Neither of Them Is Simple
One sentence from Avery Hayes was all it took to shut Caleb Sterling up.
He really didn't have the guts for this.
His uncle was still tearing the city apart looking for Avery.
Just last night, he'd called, pushing Caleb to speed up the search.
Avery had clearly crossed a line, and the old man had sworn he'd make her pay.
Caleb had been stalling, claiming he couldn't find her, but he knew that excuse wouldn't fly much longer.
Not after today. Avery had just put herself on blast, dropping her location on X.
The thought alone was enough to make Caleb give her a warning. "My uncle's people are everywhere, so you need to be careful. He never lets anything go. You cost him big, and he's not just going to drop this."
Avery, casually flipping through scripts on her end of the call, didn't sound worried.
"I know he'll come looking for trouble, but didn't I send you that file? If he wants to make a move, he's going to need time and resources he doesn't have right now. Besides," she added, her voice coolly confident, "does he even dare? Once that information I sent you gets out,
he won't just back off, he'll be praying that I stay safe and sound."
She never started a fight she wasn't prepared to win. The moment Felicia Moss made her move, Avery knew her location would eventually get out. So when she ran into Caleb outside the studio and heard Warren Sterling was trying to get his son, Bryce, out on medical parole, she set her plan in motion.
Why else would she have sicced that corporate watchdog account on them?
Her goal was to bleed Warren's resources, tying up his legal and PR teams so he'd be too busy to come after her.
Think about it: a company getting slammed online, one day for safety violations, the next for a food-safety scare.
With that kind of public scrutiny, the slightest misstep would trigger a firestorm of government investigations that could shut them down for good.
Warren was under a microscope. He couldn't make a move against her in secret without it blowing back on him.
This was her insurance policy. For the time being, not only would Warren not dare to touch her, but he'd have to actively protect her.
Lorraine had threatened her at the hospital, and the video was still circulating online.
If anything happened to Avery now, the Sterling family would be the first to blame.
And on top of everything, she had recordings of both Warren and Lorraine threatening her.
Recordings she'd sent to Caleb.
And Caleb was just waiting for his uncle's side of the family to crash and burn. If something happened to Avery, he wouldn't have to lift a finger. He'd just release the recordings, and the Sterlings would be finished.
Hearing the calm certainty in Avery's voice, a chill snaked down Caleb's spine. "So you gave me that file with all this in mind from the start?"
This woman was terrifyingly smart. He'd thought she just wanted him to cause some trouble for his uncle, not that she was setting up a multi-layered trap.
How did her mind even work? She was methodically cornering his uncle, step by patient step.
He'd have to be more careful around her, he realized, and make damn sure he never got on her bad side.
Avery had no idea Caleb was developing a healthy fear of her, and she wouldn't have cared if she did.
She was just as wary of him. After all, Bryce had an affair with Caleb's girlfriend, yet somehow still trusted him enough that Warren had him handling sensitive family business.
That alone showed how deep Caleb's own games ran. He was anything but simple.
The call ended quickly. Avery spent the rest of the day sifting through a mountain of scripts for guest spots, managing to pull only a few that felt right. She was determined not to be typecast as a pretty face with no talent, so she only picked roles she knew she could handle.
One was a lawyer in a period drama, but the character was a man.
At five-foot-seven, she figured with some shoe lifts and makeup to sharpen her features, she could pull it off.
It all came down to whether Leo Foster had enough pull to get the production to even consider it.
The other three were a mistress in another period drama and two roles as a doctor in contemporary shows.
She picked the mistress role because the character was a beautiful blind woman, which meant she wouldn't have to worry about conveying emotion with her eyes.
It was a clever workaround; even if her gaze was vacant, it would fit the part.
More importantly, she knew exactly how to play a blind person.
Back at the orphanage, one of the younger girls had been blind, and Avery had lived with her for nearly ten years before leaving for high school.
Thinking of the orphanage made her pause, and a pang of guilt hit her.
She'd forgotten to send money this month.
The rural orphanage she grew up in had barely scraped by, relying on occasional donations and money sent back from kids like her who'd grown up and gotten jobs.
She realized that besides her monthly transfer, she'd almost never gone back to visit.
She never had the time before, but maybe now, she could.
Sighing, Avery pulled out her phone and sent fifteen thousand dollars to the orphanage's official bank account through Venmo.
It was the contract termination fee from the asshole who'd stolen her last role.
Now that she was becoming a public figure, she couldn't just wire money to the director's personal account anymore; everything had to be official.
By the time she finished, it was nearly evening.
Avery sent the four script summaries to Leo, asking him to reach out to the production companies and let her know what he heard back.
He was clearly busy, not replying until after eight o'clock.
When his message finally came through, Avery was in the middle of a tense conversation with her new agent about her weight.
The agent, a woman named Diana Marks, had finally added her on a messaging app that evening.
Diana was thirty-eight and used to represent a celebrity who'd gone to prison for a DUI.
The scandal had hit her hard, and she'd taken a six-month hiatus abroad, only coming back to manage Avery at the personal request of Julian Shaw.
Her first move after connecting with Avery was to ask for her height and weight, immediately declaring that she needed to slim down.
Avery glanced down at her arm, then pinched the flesh at her stomach, baffled.
"Diana, I'm five-seven," she argued. "One twenty-one isn't fat."
As a doctor, she'd been constantly on her feet, and her high-stress job had left her lean and toned.
She was solid muscle, not soft. If anything, she felt like she needed to gain a few pounds, not lose them.
"For a celebrity on camera, a hundred and fifteen pounds is the absolute max for your height," Diana said sternly over the phone. "That's how you look slender and defined on screen."
Avery wasn't backing down. "How about we wait until you're back in the States?" she bargained. "Once you see me in person, you can decide if I really need a weight-loss plan."
Diana considered it for a moment. "Fine. Alden Pierce and I will be in California the day after tomorrow."