on the railing. Carefully. Precisely. Because if she didn’t control this one small thing—the placement of a mug on a flat surface—she was going to shatter in a way she couldn’t put back together. Then she opened StyleSnap, because she needed to know the full scope of what had been done to her sister before she did anything else.

Anneliese’s name was trending. Number one.

The photo was there—the one from the beach at dawn, the one Martin had slid across his desk like a death warrant. Stefan on his knees in the sand, his forehead pressed to her palm.

Now it had eggplant emojis and four hundred thousand likes and strangers were dissecting her sister’s career in the comments. Gold digger. Con artist. Not even that pretty.

Every audition Annie had fought for. Every role she’d built. Every careful year of protecting a reputation that Erika had just burned to the ground because she fell in love and stopped thinking.

She looked up. Stefan was on his feet, saying her name, reaching for her, and she stepped sideways—not a flinch, not a retreat, a choice—and his hand passed through the space where she’d been.

“What’s Annie’s number at the lawyer’s office?”

That was the first thing she said. Not how could you, not you lied to me, not your name is on this. She asked for her sister.

Stefan stared at her. “What? Erika, what’s⁠—”

“The statement, Stefan.” She held the phone between them, screen out, and watched his face as he read it. Watched for the tell—the flicker of recognition, the guilt, the moment where surprise would shade into something rehearsed. “Your team. Two hours ago. While we were in the water.”

She pulled the phone back while he was still reeling, her thumbs flying across the glass as she dialed Olivia.

“How’s Annie?”

“What do you think?” Olivia’s voice was raw. “She’s with her lawyers. Studios are pulling out. Her agent won’t return calls.” A breath that shook. “They’re calling her a con artist, Erika. Annie. Who has never lied about a single thing in her professional life.”

“The statement⁠—”