Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
E mpire is barely hanging on—that much is clear.
She’s ready to bolt, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can say to make her realize things are going to be fine now. The movie is over, and she’ll be untangled from the webs I wrapped around us.
A new project is exactly what she needs to find her footing. My gut clenches. Without me. With Jacob at her side. A glance at the title page has pieces clicking together. I haven’t worked with the production team, but I’ve heard of them, along with rumors of Kessler’s involvement with this project.
A goddamn romantic comedy with Hollywood’s newest “it” couple as the stars.
Fuck me straight to hell.
“If this is the project you want, then I’ll set up the meetings and get the contracts signed for you.” I swallow hard. The expression on her face is breaking what’s left of my heart into small pieces. “I’m happy you’ve found something you love to work on next.”
It’s the final nail in the coffin.
She bites down on her lips to keep the sob inside, but I hear it anyway. I blink, and she’s rushed out the door. The ache in my head gives another twinge to remind me it’s still there, and I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. Squeezing until my bone threatens to break, and still, the agony isn’t enough to distract me from the constant migraine of the last two weeks.
A breakdown is imminent. It’s a familiar face just outside the door with its fist raised to knock, waiting to be let inside. I’m not sure how I’ve managed to hold it off this entire time.
Too old for this .
Too old for any of it, most of all breaking another heart.
I sink down into my chair, the wheels screeching backward with my sudden weight. The title information of the script she handed me blurs together.
If it’s a project she actively wants to do, then there’s no way in hell I’m going to stop her. It was hard enough to get her rallied around this project and what everyone had deemed to be the perfect role for her. This film will be a success because it has to be.
Anything else she does, I don’t give a shit if it’s a star maker or a vehicle straight into a flaming garbage can. If Empire is happy about a film, eager even, then it’s something for me to encourage.
She’s moving on, and I have to let her go.
I’m going to try my damnedest, for her sake.
I groan, swiveling around to face the wall of thrift store paintings someone had the bright idea to bring in to brighten up the space. Like I give a shit. By the time I pry myself from the office, most of the cast has dispersed.
After the cutthroat pace of the last two weeks, I don’t blame them.
We wrapped a few minutes after midnight, which brought us to approximately five minutes past the schedule Celeste and Stanic forced on me. I’m calling it a win. A hard to come by, claws out, scrambling to get out of a hole kind of win.
Only a few of the lighting crew remain around the set along with the security I hired.
“Mr. Ortega. Congratulations.” One of the boom operators tips his head at me.
I incline my head toward him, briefcase clenched in hand, on my way outside.
The air inside is much cooler compared to the oppressive heat of the evening, and sweat immediately breaks out on my lower back and under my arms as soon as I step outside.
Halfway to the car, I stop. Where the hell am I going?
There are still some loose ends to tie up, but they’re going to have to wait for morning when I’m fresh. When there’s a better chance of meds working to eradicate this headache. I’m behind the wheel and speeding by the time I decide where to go, cutting right toward the hills and the big house rather than my place.
I’ve been a real piece of shit lately, choosing to hide out and drink myself into oblivion instead of watching over Empire myself. A coward’s way. And yet, every morning I wake up, I haven’t died of alcohol poisoning.
The night is silent when I cut off the engine, parked in the front of the house with only a single light glowing from the first floor. Empire’s in the living room.
There’s no hint of the black car that brought her home or of the men hired to accompany her. Which is good because if they’d stood out, then they wouldn’t be doing their jobs properly.
My shoulders sag, and my bones grow heavier than iron as I push my way out of the driver’s seat. Life suddenly shifts into one of those nightmare scenes where the distance between you and the destination grows no matter how fast you run. The front door is the end goal. I’m too far away to reach it and too tired to run.
The key slides home in the lock, and another twist has me inside the foyer. There are no more fresh flowers on the table there. Olivia used to insist on them, and after every movie she wrapped, she’d go for the biggest and gaudiest arrangement she could find.
