This time I do clench my fists. I want the pain. I need it to collect myself. To give me strength.
I need it because I have to find the will to put the mask back on. To face these people. And then to get the hell out of here.
Slowly, I square my shoulders. And though it takes every ounce of strength within me, I look at each one of them in turn. Then I flash my million-watt smile. “No comment,” I say, before I turn casually around to find Tanner.
He’s still in the building doorway, and my eyes locate him just in time to see his smug expression fade. “Hurry up, Tanner,” I say as I push my way past the paparazzi. “We need to get to a meeting.”
“Oh, my God! I can’t believe you got paired to work with such a twit!” Jamie says. We’re sitting at the polished wooden bar in Firefly Studio City drinking dirty martinis. She eats the final olive out of hers, then points the little plastic sword at me. “It’s like you’re living a sitcom. No, a movie,” she amends. “One of those screwball comedies where the spunky heroine is paired with the completely incompetent idiot and wackiness ensues.”
“Except he’s vengeful, not incompetent. And doesn’t the heroine in those movies always end up with the idiot?”
“Not necessarily,” Jamie says, leaning back and looking smug. “Not so long as there’s another love interest in the B-story.” She swipes her hand through the air. “A Day with Tanner. I can practically see the trailer.”
I grimace. “Well, you can star in it. Personally, I’d rather have another leading man.”
“You do,” Jamie says. “And as much as it pains me not to talk about either of our fuckalicious men, I want to hear the rest of this story first. How did the camera-vultures know you were there? Did Tanner tell them? Have you told Damien about the corporate espionage comment? Was he totally livid?”
“I’m going to tell him when I see him,” I say. “And yeah, he’ll be livid.” I bite back a grimace. This wouldn’t have been prevented by Edward driving me to work, but I have a feeling that simple fact isn’t going to matter when Damien hears what happened and goes ballistic.
“As for Tanner …” I trail off with a shrug. I suspect he’s the source, but I can’t prove it. “Doesn’t matter much. They know now. Yay,” I add dryly.
Jamie leans closer to me, her brows pulling together as she studies my face. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay?”
I almost put on my practiced smile and nod and say that everything will be fine. But this is Jamie, and she’s been my best friend since about forever. More important, she knew how much my big sister meant to me. How much I’d relied on Ashley to survive all the shit my mother put me through. The nights locked in my room with no way to turn on the light because my mother was convinced I needed my beauty sleep. The interminable hours walking with a book on my head. The second weekend of the month when I was allowed only water with lemon so that I would detox and “keep that nasty cellulite at bay.” The big things, the little things, and so much more.
I was the one to win the ribbons and the tiaras, but it was Ashley I’d envied. Ashley, who’d been allowed to live a normal life, or so I’d thought. Ashley, who’d tended to her little sister even before tending to herself.
I hadn’t thought about how my mother’s harping must have been drilled into my sister’s head, too. Or, at least, I hadn’t thought about it until it was too late and I was holding Ashley’s suicide note in my hand and looking at her neat, precise handwriting blaming her husband leaving her on the fact that she must have failed at being a woman and a wife. That somehow, she hadn’t managed to be the lady our mother had tried to train us to be.
Bitch.
I close my eyes and realize that my hand is resting on my thigh—right over the scar beneath my skirt. I’d cut before Ashley died, but once she was gone, I’d kicked it up a notch.
There are so many memories tied up in those scars, as if each small ridge of tissue represents an emotional mountain. Mostly, though, there’s Ashley.
“No,” I finally say in answer to Jamie’s question. “I’m not okay. But I was—before they brought up Ashley, I was dealing with it. I didn’t like it, but I was coping. And I’ll be okay again. I just wasn’t prepared today.”
“It will pass, you know. That’s the good and the bad about publicity. It goes away.”
“And like Tanner said, I’m the flavor of the month.” I smile, and this time it’s genuine. “Maybe next month they’ll leave me alone and focus on the rising starlet who’s dating Byron Rand.”
“Bryan Raine,” she corrects. “And don’t even try to change the subject. So come on—forget the stupid paparazzi. I want to hear the rest of what happened at the meeting.”