“Never mind.” I waved him off and gripped my purse tightly with both hands. “I won’t keep doing this with you, Casey, I can’t. I’ve been with you five years. You were my first client, and I don’t want to quit, but you’ve left me no choice.”
“No!” Casey shot to his feet. “Jo-Jo, damn it, just sit! All right? Look, I’m sorry, I’m just . . . it’s been a bad month.” A bad month? Try a bad year!
“So stay sober, stop getting high, and make better choices. People will never respect you if you don’t respect yourself.”
He shrugged. “It’s just a little fun.”
“Is it fun when you’re no longer drunk or high?”
He stared at the tablecloth.
“Right.” I nodded. “Look, I’m going to go. I have a meeting with another client. Shape up. This is your last warning. If you can’t do it, I’m dropping you.”
“You don’t drop me!” he sneered. “I made you!”
And there it was. What was left of our friendship shattered in front of my eyes.
“What was that?” I said in a lethal tone. “You made me?”
Casey paled. “Jo-Jo, I didn’t mean that, I’m just—”
“Save it.”
“Wait!”
“’Bye, Casey.”
“You’re just pissed because I didn’t sleep with you!”
I froze while the restaurant fell silent. This from the man who used to tell me to wait for the right guy, the man who kissed my tears away when my college boyfriend dumped me like yesterday’s news. Casey and I never went past friendship. He’d tried kissing me once, but I told him I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. Pain filled my chest as I tried to breathe evenly and think professionally.
“That’s it.” I licked my lips and tried to keep my shaking to a minimum. “We’re done.” Forget that I was going to lose a crap load of money. Sadly, I was also losing a friend. Then again—I took another look at him—he’d stopped being my friend a long time ago. I’d just chosen to ignore the fact that on the road to fame, he’d given up his soul and sold it to the devil.
I should have seen the warning signs, but I was making money too and I was proud of him.
So proud.
And now he was nothing but a high stranger, so obsessed with himself I half expected him to check his reflection in the damn spoon.
“I’ll send the terminated contract to your manager by fax.” I whispered under my breath, “’Bye, Casey.”
His eyes shuddered as he stood and flipped his chair over onto the ground. “You bitch!”
I walked away.
And when I heard dishes shatter against the floor, I began to run.
He wasn’t my problem anymore.
By the time I reached the corner, I was full-on sobbing. Hating myself for taking it so personally.
It was my fault that I’d gotten too attached.
And now . . . I was in danger of doing it again.
I looked up. As luck would have it, Reid’s face was plastered across the nearest billboard—THE TAMING OF THE SHREW: RELEASING SPRING 2016.
A vision of Casey’s first movie billboard popped into my head. Already, Reid felt more like a friend than a client. What was worse? Both of us had crossed those lines, and now it just felt like history was repeating itself, and it would, because it was Reid. What girl wouldn’t get obsessed? What director wouldn’t notice his obvious talent? Not again. I couldn’t go through it again. I wouldn’t. Why the hell didn’t I tell Ren no and save myself the heartache of watching someone else I cared about succumb to fame and fortune while I did what I did best and stayed in the background, invisible?
I swallowed the lump in my throat and wiped the tears from beneath my eyes.
Head held high, I hailed a taxi, more determined than ever to make sure Reid was a success. Maybe I needed to prove it to myself more than anyone else, that I could handle it, handle him. I needed to keep my personal feelings on lockdown, even if it meant I had to completely sacrifice my heart in the process.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
REID
Something was wrong with Jordan. For one, her hair was pulled back so tight it looked like her eyebrows hurt. Two, her eyes were puffy. And three, well, her smile was off and seemed forced. Pathetic that I knew which of her smiles were real and which were fake, but there it was.
She’d bulldozed herself into my life three days ago, and now I was concerned for her welfare, all because she looked like she’d just watched the latest Nicholas Sparks and was pissed because he killed someone off—again.
“So.” Jordan cleared her throat. “The segment is on love and sex. They’ll ask you questions about the movie and then some personal questions about relationships. Make sure you sell the whole ‘I’m taming a real-life shrew’ thing, and lucky for you I’m in a hell of a mood so it won’t be a hard sell to the host. Got it?”
I frowned. “Are you sick?”
“What?” She jerked back. “No, why?”
Her hair looked like it hurt. It wasn’t soft or tame—hell, I would have even taken the wild sex hair over the bun she was currently sporting. It also irritated me because it made her look too professional. My eyes greedily searched for some stains on her shirt.
Nothing.
Pristine.
“Did you have a bad day?”