Elijah sniffled. “What were you thinking? What are you trying to prove? What’s the point of it? It was over ten years ago. Just let it go.”
Shep grabbed a tissue off the nightstand so Elijah could blow his nose then tossed it aside. “I just needed to be sure, rabbit.”
Elijah swiped at his cheeks. “Sure of what?”
“Sure he wasn’t going to hurt you or anybody else ever again. I was looking for something that would make Leonard Medford step down so you could take the role if you wanted it without being afraid.”
Elijah shook his head. “You don’t get it. Some people in Hollywood are just untouchable. He’s one of them. Just let it go. I don’t need the role. Hell, I don’t even want it anymore. I don’t care about the money. I just want some peace. That’s all. I want to put the past behind me and look forward. Please.”
Shep studied Elijah’s face. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes. I don’t want to waste any more energy on him. I’m so tired, Sam. Sometimes I feel a thousand years old. I don’t think I can fight this fight.”
Shep gathered him into his arms. “All right, rabbit. If that’s really what you want.”
It wasn’t a lie. Shep would stop digging, but that didn’t mean Webster and Calder would. Shep was no longer in charge of protecting Elijah’s body, just his heart. The others didn’t need to take care with Elijah the way he did. Besides, Shep didn’t believe David Cane had just stopped hurting children any more than he believed Leonard Medford had stopped paying off his son’s victims. But he’d leave that to the others. Elijah was and always would be his only priority and it was becoming clearer by the moment that Shep might have removed the splinter, but he’d left the wound wide open.
Elijah’s phone vibrated across the table for the seventh time in an hour. He rolled his eyes and declined the call, feeling an odd sense of satisfaction as Lucifer’s face disappeared once again. The deadline the studio had imposed was closing in, and now that they were back in Hollywood, she grew more frantic with each passing day as it became clear Elijah wouldn’t change his mind.
Since his talk with Shep three weeks ago, he’d had a lot of time to think about the actor he wanted to be and the films he wanted to attach his name to, and he realized he had no interest in huge budget films with lots of flash and no substance. He was lucky. He didn’t need money. His grandfather had left him enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life and maybe a few lifetimes after that. Together, he and Shep had enough money to walk away from Hollywood and never work again. That was a luxury few people could claim.
Leaving Hollywood was the right decision, he felt it in the marrow of his bones. The thought of being far from this place and choosing just the roles he wanted, when he wanted, quelled the constant jitters in his stomach, soothed the ache in his soul that never went away. Elijah wanted to get out of LA, maybe buy a small farm somewhere nearby. He didn’t want to return to Montana; there were too many closed minds in the small town where he’d grown up. He wanted to find a place where he and Shep would feel accepted, where they could just be. That was his goal. That was his new dream. And he wasn’t changing his mind about it, not for his mother or anybody else.
Elijah glanced up to check on his costar’s progress. Behind the soundproof glass, Demi sat on a stool with their movie running on a big screen and a pair of giant headphones over her ears, speaking her lines into a microphone as her character mouthed them. It was one of the tedious parts of filmmaking-the housekeeping bits at the end that made everything perfect.
His phone buzzed twice, and Elijah sighed. He’d set up an alert to notify him anytime Robby’s name showed up in a story. It went off at least once a day now, sometimes twice. He pinched the bridge of his nose as a throbbing started behind his right eye. Robby was a mess since their breakup, but he was not lacking in publicity.
He clicked on the alert and settled deeper into the leather sofa as he read of Robby’s latest antics. Elijah’s gaze went straight to the photo of Robby’s latest tattoo, some phrase tattooed over his heart in another language. That was his fourth tattoo, at least. Besides his previous piercings, he had also pierced his right nipple and was wearing sweatpants sagged low enough to read the brand of underwear he wore and a white cap sat sideways on his head, far enough back for Elijah to see his overly styled hair now had highlights.
The story told of how Robby had spent the night in the company of rapper Easton West partying at Voyeur. The article referenced Robby making out with a girl until the wee hours of the morning. A girl? What the fuck? Robby was a gold-star gay and proud of it. This kid was a mess. Where was his PR team? Why was Jasmine letting him destroy his image like this?
The sound engineer’s lilting British accent pulled him back to reality. “That’s a wrap for Demi. I’m going to take ten, mate, then we’ll get you in there too.”
Elijah glanced up at the older man with his light brown eyes and braided hair. “Thanks, Malik.”
The man gave a wave as he exited the room. Demi still sat on the stool, her phone in hand. Elijah stayed where he was, not really in the mood to socialize. More than anything he wanted to get this done so he could get home to Shep. Wyatt and Charlie were coming for dinner and this would be their first time meeting Shep as Elijah’s boyfriend, not his bodyguard. The thought sent a shock of pleasure through him.
Elijah jumped as the studio door banged open, and Lucifer fell into the room as if the hounds of hell were on her tail. As if they weren’t already on her payroll. The thought made him smile as did her frazzled appearance. Her hair was a mess, like she’d driven there with the top down on her BMW and her red dress looked rumpled and messy.
She stabbed the air with one pointy black nail. “I will not be ignored by you, you petulant, spoiled shit.”
Elijah didn’t give her the satisfaction of reacting. “Hello to you too, mother.”
She seemed taken aback by his use of the word mother. He didn’t blame her. He hadn’t referred to her as such in more than a decade. She recovered quickly enough. “Mark says you told him you’ll pay the money for breaching your contract. He said you wanted him to send an official letter stating your intention to back out of the biggest film franchise since Star Wars. I told him he must be having a stroke because only an absolute fucking lunatic would be crazy enough to walk away from this opportunity.”
“Then grab me a straitjacket, mother, because I’m not doing it.”
“Stop calling me that,” she snarled.
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’m. Not. Doing. It. Lucifer. That’s not the kind of film I want to make. I have no interest in doing any more flashy, big-budget movies. I’m going to focus my attention on indie work for a while.”
She snorted, her mouth contorting in a way that made her look unhinged. “Indie work? Are you joking? Indie work is what people do when nobody knows their name, or they’ve been exiled from Hollywood and they’re trying to act their way back from the dead. You’re twenty-two years old. You can’t resign yourself to the LA graveyard so quickly. You think there will always be one more opportunity, but it’s just not true.”
He shrugged, enjoying his mother’s performance. Shep was right. Elijah owed her nothing. “I’m willing to risk it.”
“Is this about Leonard Medford? Is it? Because, if so, you’re being naïve. That man tried to save us. The money he gave us was meant to keep us comfortable while you recovered. At least it would have ifyour grandfather hadn’t ripped you from my arms like some fairy tale villain and left me penniless here in Hollywood.”
Elijah’s fury was instantaneous, flaring so quickly his whole body flushed. “Wow. Talk about some revisionist history, Lucifer. I know for a fact that grandpa sent you money every single month. I know he allowed you to stay in his house in the hills until I was an adult. I know you only came to find me because he died, and his checks stopped, and your money source dried up.”
