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And I hated myself for that.
Slamming my laptop shut, I flopped backward and not for the first time wished I could just rub one out like any normal man who needed an anger orgasm. But it didn’t work like that for me. It took time and effort and mood to get myself turned on.
If I touched myself now where I was most sensitive, it would just hurt.
So instead, I stared up at the ceiling and let myself wonder if I was really going to be able to get through this. Of course the answer was yes. If I could survive having my body shattered to pieces and never again put back together the way it had been, I could survive this damn mess.
I just wished Aleric could be less charming. Or maybe ugly. Anything that would let me hate him a little easier. Because there was nothing worse than feeling sorry for the guy.
Except maybe crushing on him, I supposed.
But I would be goddamned if I ever letthathappen.
Four
ALERIC
There wasn’tenough coffee in the world to combat an emotional hangover, but I was going to do my level best to kill all my remaining sense of feeling with massive amounts of caffeine. The first table read was in a few minutes, and I had just gotten done with my fifth interview for the week.
Therapy had prepped me for the questions I was going to get because there was no escaping the kid I’d been the last time the world of cinema had seen me.
And the soul-hungry paparazzi never forgot. Not ever. Not even when a decade and a half had passed and my face no longer adorned teeny-bopper magazine ads.
Not even when magazine ads had given way to the rise of the internet, and most kids didn’t know what a center spread even was.
But not even intensive therapy sessions and role-playing could prepare me for the onslaught of pain the questions caused. There was nowhere to run, and I couldn’t hide from the person I’d been. But I also couldn’t tell these doe-eyed, sharp-tongued opportunists what actually happened. The person in my past who’d hurt me the worst was still beloved. And now that they were dead, it was worse. No one believed me back then.
They made sure of that before I was escorted off the set and fired from my agency. I was the crazy one. The addict. The problem child. They had simply been an old soul working their fingers to the bone to give me a chance.
Now that they weren’t around to defend themselves? I would only look like the bitter, angry, washed-up actor trying to make excuses for what I’d done.
If I told the world what happened to me now, that would be it for me. I’d be branded a liar, and my entire career comeback would be canceled before I got the chance to speak a single word on camera. I couldn’t risk it. I wanted a chance to prove myself so badly I was willing to accept all the pain that came with this return to the screen.
I would grit my teeth, bear it, then deal with the aftermath of PTSD triggers and nightmares that made insomnia my new best friend.
And it might have been easier if I didn’t need to be face-to-face with Prince Camillo again, but that was my new punishment. A chance to make a comeback, but I had to have the world’s most fussy babysitter on set telling me what to do. I could only imagine the kind of advice he’d want to give me, and it made me angry just thinking about it.
What the fuck did he know about acting? Or any of this?
I’d never given much thought to the royal family, but it didn’t surprise me that he thought he knew enough to take a job as an acting coach. Sure, I could probably learn a thing or two about wheelchairs, and I was a man who loved bringing authenticity to anything I did.
But did it have to be him with his ridiculously gorgeous lips, and his sneer that kind of made me weak in the knees, and those eyes that felt like they could see right through me?
Christ, I was screwed.
Not to mention, if he remembered me from the other day, there was a good chance that would sour any possible working relationship we might have had despite everything else.
But maybe it was a losing battle from the start. He was firmly against me portraying him, and as much as I understood that he was picky—because who wouldn’t be when an entire show was about you—his reasons for opposing me were ridiculous.
This was acting. The role was meant to be dramatized. That was the whole point.
Get people interested. Get them invested. Give them those gut-wrenching, heart-pounding moments that made them want to watch more.
None of the roles I’d ever done were realistic, so I couldn’t begin to understand why he was throwing such a hissy fit.
But whatever. I was contracted, and all I had to do was play nice and nod and smile when he gave me notes. Then I’d head onto set and do what I did best because regardless of everything I’d been through, I was still an actor. I was good at this.
No. I wasn’t justgood. I wasamazing. I was born for it. And no fussy royal was going to make me doubt myself, goddamn it. Too many people had done that in my past, and I was through listening to those ugly, cruel voices their criticisms birthed inside my subconscious.