Page 74 of Reality With You (Arden Beach #1)

“Did you see the piping hot tea that dropped this morning?” Bruno asked after Lennon introduced him to Dylan, leading them further inside. The walls were a happy, vibrant orange, and the air smelled of old wood and citrus.

“About what?” Lennon popped an eyebrow.

The abashed look on Candace’s face at the wedding after she’d aligned with Kelsey and thrown Lennon under the bus now made sense. That’s what Candace had meant at the party when she said they were there for the same reason—they both needed the exposure and the paycheck.

“Wow. I guess we were all pawns on that show, huh?” Lennon mused, disappointed but no longer surprised.

“Some more than others,” Bruno remarked with an arched brow. He glanced at Dylan, who was reading the article over Lennon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry everything went down the way it did. You both deserved better.”

Dylan smiled somberly. “Lesson learned. Don’t try to put out a fire by throwing a reality show on it.”

“We’re enjoying the calm before the storm,” Lennon said as she handed the phone back to Bruno.

“When the show drops, things will get … interesting.” She released a sigh.

They still hadn’t made a decision about Nolan’s deal, but she was already coming to terms with the show moving ahead as planned in case they weren’t able to stop it.

“Or maybe not,” Bruno said. The expression on his face suggested he knew something.

The back door slid open, carrying in the sound of a young girl’s laughter followed by Darius’s smooth baritone. Bare feet slapped along the tile floor and a moment later, a twelve-year-old girl with wet, curly hair and a towel draped over her hot pink bathing suit came running into the hallway.

“Hey, hey, hey—careful! You’ll slip,” Bruno told her.

“Are you the musician my dad drives around?” Rosie asked Lennon with a wide-eyed grin.

“I am. Are you the piano prodigy he’s been telling me about?”

Rosie rolled her eyes at her father. “He exaggerates. But I do play the piano.”

Lennon stifled a laugh at the exasperated expression Bruno gave her and the Spanish he mumbled under his breath.

“I hear you got a record player for your birthday,” she said, and the little girl lit up again, nodding her head enthusiastically.

“I know a great record store in town. Want to go sometime?”

“Yes! Oh, my gosh. Can I, Papa?” Rosie looked at Bruno expectantly as Darius came up behind her with swim shorts on and a towel around his neck. He warmly greeted Lennon and Dylan.

“If you go upstairs and take a bath right now, Miss Prodigy,” Bruno answered.

Rosie gave him an annoyed look but then smiled brightly at Lennon. “I can’t wait!” She ran up the stairs to the chorus of Bruno and Darius both reminding her to be careful.

“I’m going to make sure she’s got everything ready for tomorrow,” Bruno told them. He eyed his husband. “You want to show them what you found?”

Darius regarded Dylan and Lennon with a heavy look, directing them to follow him upstairs.

After grabbing a shirt and slipping it on, Darius led them to an A-frame attic that had been converted to an additional bedroom.

It was jam-packed with instruments and sound equipment Lennon could easily spend hours exploring.

He closed the door, blocking out the sounds of the party downstairs thanks to the black acoustic foam panels lining the walls, then crossed the room to the L-shaped desk in the corner.

“I was reviewing the hours and hours of sound footage from the party recently. The one at the mansion,” Darius said, opening one of his laptops.

Cold trickled into Lennon’s stomach just thinking about that night.

She watched a muscle in Dylan’s jaw pulse.

“You catch all kinds of crazy shit with productions like that, especially when there’s alcohol involved.

People forget about the mic packs.” He tapped around on the keyboard and opened a file, then pressed play.

Ambient noise from the mansion party—music, chatter, bodies shuffling—filtered through the speakers, a mostly unintelligible cacophony. Gooseflesh rose on Lennon’s arms and neck as the memories of that night surfaced with vivid clarity. A voice triggered her rage with its nasally, languid tone.

Kelsey.

“It’s showtime.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” another female voice said, the words slurring together a bit. A faucet turned on—they must have been in the bathroom. “You’re fucking crazy. I love it.”

“It’s getting a little boring. I’m just … spicing things up,” Kelsey remarked casually. Unlike the other, her voice sounded eerily sober. The two of them giggled wolfishly.

“I can’t believe he’s so fucked up. You think he got one of the spiked ones?” The more she spoke, the more familiar the second voice became, too. Tana, Lennon realized. Shuffling of a bag, the click of a lipstick lid coming off.

“I don’t know, but when opportunity presents itself, you take it.”

“You’re not gonna, like … you know?” Tana asked tentatively.

“Ew no, of course not. I just need to get Dylan in a compromising position. All that matters is how it looks on camera. No way he won’t take my deal after that.”

“What about Lennon?”

“Oh, she won’t be a problem. She’s so hung up on him, she’ll be out of her mind when she finds him with me. The trash will take itself out.”

“You’ve got Avery losing her shit over Steph and now you’re about to nab yourself a baseball player. You’re an evil fucking genius, Kelsey McCroy. I’ve got so much to learn from you.”

Someone knocked on the bathroom door, interrupting them, and their conversation veered off into Tana asking Kelsey for a tampon. Darius tapped a button to stop the audio.

Silence stretched through the office except for the hum of the electronics.

“That fucking bitch,” Lennon hissed, the gooseflesh on her skin melting in her fury. It had never occurred to her that Kelsey knew he was drugged—but now, she wondered how she hadn’t thought of it.

Kelsey had even planted the story about Steph and Chad having an affair.

The rest of the cast hadn’t just been pawns. They’d been puppets.

“I can’t believe she set me up,” Dylan rasped, dazed. “She tried to fucking blackmail me.”

“Huey asked the sound department for all the files,” Darius said, his grave expression confirming what they had been thinking: The studio did intend to bury the evidence.

“We turned them over, but I made copies first. I found this part last night.” He reached into a drawer and retrieved a small USB drive.

He held it out to Dylan. “I’m leaving High Wave.

All I ask is that you don’t name me because I’ll be in breach of contract, and their lawyers will eat me alive.

I can’t risk this coming back on my family. ”

Dylan accepted the USB drive, looking Darius in the eyes. “I won’t. But if they do come for you, call me. I’ve got your back.” He extended his other hand. “Thank you.”

Darius took his hand, shaking it. “Be careful. Their lawyers are sharks.”

Dylan clenched the USB drive in his fist. “So are mine. They’ve just been waiting for me to throw them something good.”

The equalizer for the audio file filled the laptop screen, its jagged peaks and valleys holding the smoking gun they’d been looking for. The game had shifted again. They had a chance to turn things around; they just had to make sure they played their cards right and didn’t fumble it.

They needed to get a step ahead.

“I have an idea,” Lennon said.