Page 9 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

Dylan felt half of the chocolate tart she’d already consumed threaten rebellion in her stomach. Blair Emmanuel was gorgeous and talented and bisexual just like Dylan, and she had played Cressida, a much-beloved witch hell-bent on Dylan’s own vampiric character’s destruction for six straight seasons ofSpellbound. They hated each other on-screen because that was their job, but the vitriolbled into real life too. They were constantly bickering on set about everything from Dylan eating the last vegan doughnut when she wasn’t even a vegan to a screaming match mid-scene over either Dylan’s or Blair’s tone, an eyebrow raised too dramatically or some such shit.

Dylan knew their enmity was petty and childish and didn’t matter five years later, but she hadn’t worked with Blair since, never wanted to, and now they were suddenly romantic costars.

As inromance.

Swooning and smiles and vulnerability and fear and kissing, all the things Dylan was excited to explore as an actor and now dreaded digging into with Blair, whose own reputation in Hollywood was that of an absolute class act.

She swallowed hard, glanced down at her half-eaten torte. “Is that it?”

“That’s it,” Laurel said, waving her hand through the air. “Can totally move on to the good news now.”

“And what’s that? My father’s working on the movie’s soundtrack?”

Laurel simply cleared her throat, ignoring Dylan’s comment altogether. “The good news isSpellboundfans are going to go rabid over this pairing.”

Oh, Dylan just bet they would. Spellbinders were drama thirsty, and they loved it when the gossip sites inevitably posted some article about how Dylan had dared to raise her voice in public while Blair was spotted demurely sipping cava by the sea.

“Great publicity for the movie,” Laurel said. “And for you.”

“For me?”

“You’re not exactly America’s sweetheart right now, Dylan.”

Dylan huffed and set the dessert box on the tufted ottoman, her appetite for comfort chocolate completely sapped. “Thanks for putting it mildly.”

“That’s not what you pay me to do. And America loves Blair. They loveSpellbound, and the producers think this could go a long way to smoothing over your image.”

“My image.”

Laurel sighed. “You’re about to play a major role in a majorqueerfilm, and the studio needs it to do well.Reallywell. You’re playing a hometown lesbian who serves coffee for a living, and this morning, there are pictures of you in TMZ making a very rude gesture while hanging out of a helicopter.”

“God, those are surfacing again?”

“So, yes, Dylan,yourimage,” Laurel said without missing a beat.

Dylan rested her elbows on her knees, dropped her head into her hands. “Why did they even cast me?”

Laurel was silent for long enough that Dylan looked up. “Laurel.”

Laurel blinked, shook her head. “They cast you because you’re right for the role. That, and Adriana is very good at her job.”

Dylan exhaled heavily. “She really is.”

“Now you just need to ensure they continue to see how perfect you are to play Eloise Tucker, small-town sweetheart.”

Dylan nodded. Took a deep breath. A few deep breaths. She could do this. Shehadto do this. She wanted these kinds of roles, wanted to prove she was more than the villain, more than pools full of Clicquot and waggling her tongue through her fingers from a helicopter.

More than her parents.

More than that toddler asleep on a pizza, tomato sauce streaked over her little arms and legs.

She pressed her eyes closed—the memory she was too young to remember felt so real, full color in her brain, her blood. The longing, the mess, the fame, it was all there, pulsing just under her ribs.

And she wanted more than that.

“Okay,” she said, straightening her shoulders, smoothing her hair. “This is fine.”

“It is. Itwillbe,” Laurel said.