by Meg Collett
“What issue is that, sir?” Emilie came forward to stand next to Stevie. Their arms almost touched, and Stevie felt Emilie trembling.
Shepherd stroked the smooth, carefully shaven skin along his jaw. “Insubordination,” he said, sounding regretful—sad, even. If Stevie hadn’t known him incapable of those emotions, she might have bought it. “Treason. Backstabbing. I have to say, Emilie, I’m heartbroken.”
Stevie had to fight the urge to run for the door.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about—”
“Let’s not lie to each other anymore,” he said, cutting off Emilie’s shaky words.
Stevie had only ever seen Emilie as a stone-cold boss lady. Seeing her like this, like a kicked dog, punched her in the gut.
“I know what you did.” He shook his head. “If it were up to me, I would keep the network out of this, but they were the ones who came to me with the truth. The awful, devastating truth.”
“Sir, I—” Emilie tried again, taking a step toward his desk.
“You’re stealing money from the show and using expense accounts for personal purchases.”
Emilie recoiled, her spine going ramrod straight. Stevie’s mouth fell open.
“Your expensive taste hasn’t gone unnoticed, young lady. And when you used my login in an attempt to skim the show’s money, well, you dug your own grave. Right, Richard?”
He looked down at the phone sitting atop his desk. Stevie and Emilie jumped when the president of RealTV spoke over the speakerphone. “Miss Lau, I am extremely disappointed in you. You’re lucky we aren’t pressing charges. Had we caught you spending the money, we would have hit you so hard with criminal charges that you wouldn’t have been able to see straight. Do you understand me? No one steals from me.”
“I work for every penny I make! I didn’t take anything—”
“We’ve suspected a thief for a while now,” Shepherd said. “I installed recording software on my computer to document every open screen and keystroke. Yesterday, my computer registered two false login attempts and then numerous screens being opened and closed, all of them connected to expense accounts.”
“Suspicious, given Shepherd was dealing with Edith and Rory Reynolds at the time,” Richard Bernard added.
Stevie’s heart pounded deep in her chest. She wanted to say something, anything, but her mind was reeling too much to focus. In front of her, Emilie looked ready to jump across Shepherd’s desk and strangle him. “You bastard! You’re the one stealing money! I was trying to prove it was you! The board knows. They can—”
“Miss Lau,” Richard spoke over her, making her sound like a ranting criminal, “as of this moment, you are fired. You have thirty minutes to remove your belongings and person from the premises. A guard will accompany you while you collect your things. You will talk to no one, you will leave, and you will not come back. Do you hear me?”
“But, sir, I—”
“Shepherd?”
“Yes, Richard?”
“Have this thief removed at once.”
“Of course. Right away, sir. Thank you for your time and help in handling the matter. I’ll talk to you soon. Goodbye.”
Richard couldn’t see the smile spreading across Shepherd’s face as he disconnected the call, but Emilie and Stevie could. He’d set them up, letting Emilie take the fall.
“You son of a bitch!” Emilie surged forward, ready to claw Shepherd’s face, but Stevie grabbed her arm and held her back. Shepherd wasn’t above throwing an assault charge on top of everything else.
“You did this,” Stevie said, sounding far calmer than she felt. “You set us up.”
And then Shepherd had the nerve to shrug and check his nails. “Look,” he drawled, “it’s the business. Don’t take it too personally, Emilie. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all.” He looked up, grinning again. “But I appreciate how thoroughly you incriminated yourself. I barely had to do anything other than sit back and let you hang yourself.”
“She can prove she never transferred any extra money,” Stevie said, firing back at him. “She can show her bank accounts as evidence.”
Shepherd sniffed. “Possibly—or a few large bonuses she’s received for all her hard work on this show might look suspicious, especially if a certain person forgot to officially report them to payroll.”
“You asshole!” Emilie lunged, and it took all of Stevie’s strength to keep her back.
