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“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Margot says as she whisks through the hotel room, the glow of her terminal screen giving her pale face a strange, ghastly pallor. “They weren’t real fans in the first place.”
“Yeah, but—” I sit up in bed and hug my knees to my chest while the hosts of the talk show I’ve been watching cackle. It feels like they’re laughing at me, even though I know that’s not possible. “I hate disappointing people. You know that.”
“I know that a little too well, actually,” Margot says. “But I wish your obsession with people-pleasing extended to me. You know I told you to stop doomscrolling. That doesn’t mean replace your terminal with trash television.” She reaches over, grabs the remote from the edge of the bed, and turns the talk show off.
I let out a small huff and bury my face in my knees. Here we go. Time for the guilt trip. All aboard the S.S. Margot. Next stop: stomach ulcers, crippling depression, and the inability to sleep at 4 a.m.! Enjoy your stay!
“I do care about pleasing you,” I mumble, thinking she can’t hear me as she heads into the other room. But when I hear her scoff loudly, I wince. She comes back into the bedroom holding a sequined silver dress that barely looks like it’ll fit a toddler, let alone me, and waves it in the air.
“You’re wearing this out today,” she says before tossing it at me. “So get up, get showered, and put it on. We have lunch with Luthor in an hour.”
I groan. “If it’s just lunch, why do I have to wear this?” Peeling the dress off my head, I give it a once over and cringe at the thought of having to get out of bed. Normally, wearing stuff like this wouldn’t give me such harsh anxiety, but the media has been absolutely brutal toward me, and ever since I ran out of that interview, I’m afraid of how my fans will react. Will they hate me? Will anyone even show up to the show?
Margot snorts and whirls around to examine herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror at the foot of the bed. Of course she looks perfect. She always does. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her with a single hair out of place. I wish she’d try wearing something colorful sometime, though. Bet she’d look gorgeous in blue, but she insists neutral colors make her look more professional.
She’s about to open her mouth to say something, but then her terminal trills on her wrist. She glances down, and her lips pull back in a grimace.
“Xavian is downstairs waiting for you. He’ll escort us to lunch, then we’ll be on our way to the venue.”
My heart thrums into my throat. I haven’t seen Xav since the other night in the hospital. Memories of cuddling up beside him on the bed while watching the Oscars distract me. Margot was pissed when she found out I went to his bedside alone. Said that I should have at least called her so she could go with me, just in case anyone recognized me. But I didn’t want her there. When the police called my terminal instead of Margot’s for some reason, I wasn’t thinking about anything other than getting to Xavian. From the way the police made it sound, he was near death. The thought of him dying on me already was … too much.
We’d survived Nocturne together, after all. This couldn’t be the end already. We still had so much work left to do.
Suddenly, I am extremely self-conscious of the teeny-tiny dress I’m about to put on. All my exposed skin. Will he like it? Does it even matter? He’s my bodyguard, not my boyfriend. He’s barely even myfriend, although I think we might’ve bridged that gap the other night. What he likes isn’t my priority. My image is.
But it’s getting so hard to remind myself of that.
* * *
The ride over to the restaurant is eerily silent, with Xavian keeping his eyes straight ahead as our chauffeur glides carefully through the sky. I look up at my bodyguard and clear my throat, but he doesn’t so much as look down at me. Why is he being so strange all of a sudden? Is he mad at me? His facial expression doesn’t give any clues as to what’s on his mind, either.
I decide that the silence is too annoying to deal with, so I clear my throat to speak. “So … feeling better, then?”
Xavian’s cool blue eyes flicker to life, and he tilts his head to look down at me. “Mm. I guess. A little sore, but nothing I can’t handle.”
He can speak again! My cheeks flood with heat, and I swallow thickly before thinking of my answer. “I’m glad your throat is better. Was pretty sad when you couldn’t talk during the Oscars. I hope I didn’t annoy you too much.”
His lips twitch slightly, like he wants to smile but isn’t sure if he should. Odd. I wonder why he’s holding back? It feels like we made so much progress.
“Not at all,” he says. “Your company was welcome. I would have just slept otherwise, I think.”
Margot’s watchful gaze is on us, her hands resting in her lap instead of scrolling through her terminal feed for once. The way she stares at us causes a lump to form in my throat. Like she just knows I’ve been having sexy dreams about my bodyguard for the past three nights in a row. That’s silly, because of course she doesn’t. But the way she narrows her eyes at us makes my skin crawl.
I want to keep asking Xavian questions, poke him a bit to see if I can get him to open up, but the car glides to a stop and Margot slides out of her seat, clearly eager to get a move on. Before I’m even out of the vehicle, the scent of rich, dark chocolate and coffee hits my nostrils. I breathe in the scent deeply, allowing it to occupy my lungs for a good few seconds. Xavian hurries around to my side of the door, almost pushing our chauffeur aside, and opens it for me.
When I step out, a few people on the corner stop and pull up their terminals to film me and take pictures. Xavian notices the attention I’m garnering right away and, with a grunt, steps in front of me before I can get out of the car. Some of the people on the curb whine with disappointment, but he doesn’t budge. He looks over his shoulder at me and frowns.
“Your legs,” he mutters, so only I can hear. When I look down at my legs, I notice I’m flashing the whole world my hot pink panties. Or rather, I would be, if Xavian wasn’t standing right there.
This is another reason why wearing these super skimpy dresses irritates me, because no matter what I do, I can’tnotflash people my underwear when getting out of a vehicle. I snap my thighs shut and shimmy out of the car, then whisper a quick thank-you to Xavian, who continues to block everyone’s view of me.
“You good?” Xavian asks, looking over his shoulder at me again.
I nod, smile, and he moves out of the way, allowing my adoring public to finally see me. The bright lights of their terminals flash in my face—which I’m used to, though I can’t say I love it—and I lift my hand to wave at them.
“Hi!” I chirp Then Xavian puts his hand at the small of my back and gently directs me out of the street, toward the entrance of the Byte Café.
I look up at Xavian and notice that his gaze is roving from side to side like that of a predatory animal. He takes his job seriously. Not a bad thing, of course, but I miss the Xavian from the other night. The Xavian who laughed at all my stupid jokes and listened intently as I told him about my day. No one has ever assaulted me just going to a lunch date with my agent, so he could probably stand to unclench a little.
