Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
When a shadow fell over him, he glanced up, a greeting on his lips—but it wasn’t Sophie.
Oliver Newcomb stood over him with his face pinched into pompous distaste.
Cillian looked left, right—but he couldn’t see past Newcomb, and it felt like the whole room shrank back from them, leaving him alone with that horrible, leering face. Newcomb didn’t smell like whiskey today, but Cillian could still taste that foulness flooding close in his face, making his chest seize and his throat strangle until he couldn’t speak.
“How badly do you actually want this job?” Newcomb hissed. “Because you most certainly aren’t acting like it. You don’t understand the social politics—”
trying to molest someone isn’t fucking social politics
“—and now you miss yesterday’s reading, forcing us all to delay a day and lose precious time, only to show up today and behave like you’re reading for a grade school play. Do you have any respect for the other people in this industry at all?”
Cillian bowed his head, if only to hide his gritting teeth. This fucker—for all this fucker knew Cillian was struggling because of him, and yet he had the nerve to ride Cillian’s arse in front of people like this, like he knew…like he knew…
…like he knew Cillian wouldn’t do a thing.
That he was too afraid to speak.
To say what he really meant.
To expose Newcomb for the disgusting pig he was.
The worst part was that Newcomb wasn’t wrong about today’s reading. Cillian’s flubs, his lack of preparation, might as well have been a middle finger flipped to the rest of the talent who came ready and prepared.
That didn’t stop him from wanting to slug that fucker in the teeth.
He forced himself to play…diplomatic, careful, he didn’t know. But he grit out two hard-won words through his teeth:
“I’m. Sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you will be. Get your bloody damned shit together, Tell.” Newcomb’s voice dropped, a conspiratorial hiss between them. “…and just in case you feel like getting mouthy…”
Something suddenly thrust into Cillian’s vision.
Newcomb’s phone.
And there, on the screen…
A picture of Cillian.
In the alley outside a club. Night. A man—Lane, the Grindr hookup—pinning Cillian’s wrists against the wall, kissing him, Cillian’s face already red and swollen and bruised. A sick feeling lurched through him; he jerked his gaze up from the phone to Newcomb’s smug face, his heart rabbit-punching his ribs. His empty plate and drink bottle fell from his fingers, thudding to the floor as harshly as his blood thudded in his veins.
“H-how…?”
“I know a few people who know a few people in the tabloids, and they’ve been curious about you since you came into town. You’re never really alone in Hollywood. You’d think you’d be experienced enough to know that by now.” Smirking, Newcomb lifted his chin. “One word from me, Tell. One word. And this is all over international headlines. ‘Kiss and Tell: Cillian Tell Likes Men Who Beat Him.’ I can make you the next Armie Hammer with one phone call—only you won’t have a millionaire family and a mansion in the Caymans to fall back on.”
“You…you wouldn’t…”
“He won’t,” came from behind them in a deep growl, and this time the shadow that fell over them was longer, colder. “Because I don’t think he wants to know what happened to the last man who fucked with my boyfriend.”
Boy…wha…?
Cillian barely had a moment to try to process that before Brendan shouldered around Newcomb firmly, shoving him aside and taking up a firm stance next to Cillian.
Right before looping one strong, iron-hewn arm around Cillian’s waist and jerking him in firmly against Brendan’s side, fitting him into the tight-muscled contours of Brendan’s body. Brendan stared at Newcomb with hard, challenging eyes.
While Cillian just stared at Brendan, his heart less rabbit-punching now and more just a sledgehammer smashing around wildly everywhere.
What. In the absolute fuck. Was going on?
Newcomb sneered—but pulled his phone back almost defensively, curling it back to guard it against his chest. “The two of you?” he scoffed. “Since when?”
That’s what I’d like to know!
“Like I’d give you that story to sell to your sleazy friends.” Brendan raked Newcomb with a sharp once-over. “I let you walk away yesterday. You come near him again for any reason other than work…we’re going to have a problem, Newcomb.”
The entire room was watching them by now, conversations hushed, Cillian’s frantic pulse louder still as he stood frozen, trapped, while Newcomb narrowed his eyes and stepped closer.
“Are you threatening me, Lau?” he whispered, words caged between them.
Brendan never let Cillian go, and it was only the anchor of his presence that kept Cillian from bolting at the crawling feeling of Newcomb so near. Somehow without moving Brendan seemed to grow larger, the vibrant force of his personality taking up enough space to make a shield around them, this hovering and protective presence.
“Yes,” Brendan whispered back. “Do something about it. We’ll see who loses out. I stay quiet only because of Cillian. The second he lets me off my leash, you’ll only wish the world cared about tabloid splash pages. I think you owe Cillian a little more gratitude, Newcomb. Tell him you’re sorry…and then thank him.”