Chapter 2 No.2

Alex didn't knock. He had a key, and he used it like a weapon, throwing the door open and slamming it shut behind him before the flashes from the hallway could penetrate the gloom of Ivy's apartment.

He looked like he'd been electrocuted. His hair was standing on end, his shirt half-tucked.

"You," he breathed, pointing a shaking finger at her. "What goes through that head of yours? Hmm? Did you think, 'Hey, there's Holt Nicholson, let me just grab a handful'?"

"It was an accident," Ivy whispered. She was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, though it was seventy degrees in Los Angeles.

"Accident?" Alex laughed, a high-pitched, hysterical sound. He threw his tablet onto the coffee table. "Tell that to the court of public opinion! They're calling you a predator, Ivy! A thirsty, D-list predator!"

"The carpet was loose," Ivy said, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears. "I tripped."

"And you landed on his dick?" Alex scrubbed his face with his hands. "His team is going to eat us alive. You know who represents him? Erich Calderon. That man doesn't send cease-and-desist letters; he sends airstrikes."

"He won't sue," Ivy said softly.

Alex stopped pacing. He stared at her. "Oh? You're a legal expert now? You think because it was a 'trip' he won't sue for sexual harassment? He's Holt Nicholson! He protects his image like it's the nuclear codes!"

He won't sue because he can't sue his wife for tripping.

The memory hit her then, unbidden.

Three years ago. A conference room in Century City that smelled of lemon polish and old money.

Ivy was twenty-two, wearing a dress she'd bought at Target. Across the mahogany table sat Holt.

He hadn't looked at her. Not really. He was reading a document thick enough to be a novel.

"The trust merger requires a legal union," his lawyer had explained, as if discussing the acquisition of a warehouse. "Tax code 409A implies significant benefits if the assets are consolidated under a marital umbrella."

Ivy had signed her name. Ivy Snow.

Holt had signed his. The pen scratched loudly in the silence.

Then, he had looked up. His eyes were the color of a stormy sea, dark and unreadable.

"Stay quiet, Mrs. Nicholson," he had said. His voice was low, devoid of any emotion other than mild fatigue. "Live your life. I'll live mine. Just don't make noise."

Don't make noise.

Ivy looked at Alex, who was now hyperventilating. She had made the loudest noise possible.

"We need to get ahead of this," Alex muttered, pacing again. "Apology video. No makeup. Tears. Real tears, Ivy. Can you cry on command? Of course you can't, that's why you didn't get the soap opera gig."

"I'm not doing an apology video," Ivy said, gripping the blanket. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"This isn't about truth!" Alex roared. "It's about survival! Do you want to go back to waiting tables in The Valley? Because that's where you're headed!"

Ivy's phone buzzed in her hand.

She looked down. A text message. No number. Just a sender ID: E.

Stay inside. Do not speak to anyone. Await instructions.

Erich.

Her heart skipped a beat. Await instructions.

Instructions for what? Divorce papers? A public statement disowning her? Or...

She remembered the sensation from last night again. The gala. The moment she fell.

When his hand had gripped her elbow, she had smelled him. Cedar and something sharp, like rain on pavement. And just before she pulled away, his fingers had tightened on her waist. A squeeze.

It wasn't a push. It was... possessive.

Or maybe she was delusional. Maybe she was projecting feelings onto a man who looked at her like a bad investment.

"I need you to think," Alex pleaded, crouching in front of her. "Do you know anyone who knows him? Anyone? A makeup artist? A gaffer? We need a backchannel."

Ivy looked at Alex's desperate face. If she told him the truth-Alex, I'm married to him-he would have a stroke. And then he would tweet it. And then she would be in breach of the NDA she signed, which carried a penalty that would bankrupt her for three lifetimes.

But she couldn't just sit here.

"I..." Ivy licked her dry lips. "I don't know him."

The lie tasted like ash.

"But," she continued, her brain scrambling for a foothold, "I think... I think I can fix this."

"How?" Alex looked at her like she was insane.

"I need to make a call," Ivy said. "Privately."

Alex stood up, throwing his hands in the air. "Fine! Call the Pope for all I care! I'm going to draft a statement where we blame your shoes."

He stormed into the kitchen.

Ivy looked at the text from E again.

Await instructions.

Holt Nicholson didn't handle things for D-list actresses. He erased them.

Unless...

She unlocked her phone and scrolled past the hate comments, past the death threats, to a contact saved simply as "Landlord."

They hadn't spoken in six months. Not since she moved into the "guest wing" of his estate for a week while her apartment was being fumigated-a privilege granted by the contract, not by affection.

She stared at the blinking cursor.

If she reached out, she was breaking the rules. Stay quiet.

But silence was drowning her.