Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

I choke on a grape, banging my chest and tearing up, wheezing to clear my air passage.

“You okay?” Canon asks, concern in his expression.

“Fine.” I take a long draw of my drink and wave my hand for him to continue. “Just went down the wrong way. Go on.”

“One night, I’d stayed over and was still in bed when I heard her on the phone with her agent.”

Did I truly ask for this? It’s torture hearing him talk about their intimacy, even in past tense, but I need to hear. I need to know, so I keep my face neutral while he goes on.

“She was lampooning another actress, another Black actress at that,” Canon says, shaking his head. “And demanding the other woman, one I knew personally, be uninvited to an event where Camille was presenting. For the next few minutes, I listened to her tear that woman apart and plot ways to slow her rise. Basically so she wouldn’t outshine Camille. She needed to be the ‘it’ girl and saw someone else’s success as a threat.”

His frown, the rigid set of his mouth and jaw, hint at what he thought of that.

“I don’t play that shit,” he confirms. “When I confronted her about it, at first she tried to deny it, but then turned it on me like I was crazy for questioning her motives. Over the next few weeks, it was like scales had dropped from my eyes and I saw other cracks in her facade. As beautiful as she was, there was no light inside, and I never touched her again.”

I should just be happy he says it stopped there, and I am, but the thought of Canon—my Canon—fucking that gorgeous woman . . . I swallow my jealousy and push out the necessary words. “So what happened next?”

“When I broke it off, she was furious. She claimed to love me.”

“Hmmmm.” I practically hurl grapes down my gullet, barely pausing to chew. “And then?”

“Well, it wasn’t love. It was pride. That was clear when she presented the studio with an ultimatum: her or me. They chose her. The rest is history, even though no one wants to let me live it down. I’ve never been in love, but I know that’s not it.”

He’s never been in love?

How is that possible? Only as I think about it, neither have I. Can I count Brandon, my high school sweetheart who cheated with my sister, as love? The hurt of their betrayal, that lingered, but my feelings for him? Gone before freshman year ended.

“And when she got you fired?” I ask, pushing my plate away. “You confronted her about it?”

“She called. We argued.” He turns the corners of his lips down. “And haven’t spoken since.”

“You can’t just turn off feelings.” I look down at my fingers, twisting in my lap. “Did it take you some time to get over her?”

He stands, crosses around to my side of the table and pulls me to my feet. The cool morning air charges, heating, circulating in the small space separating our bodies. He eliminates even that, setting his hands at my hips, pulling me flush to him.

“Hey.” With one finger, he lifts my chin, urging me to meet his eyes. I don’t want to. As transparent as I am to him, I know he’ll see all the ways I’m jealous. All the ways her very existence makes me question what we have. All the ways I’m insecure hearing how he wanted her.

All the parts of me that ask if he, even a little bit, still does?

“Can I tell you something?” he asks. Our bodies are so close, his words rumble into my chest, and for a moment, it feels like he’s knocking on my heart. He can come in. As much as I’ve fought it from the moment we met, he’s probably already inside.

“Yeah?” I ask, forcing my gaze to remain locked with his.

“I liked Camille a lot.”

“I know,” I say through the hot lump forming in my throat.

“Until she showed herself, and I could never unsee what was beneath that beautiful exterior.” He takes my hand, lays the palm flat to his breastbone. “But you, I’ve seen since the first night we met, and I can’t unsee your light. You have nothing to worry about, Neevah. You hear me?”

He cups my face, swipes his thumb across my lips until they open for him, inviting him to enter. With a deep sweep of his tongue, he does. We moan together, our hands in agreement, roaming over arms and faces and asses. He walks us backward to one of the VIP pods, and we step through the curtains into luxurious privacy. An oversized plum-colored couch dominates the space flanked by small tables on either side. The drawn curtains block the breeze, but allow in skeins of sunlight, revealing the desire in his eyes.