Chapter 1 Eight Years Later
“You miserable, cocksucking tramp!”
The words reverberated off the walls of the cramped edit room, hitting a part of Anne’s inner ear that made her cringe. Her editor was unfazed, though—David just paused the video and turned to stare up at her from his keyboard, the light from his monitor illuminating his apathy.
“Well?” he asked, his voice monotone.
“You have to bleep it.” Anne tried not to sound too condescending, but after editing over fifty episodes of Divorce Divas together, she had assumed the answer was obvious.
“Which part?”
“The cocksucker part, David.”
“Yeah, but like, the whole word? Or just the cock part, and leave the sucking?”
Anne blinked back at the screen. Huh.
As she stared at the suspended image of Denise Sinclair, one of the series’ biggest stars, frozen mid-motion as she was about to throw a glass of champagne at her former best friend, Marsha Beaumont, two questions popped into her head.
First, why was this the most mentally stimulating conversation she’d had in months?
And second, was “cocksucker” one word or two?
The door to the edit room swung open before she could ponder an answer to either. The harsh fluorescent light of the hallway silhouetted Theo Travers’s broad frame in the doorway. His usual easy smile had been replaced by a grimace as he swept a hand through his dark tousled hair.
Theo was the showrunner on Divorce Divas and was an objectively attractive man.
A few years ago, Anne had even harbored a small crush on him, but it had fizzled almost as quickly as it started, more of a distraction from the monotony of life than any real affection.
But she still appreciated how good he was at his job.
A master flirt, he excelled in any negotiation, while his inflated ego meant it took a lot to rattle him.
Which was why his look of concern right now was so unfamiliar.
“Anne. Can I grab you for a sec?” he asked.
Anne straightened. Thanks to years of her father’s overspending, she had implemented a strict “time is money” policy at Kellynch Productions, which meant that edit sessions—and their expensive editors who were paid by the hour—were not to be interrupted unless the building was on fire.
“Is the building on fire?” she asked.
“No no no, nothing like that.” Then he paused, considering. “Well, it’s an emergency, but David can keep editing. I think.”
Anne turned to relay the direction to David, but the editor’s attention was already back on the screen in front of him as he offered her a limp salute.
Theo nodded to the hallway and Anne followed him, smoothing the front of her carefully pressed gingham button-down as she mentally prepared herself for whatever was coming.
After working at her father’s production company for the past five years, she had faced a litany of odd—and, at times, mildly salacious—reality TV emergencies.
She was sure she could handle this one. No problem.
Near the end of the hall, Theo stopped, looking both ways to make sure no one was listening.
“You’re working on that Sinclair fight, yeah?” he asked, almost whispering.
Which one? Anne wanted to ask. The entire series had been defined by the number of fights they could fit into twenty-two minutes, and over the past few years Denise Sinclair had become the top supplier.
Whether it was threatening to kick her ex-husband off their private jet while flying at thirty thousand feet or screaming at her sister-in-law for sleeping with her boyfriend, her fights were always the most vicious. And the most popular.
Still, Anne knew the one Theo was talking about.
The fight to end all fights. The entire production staff had been talking about it for the past week.
Denise had thrown that glass of champagne at Marsha, one of the other stars, during a birthday dinner at an upscale restaurant on the Jersey Shore before lunging at her from across the table.
It had been shocking, but moreover, it had been violent. Denise had managed to pull out three of Marsha’s hair extensions and give her a bloody nose before the crew could separate them.
“Yeah, we’re trying to piece together the footage to make it look less…” Anne tried to find the right word. She wanted to say bloodthirsty, but instead said, “intense.”
Theo nodded, even as he winced.
Anne paused. “What?”
“I just got a call that Marsha is pressing charges. All the footage is now evidence, so we have to send it over to the police. She’s threatening to sue the network, too.”
Anne let her head fall back as she groaned.
She should have anticipated this. Marsha had called the police from the floor of the restaurant with an ice pack on her nose, screaming about her new bald spot.
Denise had threatened to quit the show if she pressed charges.
But to be fair, that was the usual order of things for these fights.
