Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
He frowned. “I swore I told you that.”
“No. You didn’t,” I bit out.
“This movie will make or break my career. We needed something to push it over the edge. We brainstormed ideas, and she said the easiest thing would be to Mr. & Mrs. Smith the movie.”
I was still reeling.
Margery, my boss and the owner of Poise, had told my husband to sleep with another woman. Then, she had looked me in the eye when I went back to LA afterward. She’d treated me like family. All while stabbing me in the back.
“English, say something,” Josh said.
“What do you want me to say? Margery betrayed me. You betrayed me. I do this for a living. I am very, very good at my job. We could have come up with a solution,” I said, lethally calm. “Even if all of that wasn’t true, you still fucked someone else.”
“But I don’t love her. I love you.”
“No, you don’t. You love yourself.”
Josh took a step back. He looked me over as if expecting me to break for him. As if he thought that he’d somehow tamed the wild thing within me. But I wasn’t tame. I’d just pretended to be housebroken. And the old me could come out to play at the drop of a hat. Don’t kick a beehive.
“It’s really over,” Josh said. “You’re really done.”
“I was done the second you told me you’d slept with her.”
He nodded, grimaced at the pain in his neck. “Fuck. I don’t want it to be over.”
“You should have thought about that before agreeing to sleep with your costar for money.”
He opened his mouth, presumably to contradict me, but I held up my hand. Even as my heart broke all again, I silenced him. I didn’t need this.
“Just go, Josh.”
He looked like he might try to say something else. But at the end of the day, he was a coward. He nodded once at me and then left the apartment.
All the strength left my body, and I collapsed right there on the kitchen tiles. How had everything gone so horribly wrong?
I buried my head in my knees and tucked my arms tight around my legs. I rocked back and forth a few times. The last thing I wanted to do was cry. I refused to shed any more tears for Josh Hutch.
Whatever we’d gone through recently, I had loved him. I hadn’t wanted a divorce. I’d thought we’d live happily ever after. And now, I was on the kitchen floor, trying not to cry.
Whatever his bullshit excuse, I found it hard to believe that Margery would do this. And at the same time, considering what I did for a living, it all made perfect sense. Except the part where she would burn one of her best employees to help one of her clients. But even then, I didn’t know if she had a heart. If she’d care that it’d broken mine. She wanted her clients happy. She never cared who got hurt in the interim. Even if it was one of her own.
She’d carefully cultivated it so that it wouldn’t seem like she’d done it, too. I hadn’t taken Josh’s comment about a publicity stunt at face value. Even working as a publicist the last five years, I’d been blind to the idea that someone would do this to me. When I had covered up enough scandals to know better.
I dabbed at my eyes and took a deep breath. I couldn’t fall apart now. Not because of Josh. Not because of Margery. Not for anyone.
What I needed was answers. And I damn well was going to get them.
27
English
Winnie answered the video chat almost immediately. Her long black waves were up in a neat bun at the crown of her head. Her dark eyes wide and glamorous with eyelash extensions for days and perfect winged eyeliner. Her beautiful British accent cut through the line as she smiled broadly. “English, what a treat to see your pretty face. I was just thinking about you. Our cross-country connection grows stronger every day.”
But I wasn’t smiling.
“Did you know about Josh?” I asked unceremoniously.
She furrowed her brow. “What about Josh?”
“Did you know?”
She was silent for a second. A heartbeat that felt like an eternity.
I didn’t want Winnie to know. I didn’t want my closest friend in this business to have played me and then made me do work for her in the city. It would be too much. But Margery had done it. I couldn’t know if Winnie had.
“I don’t know what you’re asking,” Winnie finally said. “Did I know about the affair? I knew when you told me. I did try to salvage the pictures, but once they went viral, there was little to be done.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. There was no guile in Winnie’s voice. Nothing on her face to indicate that she’d lied. We’d worked together long enough for me to be able to detect it. Plus, Winnie didn’t bullshit. I’d seen her lie her ass off, but when someone genuinely wanted the truth, she always gave it. Aloof and indifferent. She was a hard ass but loyal. I’d been banking on that, but it also terrified me.