Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
“In light of the compromising video that was leaked today, I think it’s safe to assume this wasn’t McKenzie Sommers’ first foray into—”
“Turn it off,” Austin growls.
Cal mutes the broadcast as a series of images parades across the screen. Photographs of Hollywood and Cal holding hands. Me at the bar, dancing, drunk. Me and Austin kissing in the firm’s parking lot on our way into work.
Austin’s brow knits. “Can you rewind this?”
“For what I’m paying for cable, you bet your ass I can.” Cal pauses the broadcast and scrolls back to the start of the slideshow.
Austin studies the photos. “There,” he says. Cal hits pause on a photograph of me in a bikini at the beach. “When the hell was this taken?”
I try to think back to the last time I would have worn a swimsuit. “Last summer, maybe? You guys held the firm’s Fourth of July barbecue on the beach.”
“Could the Davises have had someone tailing us for the last year?”
“It’s possible,” Cal says. “These folks tend to think long-game. It’s how they stay ten steps ahead. I’m hesitant to look into any of this through official channels because of my involvement with the case.”
“I’ll have Mike look into it first,” Austin says, already pulling out his phone.
I don’t realize I’m digging my fingernails into my palms until Hollywood gasps.
“Kenzie, you’re bleeding,” she says.
I look down at my hand. It’s not a lot of blood; just enough to stain my palm and the undersides of my nails. Still, I’m surprised I didn’t even feel it.
Austin rushes over to inspect the damage.
“It’s nothing,” I say.
He cocks his brow, skeptical.
“Come upstairs,” Hollywood says to me. “We’ll clean you up in my bathroom.”
I follow her up to the ensuite where she holds my hand under the faucet. A wave of exhaustion pours over me. I watch the red drain away and feel...nothing. Like there’s a pane of glass between me and my senses. I can press my nose to the glass, fog it with my breath and write messages in the condensation, but I can’t break through.
Hollywood bandages my hand and then wraps her arms around me.
“I’m sorry this is happening to you, Kenzie.”
“It’s happening to all of us.”
“What happened at Rudy’s didn’t happen to all of us.” She pulls back to look at me. “I just wish I could erase every trace of that video from the internet.”
“I don’t even care about the video,” I say. “I’m not ashamed of having been a cam model. It’s the attention I hate, how it disrupts my life and the lives of everyone around me.”
She squeezes my uninjured hand. “All the disruptions in the world are worth it if it means having you in our lives.”
My throat tightens, a crack in the glass.
She sighs. “One day, you’ll believe it, too.”
16
austin
A blast of pain drop-kicks me out of an already restless sleep. I rub the tender spot on the side of my head, just as a high-pitched whine stretches into a scream.
Kenzie thrashes beside me in bed. She’s having a nightmare.
“Baby, wake up.” I catch her hands mid-air, grateful for a full moon and sheer curtains to see by. Her head whips back and forth on the pillow.
“No,” she cries. “No, no, no...”
I grasp her shoulders firmly and shake.
“Kenzie, wake up.”
She opens her eyes, panting. I cup her face and run my thumb across her trembling lip.
“It was just a bad dream, baby girl. It’s gonna be okay.”
“Nothing’s okay.” Kenzie waves my hand away and sits up, hugging her bent knees. My chest tightens at the sadness in her gaze. “Why am I still having nightmares?”
“Yesterday was rough. All that stress was bound to trigger something.”
“But we did the roleplay!”
I cradle the back of her head.
“These things take time.”
“Fuck time.” She throws the sheet back and slides out of bed.
“Where are you going?”
“Downstairs.”
“I’ll come with you—”
“Don’t,” she snaps, then sighs. “I want to be alone.”
It takes everything I have to remain in bed while she pads out of the room.
Pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes, I drop back onto my pillow. I’m supposed to protect this girl. But how do I protect her from something I can’t even touch? I can’t punch a video, can’t shoot it, can’t choke it with my bare hands.
And the things I can touch, like that asshole at Rudy’s, would only make more problems for both of us. Likewise, even if I could snatch up every smartphone, tablet, and computer within a thousand-mile radius and burn them, it wouldn’t erase Kenzie’s video from the internet.
If there’s one feeling I hate more than any other, it’s helplessness. But neither helplessness nor hatred make for good tools. They fix nothing, soothe nothing, birth nothing. I’ve got to concentrate on the things I can change. Whoever leaked that video did so knowing it would paint a target on Kenzie’s back. I can’t stop the news from spreading lies about her, but I can remind her that those lies aren’t part of her story, while loving her as fiercely as I can.