I exhale through my nose. Of course she won’t let that be enough.
“Mental health and addiction recovery. The industry’s favorite virtue signal.”
She snorts in response.
I turn the screen I’m holding toward her. There’s an image of a man standing on a red carpet, smiling into the camera. His sleek blonde hair is perfectly styled. Baby blue eyes stare back at us, and his arm drapes around a tall brunette.
The headline above his image reads:Luke Holloway’s Charm is Winning Over Hollywood.
Her reaction is instant. “Luke Holloway. Ever the pretty boy.”
“Publicly,” I say. “Privately? Not so much.”
I feel the shift in her attention the second the words leave my mouth. The way her posture straightens and her eyes narrow.
“What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
I open the wooden box on my desk, reaching for a cigar. More for the breathing space than the smoke. I clip the end before lighting it and taking a long drag, looking past Arden as I respond.
“Luke,” I finally reply, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. “He takes what he wants. He has no regard for who it might belong to, or what that means for anyone else.”
“That sounds personal,” she says carefully, like she’s weighing her words.
I glance at her then. She’s studying me like there’s a right answer and she’s determined to find it.
“Men like him don’t respect boundaries. They see them as challenges,” I continue, ignoring the comment. “And trust me when I say he takes on any challenge that comes his way.” I tap ash into the tray harder than necessary. “He’s charming, though. People see only what he wants them to. He’s very good at making his messes look like someone else’s fault.”
“So why doesn’t anyone call him out?” she asks.
“Some have tried,” I say. “They’re the ones who tend to… disappear from the narrative.”
Her eyes widen, but her silence tells me she understands exactly what I mean.
I change the image on the screen before she can ask another question.
This time we’re looking at a very different image. Not a pristine red-carpet photo, but a gritty one of a man under blinding stage lights.
He’s thin but muscular, wearing tight leather pants and no shirt. Sweat drips down his tattooed chest as he screams into a microphone.
His headline stands in stark contrast to Holloway’s:Jaxon Wilde’s Partying Sparks Concern Among Fans.
She scoffs as soon as she reads it. “That’s bullshit.”
I look at her again. This time I don’t hide the interest.
She talks about his charity work, his fans, the way the press could’ve highlighted anything else about him, and I listen. Really listen.
I track every shift in her tone, the way frustration flashes across her face as she rants. I note what she emphasizes and what she dismisses. She speaks like someone who’s been paying attention long before this job came into the picture.
“So, you see what’s happening,” I state plainly.
She gives me a silent nod. “One of them isactuallydangerous, and the other just looks like it… and the media has both of them wrong.”
I draw on the cigar, smoke curling between us. “Most people just believe what they’re shown.” I hold her gaze. “Not you, though.”
She exhales, shaking her head slightly. I can see it on her face. The discomfort, the realization that this is only the surface. She looks like she’s already tired, though we haven’t even started yet.
“If Luke’s as bad as you make him sound,” she mutters, “I can’t wait to ruin his career.”