Every project saw her trying to top herself, and I always looked forward to seeing what five hundred dollars’ worth of glitter might buy.
Seeing only an empty vase tugs at a place in my heart, still raw after all this time.
Bennett should have been here, clapping me on the shoulder for a job well done and popping open a bottle of champagne for what his daughter accomplished.
If he only knew the things I’d done to her, the things she’d begged for—
Empire’s voice lifts in a bubble of laughter from the left. I force one foot in front of the other and pause in the doorway, leaning heavily, the house holding me up.
“It’s going to have to be a great restaurant to coax me out. I’m pooped! I’m not even sure I’ll want breakfast.” She’s flopped on her back on the couch with her legs on the armrest, crossed at the ankles.
She traded Alicia’s skimpy wardrobe for one of her own, and from this angle, her pert nipples poke against the fabric of the camisole.
I don’t blame her for ditching the bra, but fuck me, those nipples have my mouth watering.
“Okay, not tomorrow, then. Or is it today?” She stops and laughs again. “Oh, okay, you’ll give me a day to rest.” She sniffs, and her next round of giggling turns into a snort. “You’re a saint, Jacob.”
The name lances me through like a flaming sword and cauterizes me even as it slices me in two. Empire’s on the phone with that fuck right now. Did he call her, or did she race to let him know she finished and she no longer has to deal with her tyrant overlord forcing her to redo her lines? She’s free to be his girlfriend in earnest now.
Does it matter?
Rage turns my blood into acid and scalds me all the way down the hallway. The walls warp and blur, everything in front of me turning insubstantial. My palm maintains contact, guiding me toward the office.
She’s on the phone with him, and she’s laughing.
It’s what I want. If I repeat it enough, I’ll believe it. The dim voice inside my head is drowned out by the roar of agony, and the second I step foot inside the office, I’m swinging. I grab the lamp from the nearest side table and smash it down on the table’s surface, cracking the wood.
I can’t keep myself together. Even with the logical part of me, minuscule and shrunken and hardly alive, I lose it.
It’s not my space. It’s Bennett’s, the decor untouched from when he used to spread his scripts across the desk, and we would discuss every angle deep into the night. The agony of his loss, something I still haven’t processed, adds to my anger.
I’ll never speak to my friend again. I’ll never be with the one woman I love, the one I had no right to touch in the first place.
I deserve it. I’ve made my personal hell a reality, and I deserve to drown in the squalor.
Grinding my teeth, I grab the books from the shelves and shove them off in a wave. They slam, one right after the other, taking the knickknacks and picture frames with them.
My body moves, destroying everything I touch, while inside, I’m howling. Raging against the fucked-up bullshit my life has become.
Become . I scoff and grab one of Bennett’s old awards and send it flying toward the framed painting above his desk. The glass cracks in the corner where the frame splits apart.
My life has always been next to worthless, a series of terrible things heaped on top of me. When I managed to gain some status, I thought I’d made it. Even when the one thing I desperately wanted remained out of my reach.
I’d gained prestige, power, money.
I’d gotten away from Stanic and his gang.
Now I’m right back where I began, only to be tormented by Empire finding her happiness. Safe, exactly as I’ve always wanted her to be.
Stanic can’t touch her.
I’ve done everything he and that ice bitch of a right-hand woman demanded of me. I should be happy.
With a growl, I bend to grab the award, gripping it and rearing back to toss it through the French doors. A hastily covered gasp is the only thing that can—and does—stop me.
Slowly I turn around to see Empire standing in the doorway, shocked and horrified at what I’ve done to her father’s office.
She’s got the phone pressed to her ear.
“Yeah, it’s the television,” she says in an undertone. “Nothing to worry about. I’m fine. An action flick.”
The look on her face is anything but fine. It’s betrayal and sorrow and confusion. The same expressions she always portrays when she sees me these days. The only thing missing is the fury, and I have it covered for the both of us.
