Chapter 26

Sasha

“There’s gotta be some kind of mistake,” I whisper, my heart tightening up inside my chest. Reaching for Laurel’s phone, I snag it out from her hands and stare at the screen with both my eyes wide open.

“I’m sorry,” Laurel whispers, but I barely register her words. Right now, I’m only focused on the picture in her phone, one so blatant and obvious that there’s no way I can spin it: Kane and Alberta went out on a date. I mean, not only are they sitting together in a fancy restaurant, she has her hand on top of his. And the smile on her face...Oh, God, I can barely stand to look at it.

LOVE ON SET? the headline reads, these big bold letters making me feel nauseous. After everything that happened between Kane and I (and, really, between me and Alberta), there’s just no way I can stomach something like this.

Oh, Jesus, I think I’m gonna throw up.

“No way. I can’t believe he’d do this to me,” I whimper, pushing the phone back into Laurel’s hands. Jumping up to my feet, I race toward the living room and turn my purse upside down, spilling its contents all over the couch. The moment I spot my phone among all the stuff I carry inside my purse, I just reach for it and dial Kane’s number furiously, tapping my thumb against the screen so hard that I might shatter it.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Laurel asks from behind me, her usually confident tone a mere shadow of what it usually is. It’ the first time in a long time that Laurel doesn’t know how to act around me. I can only imagine the look I have on my face right now.

I wish I could just shrug it off, but there’s no way I can do it with something like this. What happened between Kane and I runs deeper (or so I thought) than meets the eye and, at the very least, I want to hear his own version of events. Even if he prefers Alberta over me, I want to hear it from his own mouth.

Gritting my teeth, I sit down on the couch and press the phone against my ear, biting on my nails as I hear the tone on the other side of the line. I wait and wait, but he doesn’t pick up. Laurel only watches as I dial his number over and over again, that tight feeling inside my chest growing worse with each passing second. Good God, I’m losing it in here.

“Sasha,” Laurel finally calls me with a sigh, kneeling in front of me and taking the phone out of my ear. “He’s not going to pick up,” she tells me gently, a worried smile on her lips.

“Why would he do something like this? And with Alberta, of all people…!”

“I know, I know...but you know men, they’re all uncaring assholes, and they’ll trample over your heart the minute they have the chance,” she tells me, her whole men-are-assholes speech bubbling up to her mouth.

“I thought he was different,” I whisper, holding my breath as I feel tears start to sting at my eyes. Pursing my lips, I do my best not to cry.

“I know you did. I believed that too, you know? Sure, he’s handsome, rich, and charming...But he didn’t seem to be an asshole,” she admits, reaching for me and resting her hand on my shoulder. Sitting down next to me, she looks at me with a worried expression on her face and runs one hand through her hair. “Listen, Sasha...I know it might be hard, but you can’t let this knock you down.”

“I know,” I whisper, lowering my voice so much that I can’t even hear myself. “This won’t knock me down,” I continue, even though it feels like I’m lying to myself. How the hell am I supposed to survive a season of shooting after this? I have a ton of scenes to do with Alberta and Kane, and I’m no longer sure if I can look into their eyes anymore!

I hated him for it, but I think that Ryan was right about sex between actors; it leads to nothing but ruin. But, like the stupid girl that I am, I decided to ignore Ryan’s rule and do whatever the hell I wanted to...And now look at me, sitting here on the verge of tears while Kane is living it up with Alberta! As far as I know, she’s in his place right now, having a private tour of Kane’s sex room.

“Sasha, listen,” Laurel says, grabbing me by the chin and forcing me to look at her. “I promise you...I’ll get to the bottom of this. But right now I want you to go lie down, okay? You have a lot of scenes to shoot in the morning, and I don’t want you rolling into the set like a wreck.”

“Okay,” I whimper, pursing my lips as I feel my chin quivering. Swear to God, I have no idea how I’m not crying right now. If Laurel wasn’t here with me, I bet I’d be sobbing uncontrollably.

I have no idea how it got to this but, somewhere along the way, the attraction I felt toward Kane grew into something more...tangible. Something real ...or so I thought. Apparently, there was absolutely nothing real about it.

“I’ll go to bed,” I mumble, forcing myself up to my feet. Dragging my aching body across the living room, I let Laurel grab me by the arm.

“Listen, if it makes you feel better, I’ll go buy a ninja suit and a sword, and I’ll take care of these two right now,” she tells me, her tone so serious that I’m tempted to believe what she’s saying.

“You’ve been working out, right? Training for something like this?” I ask her, a sad smile on my lips.

“Absolutely,” she replies, squeezing my arm.

Well, at least I still have Laurel.