Page 143 of He's The Reason Why

They sat in silence and stared at the black nothing of the backyard, listening to the sounds of laughter from inside the house. It comforted her a little that normal life kept going, despite it all.

Lizzie’s warm, understanding presence helped ease a little of the ache, too.

“I should have known,” Piper said finally.

“Should have known what?” Lizzie asked.

“This is Hollywood. Nobody shows you who they really are.” She snorted a bitter laugh. “Least of all someone like Blake. He’s spent a lifetime perfecting that face he shows the world. His whole life is just one act after another. I just really thought I’d slipped past all that, you know?”

“You sure you didn’t?”

Piper stared at the tea in her cup. There weren’t any life answers in there. No tea leaves to tell her the future. She took a sip. It soothed her throat and warmed her belly, but it didn’t fix anything.

“We can get you out of that contract if you want,” Lizzie said. “Renic’s lawyers say those things are pretty flimsy. You don’t have to do the movie.”

“Yes I do.” Piper glanced at her sister. Lizzie, more than all of them, understood what it meant to be professional and to honor commitments. It was what had made her so good at managing their careers over the years. “I’m one of the producers. When I found out Blake needed money, I invested twenty million. I’d be a fool to pull out now, it would tank the movie.”

“Twenty million. Wow.” Lizzie’s eyes widened a little. “He asked you for twenty million dollars?”

“No. I offered it because he was having a fight with the studio, but he refused to take it like a stubborn ass. He said he didn’t want money to get in the way of ourrelationship. So I contacted the studio directly. I don’t think he even knows I did it. It never seemed like the right time to tell him.”

“There’s a lot to unpack in there.” Lizzie sounded stunned.

“What? He needed the money, and I believe in this project. I’m a huge part of it, now. I basically invested in myself.”

“You did it behind his back, Piper.” Lizzie’s disapproval was all over her face. “That’s hard for some people to take.”

“No harder than what he did to me.” She squirmed a little in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She’d felt uneasy about it ever since she’d made the phone call, but she didn’t want Blake’s first movie to fail. He needed the help, dammit. He was being unreasonable. “He’ll get over it.”

“Will he?” Lizzie eyed her. “Willyou?”

Piper glared at her tea. “Besides, I’ve wanted to get into acting for a long time and I’m not going to let Blake or anyone else take it away from me. Least of all that skank Rachel Morris and her stupid video.”

“You sure it was her?”

“Oh yeah. It was her.” Piper thought back to all the snide comments, the difficult diva moments, the rolled eyes, the snotty undercurrent to everything Rachel said and did, and knew without a doubt that she was behind everything. “Blake wouldn’t do something like this. He hates social media. He might have said those things, but Rachel released the video. She’s the only one who knew he said…what he said. She’s the only one who’d care.”

“Hmm.” Lizzie sipped her tea and looked thoughtful. “When you think about it, he didn’t say anything you didn’t say aboutyourself. You called me that first day wailing about how horrible you were, remember?”

“I was all over the place.” Piper snorted a laugh. “I had no idea what I was doing, and it showed.”

“I also remember how Blake helped you out,” Lizzie commented.

Piper thought about the nights in Blake’s living room with Marshall and knew she owed them. Without their help, Rachel might have succeeded in pushing her out.

“Blake and Marshall ran lines with me for hours,” she admitted.

“I’m not sure a man should be held responsible for a few comments made when he didn’t even know you. His actions since then paint a pretty different picture, don’t they?”

She didn’t want to agree. She wanted to insist that Blake was a jerk and that she was right to feel this horrible, aching pain in her heart, but she knew it wasn’t fair. Blake had been nothing but supportive since the very first day they met. He’d taught her what she didn’t know, he’d worked with her, and he’d made her feel like she was the most important woman in his world. Surely, that wasn’t all an act.

“I guess so.”

“It seems to me this is just a jealous, petty, vindictive woman trying to get under your skin, not Blake trying to be an asshole.”

“Maybe.”

Lizzie nudged her leg. “All I’m saying is…if you love him, it’s worth maybe letting this go. You do love him, don’t you?”

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