41. Erika
ERIKA
The path from Stefan’s villa to the production offices ran past the resort’s front gate, which meant running the barricade—photographers three deep, lenses up before she’d cleared the hedgerow.
“Anneliese! Is it true about Bradley?”
She kept her sunglasses on and her mouth shut.
“Are you and Stefan over?” That one stayed with her past the gate.
Lily stepped into her path.
“You look like you haven’t slept in three days and you’re walking toward Martin’s office before call time.” Lily’s arms were crossed. “Pick one of those things to explain to me.”
“Script notes. He wants to go over some changes before we roll.” She gave Lily an easy smile—Anneliese’s smile. “You know how he gets before a big sequence.”
“I know exactly how he gets. That’s why I’m standing here.” Lily dropped her voice. “I’ve watched him do this, Erika. The private meetings. The early calls. He finds the person on set who’s most vulnerable and he makes sure they know he’s the only door in the room.”
The truth pressed against her teeth—the photo, the note—and she swallowed it like she’d been swallowing it for days, because telling Lily meant Lily would try to fix it, and Martin would bury her for trying.
“Spite and caffeine, Lil. That’s all that’s keeping me vertical right now, and if I stop walking, I’m going to fall over.” She squeezed Lily’s arm. “I’ve got this.”
Lily studied her for a long moment.
“When you walk out of that office, you come straight to me. Not Stefan, not your villa. Me.” Her hand caught Erika’s wrist. “And if something feels wrong in there—anything—you leave. You make up an excuse and you walk out. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Lily let go, and Erika kept walking. His window glowed through the trees—blinds open, light on. He’d been there for hours.
The door was unlocked. It would be.
Martin’s office was smaller than she’d expected. Movie posters on every wall, a desk that had seen better decades, and the man himself behind it in a chair that sat six inches higher than the one he’d left for her. He didn’t stand when she walked in. She hadn’t expected him to.
“Close the door.”
She closed it and sat down without being asked, because waiting for his invitation meant giving him the satisfaction of granting one.
“You’ve handled yourself remarkably well this week.” He leaned back, watching her the way he watched his monitor. “The press, the barricades, the timeline questions. Most people would have cracked. You haven’t.”
“It’s been manageable.” Anneliese’s voice. Anneliese’s composure.
He repeated the word, then leaned forward.
“You’re not sleeping, though. I can see it—here, and here.
” He gestured vaguely at his own face, mapping her exhaustion onto his features.
“And your hands haven’t been steady since Tuesday.
You hide it well on camera, but I watch the playback at half speed. ”
Half speed. He’d been watching the dailies at half speed to study her tremor.
“I’ve also noticed Stefan.” His tone shifted—still warm, still conversational. “He’s been very attentive. Walking you to set. Making sure you eat. Showing up at your villa at hours that would be difficult to explain to a photographer.” He smiled. “It’s touching.”
She kept her face neutral.
“The thing is, Anneliese—” He opened his desk drawer and placed a photograph between them, smoothing one corner with his thumb. “I don’t think Stefan knows what he’s protecting.”
Bradley and Anneliese. The Malibu wellness center. The original.
“I paid quite a lot for this.” He tapped the photograph once. “More than Stefan Cruz was willing to spend to make it disappear.”
Stefan had tried to buy the photo.
“He almost managed it.” Martin’s voice carried admiration. “His people were fast. But I’d already had a relationship with the outlet for years. These things come down to trust.”
She forced the mask to hold. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying anything.” He picked up the photograph and studied it. “I’m telling you that the woman in this photograph is not the woman sitting in my office.”
“That photograph has been questioned by every outlet that ran it. Olivia’s team confirmed the timestamps were—”
“Erika.” He said it softly. Not Anneliese. Erika. And the floor dropped out from under her. She didn’t react.
“Same face,” he said, watching her like he watched playback.
“Same bone structure. But the posture is different. The walk is different. And there’s a detail that took me a while to confirm.
” He set the photograph down. “Anneliese has a scar on her left hand. Childhood accident—broken glass at a birthday party. Beau Monde did a piece on it. She shows it in interviews, touches it when she’s nervous.
” He paused. “You don’t have that scar.”
She didn’t look at her hands. Wouldn’t give him that.
“The photographs were what did it.” He smoothed the corner of the photo with his thumb. “Two women in two places, twelve minutes apart. I bought the original before Cruz’s people could get there and I looked at it properly.” He tilted his head.
