Page 77 of Total Creative Control

“It is when you’re fucking around with my characters.”

“They’re not just your characters anymore. And it’s called transformative work—Google it.”

“I don’t give a shit what you call it, but it needs to stop. Right now.”

Silence. Aaron stood by the window, watching Lewis across the wide expanse of the bed, scrubbing a hand anxiously through his hair. “You can’t tell me what to do in my own time.”

Christ, did he really not get it?

“You can’t work for me and write fanfiction about my show, Aaron.”

“Oh, bullshit. What the hell do you think I’m doing? Nicking your brilliant ideas and using them in my own stuff?” He frowned suddenly, rubbing his mouth. “Okay, I did use the Highgate Vampire myth in a fic, but that was years ago. Way before I started working for you—and way before Ryan used it. Hell, he might have got the inspiration from my fic.”

“Before you worked for me?” Lewis reeled as a new and sickening thought struck him. “Wait, is that why you took the job? Oh my God, of course it fucking is! Jesus. You thought you could slip one of your fanfics into my hands, didn’t you? Or was it a spec script?” His anger sharpened as a worse realisation dawned. “Fuck, is that why youstayed? Because I assume there’s a reason you’ve put up with all my fucking ‘tantrums’ for so long.”

With a noise of frustration, Aaron turned away and stared out of the window. “Jesus Christ, you’re obtuse. I stayed because…” His voice faded, and he rubbed a hand through his hair again. “Look, I swear, my position here has never had any effect on my writing. I’ve never used anything in a story that wasn’t in an aired episode.”

Anairedepisode.

So, he had thought about it, then—how it would look to use confidential information in his stories. Somehow, the calculatedness of that just made it worse.

Staring at Aaron’s back, Lewis was struck by the miserable thought that he didn’t know him at all. How could he when, for all these years, Aaron had been keeping secrets from him—and then springing them on him like this, at the worst possible moment, making him look like an idiot who didn’t even know what his own PA was up to?

“I should fucking fire you for this,” he muttered.

Aaron stiffened, and when he turned around, his grey eyes were blazing. “Well, that would be convenient, wouldn’t it?”

“No, it would actually be very fuckinginconvenient.”

“Ha!” There was no humour in Aaron’s bark of laughter. “Come on, Lewis, we both know what this is really about.”

“Yes, it’s about you embarrassing me in front of Toni and Charlie. It’s about you lying to me foryears.”

“Like you give a shit how I spend my time at home. No, this is about me waking up in your bed this morning!”

Lewis jolted back, appalled. “This has nothing to do with...with…that.”

Aaron’s grey gaze flared with anger. “Oh, come on,” he bit out. “Ever since we stepped into that meeting—before that, even—you’ve been freaking out about last night. I doubt you were even paying attention to what was going on before I spoke up. And then what I said gave you all the excuse you needed to start venting at me and chuck me out.”

Lewis stared at him in silence for several moments, and Aaron met his gaze.

“Yeah,” he said wearily. “You know what I’m saying.”

“No,” Lewis said stubbornly, shaking his head. “I don’t. I’m not quiet because I’m agreeing with you. I’m just trying to get my head around this fucking madness.”

“Seriously?” Aaron said, his expression unimpressed. “Are you forgetting that I’m not one of your model-turned-actors who thinks you might hang around for longer than five minutes? Iknowyou, Lewis—you fuck them and leave them. Or in my case, I suppose, fuck them and fire them.”

“I don’t—I’m not—” He felt airless all of a sudden. “That’s not what this is.”

Aaron said nothing, but his gaze was cold and angry.

Lewis said desperately, “I don’twantto fire you, for fuck’s sake. Look, if you take all your fanfictions off the internet and stop writing more, we’ll forget—”

“No.”

Lewis stared. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean I won’t take them down. And I won’t stop writing.”