Sabrina walked out of the building, avoiding the stares of the staff. Everyone was looking at her. She knew what they were thinking.

She was the girl who slept with Nick Falcon to get him to do his first PR appearance.

It felt like hours had passed by the time she was outside in the dim light of the parking lot. Her cheeks were burning red with embarrassment.

She was humiliated, yes, but the phone call concerned her more. Her aunt was calling again. That meant her father was not doing well. Her aunt was her father’s younger sister. She had taken over his care, though Sabrina paid for most of it.

They both loved him more than anyone. They had been doing this for so long that they rarely spoke about anything else.

She fished out her car keys and calmly unlocked her car door. She wasn't going to cry. Not this time. This time she felt like screaming. She pulled out her phone and called Aunt Petra.

"Hello?"

"Sabrina. Your father was calling for you earlier. But he's resting now. Can you call back in a little while?"

"Yes, of course. How are you?"

The older woman sighed.

"He's getting worse. It's been a hard week."

"Alright, I'll call you later. In about an hour?

"Yes, that will be good."

"Thank you, Aunt Petra. Goodbye."

"Goodbye Sabrina."

Her aunt hadn't said a word about herself. That's what happens when you take care of someone you love. Someone who was dying.

That's something nobody understood who hadn't been through it. Both her parents had gotten cancer while she was growing up. Something to do with the factory job they’d worked on first arriving in this country.

It had taken her mother a long time ago, when Sabrina was just a girl. But her father… she'd had to watch him suffer for years. Thank God for her Aunt Petra. Otherwise, Sabrina would never have even left home for a day, let alone gone to college. Or business school.

Never mind moving all the way to Los Angeles on her own.

Her father had encouraged her, telling her to go. He'd been so proud of her accomplishments. But she still felt guilty for doing those things, even though she went home as often as possible.

She felt guilty all the time.

Even though her salary was paying for her father's expensive in-home hospice care. The paltry insurance he'd had from his factory job had long since run out. But he hadn't died as quickly as they'd expected to. He'd just hung in there. For years.

If he could survive and keep his chin up, then she could too. She had to. She had to make them proud.

It was the main reason she didn't date or socialize. Who could understand where she was coming from? The minute she opened her mouth to talk about any of it- it just sounded like a sob story. So she just didn't say anything at all.

Besides, if he needed something, she had to make sure he had it. And there were new treatments all the time. Expensive new drugs and clinical trials. He’d already done several and she needed to be able to pay for more.

She had to be a success. She’d given up so much to make her parents proud. She missed out on so much to get here.

And now it was all for nothing.

She’d never be taken seriously again.

Her phone rang again. It was Nick. She pressed a button, sending him straight to voicemail.

She glanced around, realizing she was still sitting in the parking lot like an idiot. Damn it, if she didn't get out of here he would find her. She couldn't face him right now. His smug self-assurance. His sense of his place in the world.

His bedroom eyes.

Right about now she couldn't decide if she hated him or wanted him to comfort her. How crazy was that? The person who had hurt her was the one she wanted to make it all better?

Good luck with that, Brina.

He'd looked a little guilty when he'd come off stage. Not right away but all the same… she knew he wasn't a complete monster. Then again, that could just be his charisma and the mixed signals he'd been sending her since they met. It could be a simple matter of pheromones.

She sighed and started the car.

What's done was done. Nothing she could do about it now. She'd run some damage control tomorrow. Maybe talk to the in-house PR department about placing some tidbits to debunk his story. Soften the impact.

It might help. A little bit anyway.

Either way, she'd forever be the girl who slept with Nick Falcon.