Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
T he light dies in her eyes.
An integral part of what makes Empire so arousing, so vital, is her joy. Even in the worst experiences, she perseveres, and she smiles.
Which made her depression after her parents death so hard to handle. She’d buried herself in her room under her blankets and traded in her smile for a permanent frown.
Over the last few weeks, things have changed again.
And I’d been happy.
She was happy.
I have no business holding her. I have no business kissing her while breaking her heart.
“So that’s it, then? You say we’re together, so we are. You change your mind, and it’s done? I don’t get a say in it?” She’s frozen and trembling beside me.
“Yes.”
“Stop it.” It’s a relief to see her heartache shift into anger, and feel the bite of her nails in my skin when her fingers curve into claws. “Stop it right now.”
“Why do you think I’ve been keeping my distance?” I push her away and stalk over to the bottle of liquor I left on the kitchen island.
Grabbing it, I choke the neck, wrench off the cap, and chug. Waiting for her to launch herself at me and attack the way I deserve.
She’s not alone in her pain.
There are too many sharp objects in the kitchen if this takes a turn for the worst. I might deserve a knife in the gut, but I don’t want to feel the sting tonight.
Rather than wait for her to realize it, too, I stride down the hall toward the living room. The rustle of clothing marks how swiftly she follows me.
“Tell me what changed, Marcus.”
Her demand slides through my skin like a well-thrown spear.
A part of me dies, but I’ve got to tell her. It’s the only altruistic thing I’ve ever done, and it slices me open, causing me to bleed out on the floor. No matter how badly it hurts me, it’s worse for Empire. Now.
I led her on and took her virginity when I had no fucking business doing so.
Later, she’ll see this is the right move for her, and I’ve got to be the one strong enough to make it.
“We can’t be together.”
Every word is a gunshot going off, and despite the liquor burning down to my gut, nothing helps. I’m dead.
The numbness spreads from my toes up my ankles toward my torso.
“You’re being a—” she starts, her voice clogged, wet. Close to tears she has every right to release.
“You can stop with the name-calling. I know.” I drop down on the cushions, legs splayed, arms across the back of the couch.
If there is a book of curses, my picture is in there somewhere. I’m all of them and more for what I’ve done to her.
Maintaining my death grip on the bottle, I turn to face her, expecting fire to go along with her rage.
She tips her head to the floor, and the blanket of golden hair hides her expression.
“You know what?” she whispers. “I’m done.”
I hide my jerk of surprise with a sneer. “You’ve finally gotten my point.”
I brace for impact, ready for whatever horrible thing she has to say that I definitely deserve.
But nothing comes. She says none of the curses or names I expect, only slinks back toward the threshold, maintaining a wide berth. Like she can’t stand to be in the same room with me anymore. My gaze trails her down the hallway toward her room, and in the silence, the click of her door closing, followed by her lock snapping into place, is loud.
Like the crack of a bone breaking.
I down the rest of the bottle on my way to my room, so near to her I hear her sobs even through the thickness of the walls.
I had no right to get involved. I knew it going into this, and with every thrust inside her tight little pussy, I dug a deeper hole for myself. Breaking her heart had always been part of the plans because it was inevitable.
The mattress absorbs me when I flop back, staring at the pristine ceiling.
A terrible mistake has been made.
It’s carved out a void inside me and left everything I am in her tender hands, but she has no idea.
I did what I have to do .
Why does it feel this fucking horrible?
There’s no chance of me sleeping, not even drunk. Every time I roll over, I’m ready to get out of bed and cross the hall to tell her I’m sorry.
It’s the one thing I can’t do.
As expected, I drag myself out of bed before the sun rises. The coffee machine will have to be my lifeline for the day.
The guards I’ve hired to escort Empire to the studio will arrive at six. Which gives me about an hour to get to my office and figure out the rest of Parker’s absolutely fucked budget.
Seeing the entryway to my office sans Sherry has taken a little getting used to. Normally Celeste shows up within a few minutes of my arrival. Whether it’s planned or one of her happy accidents, it’s impossible to say.
It’s no surprise when I hear a knock at my office door seconds after settling in my chair. Celeste is ballsy and efficient, I’ll give her that. She saunters inside without waiting for me to give the go-ahead and poses in the doorway with her hip cocked to the side.
“Time is running out, you know,” she starts.
Today she’s wearing a sheath dress the color of pewter, sleek lines cut to emphasize her slender frame.
It’s the last thing I want to hear. She’s the human equivalent of the hourglass, and I’m painfully aware of every single grain falling.
“Zip the goddamn lips, Celeste,” I mutter, booting up my laptop. “I’m not in the mood.”
She pays my words no attention, slinking forward to perch on the side of the desk, a beautiful parrot. “Stanic wants to move up the timeline for release and get the movie out sooner. He’s absolutely adamant.”
“We can’t do that.” I refuse to look at her. “The movie is progressing as fast as it’s physically possible to go. You can’t rush these things unless you push the crew to work twenty-four hours a day.” Which goes against all labor standards.
