Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Harper joins her, but on the other side. I sit up in my Murphy bed that wouldn’t have fit Luca at all, and I’m squished in by my two best friends.
“Does this have something to do with why Patrick was fired?” Harper asks.
“Yeah, she said something about a PA, but she wouldn’t tell me because she said it had to do with the NDA you signed,” Ivy replies, her expression beyond curious.
I sigh and wipe the sleep from my eyes. I’m weary as I sit back. “It doesn’t matter now. Yes. I caught Joe sexually harassing Patrick. I pretended to take his explanation and called Jessica, who promised me she would take care of things. Apparently one of the things she needed to take care of was me.”
Ivy’s gaze goes steely. “Are you kidding me? Jessica, your mentor for years Jessica? Jessica, who talks feminism at every conference and talks about building your network of women and never letting them down because we all have to fight the patriarchy together? That Jessica?”
She’s neatly summed up my boss. “The very one. I guess when she found out it was a man harassing another man, she decided she didn’t need to give up her moneymaker for her principles.”
“But that doesn’t explain why Luca would dump you,” Ivy says.
“Oh, it does.” Harper leans into me, a familiar gesture of comfort. “They could close down the production. Jessica likely talked to her lawyers, decided they could cut Anika loose and save their prize director. Did she come up with some leverage against you?”
“My mom,” I whisper.
“Fuckers.” Ivy stands. She’s the ragiest of my friends and the one most likely to plot some serious revenge. “All right. Let’s figure out how to handle this. Should I go scorched earth, or do we want a slow burn where she thinks something’s going wrong but can’t quite put her finger on what’s happening.”
“We do nothing,” I reply. “Except maybe talk to a lawyer because I broke my contract when I walked out last night. I don’t think they’ll challenge me on it because if they do I’ll explain what happened, and that’s what they’re trying to avoid. I’ve thought about this and I need to talk to my mom, but I don’t know if they can block her entirely. They can keep her off Pinnacle sets, but she’s a mainstay in New York. She’s had some clients for over thirty years.”
“You want to talk,” Harper surmises with a nod. “I think you should.”
“I’ll talk to CeCe and ask her to get a referral from Lawyer…,” Ivy says and winces. “I should find out his name. I sometimes worry I’m becoming CeCe. But you know what CeCe Foust would never do?”
“Don’t say sexually objectify someone because we all know her,” Harper quips.
“She never acts on it,” Ivy argues. “And she would never leave me in the lurch. Ever.”
“Because she thinks of you like a daughter.” I guess the betrayal from Jessica should hurt worse, and likely it will in the future. In the future I’ll be able to shrug off this numbness and look at things rationally. But right now there’s a hole in my heart and his name is Luca St. Marten. “Jessica has her own kids. I’m sure she would tell me she’s doing this for the good of the company. She would say she’s making the hard choices. The way a man would.”
“Yes, but that’s been our mistake all along.” Harper sighs and holds my hand. “You definitely need to talk to a lawyer but until then, what are we doing about Luca? Do you think they put pressure on him to cut you?”
“I’m sure they did.”
“Then he could still feel the same way about you,” Harper hedges.
“He cut her cold with cameras filming her every move. He didn’t give her a heads-up,” Ivy argues.
But he kind of had. I hadn’t taken the cues, but they’d been there. “He had his bodyguard tell me, but I didn’t understand what he was saying.”
“What did he say?” Harper asks.
“That I should remember Luca has to sacrifice.” I sniffle. “I just didn’t think he would sacrifice me.”
“Asshole.” Ivy is still pacing. “Like I said, there’s zero coming back from this. I don’t care if he’s planning on trying to see her after the filming. We need a plan. I can probably take out his government with a few keystrokes.”
“Ivy Jensen, you will do nothing of the kind.” It isn’t Luca’s fault he was born the king of a country. It isn’t truly his fault. He’d tried to warn me. He’d used Hans to do it, and Hans didn’t understand how to plainly state hey, girl, you in danger.
Yeah, if Whoopi Goldberg had been Luca’s bodyguard, I would have known to be on guard.
“I don’t see why not,” Ivy grouses.