2026-05-28 23:07:40
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CHAPTER 213
"Not the performance smile," Clara clarified. "Not the one for photographs. The other one. The one that happens when you are not thinking about anyone watching."She met Sherry's gaze evenly. "I have worked with you for four years. I have seen that smile approximately six times, and none of those times involved anyone named Alex."Sherry looked away toward the mirror again, her reflection looking back at her with an expression that was losing its ability to pretend."After that," Clara continued, "it was not one thing, it was a collection of things. The way you asked me to find out more about him before you had any real reason to. The way you reacted when I told you he had inherited your uncle's wealth, which by logic should have made you upset or at least complicated in your feelings, but instead you went quiet in a way that was not upset at all. The way you have been checking your phone more than usual for the past two weeks."She tilted her head slightly. "Small things. But when yo
CHAPTER 212
Sherry went completely still.The kind of still that is not calm. The kind that happens when a person's body receives a piece of information before the mind has finished deciding how to respond to it, and the whole system just stops for a second like a car stalling mid road.She turned her head toward Clara slowly, and the expression on her face was something she had not worn in a very long time. Not the professional composure. Not the sharp, camera ready poise she carried like a second skin. This was something much younger and much less defended, caught off guard in the most private possible way."How did you," she started, then stopped.Clara waited."I mean," Sherry tried again, sitting up slightly from her reclined position, the water glass shifting on her stomach. "What makes you think that it is, why would you even assume that it has anything to do with—"She stopped again.The words were not forming properly. They kept arriving in the wrong order, tripping over each other on th
CHAPTER 211
The problem was that Clara was not wrong, and Sherry knew she was not wrong, and the knowing had been sitting in her chest all morning like a splinter she could not get at.She had stood on that set and delivered her lines and hit her marks and smiled at the camera and the whole time, some irritating, unhelpful part of her brain had been somewhere else entirely, circling around something that had no business taking up this much space.She turned her face away from Clara and looked at the mirror across the room instead.Her own reflection looked back at her, makeup still on from the last scene, the professional version of her face, put together and flawless and giving nothing away.She hated that she could not even fully articulate what was bothering her.That was the most frustrating part. She was Sherry Brown.She had built herself from the ground up in an industry that chewed people like her into dust for sport.She had survived Victor Ross and his type more times than she wanted to
CHAPTER 210
The makeup corner of the shooting location was a cramped, brightly lit pocket of organized chaos, mirrors framed with bulbs that had no mercy for tired faces, trolleys of product lined up with military precision, and the faint chemical smell of setting spray hanging in the air long after it had been used.Sherry walked into it like a woman who had been running on nothing since morning and had just been handed permission to stop.She dropped onto the couch with the full weight of someone who had been holding themselves upright through sheer professional obligation for the past four hours, her back hitting the cushions and her legs stretching out in front of her with a sigh that came from somewhere deeper than just physical tiredness. The back of her head found the couch frame. Her eyes closed.For about eight seconds, there was silence.Then her assistant, Clara, appeared at her side with a glass of water, the ice already softened from sitting too long, exactly the way Sherry preferred
CHAPTER 209
"No sharing a bed," she stated plainly, ticking the first rule off with a straightforward tone like she was reading items off a grocery list. "No using each other's personal belongings without asking. No intimacy beyond what is necessary for appearances in public. And full respect for each other's privacy. Whatever we each choose to keep to ourselves, stays to ourselves. No prying."Alex looked at her for a moment. His expression had shifted into something that was not quite agreement and not quite amusement but lived somewhere in the narrow space between both."Fine," he replied."You are not bothered by any of that," Mia observed, studying him."My only concern," Alex answered, his voice straightforward and without embellishment, "is that you are protected. Everything else is manageable."Mia held his gaze for a second longer than she needed to. Then she looked away, very casually, toward the window again. The small, involuntary pull at the corner of her mouth lasted less than two s
CHAPTER 208
The sound of the door closing down the hallway settled over the living room like dust.Alex stood where he was, looking at the empty space Mia's father had just vacated, and for the first time since he walked in and opened his mouth, he did not quite know what to do with his hands.He had been certain when he asked. He was still certain now. But certainty about the right thing to do and certainty about how to navigate the silence that follows it were two completely different things, and right now the silence was considerable.He turned to Mia.She was already looking at him.They sat in that mutual, wordless regard for a few seconds, neither of them moving, neither of them quite ready to be the one who broke the quiet.The morning had been long and brutal and it was barely past nine. The broken vase was still on the guest room floor.The swelling on Mia's cheek had deepened to a visible bruise along the ridge of the bone, and her eyes, though drier now, still carried the redness of ev
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