“Stanic doesn’t give a fuck what you have to do in order to get things done. You’ll do it, and you’ll pull it off with a flourish.” She bites out the last word, and I imagine her teeth gnashing in the air between us.
I slowly push the laptop away from me and say, “You know what? Take your threats and shove them right up your bleached and puckered asshole. Both you and Stanic. I’m doing my best.”
“Well, it seems your best isn’t good enough, is it? Stanic has such faith in you,” she replies.
“And your tone says you have anything but faith.”
“I’ve seen you lose it too often to maintain a high opinion.”
“I also rebuffed you from my bed,” I snap, steepling my fingers. “Not like it bolsters good relations when you’re bitter.”
Celeste lets out a round of laughter, and I finally look up. Her face hasn’t changed.
“I’m not going to hold it against you because you have poor judgment. There are plenty of other men who know how to use their cock and are happy to kneel at my feet. If you’re not willing, then more will move up to take your place.” She sniffs delicately, unbothered. “My sole concern is making sure you get things done, which doesn’t appear to be the case, I’m afraid.”
“Back the fuck off.”
I knew Stanic would ride me harder because of my absence, knew he would take it as a personal affront to how I managed to escape his organization. If this was punishment, then I’d bear the weight of it, as long as it kept the spotlight off Empire.
Pushing up the deadline puts pressure on her and every other person who already works hard.
I refuse to be the one to crack the whip on them.
Tension snaps between us, and my eyebrows arrow down into a glare. Celeste meets it with a mask of ice, and neither of us is willing to yield.
“I’ll do what I can,” I hedge, “but I’ll make no promises. And if Stanic has an issue with the way I run things, then he can come down to my office again and take it up with me himself.”
“It is my job to make sure you’re the one who doesn’t back the fuck off, Marcus,” she bites out. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve allowed yourself to be distracted by some young, tight cunt. Don’t bother denying it.”
In the next beat, she grabs her phone and opens the screen, then holds it out for me.
“Shall we try things my way, or will you continue to dig in your heels?” she adds.
My chest constricts, lungs squeezed of every atom of air. “What the hell have you done?”
Celeste has pictures of Empire naked. Vulnerable. She glides her finger across the phone screen to show the next set, and now I’ve entered the picture, Empire plastered to my bare chest. In the next picture, her legs are wrapped around my waist, and I’ve got two fingers sliding into her.
“If you don’t move things up, then I’ll leak all of them,” Celeste says. “It will ruin her perfect Hollywood princess image. The one you’ve done your best to rebuild after those scandalous articles about the two of you. It wasn’t true then, was it? But now it is. You just couldn’t help yourself.”
I stare at the succession of pictures in horror, unable to look away, a car crash of my own making. The covert photographs move from foreplay to the actual act, where I’ve got Empire on my lap, riding my cock.
Celeste has captured every instance of one night of fucking.
When she reaches the end of the slide show, she clicks a button, and the screen turns black.
“Had to have a taste,” she says in an undertone. “Didn’t you?”
I’ve never hated another human being as much as I hate this bitch. “You’d stoop to this? Asking for the impossible and threatening innocent people? She has nothing to do with this. It’s between me and Stanic.”
“We are in the business of ensuring our assets remain safe. It is in your best interests, and hers apparently, for you to do exactly as we ask.”
“And Stanic couldn’t come talk to me himself?”
“He has bigger issues than you. Which is why he’s dispatched me. You’ll do as we say, or these pictures will find their way to every single media outlet in this area and across the United States.” She pauses. “Is that what you want?”
Fury is a poison inside me, but what the fuck choice do I have? None. They’ve maneuvered me into a corner and used the only leverage that will make a difference. Her . I couldn’t give a shit about me. If they wanted to leak pictures of me like a porn star, then by all means. But this?
“Fine,” I reply through gritted teeth. “I’ll do what I can to rush things along.”
Shooting her, getting rid of her, is the only thing I want.
“Remember, if something happens to me, it will all come crashing down around you.” Celeste hops off the desk.
“You read minds now?”
She doesn’t look back, only swishes her ass on the way to the door, the fabric of her leather skirt tight enough for me to see every curve. “Who knows? Maybe I can. Maybe not. Do you really want to risk it?”
My fingers itch toward the piece I’ve got hidden underneath one of the drawers for easy access. If I risk it, they hurt Empire.
If I pull the trigger, they’ll do more than physically hurt her, although surely that will come, too. Stanic specializes in mental and emotional torture. He’ll break her down into tiny pieces before he goes for the throat.
“So I thought,” Celeste continues with a wink. “You might think you’re still the man from the streets, Marcus, but there isn’t enough of him in you to disobey.”
No, there isn’t. I worked too damn hard for the old Marcus to return, to put everyone in jeopardy and burn the world around him to the ground.
This time, they’ve got me shackled and chained down. Because I’m not willing to risk her.