“Emilie,” she said through her gritted teeth, “don’t. If you touch him, he’ll have you arrested.”
Emilie stopped fighting, her face blotchy and red. Tears streamed down her round cheeks.
Stevie glared at Shepherd, hating him more than ever. “We can figure this out.”
A knock sounded on the door.
“Oh,” Shepherd said, “that’ll be your escorts, Emilie. Your time starts now. Don’t dally or I will have you arrested. I promise.”
Emilie stood there, her glare unflinching.
Stevie tugged on her arm. “Come on,” she murmured. “Let’s just go.”
They started walking away, when Shepherd said, “Did I dismiss you, Stephanie? We haven’t spoken yet. I just thought you might enjoy the show.”
Her head snapped back to him, her bones going cold. He was still smiling like a cat with bird feathers stuck in its teeth. That was what she felt like: hunted and devoured. He’d cornered them and Emilie had paid the price, but Shepherd wouldn’t let Stevie go unpunished. She was next.
“Fuck him,” Emilie snarled. “You don’t have to stay here. You can just quit.”
“Her contract—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Emilie spoke over him the way he’d done to her just moments ago. She would be heard before leaving this place. “You think the network will want to go to court and pay lawyer fees over some contract for this piddly-ass show? No, they won’t. You drag your feet long enough,” she said to Stevie, “and make it expensive enough, they’ll leave you alone.”
“Get. Out.” Shepherd stood from his chair and leaned forward, fists on his desk. “Now.”
“It’s okay,” Stevie said. She told herself she wasn’t afraid of Shepherd, that he couldn’t hurt her, not really. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”
Emilie hesitated, her eyes bouncing between Stevie and Shepherd. Then she flipped Shepherd off and told him to do something to himself that almost made Stevie blush. She slammed the door behind her. Stevie heard her tell the guards that if they touched her, she would rip their hands off and shove them up their assholes.
Slowly, Stevie turned back to Shepherd. “What do you want?”
“You’ve hurt my feelings, Stephanie.” Not looking at her, he pushed papers around on his desk, looking for something hidden beneath.
“And you were stealing money.”
Shepherd rolled his eyes. “Everyone does it. You know that as much as anyone else. It’s how these things work. Now sit down. I want to show you the promos we’re getting ready for the network’s pitch to advertisers.” He found the remote beneath a binder.
“Emilie can prove she’s innocent.”
Shepherd didn’t pay her any attention as he clicked on the large flat-screen suspended from a drop-down hatch in the ceiling. It hummed to life.
“You might want to sit down for these.” It almost sounded like a warning. He eased himself onto the narrow, fake-leather couch without glancing back at her.
“Screw you.”
Even from where she stood slightly behind him, she saw the creeping amusement spread across his face and couldn’t help her almost irresistible urge to flee. Shepherd flipped through the television options and called up the first of four short video files.
Stevie held her breath.
The screen went black for a few seconds before the first file started playing.
Sirens sounded faintly in the background. The screen stayed mostly black as a ringing began, growing louder with each second. Then a person’s voice answered,
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
“I . . . I wrecked my car . . . I’m . . .”
“Ma’am? Are you injured?”
“My head . . .”
Stevie was going to puke. That was her voice.
The screen brightened, revealing a flash of crumpled metal and a broken telephone pole. A hiss came from the engine, from Stevie’s Camaro—or a car that looked like her Camero.
Her knees went weak and she just managed to sit down on the couch opposite Shepherd before her legs gave out. The 9-1-1 call—her voice, her call—kept going, but her ears were ringing too loudly to make out her voice as she told the operator where she’d crashed and the extent of her injuries. No, she hadn’t hit anyone else. Please hurry. My head hurts.
She heard the sound of her breathing, ragged and shallow, and her fear.
The screen changed, cutting to a sweeping view of the duplexes—an overly dramatic introduction to the show. “But this isn’t your average renovation show. Sadly, no, not when some of our contestants need to renovate their lives.”