“If you believed any of this, you would have called the studio weeks ago.” She heard her own voice—steady, flat, Anneliese at her most dismissive—and held onto it. “You wouldn’t be sitting in a private office telling me about it over coffee.”
His face shifted. Not anger—interest.
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said since you sat down.” He leaned forward. “You’re right. I didn’t call the studio. I didn’t call the insurers. I didn’t call the press.” He folded his hands on the desk. “Ask me why.”
“Because you want something.”
“Because I want you to understand exactly where we stand.”
He let the silence do what most men would have used volume for.
“I could end this with a single phone call.” He said it like he’d say let’s try that scene again—mild, professional, inevitable. “You know that.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
She watched the question land. For just a second, the flicker of a man who’d expected her to crumble and hadn’t gotten it yet. Something she could use.
“Because I don’t want to.” He spread his hands on the desk—the posture of a man offering a deal. “Ending this serves nobody. Your sister’s career is destroyed. My production loses its lead. The studio eats fifty million dollars. Everyone loses.” He paused. “I don’t like losing.”
“So what do you want?” She kept her voice steady. Her hands were shaking under the desk where he couldn’t see them.
“I want what I’ve always wanted. A great film. A lead actress who gives me everything she has.” His gaze held hers. “And a working relationship built on mutual trust.”
The words sounded reasonable. That was the worst part. Sitting in this office with the morning light coming through the blinds, they sounded like something any director might say to any actress on any production.
Almost. Except for the photograph sitting between them. Except for her real name in his mouth, like he was unwrapping something.
“I’m going to suggest something,” he continued, “and I want you to hear it as the opportunity it is. Private sessions. Just the two of us. Working on your performance—the places where you’re still reaching, still compensating for the training Anneliese had and you didn’t.
” He tilted his head. “You’re talented, Erika.
Genuinely. But talent without guidance is just potential, and potential doesn’t finish a film. ”
She heard what lived underneath the words—the thing he’d never say plainly enough for her to repeat to anyone—and cold settled into her chest.
“And if I say no?”
“I’d be disappointed.” He smiled, the kind that said I’m offering you something precious and you’d be foolish to refuse it. “And I’d have to reconsider whether this production can sustain the risk you represent.”
Not a threat. Not quite. Just a reasonable man expressing reasonable concern about a reasonable risk, and if she said no, he’d make a reasonable phone call, and her sister’s career would be over.
She should say something. Fight back, negotiate, tell him she’d burn the production down before she’d let him touch her.
“I need time.” She said it evenly. Not a yes. Not a no. The only door she could see that didn’t lock behind her.
“Of course.” He smiled like she’d accepted a dinner invitation. “Take the weekend. Think about what kind of experience you want the rest of this production to be.” He picked up the photograph and slid it back into his drawer. “I’ll hold onto this. For safekeeping.”
A knock at the door.
Irritation crossed his face—then smoothed into the public version of Martin Blackwell.
“Yes?”
Lena stood in the doorway, clipboard against her chest. Her eyes found Erika in the chair and her face moved—quick, barely there, the look of a woman who’d seen this room arranged this way before.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Blackwell. Lighting rig issue—insurance inspector needs you on set.”
Martin’s expression reset so smoothly she almost missed the seam. “Of course.” He stood, buttoned his jacket, and turned back to Erika with the public version of his smile. “I think Anneliese and I are finished here. Aren’t we?”
“We’re finished.” She made the words come out whole.
“Excellent. Enjoy the weekend.” He walked out without looking back. Lena followed. The door closed. Erika was alone in Martin Blackwell’s office with the photograph locked in his desk drawer.
She made it to her villa on muscle memory, the lock that took three tries because her hands wouldn’t hold still. She got the door closed and the deadbolt turned. Then she was on the floor, back against the door, knees against her chest.
The crying started before she knew it was coming—ugly, airless, the kind that doesn’t make sound because there’s no breath behind it.
Stefan’s name lit up her phone on the tile beside her. She watched it ring, watched it stop, watched the screen go dark.
She could call Stefan back. One tap and his voice would be in her ear—steady, warm, certain. He’d come. He’d hold her. None of it would change what Martin had asked her to do or the fact that she had no idea how to stop him.
But somewhere around midnight, still in yesterday's mascara, she found herself standing outside his door with no memory of the walk over.