Chapter 5
EMMA
I make a vow as I cross the slick floors of the LAX private terminal: no matter how many times I do this—this awkward dance of sunglasses and beanies and heads-down hustle through the gauntlet of strangers who pretend not to stare—I will never get used to the way a secret becomes currency here.
Every single person in this glass-walled waiting room has heard at least one true story about another person’s marriage, or medical history, or sexual preference, and the real power isn’t in broadcasting it––it’s in those subtle, loaded looks.
The glares I get while carrying my own overnight roller case, as Asher strides half a step ahead with precise, agent-bred confidence and the air of a man who’s done some dark things for a living.
Our PR team’s itinerary is on my phone, open as a talisman in my right palm—land in Austin, go straight to the Four Seasons, change for the SXSW junket at the Stateside Theater, and then a dinner with Eclipse Run’s director and a busload of film critics who could, in theory, help or destroy me.
But before any of that, before I can even blink myself fully awake, I have to navigate this hour of Los Angeles morning with Asher Dixon, step-for-step, in sync.
He’s setting the cadence, and I’m just nimble enough to keep up.
We’re supposed to look like lovers, but more often, we resemble a pair of well-dressed prisoners in the world’s blandest escape film.
He flashes his signature grin at the man in the avocado suit behind the check-in desk.
The effect is so immediate and so practiced that I almost miss my own cue.
Still, I manage a kind of soft smile—yes, that’s right, I’m the ingenue in the leather leggings, the one with the fresh blood-and-milk complexion from yesterday’s facial, and yes, you have seen me on every billboard west of Highland.
No, I can’t tell you the ending, because even I haven’t seen it.
“Morning,” says Asher, with the casualness of someone greeting his neighbor at the gym.
The attendant does a little micro-bow, presumably the first of many humble gestures in a morning full of celebrities who look at him like he’s a lamp. “Mr. Dixon, Ms. Rowan. Plane is ready; your pilot is already prepping the cabin.”
I glance at the manifest on the counter, and there it is: Doyle, Ciaran, in crisp Helvetica, directly above our names.
That’s either a fun surprise or an evil omen, but just as I’m registering the spike of anxiety, Asher has already handed over my carry-on, as if it’s his sworn duty, and that’s the problem with him—he makes the act of taking care of me look both reasonable and necessary, which means I have to spend half my energy appearing not to notice.
As we walk the corridor toward the tarmac, he leans in. “Smile. Someone’s definitely watching.”
“Smile, or smile?” I ask, reaching for my best cool-girl nonchalance.
His breath is so close that it brushes my hair. “Both, probably. Did you sleep?”
“I did. Briefly, I dreamed I was late to a press conference and forgot to wear shoes. You?”
“I dreamt we eloped to an uncharted island and the only restaurant served nothing but kale and existential dread.”
For a half-blind second, I almost reach for his hand.
That’s the effect he has on me: the tendency to believe he’s the only other real person in the simulation.
I shake it off, blinking as we step onto the runway, where a candy-red Gulfstream G450 gleams in the sunlight, and next to it, Ciaran Doyle does his best Bond villain impression.
He stands at the top of the metal steps, huge smile on full display, with one hand raised like he’s planting a flag, and the other clutching a glass of what might actually be Champagne at 8:17 in the morning.
The effect is both gross and magnetic, as if he crafted his own entrance in the mirror until it felt like a punchline.
“Hello, angels!” he calls, and I’m briefly reminded that Ciaran, for all his preening, is the only person in the cast who is both exactly as he appears and, in some deeper way, entirely untouchable.
The G450’s staircase is both steep and glossy, and I’m one misstep from tumbling onto the tarmac like the clumsiest ingenue in America, so I focus on my feet, not meeting Ciaran’s eyes until I’m level with him.
He kisses both my cheeks, a gesture so European and artificial that I wonder if he learned it in finishing school, and then he does the same to Asher, minus about an inch and a half of meaningful tongue.
Inside, the jet looks less like an airplane and more like an oligarch’s garden shed.
Everything is leather, glass, or brushed gold, the color palette somewhere between “Romanian nightclub” and “Scandinavian spa.” Ciaran’s duffel bag is tossed lazily across an entire loveseat.
He gestures us to sit, pours both of us a drink, and then launches into a monologue about the “savage bleakness of Texas as a metaphor for Hollywood’s primitive id. ”
This is a prelude for what comes next, which is him turning to me and saying, “You know, Em, I heard you shredded your old reps. That takes balls.”
