Page 144 of Sinful Desires
I tilted my head, dramatic and slow, eyeing him.
“You’re charming, theatrical, flirty to the point of being annoying, loyal when it suits you, and petty in a way that should honestly be studied.”
He grinned. “So?…”
I popped a piece of graham cracker into my mouth. “Libra sun, Gemini moon, Scorpio rising.”
Liya cackled. “Oh, that isfilthy.”
He blinked. “That’s offensive.”
“That’s accurate,” I said, licking chocolate off my thumb. “You probably flirted with the doctor who delivered you.”
“I was told I held eye contact.”
Pierre snorted.
I leaned back on my hands, looking at the stars, the warmth of the fire tickling my legs. For a second, it was easy to forget the rest. The cameras. The headlines. The bruises no one could see.
Just this. Firelight and teasing and a sky that didn’t care who I was.
“I’m glad you were found innocent in the whole Luke Conrad thing,” Liya said, her voice lower now, her smile sad. “I knew him. We hosted SNL together once. He was an angel, but drugs were his favorite kind of hell.”
I didn’t answer right away. There was something sharp and shapeless in my throat, something that didn’t want to be swallowed.
The trial had lasted four months while I rotted in rehab, being detoxed from everything except grief.
The Conrad Family vs Superstar Scarlett Harper.
That was the headline.
My father, with his usual sleight of hand, conjured footage of Luke buying pills and powder from a dealer on Skid Row—same day, same city, hours before he died two feet from where I had passed out.
The doctors found every drug in the room swimming in his blood. No bruises. No restraint. No forced hands.
He’d taken them willingly.
That was the word they’d used.Willingly.
I was found not guilty.
The law let me go.
But my label still threw money at their wound. One million dollars to his parents. A quiet settlement. A polished ending to a story that was anything but clean.
And then his mother had written to me. A letter I still kept in a drawer I didn’t open.
She said she didn’t blame me.
Said she forgave me.
Said she hoped I’d heal.
I’d read it once. Sobbed until my lungs gave out. The doctors had doubled my morphine to keep me from choking on it.
“Thank you, Liya,” I said, voice low. “If you’re not surrounded by people who give a fuck about more than your paycheck, this industry will chew you up and spit you out before you know you’re bleeding.”
Nicholas raised his beer to the night. “Amen.”
