“I said ‘get out.’ ” I draw on every ounce of acting ability I have to keep my voice steady as I force the words out a second time. “You got what you came here for.”
“Oh yeah?” He lifts a brow but doesn’t make a move to close the gap between us, doesn’t try to touch me in any way. I don’t know if I should be relieved…or wary. “And what is it you think I came for?”
“You wanted to humiliate me, to get some of your own back after I refused to meet with you again.”
“Is that what that was? Me humiliating you?” His voice is even lower now¸ even more controlled.
“Wasn’t it?”
“Here I thought it was me getting you off.”
“Call it whatever you want. That was you trying to control me and we both know it.”
His eyes narrow even further. “Make no mistake, Veronica. That was me controlling you. And we both know it, whether you want to admit it or not.”
He prowls toward me then, a sleek jungle cat hyper-focused on his prey. But I’m no man’s prey—and I haven’t been for a long, long time. That’s not going to change now, no matter how my traitorous body responds to Ian Sharpe.
“Maybe it was. But it ends now.” I don’t know where the words are coming from at this point, barely know what I’m saying. All I do know is that I can’t let him see how powerfully he affects me. Can’t let him see how, even now, it’s taking every ounce of willpower I have not to beg him to fuck me right here in my trailer. “I’m done with this conversation and I’m done with you.”
“That’s not a decision you get to make.”
His answer infuriates me. “My body, my decision.”
“I’ve never said otherwise.” His voice is ice-cold and for the first time, he looks angry. Really, really angry. “The sex we have is completely separate from our professional obligations and you know it. But you also know that you owe me an interview and I expect you to deliver it.”
“My schedule is packed. I have no time for another—”
“Make time.”
“And if I don’t?” I sneer. “What exactly do you think you’re going to do about it?”
“I think that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it?” His hand comes up to rest on my collarbone and my pulse goes crazy at the possessive hold, especially as his fingers stroke along my throat. “If you don’t make time for the interview, time to see me, then I’ll never make you come again.”
“Like you’re the only man who can make me come?” It’s a taunt and we both know it. I can only hope he doesn’t also know just how true my words are.
Both brows go up this time, even as his thumb ghosts back and forth across my jugular. “I’m the only one who can make you come like that. And I’m more than happy to do it again.” He leans forward, presses a hot, openmouthed kiss against the left side of my throat. “And again.” He drops another kiss behind my ear. “And again.” And yet another kiss on the top of my breast. This time, though, he sucks at the delicate skin hard enough to leave a small, deliberate bruise behind. “I’m staying at the Redbury. Room 306. I’ll expect you at eight o’clock tonight.”
And then he’s gone, slipping out of my trailer and down the stairs without another word. I stare after him—heart pounding, mind spinning, body aching—and wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
—
I’m still wondering hours later, when I pull into the garage of my very private, very secret Manhattan Beach house. I used a shell corporation to buy it a few years ago and have worked hard to make sure very few people can even associate me with the area, let alone the house. And tonight, with Ian’s words echoing in my head, I’m more grateful than usual for the fact that no one knows I live here. That there are no paparazzi to get through, no buses loaded with tourists who paid for a tour of the stars’ houses. No fans straining to get a look through my windows. When I’m at my parents’ house in Beverly Hills—the house that publicly belongs to me now—I have to deal with all of that and more.
After kicking off my shoes in the laundry room and dropping my purse on the kitchen counter, I pour myself a glass of wine and think about heading to my bathroom for a long, luxurious soak in the tub. Despite the fact that it was a pretty easy day of filming—no stunts to be done, no bad guys to kill—I’m beat. I started the day emotionally drained and the scene with Ian in my trailer only made things that much worse.
But in the end, I decide to skip the bath—at least for now. Despite being exhausted, I’m too restless to settle. Instead, I forego the glass and grab the bottle of wine before making my way outside to the patio and then down the stairs that lead to my very tiny swath of private beach. It’s one of the main reasons I bought this house and I try to make as much use of it as I possibly can.
The Santa Anas are especially blustery tonight, the wind stirring the waves into a frenzy and whipping my hair across my face like a slap. It isn’t the first metaphorical slap I’ve had today, but I’m determined that it will be the last. Ian Sharpe and his ridiculous expectation that I’ll show up at his hotel room like some kind of trained seal, be damned. The only place I’m going tonight is to bed. Alone.
To toast that fact, I unscrew the lid and take several long swigs of wine. Then, with the bottle still clutched in my hand, I make a beeline for the water. I don’t stop until my feet have sunk into the cold, wet sand and the Pacific is tickling my toes.
I love the ocean—always have, always will. From the time I was a little girl I would beg my parents or my nannies to bring me so I could build sand castles and play tag with the waves. I was water-skiing by the time I was eight, surfing by nine, and had started scuba diving lessons not long after that. And when everything went to hell the autumn I turned ten, it was the ocean that got me through. The ocean that kept me sane.
When the Santa Anas were particularly aggressive—like tonight—I would walk out to the beach and scream and scream and scream. The violence of the winds always covered the sound, always whisked it away before anyone could hear. Then again, that would assume that someone was listening…
I think about doing the same tonight, about screaming until the tension leaks from my shoulders and the unsettled churning of my gut finally settles down. But something tells me that it won’t cure what ails me. Nothing will.
