Page 13 of The Burdens We Share (Satan’s Angels #3)

Dallas

The rest of the day on set was spent with the little devil reading and studying her lines, and me combing through security footage on my laptop, only ever a couple of feet away from her at any given time. We’ve fallen into a comfortable silence, both focused on our own respective tasks.

I glance at her and find her with her brows creased, focused on what she’s reading.

I make sure to keep my glances at her relatively short because I find it nearly impossible not to stare at her for hours.

I’m enamored by her and I wish I could tell you why.

Aside from the fact that she is devastatingly beautiful and puts every other woman to shame—face like art, eyes like smoke.

There’s something else about her that makes it impossible to look away.

Call it intrigue. Maybe I’m intrigued that the little devil can focus on reading lines rather than snorting them. Though from my knowledge, she and her friends have left their recreational drug usage in the past.

I take in the focus, the dedication on her face for what she’s doing.

She’s passionate about so many things from her modeling to her guitar playing, and now this.

It’s impressive to have accomplished so much at such a young age—especially through sheer talent.

She’s only twenty-two and she’s done much more than many people at my ripe age of thirty.

The passion is clear on her face. As I watch her, the memory flashes of her face when she poked her head out of the trailer earlier.

How truly terrified she was. That kind of fear?

It changes a person. The expression on her face was one I never want to see her make again.

There is something about her fear that fuels my anger.

The way her face paled and her body started shaking.

I realize how different things are for her than they are for me.

She’s a very small woman and she can easily be overpowered.

If someone wished her harm, there’s no doubt in my mind that they’d be able to take her down.

The thought makes my jaw clench so tight I swear I hear a tooth crack.

The fact that he broke into her trailer today, on set when he knew I was here with Ivory, makes her stalker all the more dangerous.

He knows she’s under protection, and instead of feeling threatened, it only made him angrier, and more likely to act.

When I find him on this security footage and identify him, he’s done.

I’ll personally deal with him before I hand him over to the authorities.

Ivory yawns and I realize how late it’s gotten.

It’s almost seven. It must be dark out. We’ve been in here all day.

My stomach growls and I realize I’ve been so busy weeding through security footage that I haven’t eaten anything.

And she hasn’t either. “We should get going. We can grab dinner on the way back if you’d like?

” I offer, though I have a feeling that she might turn me down at the prospect of sitting across a table from me and sharing a meal.

I’m no fool, I know my presence makes her squirm.

I quite enjoy the sight of it. It’s a weakness I’ll never admit aloud.

She looks up at me with tired eyes and frowns, looking extremely worn down from the emotional rollercoaster of a day.

I made sure she wouldn’t have to look at either the rose or the note again, but it didn’t erase her earlier emotions.

“I’m okay. I honestly just wanna go to bed.

” She says it like it’s a fact, but her eyes say otherwise.

I give her a disapproving look, “You haven’t eaten all day.” And her breakfast was surely insufficient if she ate in the short amount of time it took for me to install her security system.

She frowns, “I’m really not hungry. My stomach is in knots.”

I absolutely refuse to let him work her up so much that she can’t even think of eating. I rise from the barstool and close my computer, tucking it under my arm. I can finish weeding through the footage later. “Come on. We’re going to get food.”

She groans, “I said I’m not hungry.”

I take a step closer to her and force sternness into my voice, “Get up.”

She obeys immediately and I feel my lips curl at the satisfaction of her obeying me. I wonder if she’d obey me in other ways, in other scenarios.

The little devil gathers her script and gives me a harsh look, “I’m only listening because I’m too tired to argue.”

I smirk, “I’m sure that’s the only reason.”

She rolls her eyes at me and walks right past me, making her exit. I follow behind her, never more than a foot away.

––––––––

WE SIT AT A small, family-owned restaurant in a secluded part of the city.

It’s pretty empty and quiet aside from the dozens of paparazzi lined up outside waiting to snap a million photos of Ivory and I together.

I’m sure tomorrow I’ll have to remove a million photos of her and I from the internet.

