April 23rd, 2016
Baylor nodded as I stood up and braced myself to walk into Stan Feilding’s, the head of Trigate Films’ studio, office.
His receptionist looked a little tired and a lot beaten by huge expectations, and I wondered how I’d fare in the room with the man who’d obviously spent most of his working hours making her look that way. Normally, I was a knowledgeable woman with vivid thought and clear expectations, but these days, my head seemed to be more of a mess than anything else.
Regret ached in my chest at having ordered Levi to let me go this alone, and it wasn’t the first time. Since the funeral, I hadn’t really let him go much of anywhere with me. We didn’t do much outside of the hotel, but when I did, I’d been determined to go it alone.
I was so focused on being a professional—attending the meeting as an actress and a force to be taken seriously instead of a broken woman leaning on her boyfriend—that I’d forgotten the facts.
I was a broken woman leaning on my boyfriend, and my reasoning for asking the studio to reconsider moving forward with the movie was rooted in such. Causes were always better tackled by bigger numbers, and facing anything with Levi was better than facing it alone.
Somewhere along the way, I’d gotten lost in the floundering fight to be strong. But standing strong didn’t mean you couldn’t use the muscle of another person to do it.
And Levi had muscles in spades.
Still, I couldn’t change my decision now. Mariah had spent a week and a half trying to get this meeting, and now that I was here, I couldn’t just reschedule. I’d have nothing but the Levi in my head to hold me up and soothe me.
“Ah,” Stan Feilding greeted as the door to his grandiose office swung open and his assistant ushered me inside. “Miss Ivy Stone. Come in, come in.”
The space was large and intimidating, all black, red, and white décor. It was almost as though he’d taken a page directly from the How to Appear Powerful playbook.
“Hi, Mr. Feilding,” I addressed him formally as I stepped cautiously into the room. My steps were slow but numerous as I closed the distance between us one foot at a time. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”
“Of course,” he bellowed. “I like to make time for the people working within the company. And from your messages, it seemed to be important.”
From halfway into the space, I stepped forward tentatively, and he gestured to the chair in front of his desk with a hand. “Please, take a seat.”
My feet quavered as I did as offered and sank into the rich, red leather of his modern furnishings. He followed suit, tucking in behind an obnoxiously stately desk and smoothing his tie down his chest. His pepper-gray hair was perfectly coiffed, and his suit was neatly pressed. He was quite obviously a man with importance and money.
The thought struck me suddenly that what the two of us qualified as important might not be on the same list at all. “Yes. Important to me, anyway.”
He smiled a friendly smile, so I went on.
“My sister, Camilla—”
He was nodding before I even finished the sentence, and the unexpected motion caught me so off guard I stopped speaking. He obviously knew of her passing, as anyone with a pulse probably did, but something about his immediate confirmation made it all seem that much more real.
She was really, truly dead.
Sudden weight hit my chest, and pressure closed around my throat like a vise as I struggled to keep myself calm.
He filled the resulting void easily.
“Yes. I was deeply troubled by the news of your sister and one of my employees’ role in all of it. I hope you know that the studio is willing to do whatever we can to make it right with you.”
I was still recovering from the rush of reality, but his words brought air back to my lungs. They were positive. They were open. They were accommodating. My heart swelled slightly, inflated by sheer hope.
“Thank you, Mr. Feilding,” I acknowledged. Having the head of a studio confront my need for a meeting with such human decency felt nice. Like maybe there was a little bit of right left in the world, after all. “I was really hoping you would say that.”
Just one eyebrow arched, but his posture shifted more noticeably. In on his elbows, he leaned to the desk, but still somehow managed to make himself look taller.
“And what is it we can do for you, Ivy?”
I knew my request was a large one, but I had nothing to gain by stalling. “Not move forward with the project,” I said simply. “With Boyce’s involvement and the directly subsequent events—”
“Ivy, honey,” he interrupted condescendingly. His tone was sharp, and his face was completely different from before. His eyes weren’t open and honest, and he wasn’t humored by the ambitious nature of my wants at all. “Not moving forward isn’t an option.”
He didn’t mince words, but the hope inside me still wouldn’t die. I had to try. To see if maybe he’d somehow misunderstood me.
“Mr. Feilding—”
“It’s in production. It’s started the very expensive process of editing, and sound is already in development. We can’t go back at this point, and I don’t think you really want to,” he said, taking it a step further by not only telling me his opinion, but pushing his off on me as a possibility. “Give yourself time to heal. You’ll be ready by the time it comes out.”
I frowned hard. His insinuation was insulting, to say the least. I was not a hysterical woman on a frivolous mission.
I was not a wounded heart dumped by some guy and hoping it would be better if I just erased the history on my browser.
I was a grieving sister and a respected employee of his company, and he wasn’t actually giving me fucking anything. Despite what he’d made me believe at the beginning of the meeting. Despite what he’d surely tell the public happened if we got into a battle of truths.
“You just said the studio would do anything—”
“Not that, Miss Stone,” he said with a finality that crushed my spirit and wounded my soul. “Anything,” he qualified with a smile, “but that.”
And just like that, everything I’d convinced myself I was going to change in myself went up in a puff of angry dust.