And so I turn and walk along the sand instead, gazing out at the water and thinking about anything—about everything—but Ian Sharpe and how he makes me feel.
I don’t understand this pull I have toward him, understand even less the way my body yields so easily to his every whim. His every command. My entire adult life, I’ve been the one in control—of my career, of my life, of my body. It’s how I want it, how I’ve always wanted it. Meeting Ian, fucking Ian, doesn’t change that. Even if he makes me feel more than any man ever has.
And yet…and yet there’s a part of me that wants to go to his hotel room tonight, that wants to push at this crazy attraction between us just to see what will happen. Just to see how far he will take this thing between us. And how far I will let him…
Is it the Belladonna that makes me react to him like this? I wonder as the water swirls around my calves. Do I respond to him because of her? Do I feel connected to him because of how much I felt in the book, in the script, in the part?
I hope not. God, I really hope not. I’ll never deny that playing the Belladonna was the role of a lifetime—one that might very well get me an Oscar nod—but the day I took off those clothes, that makeup, that role for the last time, was one of the happiest days of my life.
The six months I played her really messed with my head. When I campaigned for the role, all I could think about was how much I’d loved the book. What a juicy character she would be to play. How much the part would stretch me as an actress, and help give me the credibility I need to launch my own production company.
I wasn’t wrong. The movie isn’t even out yet and already it’s done all that, and more, for my career. But that doesn’t mean I’d do it a secon
d time, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t make a different choice if I could go back and do things all over again. Not when it took me weeks to learn to sleep again, to breathe again. To be comfortable in my own skin again. It’s a battle I’ve fought my whole life and the fact that I gave up any gains I’d made for a role cuts like broken glass.
Is it any wonder, then, that Ian is getting under my skin? This article, the photo shoot, the press tour that’s about to kick off. I’ve spent weeks—months—trying to forget what it was to be the Belladonna and now, here I am, right back in the middle of it. Tied up physically, and psychologically, with the man who uncovered her secrets. Who showed the world who and what Celeste Warren—the Belladonna—really is.
I take another sip of wine, try to block out the atrocities I committed while dressed as the Belladonna. No, not committed, I remind myself as I lift the bottle to my lips again. Pretended to commit. Acted out. Mimicked. All in the name of art, of course.
That has to make a difference, right? Pretending to be something doesn’t mean you are that thing. Because if it did…well, if it did, I’d so definitely be something—someone—other than who and what I am.
I’d be normal.
Maybe even happy.
Or possibly, conceivably, even okay.
Yes, I like the sound of that. If make-believe could come true, then I would be okay.
But it can’t. And I’m not. And I never will be, no matter how hard I try. No matter how thoroughly I pretend.
It’s a depressing thought and I counter it with another swig of wine. And then another and another, until the bottle is as empty as I am. I drop it onto the sand, drop to my knees beside it. Watch as the tide rolls in, one slow wave after another.
It doesn’t take long before the water is lapping against my knees, my thighs. Until the ocean is covering the bottle, making it shift in the sand with every new wave that comes crashing ashore. As it does, I think about nightmares and shipwrecks and love affairs gone wrong. I think about messages in bottles and what I would write, what message I would send crashing into the ocean for someone far, far away to find. What I would tell them if I didn’t have to worry about it being traced back to me. To the famous, the infamous, Veronica Romero.
It turns out, the answer is I don’t know. So much of me is a construct, so much of me is only what others want to see, that I don’t have anything to say to that far away stranger. I don’t have a message to give him, don’t have any words of wisdom. I’m as empty as the bottle at my feet.
I suppose that’s a message in and of itself…Which is why I pick up the bottle and twist the cap back on as tightly as I can, until it’s as air proof as I can make it. And then I pull back my arm and use every ounce of strength I have to throw it as far out into the surf as I can manage.
The ocean catches it, rolls it over. Spins it around and around and around as each retreating wave slowly, inexorably, takes it that much farther away from shore.
It’s getting dark and the tide is getting higher—the water is up to my thighs now and rising fast. I should get up, should make a break for the stairs before I’m completely soaked, but I can’t move. I’m hypnotized by the fate of the bottle, by the thought of where it’s going and who might find it. Only when it becomes too dark to see, when the tide is up to my shoulders and I’m soaking wet, do I finally stumble to my feet.
The bottle is on its own.
I’m tipsy enough now that I weave a little when I walk, but not so drunk that I can’t make it up the stairs or past the pool without incident. Normally, I’d stop at the outside shower and rinse the sand off, but right now I’m too buzzed to be bothered. Besides, a little sand never hurt anyone.
Once I make it back inside, I see the one, lone glass of wine sitting on the counter where I poured it all those minutes ago. It looks lonely sitting there all by itself, and for a moment I think about picking it up. Think about draining it like I did the rest of the bottle.