I’m sure I’ll even find an article referring to me as her boyfriend.

The thought doesn’t entirely irritate me.

She uses her fork to push the measly pieces of lettuce around her salad bowl.

She ordered a mixed salad and barely took two bites.

She just keeps staring into the bowl silently with a sad puppy expression on her face.

I’ve never been the comforting type. I struggle with the emotions of others and with myself.

Maybe at one point in my life, I was expressive and happy.

I even had a pretty good sense of humor.

That was only six months ago but it feels like a lifetime.

A lot can happen in seconds, let alone months.

When my life changed that night, I knew it would never be the same again.

I would never be the same again. So as much as I would like to comfort and support Ivory, or at the very least understand her emotions, I’m incapable of doing so.

Some may call me a cold-blooded piece of shit and they wouldn’t entirely be wrong, but I can’t change who I am.

Just like I can’t change the fact that I’m drawn to the pink-haired brunette across from me.

I devoured my dinner, completely starved after the events of the day.

We barely said two words to each other at this table and I feel like I need to say or do something because her face looks sadder and sadder by the moment.

“How do you feel about the movie script?” I know it’s a very random and very small-talk type of question to ask, but I want to get her talking. I want her mind on something else.

She looks up at me through dark lashes and I can already see the light coming back into her eyes, “I think it’s really good. Martin definitely knows what he’s doing. He captured all of our story perfectly.”

“What is your story?” I ask to keep the conversation going. I already know her story by heart. I could tell it to you just as good as she can.

My mind wanders to the file I keep locked up in my desk before I focus back on her face as she speaks. “I grew up in New York, moved here five years ago, met the girls at a dive bar, and the rest was really history,” she shrugs as if her rise to fame was no big deal.

I know everything about this girl, but she doesn’t know that. I just want her to keep talking to me. The sound of her voice does something more to me than a picture of her ever could. “What about your family?”

The exhaustion returns to her face, “What about them?” I know how her relationship is with her mother and brother.

Her mother is a serial dater, much like Harvey’s mother.

Ever since her husband died, she’s been searching for his presence in any man that comes her way.

No boyfriend lasts very long and before you know it, she’s onto the next.

As far as her brother Sam goes, he’s a troubled sixteen-year-old.

He drinks, parties, does drugs, hangs out with the wrong crowd, and gets himself into quite a bit of trouble.

From my research, I found that Ivory’s mom seems to rope Ivory into disciplining Sam.

She depends on her daughter for help raising her own son.

“Are you close?” I’m fully aware that I’ve invaded every ounce of privacy that Ivory has by digging into her entire past from the day she was born to the present. I’m aware of that fact and never once did I claim to be a good man.

She nods, “I’m close with my mom. We bicker a lot and sometimes we don’t really see eye to eye on a lot of things, but we’re pretty close.”

“Do you have siblings?”

A faint smile appears on her lips, “Yeah. I have a younger brother named Sam. He’s sixteen and a bit of a wild child.”

“How so?”

She rolls her eyes, “He just gets into a lot of trouble. I think I’m partly to blame.”

There’s something I didn’t come across in my research.

She blames herself for her brother being off the rails.

Why? “What makes you say that?” I ask, intrigue and curiosity in my voice.

It’s one thing to do all of my research on my own, but to hear it from her lips directly…

that changes things. Makes things more interesting.

Ivory drops her fork and props her chin up on her hand, “I’m his ‘cool’ older sister.

I’m a rockstar and a big name in Hollywood and when he and his friends see me in the news or in the tabloids for partying too hard, getting into trouble, and doing drugs, they think it’s cool to do the same thing. ”

I never thought about it that way. She makes an interesting point. “Why did you never stop doing any of those things?”

She shrugs, frowning, “It became a way of life. I didn’t really know any other way to live. It was addictive too. I’m sure you’re aware of how drugs work.”

I nod before I ask, “But you truly believe your brother’s behavior is your fault?”

“I don’t think it’s all my fault. But most of it probably is,” she admits. She looks almost disappointed, in herself most likely as she speaks.