Page 84 of Between Never and Forever

“May be? Who else would they be for? Ethan loves someone else, Dex. I’m not talented enough to just write—”

“That’s the thing, heartbreaker. Youarethat talented. I don’t know what to believe and what to write off as fantasy when it comes to you on that stage.”

“Well, I guess I should take that as a compliment even if it feels like a freaking bullet to my heart. The record label will love knowing that I’m believable enough for my amazing fiancé, and maybe Ezekiel will let me stay for—””

“Are you seriously contemplating what the fuck that man is going to do?”

“He’s a major shareholder, Dex, and—”

“There’s no justification for what he was doing. He was forcing himself on you.” I said the words with emphasis so they would sink in. They sank into my bones too, rattled me much more than I wanted them to. “Has this been happening since—”

“Dex.” She shook her head at me and then set her gloves down before she walked over and nudged my shoulder with hers. “It hasn’t been that bad, okay? But you realize this is the way the industry works sometimes? Do you have any idea what the corporate world looks like for a woman? How many loose hands we have to avoid? How easy it is for a man to grab at something he shouldn’t and then laugh it off because he’s in a position of power?”

I watched our reflections in the mirror, her face completely relaxed while mine turned green. “It shouldn’t be that way.”

“And yet you have two sisters. You know it is.”

“No. They were never celebrities that—"

“All women go through something. But, sure, Cade and Dante Armanelli are married to them. People might not respect those men, but they fear them enough to keep their distance.”

I suddenly had more respect for those men protecting my sisters right then and there. “Yeah, well, tonight marks the night people will start to keep their distance from you.” I vowed it, etched it in my brain, and could see it as my only goal now. “I’m going to make sure of it, Kee.”

I saw the way her eyebrows dipped low, and she chewed her cheek before leaving my side and sitting down at her vanity mirror to start wiping away the makeup over her lips. She sighed. “Do you know I used towantto make waves? Approach the issue of Ezekiel just based on principle. I did one time with Mitchell, and you know what he said to me?”

“I don’t know if I want to know.”

She smiled sadly. “He said it could be worse, that Ezekiel thinks I’m such a sweet girl he doesn’t even want to take me to bed like he does the other women.”

Was there a way I could slowly kill him and get away with it? I was already racking my brain for ideas.

She continued, “You look sick, and the first time I heard that, I was too. I vomited in the bathroom before I went out on stage that night.”

“You should have left.”

“Exactly. It’s never easy to leave.” She said it with such conviction. “Not when they’ve threaded their life into yours. I don’t even know how to operate without them. Like, what would I have gone on and done?” She threw the makeup in the small tin can at the wall. “I’m under contract and—”

“No contract should hold you to that.” The words rumbled out of me, mean and full of frustration.

“Your contract allows you to pretty much own me, Dex.” She smiled softly and her words filled my stomach with bile.

“I’d never—”

“I know.” She cut me off. “It’s just easy to exert power. They’re, unfortunately, exerting it for their own benefit in a way you never would. Although, I’m sure you wanted to hurt me in some sense.”

“I wanted to get over you,” I threw back.

“Wanted or want?”

“I’m not sure.” Fuck if I knew what I wanted anymore. “I want closure one way or another.”

“And we both deserve that.” She shrugged. “Look. We’ve handled it for now and maybe he won’t come—”

“He’s being banned from every HEAT property as we speak, heartbreaker.”

“Dex, you can’t—”

“I can do anything I want when it comes to my business, Kee. Don’t you get that? I have him on cameraassaultingyou.” Did she not understand the gravity of the situation?