Page 39 of Fool's Gold

My stomach flips.

“Do you need me to go inside with you, Miss Stone?” The driver is unruffled, dignified, poised behind the steering wheel as he navigates the lot.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

Except I’m not really fine because there’s Marcus, waiting for me at the studio door.

Looking like he’s sucked the very sun down from the sky and swallowed it whole. Although he’s dressed impeccably in a dark suit, no tie, it’s impossible to notice the way the others give him a wide berth.

They part around him like he’s the stone in the middle of a river, and his attention is latched onto me.

I never answered his text.

If he thinks I’m going to bow down at his feet and have the conversation he desperately wants to have, he’s delusional.

Sniffing, I square my shoulders. He pushes away from the door and steps from the long shadows, striding toward the car before we’ve had a chance to stop.

Without waiting for the tires to slow, I’m out the opposite door and scurrying around the side of the car.

He growls, and the sound scores my back like claws. “Empire, for fuck’s sake—”

I’m not standing around to hear the rest of whatever garbage he’s about to spew. Not when I can see a hint of red lipstick on the darkness of his collar.

He saw her again. Celeste.

A chill slides over me, and my lungs go still, suddenly paralyzed.

Did she come over to the apartment the second I was out the door? Maybe she never left. She might have been lurking in the hallway waiting for me to bolt, knowing I’d run like the scared child she called me, the spoiled brat.

The second I took myself out of the picture, she pounced.

His determined footsteps dog me all the way into the studio, but the second the director turns toward me with a grateful grin, I shove Marcus out of my mind. He isn’t going to ruin this for me.

Only, ignoring him won’t be easy.

Belinda snaps her fingers. “Over here!”

I feel him there watching, like his gaze is a physical touch. And I know exactly how his fingers feel when they trail fire along my skin.

He memorizes my every move and makes sure I’m toeing the line.

“Let’s get you into hair and makeup, Empire, and then we can get started with scene one hundred nine,” Belinda says. She’s got her baseball cap on again, her eyes bright, cup of tea clutched in her hand. “You can study your script while you’re in the chair. You good?”

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks.” At least someone is here to greet me with a smile.

What have I done to deserve it, though?

The makeup artists stop their chatter at my approach, their smiles pinned in place. It’s the kind of forced quiet where you know exactly what subject they’ve been discussing: you.

They’re talking about me.

None of them say anything to my face, of course. They’re all chipper and rainbows and shit by the time I’m in the chair and through the hour of prep work to turn me into my character.

They know as well as I do: I’m not special.

The second I step out onto the X marking my spot, a row of school lockers at my back and the extras milling around, awkwardness clenches my hands into claws. The other actresses throw tight looks at me over their shoulders. They aren’t the headliners here.

I am.

---