Yeah. It’s not just the embarrassment—thoughmy god, did he have to let her film it?—it’s the other thing. The part where I thought he kind of liked me…a little? And if there’s a vein of jealousy running through it all, well that’s not something I’m ready to look at head on. I clearly misunderstood what happened up there.Clearly.
I’m the fool who liked him too much. Hell, the contract even stipulated that there’d be no sexual relationship between us. Of course, it also made extramarital affairs explicitly against the rules. By signing the damn thing, we both basically agreed to having no partnered sex.
At least we were allowed to masturbate. I assume.
Never mind that he’s starred in all my fantasies lately. Doing, as it so happens, a few of the things he did to that woman in the video, an irony which is a little too sad for me to process at this moment.
Slapping my hands to the cold marble counter, I make my breathing slow, force my emotions down, and do my best to look completely unbothered by the whole thing. This calm act is all I have right now.
I can’t cry. Crying would show weakness and I amnotweak. Twyla Hernandez doesn’t do weakness. No unrequited crushes, no unwise attraction, no feeling sorry for myself. None of it.
You don’t survive this industry by giving in when things get tough.
I’ve survived by using every challenge as a stepping stone. The mean kids at school, the constant pressure to change my looks and my body, to be thinner, less Ecuadorian, more American, not to mention the type-casting I thought I’d never get away from. I’ve survived it all.
I’ll survive this, too. Hell, maybe one day Gigi and I can even laugh about it.
I watch Zion cross to a window and pull back the curtain to look outside. Even betrayal can’t take the man’s good looks away. In jeans and a well-cut T-shirt, he’s all lean, tall grace, light skin tanned to a pale gold, and muscles that dance when he moves. He’s Newman’s easy smiles, McConaughey’s deep, careless dimples, an accent that makes women cream their panties, and lazy blue eyes that go sharp at the worst possible times.
I hate how gorgeous he is, but really, truly, more than anything, I hate that he did this to me, hisfriend.
Okay, so not a great friend. Our romance was a whirlwind, fabricated by a skilled team of PR people. I mean, we were friendly on set and, when we started fake dating, after the red-carpet fiasco, I thought we’d gotten to know each other a bit, but clearly it was only surface level. At least for him.
Gigi knows what kind of sexual stuff I’m into and I know about her proclivities. I mean, we talk, right?
Real friends talk and get to know a bit more about each other than Zion and I have. Also, possibly real friends don’t look at their friend’s ass and feel all squirmy in their belly.
Probably not, right? I also doubt that real friends wind up in the TV room, all wrapped around each other.
“Nobody’s made it into the backyard yet.” He drops the curtain and turns back to me, all tall, blond earnestness. God, he’s gorgeous. “Come on, Twyla, let’s get you someplace safe.”
Feeling absolutely foolish for even letting myself care, I lean against a barstool. I’d like to sit on it, but seeing as how it was made for tall, model-types, it would be a struggle and, right now, I’ve got very little to my name but my pride. Scooching it back, then stepping onto the rung to squeeze my bulk between it and the too-high counter is just a little more effort than I care to show this man.
Besides, he’d totally swoop in to help. Iknowhe would, which is so confusing right now I could scream. He’d rush over and pull it out, give me a hand up and help me settle in with those gentle, careful hands.
A sense-memory floods me, curling low in my belly.
His hands aren’t gentle at all, are they? They’re rough and mean and bossy.
Who the hell is Zion Mason? Who is this man? Is he the nice guy with whom I’ve cohabitated these past couple weeks or is he the man from the video? Can he be both? Truly? Can you be kind and thoughtful and easygoing one second and then turn into something totally different the next?
I thought we were friends, but we’re not.
I need to remember that now.
I don’t know him at all. Like millions of fans, I only know what Zion’s chosen to show me.
Until now, I suppose.
Unbidden, an image rises up. That woman all stretched out, her limbs cuffed open—even her thighs. The way he smacked her when she wiggled—no gentleness there. The way he shoved his fingers in her mouth until she gagged—
I shut my eyes tight, willing my body not to react, telling my own debauched libido to stand down.
It doesn’t want to, though. Neither my body nor my twisted little brain, if I’m being honest, can forget what he did. The thing is, if someone had written up a concise summary of my inner sexual self and recorded it, it would be pretty darn close to that video. The manhandling, the crass, humiliating talk, the idea that she had no power, that hemadeher do those things, turned her into nothing but an object for him to take and use and—
Yeah.
I swallow hard, looking anywhere but at Zion, who, willing or not, now stars in my late-night masturbation reel. It’s not something I seek out in real life, because god forbid anyone find out that I—a young, struggling, Ecuadorian-American actress with a wide ass and lots of opinions—have a penchant for the naughty stuff. But it’s the kind of thing I think about. A lot.
