Chapter 20
TWENTY
I cradle my face in my hands, the headache spreading from the top of my skull to the base of my neck and all the way down my spine.
It’s been three days of this fucking crap, and no amount of meds or booze is touching the ache. It’s rooted down into my bones. How much more of this can I physically take before I break down?
I deserve it .
Every time I start to feel sorry for myself because of the pain, I remember how I treated Empire. I remember the sick fucking things I had to do when I lived just to survive.
I shudder, memories of the past rising up to swarm me, sending a cold sweat dripping down my collarbone to my abdomen.
Life has changed since then, but has it really? From starvation and death to money and just as much shame as before. Maybe I doomed myself with what I’d done, but I never meant to doom Empire as well, and knowing I hurt her is the worst kind of punishment for a man like me.
I tried to do better. She paid the price. I might be doomed for the rest of my life, but I refused to let her be lost along with me. How do I make this right? Is there any chance I even can?
My head throbs in time with my useless thoughts.
The last time I slogged through the trenches for Stanic, I was younger. Much younger and a thousand times more foolish, obsessed with my own upward mobility. Willing to do whatever it took to get the hell away from him and make a life for myself.
He’d gotten me off the streets, and I took it from there.
Only this time, I willingly dove right back in to protect someone else. He accused me of being altruistic, and he wasn’t wrong.
And maybe it is.
I reach for the cold compress I set aside and forgot on the cushion next to me. Or maybe I’d grown a pair at last. I hurt her, but the pain will fade, and in time, she’ll accept it as the right decision. Empire will grow into the woman and the actress she deserves to be without me stifling her.
I wince at the bite of cold from the compress.
If I stay like this, I’ll only sink deeper into my own thoughts. Every step I’ve taken gets me closer to my goal of keeping her safe. And I’ll keep working toward that, no matter how hard it is for me.
I stand and stride into the office at my apartment, tugging at my shirt collar as I walk. It’s too damn tight and seems to make the headache worse.
My workspace here is impersonal. I don’t need decor to distract me. Once inside my office, I drop down in the chair, feeling sixty rather than my actual age. How have I made it this long without dropping? Sheer stubbornness? A curse?
It’s impossible to know.
Sighing, I toss the compress away. Fucking useless.
And I’ve got to be back on set in the next hour. These days of watching Empire are brutal. I let go for good once I took stock of the situation and realized the damage I caused. But seeing her for hours on end is torture. My head howls, my face aching and my teeth throbbing in their sockets.
I deserve this .
More, for taking advantage of her. Knowing how she’d act once I took her virginity and doing it regardless of the consequences.
If Bennett and Olivia were alive, they’d slaughter me, with pleasure.
They’d take every ounce of emotional pain I caused their daughter and pay it back with physical agony.
My cell buzzes with an unknown number. The vibration on the sleek desktop has me jumping out of my skin, and the headache doubles in intensity. Who the fuck…
These days, it’s more important to answer and risk it being one of the Mafia goons than ignore the call and face the consequences later. With a groan, I grab the phone, gripping it hard enough to crush the glass screen, and press the answer icon.
“ What ?”
“Mr. Ortega?” a male answers after a disquieting pause. “This is Brian McKinlay from the Los Angeles Times .”
My gut plummets with his cheerful greeting. Fucking parasites. They never quit.
“This is a private number.” I lean back in the chair until the hinges squeak.
Brian gulps audibly before continuing with false bravado, “We understand, Mr. Ortega. As such, we will not give it out to our competitors.”
“Not what I said, Brian.”
Another pregnant pause as I let the threat land.
“We here at the Times understand you manage Empire Stone.”
The man has balls, I’ll give him that. My business number is readily accessible to any of the press who want to reach me in my office downtown, but not this number. Did he try the office and get Celeste, who readily handed out private information?
Impossible to say.
“We wondered if you had a comment on Empire and her new boyfriend? Our next piece features her heavily,” Brian continues in my silence. Utterly oblivious to the turmoil inside me.
Her…what? Wait…
I sit up straighter in shock. I expect him to try and pry into her life, to ask about Wretched , but never in my wildest dreams would I think about a boyfriend. When and who and what the absolute fuck is going on?
My silence is practically an admission of guilt, and my stomach goes cold even as heat scalds the inside of my throat. Every meager meal I managed to get down today threatens to come up.
“What is this now?” I growl.
Brian clears his throat. “Miss Stone was seen several times this past week with Jacob Kessler. The rumor mill is circulating, and you, as her manager, are in the perfect position to offer a comment as to the validity of these statements. Should I send you the photos we’re planning to run with the comments?”
I balance the phone between my face and shoulder, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Keep in mind, Mr. Ortega, we are going to press regardless.”
Before I have a chance to tell him to shove his story up his ass or that her dating life is none of my fucking business despite being her manager, the phone buzzes.
I hold it away from my face and press the speaker icon before unlocking the screen. The agony in my head triples and spreads through the rest of my body. This is just as bad, worse, than the photos Celeste took of the two of us together.
