For Us (The Girl I Loved Duet 2)

I throw him up against the wall again. “You piece of shit.” My fist is raised and I’m about to throw the punch when the door opens.

“Woah!” Michael jumps in front of me, “What the hell are you doing, Peter?”

Lowering my arm, I have to take a breath before I speak. “You’re high, aren’t you, Clay?”

“What the fuck does that matter?”

“It matters a lot you dickhole.”

Michael puts his hands on my shoulders and shoves me back. “Peter, what is happening.”

I glance at him before looking back at Clay. Not willing to take my eyes off him. “This fucker lured Amber here with a lie about the show and then proceeded to blackmail her into sex and who knows what else. She barely got out of the house.”

Michael goes pale. “What?” He turns to Clay too.

“She’s going to fuck me, or everyone is going to know what a little whore she is,” Clay says viciously, holding out his phone. It’s a blurry picture, and the angle is clear that it’s under a bathroom stall, but it’s clear enough that it’s Amber and me. My cock is in her mouth, just like those pictures that made the papers that made her freak out in the first place. Michael glances over at me, and I know that I’m going to get an earful later about Amber, but he’s smart enough to know that this isn’t the right time.

I have to think. Because I honestly have no leverage. It hits me. I can’t give him anything that he wants, but I can take something away.

“If you ever go near her again,” I say, “I’ll release the story about your drug use. You’re famous for your killer parties, but you’re also famous for being clean. It will ruin your reputation.”

Clay laughs again, that high pitched laugh that makes me sick to my stomach because I used to hear it all the time from my mother. She would never see reason either. All of this is like déjà vu, and I hate it. I swear to God I’ll never touch anything harder than Tylenol in my life.

“Who would believe you?” he asks. “You’re just a little rising star. Undercover hasn’t even premiered yet. If it’s my word against yours, I win, and you’re a liar.”

I don’t even think about the next words before I say them. “Then I’ll tell them it was both of us. I’ll say that you and I took drugs together, and that I’m deeply sorry. The press loves a good mea culpa. And since I’ll then go to rehab and show that my blood tests are clean, I’ll come out like yet another reformed Hollywood boy. I’ll deal with the fallout for the rest of my career if that’s what it takes. But people are going to know about you.”

Michael is frozen beside me, and I know that he must be dying inside, but this is the only way. I’m not going to let him do this. Not to Amber, not to anyone. The look that Clay gives me is pure poison. “Fine. I’ll stay away from your precious little Amber.”

“Good. But not enough. You will remove your name from any remaining contracts affiliated with Undercover so that Amber has complete creative control. And you will sign an agreement not to speak about Amber publicly in any way and to not visit the set while the show is being filmed, and you will delete all copies of that photo and any other ones you have.”

He sneers. “You think this makes you powerful? You don’t know what power is in this city. You’ll lose eventually.”

“I’ll make the call right now,” I say, pulling out my phone.

“Fine,” he says. “You can keep your show. It’s going to fail anyway. It’s not good enough.”

I turn to Michael, who’s eyes are wide. “You can handle the legal side of it?”

He nods. “I can.”

“Good, let’s go.” I walk toward the door, and I hear Clay snicker. I turn, “And if for some reason you think that you can still call and put this in the papers before all the legal stuff is worked out, I’ve been recording all of this. I’ll happily send out copies to whoever wants to listen to you claiming that a woman you mentored owes you sex because she dared to want to learn from someone who’s considered the best in their field.”

Clay slumps against the wall, and finally, I think I can relax. There’s no options for him. No matter what he does, it’s going to end badly for him. And even high out of his mind, he knows that. I blow out a sigh of relief as we close the door behinds me.

“Holy shit, Peter,” Michael says. “You couldn’t have given me a heads up about what I was walking into?”

“There wasn’t time. I’m sorry.”