Page 33 of Samhain

“Going for the big time.” I told him about my agent and how I’d spent the last few weeks auditioning and modeling.

“You’ve only been out here a few weeks?”

“Since the end of June,” I said.

Anthony shook his head and sighed. “You’re the luckiest little shit in the world right now.”

Yeah, no kidding.

I snorted and raised an eyebrow, ignoring the rising staccato in my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m here because Fractured Crowns, the screenplay I was writing back when I met you, has been picked up by a major network. I’m not at liberty to say which one yet, but there’s a B and an O in the name.”

My excitement rattled through my torso like a dose of some high-quality club drug. “Really? That’s great, Anthony. Congratulations.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he said. “Carter, I was writing that when I first met you. Remember? I said you had natural talent and you’d be good for one of the parts.”

“I asked if you were offering me a job.”

“Yeah,” he said, giving me a big Cheshire grin. “You did.”

I paused for a moment so the meaning of his innuendo could finally dawn on me. “Are you offering me one now?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I am.”

What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

“Carter, I wrote this part with you in mind,” he said. “You still have to audition with the studio execs, but I’m directing most of the first season.” He turned in the seat and gestured to the phone in my lap. “Call your agent. Get her on the first plane out here. I’m one hundred percent serious when I say you have the part as long as I can get the studio on board. I’m almost certain that I can.”

Hands shaking and sure this was a dream, I called my agent to tell her the news, but she was conveniently still in LA. When we got to the studio, I did my song and dance with the producers, putting on the charming act even though I was exhausted and smelled like Vegas and regret. They didn’t seem to mind, and two days later, I’d been cast as the lead in the next mega show to blow up on premium television.

Act II

You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant.

But yet you draw not iron, for my heart

Is true as steel.

-Helena, Act II, Scene I

9

Miri

TWO YEARS LATER

Time slipped through my fingers quicker than ash. When I left Carter at the party, I told myself it wouldn’t be long before we saw each other again. I told myself I would visit as often as I could and call whenever the opportunity struck. Like my promises to Lex and Ivy, that too floated away on the wind.

We sent the occasional text and called at important milestones, but Carter’s filming schedule had ramped up after his premiere on Fractured Crowns and now? Who knew where he was? Australia one day, Czech Republic the next.

It hurt to think about them, to talk about them. I didn’t have much to say these days anyway.

Ivy and Lex crowded the headlines. The paparazzi loved their relationship, and when they announced their inevitable engagement, my heart turned to stone and died. I hadn’t talked to either since I left Virginia, but every part of me remembered every part of them. I brushed my thumb over the scars on my other hand, vows we had made to each other all those years ago. Vows they also carried. Vows they’d broken the minute we were separated.

Part of me wanted to be angry at them. Part of me wondered if they’d done us a favor. Perhaps it was better to rip off the bandage, quick and clean.

“Miriam?” my grandmother’s voice brought me back to the present, where I sat at tea with the Prince of Monaco, a man twenty years my senior who had been barking up my skirts since I turned fourteen. (Gross, I know.) “Reginald asked if you had any plans to turn your skills into something more substantial. An exhibit garden, perhaps?”

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