Page 69 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

Then she all but shoved Dylan onto the closed toilet lid, but Dylan didn’t mind one bit. Shewasgoing to the bad place, onewhere she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think and she was naked on the home page of every single gossip site in existence.

In her mind, at least.

So she did as she was told. She took a breath. Several, in fact, as well as a few sips from the water bottle Laurel produced from her bag.

“What is going on with Gia?” Dylan asked when she felt like she could handle the answer.

Laurel frowned. “What do you mean?”

Dylan gave her a look, set the water bottle on the floor. “This makes me wonder how often you lie to me.”

“I’m your manager—lying to you is part of the gig. You don’t want to know everything, trust me.”

“Yes, I do.”

Laurel laughed, her dark coils bouncing. “No. You don’t.”

Dylan was starting to feel the need for more deep breaths. “Okay, well, Rayna spilled the beans anyway, so why is Gia calling you all the time? Our last scene was great.”

Laurel sighed, leaned against the wall. “One ten-minute scene that took three days.”

Her voice was soft, soothing, but her words were like knives nicking along Dylan’s skin. Dylan opened her mouth. Closed it. She couldn’t refute what Laurel said, but she had this now, she knew how to play Eloise…

Didn’t she?

Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure, her confidence melting like snow under a spring-warm sun. As she sat there, her cheeks reddening under Laurel’s indictment of her abilities—however gently said—Gia’s and Blair’s voices over the past several days started filtering into her brain.

I can’t believe I let them…

You get handed the role on a silver platter…

Pulling you, yes. I didn’t even want…

Dylan pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes until she saw starbursts.

“Laurel,” she said.

“Dylan.”

She paused, wondering if she could justnotask the question, but no. The words settled on her tongue, inching toward her mouth. They were going to be free no matter what.

She took one more fortifying breath. Then…

“Did the studio even want me to play Eloise?”

She asked it quietly, with her eyes still covered, a kaleidoscope of color swirling behind her vision.

Silence at first.

A silence that stretched long enough that Dylan dropped her hands and looked up at her manager, whose pretty form was spotty and multicolored as Dylan’s vision adjusted.

“Don’t lie to me,” she said. “I need to know what—”

“No.”

Dylan’s mouth snapped shut.

Well, now she knew.