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Sorry I had to leave. I hope we’re still on for tonight. Can’t wait. xo

Chapter18

“Your dad was a hoot,” Justine said after sinking into Sienna’s plush couch.

“I get why you would say that, but that’s not how I see him.” Sienna looked a little tired—a day of playing Rochelle would do that to a person—but still resplendent and, frankly, good enough to eat. Justine couldn’t help but smile when she looked at her.

“He showed up. Doesn’t that mean he cares?” Bobby Bright had paid plenty to be in Justine’s good books for the foreseeable future. But Justine was also well aware that money could temporarily blind her to a person’s otherwise obvious flaws. “I’d really like to know.”

“Why do you want to know?” Sienna slung one leg over the other and leaned back, away from Justine. “You couldn’t get enough of him this afternoon.”

“I want to know because I care about you.” Justine had cracked much tougher nuts than Sienna Bright. She threw in her warmest smile.

“More than about Bobby’s money?”

“Oh yes.” It didn’t feel like a lie to Justine.

“I’d ask you to prove it, but I’m not that insecure.” Sienna smiled back.

“You can talk to me, you know. I’m a really good listener. It’s a big part of my job.”

“I’m not going to complain about my dad to you. That would just be inappropriate, really.”

“I don’t think so. We all have our own crosses to bear and there’s no point in comparing your pain to others.” That was a bit of a white lie. Compared to someone like Ashleigh, Sienna didn’t have much to complain about. But Justine had just claimed that comparison was futile, and it was in certain ways, but hearing stories like Ashleigh’s over and over—unbearably sad stories of abuse and harm and human cruelty—had made Justine immune to lesser, loftier issues, like the ones Sienna obviously had with her father.

“I don’t want to talk about my dad, anyway,” Sienna said, and glanced at Justine from underneath her long lashes.

“What do you want to talk about, then?”

“You,” Sienna said. “And how you felt when you were on set.”

“I don’t really feel like talking about that.”

“Yes, well, Rochelle told me, verbatim, I may add”—Sienna lifted a finger—“to call you out on your bullshit, so.” Sienna sat there grinning like someone who’d bet big on the winning horse.

Oh Christ.It was just like Rochelle to stick her nose where it didn’t belong. But Justine knew she had been wrong about something.

“I do apologize for leaving so abruptly. I should have come to see you before, but Ashleigh… she’s, well, I can’t tell you what she’s been through, but it’s a lot. An unimaginable lot and she’s really taken to me and?—”

“Babe, please.” Sienna calling Justine ‘babe’ easily stopped her mid-sentence—or should that be mid-excuse? “This isn’t about Ashleigh. It’s about you.”

“What about me?”

“Come on.” Sienna narrowed her eyes. “You were visibly shaken today. Your cheeks were wet with tears. This movie is about you, about your past, about all the shit you went through. Yet when I ask you about it, you don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s hard for me to talk about.” Justine averted her gaze. “It was hard for me to be on that set today. To see Alexis play me. It was like a punch to the gut, to be honest.” Like someone sharpened a knife and drove it right through the decades’ worth of scar tissue around Justine’s heart. “Like getting the wind knocked straight out of me.”

Sienna sidled up to her, but didn’t say anything, just put her hand, chastely, on Justine’s knee.

“As I said in your trailer.This fucking movie.” Justine let her head fall back onto the couch. “I thought I only agreed to it for the money, but now that I’m actually seeing it being made, I’m suspecting some subconscious, ulterior motive, and I really hate that. The last thing I want to do is dredge up my past and all the nastiness with my parents and what happened to me after. I’m so done with that stuff. And I knew that about myself. But if I really did, why did I say yes?” All Justine could see—wanted to see—when the producers approached her was a big, fat check for the shelter. Because when it came to funding, tunnel vision worked wonders. Just not this time. Because this was about her life—the really wretched part of it before she and Rochelle had founded the shelter.

“Maybe it’s just like you say it is. Maybe you haven’t fully reckoned with your past and this is a good opportunity to finally do so.”

“Please don’t take offense if you don’t see me on that set anymore.” Justine turned to look Sienna in the face—always a comforting sight. “It’s not you; it’s me.”

Sienna smiled sphinxlike.

“What’s with that smile?” Justine asked.