Page 50 of Shadowing Her Stalker

Wyatt nodded. “There’s this great meditation app I use...”

She gave an appreciative chuckle. “When he said the files I sent for the new series are good, I can guarantee he was talking about the audio quality, not the content.” The corner of her mouth kicked up in a smirk. “Tom considers sleep a waste of productive hours.”

“But Chris has to know content is king,” Wyatt argued. “I mean, he’s the guy out there pushing for investors and users, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Chris likes to say I’m the best impulse buy he’s ever made.”

“Whoa.” Wyatt blinked and fell back in his chair. “Please tell me he’s joking.”

“I’d say it’s about eighty-five percent joke,” she conceded.

His brows drew down. “Do you ever think about leaving? Selling out and going off to do whatever you want to do?”

“Sure, I think about it.” She shrugged. “The question is, what would I do? Actresses have a much narrower window when it comes to breaking into the business. Mine’s pretty much closed. There’s off-screen work, but there my success with LYYF may work against me.”

“How?”

“Well, my voice is fairly recognizable now.” She gave him a wan smile. “Having a familiar voice can be an advantage for men—look at Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones. But women doing voice-over work? Sure, you get the occasional celebrities pushing perfume at Christmastime, or splash-washing their fully made-up faces for some beauty brand, but they’re mainly hired for the on-camera work, not to be the voice of the product.”

“And you’re already inherently entwined with another brand,” he said with grim understanding.

“Exactly.”

She was saved from further discussion of her personal and professional choices by the buzzing of her phone. A peek at the display showed Chris’s number. She smiled grimly and stretched a hand out to accept the call. “And now contestant number two.”

She swiped the screen and called out, “Hey, Chris,” before Wyatt even straightened in his chair.

“Cara, holy cripes,” her longtime business partner gushed. “I’m so glad you called. I’ve been worried sick ever since Zarah told me what happened.”

“What happened a couple days ago, or what happened last night?” Cara prodded.

“Last night? What happened last night?”

She looked up and met Wyatt’s eyes. Chris sounded truly perplexed.

“Someone set my house on fire.”

“The house where you’re staying in Alabama?” he asked, sounding genuinely aghast.

She and Wyatt shared an amused smirk. “Arkansas. And no. I meant my house in LA,” she corrected.

“No way! The little place in Los Feliz?”

“Yes.” She leaned in closer. “You hadn’t heard? I thought maybe Zarah—”

“Oh, she may have,” he interrupted. “I’ve been running all over New York taking meeting after meeting,” he said in a rush. “But you weren’t there, right? You’re in, uh, Arkansas?”

“Zarah booked me on a flight to LAX this evening.” She held Wyatt’s stare but said no more.

“Hey, Cara, you think you might consider hiring some security,” Chris suggested. “At least until all this stuff blows over. I think we may have been a bit...”

In her mind, Cara filled the empty air space with a few choice adjectives:condescending...dismissive?

“I mean, you never know when to take the trolls seriously. Am I right?”

“Right,” she replied flatly.

She stared at the phone screen, wishing they were on a video call. It was hard to get a read on this version of Chris. She’d grown so used to thinking of him as little more than her business partner. She’d almost forgotten they were once good friends.

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