How can I not touch her? God damn me for this, but if I don’t have my hands on her immediately, I’ll die.
There’s no logic around, none to even remotely cling to as I drop the award and reach for her. She’s pliant in my hands when I grab her by the waist. Her lips tremble, her breathing heavy, as I lift my index finger to my lips to get her to not say a word.
Silently, I swing her toward the desk and bend her over its bare top, my hand along her spine. She shivers underneath me.
“Keep talking,” I growl beside her ear.
“Tell me more about this place where you want to have brunch. I’ve never heard the name before.” Her voice shakes when she finally speaks, and she coughs lightly to clear her throat.
Then she sucks in a breath when I reach around to unbutton her shorts.
I slide them down her legs, ordering her to lift one and then the other, and kick the fabric aside. Her bare ass is primed in front of me, her panties already soaked through.
“You think they can make their world-famous tiramisu with nondairy milk?” she jokes.
She slaps a hand over her mouth when I glide two fingers along her slit, shoving her panties aside to touch her. Heat rolls off her in waves. She’s already throbbing, not quite wet enough yet, but I know exactly where to touch to get her to drip for me.
Her breath catches in her throat, and she turns her low moan into a laugh. “Just thinking about the dessert,” she assures Jacob.
I drag her panties down to her ankles, and she tosses them aside before I kick her legs open wider, spreading those cheeks to see her beautiful shaved pussy. Her knees tremble, and she locks them as I work on her cunt. I drag my thumb along her clit until she trembles for a completely different reason and then slide a finger inside her.
Reaching around with the other hand, I massage her tit, working the globe in my palm and pinching her nipple in time with my fingers.
My cock hardens at the way she moves, the way she breathes, the way she shifts to look at me over her shoulder.
Shit, she turns me on.
My aching cock presses against my pants, and I unzip them, letting them drop.
Empire gasps, but she hasn’t done a thing to tell me to stop, either with her words or with her body. She does nothing to dislodge my fingers.
“Tell me more.” Whatever she urges Jacob to talk about is working.
A low murmur of sound comes through the cell.
Cupping her neck, I nudge her back against me, my dick nestled between her ass cheeks. Her nostrils flare, but she’s quiet as I urged.
Still holding her breast, I grab my cock, slicking it against her cunt. She’s wet now, ready for me to sink inside her. I angle it at her entrance and push inside her, too hungry to wait any longer. My cock stretches her, but any thought of her discomfort disappears with my harried thrusts.
Christ, she’s tight.
Tight and hot and everything.
She whimpers as I adjust to grip her hips, keeping her in place as I push into her. Then, grabbing her shoulders, I fuck her harder. My hesitation gone and my lust eating me alive. I fuck her bent over the desk, trying my best not to hurt her.
Heaven is touching her again. Heaving is feeling her wrapped around my dick and throbbing. I pull out only to slam back inside her, shoving my cock so deep I might cry.
She’s got an incredible pussy and a better mouth. But talking to Jacob on the phone takes one of those holes out of play. I shake my head, biting my lower lip, ready to explode at the perfect feel of her. I slam into her again and again, and my thrusts quicken as my orgasm looms.
She shudders against me, making only the smallest mutters to the man on the other end of the phone. He might have her, but he’ll never match me. She’ll always remember me.
I hold myself deep inside her and shudder over the edge, my cock twitching and her pussy spasming around me. Milking out every last bit of cum.
“Jacob? I’ll have to call you back.”
I’m barely aware of her ending the call as I collapse over top of her, kissing the back of her neck and relishing the touch I’ve denied myself for the last month.
A moment of tense silence spreads into ten, then twenty, neither of us willing to move.
Empire pants beneath me. “Marcus? What was that?”
I force myself to come back to logic and sanity, which is just as hard as pulling my cock from her body. That was inexcusable. That was—
“Goodbye,” I say. “I’m setting you free for good. Guess I just couldn’t resist one last taste.”