And tolerate a dipshit for the duration of filming.
I give in. “When do I have to be back in L.A.?”
“They’re not starting for a few weeks,” she chirps excitedly.
But I’m more than a commodity. And damn it, I’m hurt. Mortified. A flesh-and-blood woman with a heart sliced clean open. Something that needs tending before it bleeds out.
I don’t say any of that because one, it would be a waste of breath.
And two, no one cares.
Least of all, Myra.
“This is smart,” she says, satisfied and full of wisdom. “Without it, who knows. Your career might be on life support. It’s just what you need.”
“What I need is a break, or my sanity will be on life support.” I pause. “My oxygen mask first, Myra. Just this once.”
Silence. The kind that crackles through the line while she recalibrates.
The Spin Mistress needs a minute.
“I can buy you a little time.” Then, instead of barking orders or backing me into a corner, she softens. “At least tell me where you’ll be. So I know you’re safe.”
Gabe warned me not to tell anyone where I was going.
But he couldn’t have meant Myra. She’s my manager.
And a friend.
Kind of.
Sometimes.
Just not when I’m bleeding all over the headlines.
I puff air through my cheeks. “New York.”
“New York?” Myra shifts gears like a NASCAR driver on Red Bull. “Why didn’t you say so? New York is perfect. We can get ahead of this. Press tour, morning shows, red carpets. I’ll pull some strings, get you front and center, and?—”
“No.”
“No morning shows?”
“No. None of it.” When the guy across the aisle points a cell phone at me, I shove my ball cap lower and whisper, “I’m not doing a PR parade. I’m unplugging. Licking my wounds without a camera crew shoved up my ass.”
By now, Ten Toes is staring.
Myra sighs, long and theatrical.
I can practically hear the click of her Louboutins echoing across the polished marble of her Hollywood Hills home office.
Though calling it a home office is like calling Beyoncé decent at karaoke.
Home implies comfort. That place is an empire.
Twenty thousand square feet of marble, glass, and quiet judgment. A red light spa, two infinity pools, a screening room no one actually uses, and a wine cellar curated by a man named Étienne who only wears black.
The thought of her electric bill makes my head hurt. And God only knows how much of the Pacific Ocean gets sacrificed and desalinated just to keep her orchids hydrated and her fountains emotionally fulfilled.