Asher sinks into the seat beside me, crossing his arms and radiating composure, but there’s a slight tension in his jaw—a muscle I’ve only seen flexed once before, when the director cornered him about reshoots.
I take a sip from the glass—definitely not juice, definitely too sweet. “It was more of a budgetary decision, honestly. They were never big on spreadsheets.”
Ciaran laughs, leans forward, and stares hard until I match his gaze. “No, really, though. I like it. You’re not like the others. You’re dangerous.”
The word hangs in the air, juicy as a secret. I glance at Asher, expecting some kind of comical retort, but he’s silent, watching me instead of Ciaran. Not out of boredom or disdain—he’s looking at me like I’m a moving target and he’s calculating the exact second to fire.
The jet shudders as we taxi, and I realize we’re already airborne, already on our way to Austin, and every second, the space is getting smaller.
Ciaran launches into an impression of the film’s director—dead-on, devastating, and brutal as only a true friend can be.
Asher, oddly, doesn’t laugh. He sits, glass untouched, knees angled toward mine, but arms still folded.
It’s only when Ciaran excuses himself to use what he calls “the finest flying water closet in the continental United States” that I turn to Asher.
“Okay, what is it?” I whisper.
He shrugs, intense and unbothered at once—a yoga pose of a man. “He flirts with everyone. Don’t mind him.”
“You’re acting like you mind,” I say.
He glances out the porthole, fingers drumming on the armrest. “I mind when I think he might get a reaction out of you.”
I tilt my head, not buying it. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound jealous.”
He breathes a laugh through his nose. “Only of the attention.”
I lean into him, close enough that I can see the day’s first stubble on his cheek, the tightness at the bridge of his nose when he frowns. “Isn’t this the point? We’re supposed to look like a couple.”
He turns, and for once, the cool is gone. “That’s easy, Em. I just don’t want you to become another of his stories.”
I don’t know what to do with that, so I let it hang, and the next half-hour passes in a series of high-wattage banter volleys between Ciaran and me, the two of us performing for each other while Asher mostly watches.
There’s a lull, though, when Ciaran finally falls asleep, mouth comically open, limbs sprawling like he’s star-fished onto the world’s thinnest bed.
I reach for my phone, flipping through headlines about the festival, the premiere, the movie.
There’s already a BuzzFeed gallery of our “electric chemistry” and a Reddit thread about whether I’m the “real” Emma or just an algorithm-driven construct.
I shift in my seat, and Asher, eyes still closed, rumbles, “That stuff will kill you.”
“Not if it gets me the next job,” I reply, but he’s not joking.
“Let it go for the afternoon.” His hand finds mine, not as a calculated move but as something unconscious, like he’s catching a glass before it rolls off a table.
“This is the last day before everything changes, you know?”
I squeeze his hand, surprised by my own relief. “You mean before they start talking about how I’m too short to be in an action movie?”
He laughs, softer now. “You’re going to be great.”
Our hands stay linked through the entire landing, his thumb occasionally brushing my knuckles, even after Ciaran stirs from his nap and smirks, “Careful with that hand-holding at 30,000 feet—the air gets thin, but the implications get thick. It’s just a stunt.
Or is it?” He wags his eyebrows and starts to annoy me.
I stay silent through the limo ride, shell-shocked by the clear blue Texas sky and the way my stomach has begun to coil tighter.
The Four Seasons is both elegant and bizarre, as if someone tried to build a European castle out of limestone and air conditioning.
The lobby is jumping with film people, too-loud publicists with cracked iPhones, critics in ironic hats, and the occasional masked actor trying to move incognito.
My suite is on the twentieth floor, and inside, my wardrobe has already been laid out: three possible outfits for the morning, four for the evening, all in shades of “please notice me, but not too much.” A hair and makeup team is scheduled to arrive in twenty minutes.
My PR handler is texting every six seconds, reminding me:
Be real with them, but remember, you’re a brand now.
I want to ask her how I can be both, but I don’t think she’d understand.
There’s a knock at the door. I half expect it to be Asher, but instead, it’s room service—coffee and a pastry so artful I’m sure someone had to take a class to make it. I pour the coffee, wait for the jolt, and only after the first cup do I realize how much my hands are shaking.