But in the end, I’m just sober enough to realize adding more alcohol onto my very nice buzz is not a good idea. So, instead of crossing the kitchen, to grab the last of the wine, I make my way, wet and still dripping, through the house to my bedroom. That bath I was thinking of earlier sounds really good right now.
I start taking off my sodden clothes as soon as I hit my bedroom door, shedding the public’s idea of Veronica Romero a little more with each piece that comes off. Then again, I probably took care of that when I collapsed in the surf fully dressed. Either way, by the time I’m naked, I’m just me again. Just plain old, messed up Veronica. I just wish I knew if that was a good thing or not.
I stumble toward the bathroom to start the bathwater, but even before I get to the double doors that separate the master bath from the bedroom, I know there’s a problem. I can hear water running and the maple wood floor is wet beneath my feet.
I’m drunk enough to be confused but sober enough to be concerned, and I throw the doors open in a rush. And find myself staring at my very large, very comfortable bathtub, which is currently overflowing, bubbles and water pouring over the edge and onto the tile floor. From the amount of water on the floor, it looks like this has been going on for quite a while.
What. The. Hell?
I make a mad dash across the room, slipping and sliding on the wet floor and nearly going down twice before I finally get to the bathtub. Once there, I wrench the faucet to the off position and then stand staring at the mess for long seconds as I try to figure out what the hell just happened.
I didn’t do this. I didn’t turn the bath on and then promptly forget about doing it. I didn’t go down to the beach with a bottle of wine while my bathroom flooded. I didn’t.
Did I?
I wrack my clouded brain, go over and over what I remember from the first few minutes when I got home.
I came in through the garage.
Turned off the alarm.
Locked up behind me.
Thought about taking a bath, but decided against it.
I did decide against it, I reassure myself. I didn’t even go into my bedroom, let alone my bathroom.
I didn’t.
And yet…I stare at the overfilled tub, at the soaked bathmat squishing underneath my bare toes. And yet, the tub is full, the bathroom all but flooded.
What the hell is going on?
For the first time, I really regret drinking the better part of that bottle of wine. My head is swimming and nothing makes sense no matter how hard I try to force it.
Eventually, though, I have to do something. I can’t just stand here and let the water continue making its way into my bedroom and onto the wood floor.
With that thought in mind, I grab two big bath sheets off the closest rack, toss them onto the ground at my feet to soak up some of the water—and to make it at least a little less likely that I’ll slip and die in what has become a deathtrap of a bathroom. Then I lean down and twist the tub’s drain plug open.
As I do, my face gets too close to the bubbles—not like I could avoid it considering the things are everywhere—and I get a strong whiff of their scent. It’s familiar, but it’s not the vanilla and black currant bubble bath I usually use in the evenings, nor the bergamot and orange scent I use to energize myself in the mornings.
No, this is the scent of a bubble bath I haven’t used in months.
Belladonna from Alchemic Muse.
I came across it when I was filming the movie, picked it up because the scent made me feel her, helped me get inside her messed up head that much more easily. It also helped me differentiate myself from Celeste when the lines started blurring and I felt like I was being sucked under.
It ended up working pretty well and I haven’t had cause to use the scent since then. The fact that I decided to do so tonight—when I can’t even remember coming into the bathroom let alone turning the bathtub on—makes no sense at all.
A chill works its way down my spine as it occurs to me—really occurs to me—that something is wrong here. That this ki
nd of forgetfulness, this inability to recollect, isn’t normal. Unless I didn’t do it, after all. Unless some stalker followed me home and did this in an attempt to get my attention. Or as some kind of sick joke.
Just the thought that someone was in my house—that they might still be in my house—has fear ripping through me and the wine sloshing unpleasantly around in my stomach. With my heart beating much too fast and panic skating along my nerves, I slip and slide my way back across the bathroom until I reach the entrance. Once there, I snatch my robe from where it’s hanging in its usual spot on the back of the door and pull it on over my nude body. Then I make a mad dash for the phone on my nightstand and dial the guard shack at the front of my very exclusive street.
I feel a little bit like an idiot explaining the situation to Jesse, the night guard, but not enough to hang up. Jesse assures me he’s on the way and then there’s nothing for me to do but wait, ears straining for the sound of an intruder as I pray…for what exactly? That there’s nobody in my house? Or that there is, because the last thing I want to believe is that I’m loopy enough to have done this and have no recollection of it at all.
Jesse shows up in under three minutes, pounding loudly on the front door and announcing his presence through the thick glass. I open the door to him right away and try not to notice how his eyes widen slightly when it registers how little I’m wearing. Even though he’s signed an NDA, I can’t help wondering just how many of his friends he’s going to tell this story to. I think at this point the best I can hope for is that when he does, he’s not also telling them just how paranoid, how bat-shit crazy, Veronica Romero is.
But once he gets over the shock of seeing me in my thin, silk bathrobe, Jesse is nothing but professional. He listens as I tell the story a second time, then has me come with him as he goes through my house one room at a time.
He looks in every closet, under every bed. Checks every window and door for signs of forced entry. Examines the alarm to see if anyone opened any door but the one that leads to my patio and down to the beach. He even goes outside and looks around both my back and front yards for intruders, footprints, something. Anything.