“Someone’s been stalking me since the cruise began and—and the point is that I’m being blackmailed,” I said. Not even waiting for her to react, I continued, “But that’s not what matters. I think some of the cast might be in danger.” I yanked myself free of her. There was nothing I wanted more than to stay and beg her for forgiveness, but there was no time.
I ran out the door, cursing the stupid slippery sandals I’d put on this morning at the villa.
Footsteps thudded behind me. I glanced back to find Krysta, looking all business, and I suddenly remembered that this wasn’t just her concerned for my well-being because she cared for me. Krysta wasworkingandIwas the job.
The elevator banks bustled with last-minute stragglers returning late from the overnight excursion. I hit the button, cutting in front of more people than I could count. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them posted in some Facebook group or comment section about what an entitled twat I was for thinking I could overthrow the elevator-line hierarchy. But I couldn’t care about that right now! If there was anything I’d learned as a baby mogul, it was that you had to put out the actual fires first. Scorch marks and smoke damage you could cover with paint and a decent in-feed apology.
I hit the button again and then again, like that might somehow make it come faster.
Finally, the light above one of the elevator banks brightened just as Krysta caught up to me.
“I need information.” She wasn’t even out of breath! What kind of cardio did former stuntwomen/mommy bodyguards force upon themselves? “Details.”
The doors to the elevator parted to reveal a space crammed fuller than my planner. “No!” someone called from the back as the doors shut again.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
But Krysta was already on the move. “It’s faster if we take the outdoor stairs. Fewer people.”
I ran out past her, and she muttered something under her breath, which I couldn’t quite catch.
As I burst through the automatic doors leading to the deck, the cool sea breeze hit me just as quickly as the beating sun.
Every sunbed and barstool was full of passengers. The pool was full of bright swimsuits and frozen drinks. It was a party.
Or it should have been.
But instead, every last person was completely still, their attention concentrated on the jumbo screen above the pool.
I saw it happening. My face on the jumbo screen as I went through the motions of washing my face, applying moisturizer, creams, and then the serum. Shame expanded in my lungs with more efficiency than any deep breath ever could, and behind it, that cold, numb feeling that was almost like relief.
Because it was happening, it was done, and there was no taking it back. Not with several hundred cruisers recording it on their phones.
The most embarrassing moment of my career, the thing I’d done everything I could to hide, was exposed—and along with it, the lie behind the image I’d been building since I was eleven years old.
The world knew the truth now. I wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t always honest. And behind the GRWMs and the planners and the eternally bouncy hair was a messy, panic-filled catastrophe trying to outrun the lonely ache inside her chest.
Beside me, Krysta tensed as the on-screen version of me began to claw at her neck. “What is this?”
“It’s me. Being a total, embarrassing fraud,” I told her. But as I said it, a sense of clarity and certainty filled me. It didn’t matter how embarrassing this was, how potentially career ruining it was. Image wasn’t everything—making sure everyone around me was okay was far more important. “But I think this might just be a distraction. I think some of the cast might be in actual danger.”
I took off again past the crowd of stunned cruisers and toward the spiral staircase, leading up to the fourteenth floor.
“Would you just wait?” Krysta called after me.
I glanced over my shoulder to tell her to catch up when the ship hit an especially rocky wave. I lost my balance and the toe of my cursed sandal caught on the edge of a step and I tumbled backward.
It happened so fast and so slowly all at once. My body crashed against the railing like a rag doll until I felt strong hands gripping my arm and cradling the back of my head.
I lay sprawled out across the bottom two steps with Krysta hovering above me. Her hands were warm and inviting and—
“OH FUCK,” I howled. I’d moved my left foot just a bit and that was a bad idea.
“What is it?” Krysta asked, her voice heavy with concern.
I whimpered. “My foot. I fucked it up. Are people looking? Please don’t let them see me cry.” The thought was somehow worse than even the most damning video. Worse than an image being destroyed, because this was people seeingme. No veneer, no gloss.
And the potential snot of it all . . .
