Chapter 42
ASPEN
As the car I requested sped through LA to the airport, I pulled up my banking app in my phone. I swiped away my tears. I’d been all-out crying by the time I was picked up down the road from the party.
I had no idea how much a one-way ticket back to Montana was, but it was going to make a dent in my savings. Which was already pretty small. But I couldn’t stay here. Not with Luke.
Not with what I just figured out about him. About what he admitted.
He planned our meeting at the bar in Hunter Valley.
Planned it!
He used me to get access to my mother, just like everyone else. God, I changed my name. Hadn’t talked to them in a decade and she still was the reason men wanted me.
I thought Luke was different.
I thought I’d changed. I thought I’d cleansed myself of my stupidity when I buried that ring. But no. That in itself was just another dumb Aspen move.
My banking summary came up. I blinked, wiped the tears because I thought I read it wrong.
No, I hadn’t. Holy shit. I’d never seen that much money in my account.
At some point, Luke had deposited fifty thousand dollars through a mobile payment service. The one I used for the studio. The one that listed it as a payment option on my business website.
As Luke promised, I had the money to pay Duncan.
The huge sum of money that he gave me for the “in” with my mother. For the film role he just got. It was nothing to him. Chump change, and I was the chump.
I felt cheap. Used. Bartered.
Dumb.
Mallory was right. He was an amazing actor.