“In this piece he doesn’t start singing until five minutes in. I’ve always been a fan of delayed gratification so it’s no surprise it’s one of my favorites.”
Her blood pumped louder at the mischievous half-smile he gave.Gorgeous.
“You do seem like the type of guy who can wait as long as it takes for something.”
“You’re patient too. Your acting proves it. You give months to a project, waiting for that one moment when it all pays off.”
Her throat rippled.
Why did that sound like a compliment?
“My sister and I were taught growing up that everything had to be earned, not handed to us,” she revealed. “It didn’t matter how long it took. I guess that stuck with me. Our parents never spoiled us like the public thinks. Sure, we had access to the best education and resources, but everything else was up to us. And if we failed, our family didn’t hesitate to make us feel ten times worse, reminding us we had privileges most people don’t. Thattheydidn’t when growing up. As you may know, everything to the Pinault name was built from scratch.”
She didn’t know why she was telling him all this. Maybe it was the magnetic pull in his eyes, or the softness in his voice. They were coaxing.
“And?”
Her gaze flickered down, finding the rug interesting.
“And that’s why I’ve always struggled with how people perceive me. I wanted to keep making people like me, to make them proud. The child prodigy. America’s Golden Girl. The youngest female to win an Emmy. That…bubble kept me sheltered from the possibility of ever facing what failure felt like. I was driven to be the best—hadto be the best, no matter the price.”
I skipped meals for weeks just to stay camera thin.
I made all the prescriptions mine: Clomipramine, Fluvoxamine, every brain-silencing pill to shut my mind up when it insisted on comparing myself to others at 3 a.m. instead of sleeping.
I practiced my acceptance speeches before I was nominated because not being a winner, let alone a candidate, was never an option.
I smiled through mental breakdowns and dealt with a manic stalker.
Validation had been Emily’s drug. She’d overdose on it every time someone made her feel worthy.Every time someone praised her.
“That was until that bubble finally popped.”
Lying on the floor, unable to breathe until Talia, terrified, had to rush her to the hospital.
That was when she faced the music.
The truth was, Emily had known it all along. She’d been burning herself under a spotlight that never cared whether she turned to ash. But what was expected from a girl who had everything and nothing at the same time?
That was the thing about ambition, it had her coming back for more. She wanted to continue being an actress. But her career back then had reached the point of life or death. She’d misunderstood that stopping would mean the latter so she kept at it.
Acting hadn’t just been acting for her; it had been oxygen. It was how she breathed in the world, how she convinced herself she could own it. It made up for the constant craving for love she’d lacked as a child.
And though it almost cost her life, Emily was ready to do it all over again. Because without it, she was better off dead, a jarring contradiction nobody but herself could ever understand.
Marrying Jake would have been the prelude to her comeback. It was what she’d planned internally. She’d felt stable enough to return, even her therapist had agreed. She’d wanted to get her new home settled first then choose her projects carefully because the industry was tough on married women. But it just so happened things turned out differently.
Life had a hell of a way of ruining a person’s plans and humbling them.
Nicolas’s eyes softened. “You’ve been doing this since you were five. Give yourself some grace.”
Her heart felt lighter, but her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“Your background check,” he said like they’d switched to talking about the weather.
She tsked.
“But I understand,” he sighed. “My parents were the same. My sister and I got tough love. The company was built from my grandfather’s sweat back in Italy, before he took it international. My father was thrown into it young. He expected the same from us. When my younger sister, Anna, was born, she was supposed to help too, but growing up her heart was always in the arts. She has a gift for drawing and a color palette that, apparently, only those with high IQs can master. I also never wanted her to know what it’s like to learn about a market microstructure at twelve years old.”
