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“Then what?”
He opens the drawer he got the coke from and pulls out an already rolled up hundred. Staring up at me, he snorts a line and holds the rolled bill out to me.
Another cynical laugh ruptures out of him. “Oh, that’s right, you’re sober now.”
I fight my bodies urge to rip that hundred out of his hand and inhale all five lines left. I close my eyes briefly, remembering Jimmy’s words, our future, why I won’t listen to the temporary craving of oblivion. “Can we move this along?”
“I used to think I wanted you out of James’s, or Jimmy’s, life.” He shoots me a condescending smile. “Prepared to pay you off maybe, but with this clean Lilah now? I’m not sure that’s the wisest choice.” He sips his scotch. “Come sit and we’ll talk.”
I don’t move, my eyes on the door. I’ve been in this position before, with dealers and the first man in my life who should have been protecting me. “You realize that if you bring Jimmy down, you’re only hurting your own studio. You’ve invested hundreds of millions in his film and if its star gets on the shit list, you’ll make zero money at the box office.”
Bernie stares at me blank-faced for a moment. I think that maybe I’ve gotten somewhere, but then he bursts out laughing. “You’re smarter than you look. Everything you say is true, but you forget that my studio can afford to lose money on this film. We’ve had a great year, and yeah, it would hurt our bottom line, but we’d recover. Besides, all the blame would fall on James’s head, not mine.” He opens his legs, leaning back on the couch. “When I want something, there’snothingI won’t do to get it. Not to mention, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying bad press is better than no press.”
“You’re sick,” I spit at him, rage boiling.
“Maybe. Maybe not. The fact is, you have something I want.” His gaze takes a lecherous trip down my body and he leans over the lines of coke snuffing another line. “And I have something you want—to keep quiet about James’s past and to quit digging into it. You’re not going to let your savior fall when you could have prevented it, are you? After all he’s done for you?”
I step one foot forward.
“That a girl. Jimmy would be so proud. You actually doing something for him. All those meetings when he sat there at the end of the table like a pathetic love-sick boy who couldn’t walk away from someone self-destructing right before his eyes. Someone who didn’t love him. You didn’t love him, did you?”
“Yes, I did. I do.” My feet stop in front of the small table in front of the couch.
“Of course you did. Everyone around him tried to get him to leave you and he never did. Never wavered. Now it’s your choice to repay him. Or not.”
I sit on the couch.
I’m not fully settled on the couch before he leans in. The smell of his cologne brings bile up my throat. He runs his finger up my arm, and I swallow it back down.
“Just tell me,” I choke out.
“Do I really need to be more specific?” He slides closer.
The bile rises back up my throat when my eyes spot his erection tenting his pants. He brushes his hand over himself.
“You think I’m going to fuck you?”
“Yes, I do.” His forwardness knocks back my snarky self.
My dad was the same way. Took what he wanted regardless. He might have been the poorest man in our town, but he always took what he wanted from me.
“That’s what it will take? Me fucking you to not out Jimmy?”
“Yes.”
I turn my head away as memories of the girl hiding under her bed rush forward—the shame and dirtiness coating me like paint on my skin.
“I won’t sleep with you,” I say to the door.
“You will if you want your precious James to continue to work in this town. I can ruin anyone’s career with a few phone calls.”
He allows his response to linger around us. My fists clench in my lap. He’s right. We both know it.
The phone next to him rings and I’m surprised when he picks up the receiver.
“Yeah.”
Another one of his twisted smiles forms. “Sure. Five minutes.”