Because here, Empire is smiling again. It’s real and vulnerable and reaches her eyes in a way I haven’t seen in far too long.
In the first photo, she’s seated across from Jacob in some tiny café with her head tilted back in laughter and her eyes closed. Genuine happiness is evident on her face. And Jacob, the rat fucking bastard, has his hand over hers. Touching her. Grinning like a goddamn fool with their coffee hardly touched. The small details stick out to me, and I stare at the screen in rapt attention.
Cold.
Tired.
Sick to my stomach.
In the second one, they’ve locked eyes, a stolen moment with something taut and new and tenuous strung between them.
“Well?” Brian prompts, his voice tinny through the phone. “What say you? A match between Kessler and Stone will be the talk of the town, and we want to get our piece out before the other gossip rags catch wind. Do you have anything to say about the pairing? Is this real or some kind of publicity stunt?”
The hurt is keen and bright and devastating. But if I take too long to answer, Brian will infer all kinds of meanings. Things that have the potential to get out of hand if I’m not careful.
I take a beat to compose myself and make sure I’m not shaking before I tell him, “They are dating each other casually to see where things go.” Professional , Marcus . “This is new, so they want their privacy maintained. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
Talk about pain.
Never in my life has anything managed to cut me at the knees so completely. A killing blow. The axe has always managed to swing above my neck and miss.
Jacob and Empire?
I knew it. From the night of the viewing, I sensed there was interest. I can tell when another man comes sniffing around something that belongs to me. No, not belong. Never again.
I want her to be happy. I knew this would happen eventually. At least Jacob is her age. A more suitable match than I will ever be. I’m terrible for her.
I’ve proven it time and again. There are no boxes I check on the list as a potential partner.
Outside of bringing her pleasure with my head between her legs, I offer nothing good to her life. Not to mention, I obliterated any opportunity to touch or taste her again after the things I said.
“If you’re going to run this piece,” I tell Brian, “I want it done tastefully. Whatever you need to know about Empire’s new relationship, you will get through me. I want approval before its release.”
My teeth threaten to clatter together and crack, straight down through my jawbone. Empire’s new relationship . Saying it out loud feels much less real than hearing the words inside my head. My mouth is nothing but a piece worked by someone else. I can’t escape myself in my own mind.
Reality skews sideways.
The picture of her and Jacob having coffee has seared itself behind my eyes, so even closing them offers no respite from the torture. I have no fucking right to get upset about it, none.
It’s better this way, for everyone. Empire deserves to flourish in a place where she’s not crushed under my fist, even if I’ve had to make the fist in order to keep her protected.
Jacob is handsome and a rising star in his own right. He’s stable, according to rumors, and even a perfunctory investigation into him showed nothing other than him getting caught with some pot in high school.
The guy is so vanilla the worst thing he’s done is smoke a joint.
Empire deserves good things, and Jacob is in a much better position to provide them for her. Primed, in fact. I hate him. I hate him more than any enemy waiting in the dark with a shiv.
Look at her smile .
I lift the phone screen in front of me again and only realize then that Brian is still chatting away merrily.
“Would there be any way to get an interview with Miss Stone herself?” Brian presses, a note of desperation seeping into his voice. “The press has been all over the story of you and her, yet it would truly put us ahead of the pack if we get a statement from her about her relationship.”
“No,” I growl. “She is not to be approached, either. The best you’ll get is going through me.”
Fat chance any of the media outlets will actually do as I ask. They’re opportunists. They’re prepared to swoop in the moment they scent a fresh death and peck away at the carcass of the subject until there’s nothing but dried-out bones.
The last shred of hope leaks out of me with every exhalation. My head throbs in time with my heart.
“It was worth a shot to ask. Thank you for your time, Mr. Ortega. I know I speak for everyone when I say we’re very excited for the release of Wretched .”
I hang up on him.
In the next beat, I’ve got the liquor bottle in hand, hurling it across the room like some sort of rocket shot into space. It careens into the opposite wall and smashes into pieces, every shard sharp and designed to slice through the pain.
But it won’t end. And it’s my fault. It’s all my fault for having feelings for her in the first fucking place and losing control over myself. A grown-ass fucking man and I never learned to keep my hands to myself. Or share.
Freedom seems like a really small thing until you lose it. This is something Empire needs, for her own good and for her growth. How can I begrudge her a chance to be free?
I’m nothing but a cancer. Bringing her down into the darkness where she has no hope of evolving into the star she’s meant to be, the woman she’s meant to be. She’ll wither if I keep her.
The walls close in around me. The air grows toxic, heavy, eating away at my insides every time I fill my lungs. Rather than stick around, I grab the phone and shove it into my back pocket like it’s burning me.
Olivia and Bennett’s place always held such happy memories. Now it holds death and murder. Those brief moments of happiness with Empire will have to last me a lifetime.
There’s more booze in the living room.So much booze I can drown in it if I want to. And right now, I really fucking want to.
Suddenly I’m in my own living room, with my own cabinet of amber bottles staring down at me. Maybe if I’m drunk, I’ll be able to talk myself into giving her up, for good.
Or maybe I’ll just fucking die.