ELEVEN
Riley stepped through the door to her apartment and spun around in place as she closed it behind her, giggling softly to herself. The date with Mansour had been the best date she’d been on in years—maybe ever. “Wow,” Riley said, sighing as she leaned back against her front door. She couldn’t stop smiling, remembering moments from throughout the evening, especially the kiss.
She gathered herself up and walked through the living room and into her bedroom, humming quietly. “Oh man, it’s been a long day,” she said to herself, unzipping her dress and tugging it over her head. After all the stress of the day’s shooting, and the excitement of the date, Riley felt exhausted. She went into the bathroom and debated taking another shower, or maybe a long bath, with Epsom salt and essential oils, something to soothe the lingering aches in her body that even Mansour’s kissing skills hadn’t been able to rid her of. “If I do that there’s a good chance I’ll fall asleep in the tub and drown,” Riley told herself, shaking her head. She decided to keep things simple: wash her face to get the makeup off, brush her hair and teeth, and curl up in bed for a good night’s sleep.
As she wiped the makeup off of her face, Riley’s giddiness began to ebb, and her thoughts turned inexorably back onto Alex. She had managed to forget about him entirely through almost the whole night with Mansour, but she realized that if it got back to him that she’d been on a date with the executive producer, he would absolutely put pressure even more on her to feed him details. If she continued dating Mansour, Riley was certain that he would inadvertently give her plenty of confidential information; he had told her a few things that very evening that she knew Alex would be very keen to know about.
“It’s not fair,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. Riley could hear the whining note in her voice, but she didn’t care. “I get this great opportunity, and then Alex comes along and…” she sighed. She had to admit that the opportunity that Alex had dangled in front of her was—at least on paper—even better than the bit part she had in Galaxy Wars. “And now I meet this great guy, and he turns out to be my boss.”
Riley scrubbed at her face more firmly than she intended, until every trace of makeup was gone and her skin felt tight and shiny. She brushed her teeth, slathered moisturizer on her skin and finished undressing as she ruminated on the situation she found herself in. Even three months earlier, she would never have believed that her luck could change so drastically in such a short time.
Stepping out of the bathroom and back into her bedroom, Riley pulled on a nightgown and sighed. There was no doubt in her mind that as soon as Alex found out about her date with Mansour, he would pressure her to give him as much information about the executive producer as humanly possible.
As she sat down on the edge of her bed, Riley’s stomach turned over inside of her at the thought of telling Alex anything at all about Mansour. Even though she’d only met him earlier that day—at least formally—Riley had never felt such a strong, sudden connection with anyone. Even with Alex, it had taken her time to really feel something for him, in spite of all of his charm and flash. “I can’t do it,” Riley said to herself out loud. “I can’t.” She shook her head; it was bad enough that she was risking her future career by essentially spying on the company that hired her. It would be far worse to betray Mansour directly, especially when he’d been nothing but kind and sweet to her from the very beginning.
She curled up in bed, silently counting off the things that she was giving up in the process; there would be no big role with Empire State, there would be no half-million dollars to float her financially for years to come while she worked her way up the celebrity ladder. But there might be some happiness with Mansour—and even if it never went beyond a few dates, she would at least have her integrity. After what seemed like hours, Riley finally fell into an uneasy sleep, thinking of how she could extricate herself from the agreement she’d made with Alex—and if that was even a possibility for her now.
TWELVE
The next morning, Riley woke up earlier than she would have expected, her heart beating fast from a dream that escaped her as soon as she opened her eyes. The most she could recall was that she was trying to drag heavy weights, straining every moment while a shadowy figure continually added more to the pile she was expected to carry.
Riley sat up in her bed and looked out through the window; there wasn’t much of a view, but the sun was unmistakably up, yellow light streaming through the blinds. Call it off. You have to. Riley took a deep breath and sighed. She knew it was the only way she could move forward—but she also knew that Alex would try and talk her out of it. “Eat some breakfast, get some coffee in you, and get it done,” Riley told herself—words she had heard from her mother on more than one occasion when she had dug her feet in and tried to avoid something.
Riley decided that as soon as she was fully awake and aware, she would call Alex and inform him that she wanted out of the deal. She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, rubbing at her face. “Breakfast first. Though talking to Alex might make me want to throw up,” she said, grimacing.
Just as she was adding cream and sugar to her coffee, after setting her skillet onto the stove, Riley heard her phone buzzing in her purse, where she’d left it the night before. She frowned to herself, trying to decide who it could be; her heart beat faster with excitement at the idea that it might be Mansour, calling to propose their next date or just to talk. But Riley shook the thought away, reasoning it was more likely one of her friends, or someone from the production team calling to confirm some detail of shooting in the coming week. Riley turned the burner on the stove off and debated whether or not to answer. If it is Mansour, I definitely don’t want to miss this. Riley hurried to the table where she’d left her purse and fumbled through the contents until her fingers closed around the phone.
Unfortunately, the name on the screen wasn’t Mansour’s, nor was it one of her friends. It was Alex. “Shit,” Riley murmured. She wasn’t ready to talk to her ex-boyfriend. “Well, no time like the present,” she told herself, taking a deep breath. Just before the phone finished its final ring before rolling over to voicemail, Riley tapped the ‘accept’ icon flashing on the screen.