Chapter 1 1

Ivy wasn't just a D-list actress who groped a movie star.

She was Mrs. Holt Nicholson.

And she had just humiliated the man she'd signed her life away to in front of the entire world.

The vibration of her phone against the wood of the nightstand felt like a drill boring directly into her skull.

She gasped, shooting up in bed, her sheets tangled around her legs like a trap. Her heart was already hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, a physical echo of the nightmare she'd just clawed her way out of. But the room wasn't silent. The buzzing continued, relentless, angry.

She grabbed the phone. The screen was bright enough to burn her retinas.

Alex Weber.

Her thumb barely grazed the green icon before Alex's voice exploded into the room, loud enough that she didn't even need to put the phone to her ear.

"Don't go online, Ivy! Do not open Twitter. Do not look at Instagram. Just... God, tell me you're still sleeping."

Ivy's stomach turned over, a cold, heavy stone dropping into a pool of acid. The air in her small West Hollywood apartment suddenly felt too thin.

"Alex?" Her voice was a croak. "What's happening?"

"You're trending," he said, and the way he said it sounded like a death sentence. "Number one. Worldwide. And not for the L'Oreal campaign."

"Alex, you're scaring me."

"I'm scared, Ivy! I'm terrified! Just... promise me you won't look."

He hung up.

The silence that followed was worse than the screaming. It was heavy, pregnant with a disaster Ivy couldn't see yet. Her hands were shaking so badly she almost dropped the phone.

Don't look.

It was the same as telling someone not to think of a pink elephant. Her thumb moved on its own, tapping the blue bird icon.

The feed refreshed.

IvySnowMolester

The air left her lungs in a sharp, painful whoosh.

It was at the top. The very top.

She clicked it, her vision blurring at the edges. The first post was a GIF, looping endlessly. High definition. Slow motion.

It was from last night. The charity gala.

In the loop, Ivy was stumbling. Her heel caught on the red carpet. Her body pitched forward, a blur of silver silk and pale skin. And then, the impact.

She didn't hit the floor. She hit a wall. A wall in a tuxedo.

In the GIF, her hands flew out to break her fall. They landed on Holt Nicholson. Specifically, her fingers splayed wide, grappling for purchase, snagging on the cold metal of his belt buckle before sliding disastrously downward...

The loop reset. She fell. She grabbed. She slid.

But it was Holt's face that made the bile rise in her throat.

He looked rigid. His jaw was locked tight, his eyes dark and cold, looking down at her with an expression that the internet had already dissected and labeled.

Disgust.

Violation.

Discomfort.

Ivy scrambled off the bed, her legs giving way, and barely made it to the bathroom before she retched into the toilet.

Nothing came up but acid and fear. She sat on the cold tile floor, shivering, pressing her forehead against the porcelain.

It wasn't like that.

She closed her eyes, forcing her brain to replay the raw footage of her memory, stripping away the slow-motion commentary of the world.

The carpet had lifted. A loose corner. A physical trap. She had tripped. Gravity did the rest.

And Holt...

She remembered the impact. He was solid, unyielding, like crashing into a statue. But in that split second, before the cameras flashed, she had felt something else.

His hand.

His left hand had shot out, gripping her elbow. Hard. It wasn't a push. It was a steadying grip, a vice that kept her from face-planting onto the floor.

But the GIF didn't show his left hand. His tuxedo jacket blocked the angle. The GIF only showed her, on her knees, her hand tangled at the crotch of the most famous, most elusive, most celibate actor in Hollywood.

Her phone buzzed again. A text from Kia, her assistant.

Ivy, I can't delete them fast enough. The comments on your last post just hit 20,000. They're telling you to kill yourself.

Ivy squeezed her eyes shut, tasting copper. She had bitten her lip too hard.

Ding-dong.

The sound of the doorbell was followed immediately by a fist pounding on wood.

"Ivy! We know you're in there!"

"Look this way, Ivy!"

She crawled out of the bathroom and peeked through the peephole.

Flashes of light assaulted her. They were there. A dozen of them. Lenses the size of cannons pointed directly at her door.

She slid down the door until she hit the floor, pulling her knees to her chest.

Her phone buzzed again. Alex.

Stay inside. Do not go near the windows. Holt's fan base is doxxing you. They're posting your address on 4chan.

Ivy wasn't just in trouble. She was being hunted.

And the hunter wasn't the paparazzi. It was the man she had touched.

Holt Nicholson.

The man who hadn't been linked to a woman in a decade. The man who lived in a fortress. The man who treated Hollywood like a contagion he had to tolerate.

She had defiled the temple.

Ivy looked at her purse, sitting on the entryway table where she'd dropped it last night. Inside the zippered pocket, buried deep, was a small black card made of titanium.

A Centurion card.

It had no limit. It could buy this building. It could buy the silence of everyone outside.

But looking at it didn't make her feel safe. It made the room spin.

Because that card was the only proof that her life was a lie. And if the world found out why she had that card, being called a molester would be the least of her problems.