Once the cameras were gone, Denise never brought it up again, another one of her brushes with the law that was swept under the rug.
Apparently not this time.
“I know,” Theo said. “And of course the network is losing their shit and micromanaging the entire thing, putting us on hiatus until—”
“Wait,” Anne said, straightening again. “What do you mean, hiatus?”
“Well, the fight was the main story for our last three episodes, right? But we can’t finish the episodes until we’re allowed to touch the footage again, and that could be months.”
The numbers began to add up in Anne’s head. Kellynch was already running on minimal staff, but there was no way they could afford to keep everyone on while they went dark. Then there was the rent for the office, the editing equipment, her own income…
She reached up, smoothing her blond hair even though she knew it was still securely fastened in a ponytail. It was a nervous tic she had had since grade school. “Shit.”
Theo nodded. “Yeah.”
“Divorce Divas is the only show we have in production.”
Theo leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Well, look on the bright side. Hiatus means vacation.”
“Theo—”
“Imagine it. You, me, a beach in the Virgin Islands…”
If Anne wasn’t so overwhelmed, she probably would have laughed.
But right now, all she could think about was how to triage the situation.
Her brain went into overdrive evaluating every possible plan, ready to start giving instructions to Theo, when her phone buzzed to life in her pocket.
She pulled it out to see a picture of Bianca Russell on the screen.
“I have to take this,” she said, offering Theo an apologetic smile.
He threw her one back as she ducked into an empty editing room and shut the door.
“Hi, Mom,” she said as she collapsed into the lone chair in front of the empty desk.
“Hello, my love,” Bianca answered. “How are you?” Her voice sounded even and upbeat, which should have been a good thing, but after Anne had witnessed her use the same tone to fire two different management companies when she was the co-op president of their building—one of whom was a six-foot-tall man named Guido with supposed ties to organized crime, who left her mother’s office in tears—it only added a level of stress to every interaction.
“Fine,” Anne replied. “At the office dealing with a few… things.”
Silence filled the other end of the line, and she could almost see her mother’s pursed lips, the slight arch of her perfectly shaped eyebrow as she worked to stay quiet about the world’s worst-kept secret.
Anne let herself collapse into a nearby chair. “How do you already know what’s going on here?”
“A little birdie told me,” Bianca mused. “Your father and I may have divorced years ago, but many of the players remain the same, don’t they?”
Of course. Anne should have known. Bianca had helped Anne’s father start Kellynch Productions decades ago, thanks to her family’s money that got it off the ground.
And even though her mother vowed to never touch television production again after the divorce, her name was still listed as an executive producer for Divorce Divas—and on the royalty checks, too.
“There’s so much to do, I don’t even know where to start,” Anne sighed, rubbing her temples. “Maybe I should call her and see if I can’t smooth things over a bit.”
“Oh, please,” Bianca said with a dry laugh. “You never liked her, anyway.”
Anne frowned. It was true she’d never been Denise’s biggest fan, but that seemed like the least of their worries now.
“Maybe, but this affects a lot more people than just her,” she replied. “No one on the production staff gets paid when a show like this goes on hiatus.”
“The show is on hiatus?” Her mother sounded genuinely surprised.
Anne paused. “Isn’t that why you’re calling?”
“No, but this is delicious. You know, I don’t usually believe in karma, but—”
“Mom,” Anne cut in. “If you’re not calling about the show, then what are you calling about?”
“Well, I don’t know the details, so I shouldn’t say anything,” Bianca replied in the same tone as before, the one that belied an impending apocalypse. “But if I were you, I’d go home and have a chat with your dad about his latest ex-wife.” Then she let out another dry laugh.
Anne heard yelling even before the elevator arrived on the eighth floor of the Uppercross.
“You cannot be serious!” her father proclaimed as she opened the front door of their apartment.
Walter Elliot was pacing through the living room, his arms crossed over his silk paisley shirt.
At one point in his life, he had been incredibly handsome—tall, with striking blond hair and a sharp profile—but years of trying desperately to hold on to his looks via a series of collagen injections and thread lifts had turned the sixty-year-old into a taut, somehow bloated version of the original.