Riley’s humiliation transformed into rage, and she had to hold herself back from launching herself across the tabl
e to wipe the smirk off of her ex-boyfriend’s face.
“You think you can tell me how to conduct my love life? We’re through, Alex. You have no right to control who I do and don’t date.” She paused, thinking quickly of another aspect of what he’d said. “How do you even know about it, anyway?”
“Oh, my dear,” Alex said, shaking his head slightly. “I’ve been having you followed ever since your first day on the set. I had to protect my investment—make sure you were telling me the truth, that you weren’t sneaking off somewhere in your down time.”
Riley’s mind flashed on the memory of the man in front of her building, and her heart pounded in her chest. The fact that she could have someone following her for a week and not even realize it sent her spinning into a churning maelstrom of anger and horror.
She stood quickly, determined to walk out of the diner and never speak to Alex again—no matter what threat he might try and levy against her. As she turned to climb out of the booth, Alex’s hand closed around her wrist, tight enough to hurt, and Riley stopped unwillingly.
“Don’t think of trying anything cute, Ri-ri,” Alex said, his voice pitched low so that only she would hear it. “I have ears everywhere in this city, and if you try to cool things off, I’ll know about it.”
Riley’s hands shook slightly for a moment; but then anger overcame fear and she jerked her wrist free of Alex’s grip, not even flinching at the pain that jolted through her. She turned away quickly and strode out of the diner as fast as she could, trying to suppress the shudders working through her and the fact that her knees felt like rubber.
Riley barely knew how she got home; one moment she was fumbling with her keys, and seemingly the next she was pulling into her parking spot, her heart still pounding, her blood roaring in her ears. Her cheeks felt stiff and Riley realized that she’d been crying—though whether from the stress or the horror of knowing that Alex was spying at her, or the sense of betrayal that she felt, she wasn’t sure.
She made it into her apartment and locked the door firmly behind her, trying to work out what her options were. “What am I going to do? Right—because I totally have a choice in that at this point,” she muttered to herself, careening onto the couch and staring up at the ceiling. The leverage that Alex had on her—the recording of her agreeing to spy on the production and feed information to a rival company—meant that she would have to keep dating Mansour, and keep feeding information that she got either from the executive producer or from her days on the set.
Riley caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it for a moment, feeling the tears beginning to sting her eyes once more. She could call Mansour; she could call off their next date, make some kind of excuse. “I have ears everywhere in this city,” Alex had said. Riley’s stomach pitched inside of her; he could very well have somehow tapped her phone.
With mounting alarm, Riley realized that Alex could have had one of his minions break into her apartment and plant some kind of bug. In an instant she threw herself off of the couch, tumbling onto the floor, and stood quickly, darting into her room.
She walked along every inch of the four walls, ducking down to look around her vanity, behind her dresser; anywhere she could think of that someone could conceal a listening device. She checked the bathroom, shuddering at the thought of a hidden camera recording her showering—it would be just like Alex to add a voyeuristic thrill to his surveillance. She checked her bedroom again, diving into her closet, and ran around the living room, pulling the couch free of the wall, almost crawling under her coffee table in the search for something that could be transmitting her conversations—both on the phone and with herself—to Alex’s waiting ears.
After minutes of examination that felt like hours, Riley’s panicked fury began to subside; she couldn’t see anything that she didn’t recognize—although that didn’t necessarily mean that there was nothing there. If he hired professionals, they’d put it somewhere I’d never see it. I can’t possibly check out every last inch of this apartment to find something when I don’t even know what it would look like.
She collapsed on the couch, exhausted, and grabbed at the plush throw she kept for cooler days. She didn’t even have enough energy to take off her clothes and makeup and crawl into bed; she felt a lump forming in her throat, but she was so tired and upset that after a moment Riley realized that she couldn’t even summon the energy to cry.
She sighed, burying her face against the couch cushions. She had no choice; if she wanted to get through the weeks and months ahead without losing her mind entirely, she would have to shut down her emotions, treat her relationship with Mansour—if it developed past a second date—as nothing more than a job, and pump him for whatever information she could, just to get out of the bind she’d let Alex put her in. “Don’t let yourself fall for him,” Riley murmured into the couch cushion, for the moment uncaring of whether Alex had her apartment bugged or not.
She almost laughed as it occurred to her that her predicament had given her the biggest single acting challenge of her entire life. Alex did say my acting talent was underrated, she thought bleakly. She would just have to find out how much of that compliment was the truth—and how much was his particular brand of insulting flattery.
FOURTEEN
The week went past more quickly than Riley would have believed possible; particularly during the long days on set, while she waited for her scenes to come up, it seemed impossible that Friday, and her next date with Mansour, would ever arrive.
Alex didn’t call as frequently as he had during the first week, but when he did, his comments were pointed: he wanted her to go on as many dates with Mansour as possible, and take every opportunity to get him alone and pump him for information.
Riley was torn between relief and dread that she didn’t have any opportunities to get Mansour alone during the week; she barely even saw him at all, except for a few fleeting moments across the set, hard at work while she sat around with the other nonessential talent. Part of her wished that she could get Mansour alone—not to pump him for information, but to see if their second kiss together would be as good as their first. Another part of her mind was glad that she didn’t have any opportunity to get the information that Alex wanted. A third part of her mind worried that Alex might think she was deliberately avoiding Mansour—that he would put his blackmail plan into motion on a whim, and she’d be called into the production company’s offices in disgrace.
As she got ready for her second date with Mansour, Riley thought to herself that it was just as well that she had never had aspirations of becoming a spy; she knew now for sure that she wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of pressure on a continuous basis. Her hands shook as she applied her makeup—so badly that she had to wipe off smeared eyeliner and lipstick more than once and try again. She debated again and again whether to call the date off; but Riley knew it was pointless to pretend like she even could.
When Mansour arrived, Riley had somehow managed to finish getting