Hollywood Sinners

52



With shaking fingers, Lana laid the pregnancy test down on the side of the bath tub.

It might be OK. You don’t know anything yet.

Except she did. She had a feeling in her gut and it had been keeping her awake, stopping her sleeping, wringing her out. It had been eight weeks since Sam Lucas’s party. The first period she’d missed had rung alarm bells–they’d been at the Awards at the time and she hadn’t been able to focus on anything else, not even when Cole went up to collect his gong–but fear had made the warning easy to ignore. At missing her second, they’d sounded more loudly, insisting she listen.

She washed her hands, dried them then sat on the floor with her knees pulled up under her chin. Cole had expected her at a society function this afternoon but she had pleaded illness. She had to be alone for this.

The white stick looked back at her accusingly.

Maybe she wasn’t pregnant, maybe it was a false alarm.

Plenty of women experienced them. Tomorrow she’d get her period and everything would be back to normal. But a persistent voice told her different. Something felt changed, deep inside, something fundamental. Her body wanted to tell her what she didn’t want to hear.

She hadn’t seen Parker Troy since the party. She couldn’t contemplate his reaction if she told him he was about to become a father. To the child Cole Steel’s wife was carrying.

Fear throttled her when she thought of Cole. Parker’s response was the least of her worries, she knew. Quite simply she couldn’t be carrying another man’s baby. It was not an option.

Her heart thumping wildly, Lana reached out for the test. She closed her eyes.

Seconds passed.

When she opened them, it took moments before she was able to digest the information. Confused, she grabbed the box and examined the guidelines. Three times she read them over, looking between the pictured results and those of her own, before she was sure.

Lana put her head in her hands and breathed out slowly. For a long time she stayed like that, not moving.

Suddenly her phone trilled from the next room. Her hands were shaking so it took time to open the bathroom door, which she had wanted to lock even though she was alone. She stood, confused, not knowing where the sound was coming from. Her attention was drawn to the bed, where her cell blinked its red eye. She considered not picking up, then, realising she’d been avoiding calls recently, forced herself to reach for it.

It was Rita. She sat down and answered cautiously.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me. Is everything OK? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all week.’

‘Everything’s fine.’ The words seemed to come from the other side of the room.

‘Good. What do you think of the matricide project?’

Lana winced. ‘What?’

‘The Paramount script I had biked over. What did you think?’

Lana bit her lip so it hurt. ‘I’m reading it today–um, I had something else I needed to take care of.’

‘You only just got to it? Lana, we have to move quickly on this–what’s up?’

It was tempting to tell her. But while Rita was her closest friend, she was also her agent and they had a working relationship to protect. After all the work Rita had put into the contract with Cole, the nightmare negotiations with Marty King, it was indulgent to expect her support.

‘Nothing’s up,’ she said instead, summoning her strength. ‘I’ll finish today–we’ll talk in the morning.’

‘Hmm.’ Rita wasn’t convinced. ‘Fine, but make sure you pick up this time. I’ll call at eleven. Get some sleep if you’re tired.’

‘I will.’

Lana hung up and dragged herself back into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Haunted shadows pooled around her eyes, the dim glare of inevitability.

In her reflection she saw a fugitive who knows she is about to be caught. You’re done for.