A cut to crumpled beer cans and laughter—hers. A wine glass tipping over and spilling, and then Stevie falling back into the rotted master bathroom’s vanity from day one—the one filled with roaches. The camera caught her flailing and falling and screaming, but the editing and the laughter layered on top made it look like she was wasted.
“Join us every Monday this fall for demolition and romance, competitions and drama, and Stephanie Reynolds’s battle for sobriety. Will she stay sober? And if not, will she lose the competition for her team? Will she lose the competition for her life?”
The clip ended with a dark screen and more sirens. A phone started ringing, and a different 9-1-1 operator answered the call this time. A producer stated the show’s name and asked for an ambulance, saying a contestant was badly hurt. With the timing of the editing, it sounded like the contestant was Stevie.
The screen went completely black, and Shepherd twisted around in his seat to look at her, his face oozing a smile. She pressed a hand to her stomach, speechless.
“Maybe you need to see the others.” Delighted and ecstatic, he hit play on the next one.
They’d used every stumble and every word she’d ever fumbled in different takes, editing them together to make her look obliterated. And then the kiss with Cade.
Pulsing music played while they were in the shower. The screen flickered between a shot of them and a shot of empty liquor bottles, and then Helena Evans, crying and turning from the camera like she was trying to hide her face.
“I loved him,” she choked out, raising her face. Devastation destroyed her features.
Cut to Stevie slapping Helena across the face during the decoration competition of phase two. The camera zoomed in on the angry red fingerprints on Helena’s soft cheek as Cade yelled, “Stevie, no!”
Before the final package started, Shepherd put down the remote and turned to her. Bracing his elbows on his knees, he waited for her to break the silence.
But she wasn’t breaking. This silence wasn’t her despair. She felt a tight, hot fist of rage in her stomach. “You’re not using those,” she said through clenched teeth.
Her stomach still threatened to spill her breakfast, but she swallowed back the taste in her throat. She shoved past the trembling fear and the knowledge that Shepherd had the ability to play these promotional packages across billions of televisions. Online. Everywhere. For everyone to see.
For Cade to see. And Kyra and Hale. For everyone in Canaan.
“Oh, I am.” Shepherd rolled up his sleeves, carefully pleating each equal section to keep the wrinkles to a minimum. “And you’re going to give me what I want for the finale today. I have a very special request.” At that, he looked up. He gave her what he probably thought was a sympathetic look. “You know how these things go. The network needs the salacious drama. Did you really think this would just be a renovation show?”
Stevie stood, fists clenched and her voice dangerously quiet. “I can fight you on this, Shepherd.”
“Can you, though?”
He knew she had nothing. Proving he was stealing money from the show had been her only chance to stop this exact sort of play from him, and she’d failed.
“You’re disgusting,” she hissed. “This isn’t good television. No one will care about this shit. I’m just another drunk has-been celebrity.”
Shepherd dipped his chin in passive agreement. “You are, but you became RealTV’s drunk has-been celebrity when you signed those contracts, and no matter what Emilie says, the network will fight to keep you on this show, but it’s not really like you have the money to hire a lawyer, right? I highly doubt your parents will help either, not with the potential fallout that would accompany taking on a network. They’d never get another show again. So, no, you won’t fight this, because we’re going to use every ounce of your fame to wring out some ratings.”
“I’ll walk right now. I don’t care about the money. I’ll find enough to hire a lawyer.”
“And poor Cade? What about him?”
She swallowed. Her heart was somewhere on the ground by her feet. And Cade? He wouldn’t want this for her. He would tell her to leave, to walk away and not look back. This wasn’t right, and he’d agree with her. He’d hate her for staying on just for him.
Most importantly, she didn’t want this for herself, for her sobriety, for the life she’d created in Canaan, and for what little shred of decency she’d allowed herself to feel these last few weeks.
“Cade will leave with me. Arie too.” Stevie lifted her chin and forced herself to stand a little straighter as Shepherd’s eyebrows rose, his smile turning sharp as a razor blade.
