Page 147 of The Hollywood Switch-up

Erika looked at her. “Does she get to be angry? Or does shredding the NDA mean everyone decides she should be grateful now?”

Isabelle’s face shifted. She understood exactly what was being asked. “She gets to feel whatever she feels. That’s the point.”

Isabelle paused. “One more thing. The statement—with Stefan’s name on it.” She met Erika’s eyes. “He didn’t authorize it. His team went behind his back. He tried to retract it the same day. Martin made sure you'd see it anyway.” She didn’t say anything else about it. Just let it sit.

Erika nodded.

Isabelle turned to Anneliese. “And in other exciting news. Paradise Found is greenlit. You and Bradley are cast.”

Anneliese’s jaw dropped. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious. We just hired our director. You’ll like her work.”

“And—” Isabelle’s eyes glinted. “I’m reviving Model Behavior. Bringing in Ravenna Ferraro to headline.”

Anneliese’s eyebrows shot up. “The Ravenna Ferraro? I thought she’d sworn off television.”

“She had. But I can be very persuasive.” Isabelle smoothed her lapel. “Besides, the woman’s been terrorizing runways for twenty years. Time she terrorized a soundstage.”

Then she was gone.

Erika watched her sister—jaw still dropped, hands starting to move the way they did when Anneliese was assembling the full scale of something—and the pride hit, clean and specific.

This is hers. Let it be hers.

She took a small step back. Not disappearing, simply reclaiming her own space. That was when she caught it. A strip of light at the end of the corridor—hot pink and electric blue bleeding through glass, humming against the dark.

She went toward it.

The lobby noise fell away as she walked. She turned the corner and through the glass, the marquee blazed—STEFAN CRUZ and below it, set apart in its own space, the words she hadn’t let herself imagine: And introducing ERIKA MORGAN.

Seeing her own name there didn't feel like pride. It felt like vertigo—proof that she’d stopped being the invisible one, whether she’d meant to or not.

Her eyes were wet before she understood why.

Yours.

She turned to go back. And then the room did the thing it used to do, reorganized itself around a point she hadn’t located yet. She knew before she turned around.

He was leaning against the far wall of the corridor—a charcoal suit, perfectly cut, an emerald tie the only color on him. When his gaze found hers, something in his expression let go.

She’d spent three months convincing herself she didn’t miss him. Standing ten feet away from him, she understood exactly how well that had worked.

Stefan pushed off the wall. She stayed where she was—not frozen, just choosing to stand still, which was different.

“Erika.” His voice came out rough. “I’m only here because the studio demanded it. Contractually.” The qualifier arrived before anything else—that was him, that was always him, making sure she knew the terms. “But I had to see you. Before I leave.”

She waited.

“I watched it happen.” He said it quietly, without preamble. “Every day on that set—the praise that was really leverage, the isolation he passed off as care. I watched you fade, inch by inch, and I told myself I was protecting you by staying close. Taking you to dinner. Being present.” His voice dropped. “I wasn’t protecting you. I was watching you disappear and calling it love so I didn’t have to call it what it actually was.”

Cowardice. The word arrived in her head before he said it.

“Cobardía.” He said it like he’d been carrying it for three months, which he had. “And the night on the yacht, when you let your guard down for the first time, I let you believe that wanting to protect you was the same as actually doing it. I sat across from you with your hand in mine and let the trap close anyway.” His voice dropped. “That’s the thing I can’t undo. Not Martin. Not the statement. That night. I chose the easier thing when I could have chosen you.”

The silence had weight. Something had landed.

Her hands were very still at her sides.