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“Thank you.”
“And sir?”
“Yes?” I paced the penthouse.
“If I can help—”
“I know. I’ll call from L.A.”
I shoved the phone in my pocket and grabbed my jacket. The door clicked behind me and I hurried to the elevator. I didn’t care that I had left Savannah in the shower and I’d left every light on.
Somewhere Journey was lying in a hospital. She was all that mattered. I had to get to L.A.
Two
Journey
I cringed. Damn it. Just trying to squint hurt.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound was loud. So deafening I tried to reach out and swat at whatever was near me. It was like an aggravating mosquito I couldn’t find in the dark. It was incessant. Repeating the same monotonous tone over and over.
Every time I attempted to raise my hands to slap it into silence, I struggled. They were listless. Useless. I wrestled to move the right and then the left, but nothing happened.
Could someone please turn off that alarm? It’s driving me crazy. Really? The alarm. Does anyone hear it?
Ouch!
Something jabbed my upper arm like a fire poker. Did someone inject hot lava in my body? It hurt enough to make me cry, but even my tear ducts were unresponsive. And then I was floating. The feeling was soothing, actually. A nice change from whatever was happening around me. I tried to reach out again, but I gave in to the warmth coursing up my arm. I stopped fighting.
Hey, this is pretty nice. Just floating and drifting. Drifting and floating. Was I on a cloud or maybe a raft in the middle of the pool. My infinity pool. So pretty. So peaceful. So calm.
The beeping wasn’t as irritating. The fire was gone from my arm. And I could sleep.
Something I hadn’t done in weeks.
I wasn’t the kind of woman who could afford the luxury of sleep. A seventy-million-dollar beach house, sure. But a nap—no way.
Who could nap when awards season was around the corner? No one slept during this time of year. I had meetings with designers. There were gowns to choose. Diamonds to pair. And someone had to decide what shape to file my nails. Every element of my look was choreographed. The dietician went over my strict meal guidelines. I felt like I’d be zapped for even looking at a carb. And then there was Tristan.
He was relentless. We met at BodyWerks, a Hollywood term for the place where I got my ass kicked every morning at 5am. My stomach had to be flat to fit in the gowns. My arms had to look sculpted. And my booty had to be round. It was Tristan’s job to make sure I was molded into some kind of impossible Barbie doll.
There were plenty of other reasons I couldn’t sleep besides the stress of being nominated. By the time I crawled into bed at night, I was exhausted. Ready to sleep for three days. But instead, I stared at the ceiling, warding off fear. Fear that another round of nightmares would start. By the time I fell asleep I had an hour or two before I had to get up and meet Tristan.
It was the same thing every day.
I heard someone call my name.
“Journey, can you hear us?”
Of course I could hear them. They were standing next to me. But my mouth refused to cooperate with my brain.
“She needs to get into surgery.”
“Is she going to have scars?” I recognized Dante’s voice. When had they called my manager?
“Someone from plastics will be there. It’s the underside of her arm. I wouldn’t be concerned.”