“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he said, feigning sadness. “I really did. But I thought you might say that and be selfish enough to think only of yourself after seeing these.”
He lifted the remote again and clicked the selector over to the fourth file. Before he could click on it, Stevie said, “I don’t need to see another one. I get it. But it won’t work, Shepherd. I know the game you’re playing, and I’m out. I’m leaving—with Cade and Arie.”
His only response was to press play.
It wasn’t a package for advertisers.
It wasn’t a television spot at all.
It wasn’t even about the show.
It was a view of Shepherd’s bedroom in his apartment in Los Angeles. The lighting was dim, the camera quality slightly grainy, but it clearly showed a steep angle into the room, like the camera was perched high on the wall, in one of the sconces lining his fourteen-foot-tall ceilings. Hidden.
The shot was only empty for a short beat before the action started.
Stevie looked away from the television as Shepherd leaned forward and laughed. “It’s just about to get good!”
He couldn’t peel his eyes away.
But Stevie knew how the video would play out. She still remembered that night. She remembered stumbling into his room, high on molly and drunk on the alcohol she’d been drinking all day. She heard herself slur something to Shepherd on the screen and knew she was pressing herself against him, pulling at his clothes, grinding all over him.
Still looking away from the screen, she pressed a hand to her mouth when the moaning started, the action winding up.
She clenched her eyes shut when the harsh staccato cracks of flesh against flesh started. Her gasps, laced with moans, begging for more and calling Shepherd “Daddy.”
Then the choking as flesh pounded.
Her gasping turning real as she panicked, sucking for air.
Stevie darted a glance at the television.
She saw herself on Shepherd’s floor, her dress bunched up at her hips and the top torn down beneath her breasts. His hands were at her throat. Her legs kicked at the ground as her face turned red, mouth gaping. Her eyes were wide, tears glistening on her cheeks.
And Shepherd was pumping above her, head thrown back as his release spilled
into her, seemingly endless.
And then the quiet.
That was what Stevie remembered from that night, the quiet of after. After Shepherd had rolled off her and started cleaning himself up. Her using her elbows to push herself up and trying to right her dress. And then Shepherd broke the quiet by asking if she wanted a bump of coke, his voice ringing out from the bathroom. At this point, her breathing had turned ragged, too loud after the quiet from the moment before. Her hand went to her neck. She stood, teetering on the heels she still had on. Shepherd had never taken it that far, to the point where he’d choked her to get off. Sure, he liked it rough, and she thought she had too, but not that. She hadn’t asked for that.
Shepherd walked back out, chattering on about something, unfazed. He handed her a clear drink—straight vodka with a splash of water and lime, the way she liked it. She took it and downed it.
She knew the moment right before she did it, right before she betrayed herself.
On the television, Stevie laughed and pressed herself against Shepherd. They went to the bed, drinks and drugs waiting, and started all over again. She’d laughed like it was okay.
This was the something worse he’d mentioned weeks ago. She’d never imagined how bad it would be.
Shepherd shut off the television and stood to face her. “You get my point now?”
“This is illegal. It’s blackmail,” Stevie said, voice warbling.
“It’s a sex tape. It’ll make your goddamn career. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“I didn’t know you were filming.”
“Take this how you will, Stephanie, but you will be participating in the last day of filming this show the way I deem fit. You will do exactly what I say, and you will do it with the gratitude”—he sneered the word, turning it filthy—“I expect from you.” He flapped a hand at the television behind them. “Or your career will get a bump sooner than you expected. Got it?”
She was shaking but kept her eyes on the cheap carpet lining the bus floor.
That video and what they’d done, it was all just so . . . ugly. How she’d felt after it—ugly and wretched. At the time, that kind of abuse had felt right—deserved even. The alcohol had detached her enough to make her feel the hollowness in her heart less; it had kept the emotions at bay long enough to live through them.