Julian’s bedroom was almost as soulless as the rest of his house.

Perhaps it was more normal than not. She knew, among members of the media elite, that cleanliness was a priority. She’d seen her share of fellow actors keep their space as orderly and perfect as their persona, like it would help quell the storm on the inside.

Still.

Even if it wasn’t necessarily her place to judge, she didn’t like it.

The essence of a person lived in their house. You could read them that way.

She had always been unusually sentimental about her space. Bellamy used to tell her so, back when Bellamy had been around to tell her anything at all.

Maybe he wasn’t the sentimental sort. Maybe he kept his soul on the inside.

Wrong.

That felt like an excuse. It tasted like a lie.

Estelle tugged her wrist away the moment they arrived upstairs, rubbing off the feeling of something nameless and invisible and rancid from her skin.

She should have told John when they were meeting, or warned her manager to check in later that night if she didn’t come home.

Why had she ever wanted this? What had she hoped to gain?

More fame? It felt marginal, now. Like a pittance for the cost she was suddenly afraid she might have to pay, if her instincts were right.

Her instincts were always right. It was how she’d gotten so far in this business.

She should have listened to them sooner.

Her leg ached where the wax had singed her skin. It ached nearly as much as her feet did after trudging in her four inch heels up those terrible, slick stairs. Estelle steadied herself on the wall with a frown and kept her eyes on Julian.

She wanted to go back to her penthouse, filled to the brim with old pictures and memories. It was a tacky way to decorate an apartment that expensive, but when she came home after a long day of pretending, it helped her feel real.

“Wait here,” Julian told her firmly, watching the wrist she’d torn away with a barely-there frown line between his brows. “I’ll get something to help with your burn.”

She listened, if only because she would rather dump the remainder of those candles on her skin before she took another step into his room, and she knew he would hear her retreating steps before she could reach the front door.

This was a doomed exercise from the start. She had never needed someone on her arm to be successful before. She had forged her success with her own grit and mettle.

Fame was fickle. She didn’t want it this badly.

What had she been thinking?

“Perhaps fate is telling us to reschedule,” she said, with all of the good humor she could muster. It was a performance worthy of an award. She had a motive unlike any other right now, after all. “I think I should go get this looked at. I would hate for it to scar.”

“I can treat it for you, Estelle.” Julian insisted. There was a single-minded determination in his voice that she could hear loud and clear, even from across the suite. She didn’t like it. “Don’t worry. I have plenty of first aid supplies. Our schedules are so full, I don’t want to waste our chance. It will be good as new, and we can continue our time together.”

Don’t let him convince you, that same inner voice pleaded. You know better, Estelle. This feels wrong.

Estelle took a step back, resting her hand on the doorknob and pushing it open. Her expression was conciliatory. “I appreciate you looking after me. Dinner looked so lovely. But I think I’m going to go.”

“Estelle.”

She backed into the doorway, hurrying to fish her phone out of her purse. Her long nails were slick and imprecise, and she dropped it several times before she managed to get it. “I have a shoot tomorrow, and I really ought to make sure I get home reasonably early. My manager hates it when I get to makeup with dark circles. It makes production complain.”

Julian lumbered from out of his bathroom, his hands empty. The look in his eyes was dark and fathomless. Empty.

“You’re being ridiculous, sweetheart.”

It was like the floor was wrested out from beneath her feet. A hollow feeling of fear drip-drip-dripping into her gut suddenly gushed free entirely, and she wanted to vomit. She steadied herself against the door.

“Pardon me? I don’t think I—”

Julian shut the door to the bathroom loud enough to cut her off and rolled his eyes. The vaguely gentlemanly expression was wiped from his face in an instant.

“Estelle, you threw yourself at me last week, and now you’re acting like I’m some creep who lured you to my lavish mansion with pretty lies.”

She froze. Ice crept down her limbs, tingling and frantic. For a moment she found it difficult to breathe.

She forced herself to do it anyway. She needed air if she was going to get out of here.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I just…” She came back to her senses in pieces, then took another step back and into the hallway, her hands shaking at her sides. Her phone was a cold, reassuring weight in her palm. She fumbled to try and click the side button three times, but her stupid nails were in the way. She’d done them to impress Julian, of all people. He liked long nails. “I think I made a mistake.”

“So you wasted my time.”

Julian’s laugh made her want to retch. It was nothing like the way she’d always heard him laugh in interviews, and at awards shows. It was desolate. A hot breeze across a dead, dry field. The kind of thing that started wildfires and burned everything alive in its wake.

Julian kept his cold gaze on her face.

“I went through all of this trouble because you’re a big name. I figured it would make you arrogant, so I played along. I humored you. Me. But this is next level, Estelle. I could’ve had a good night if you hadn’t done this.”

“I’ll make it up to you.” She would say whatever she had to. Pride meant nothing to a dead girl. She didn’t have to mean it. She just needed to get out of here. “I just…”

“Make it up to me?”

Julian closed the gap between them in just a few long strides. Before she could move he was in her space, grabbing her wrist and plucking her phone out of her hands. One of her nails caught on the case, ripping off with a searing, sharp pain that left her gasping. “You can make it up to me now by not bitching out of what you started.”

“Julian, look, I…”

He watched her expectantly. Her instincts were screaming, raw and ragged.

Go, Estelle. You need to go.

She wrenched her wrist away, taking slow, careful steps toward the staircase. Screw her phone. Screw the June covers. She just wanted to get her keys and leave.

“This is through.” She said finally, finding her voice. She turned away from him.“Thank you for dinner. I am leaving.”

“No you’re not.”

Julian grabbed the back of her dress, his cold fingers curling in the fabric and tearing the eyelet where the dress’s pearl button lay. It popped off and spun off down the steps, bouncing with poignant clacks all the way to the bottom.

“Let me go!” She growled, pulling fruitlessly at his sleeve. “You can’t make me stay here!”

“Can’t I?”

Can’t I?

Can’t I, Can’t I, Can’t I?

His eyes weren’t empty anymore.

They were angry.

The realization left Estelle breathless.

The mask had come fully apart. In its place was the cold grin of a man who had never heard the word ‘no.’

“We’re going to go finish dinner, Estelle,” Julian said, each word enunciated with chilling precision. “We’re going to have a great night. And you’re going to finish what you started with me. There’s too much at stake not to. We are two of the most famous people in this industry. I will not let you ruin this with a tantrum.”

“I’m not yours to keep,” she spit.

Estelle ripped her arm away.

And for a single, victorious moment, she was free.

Then the edge of her heel clipped the top stair.

The feeling of falling is one you never forgot. Estelle knew, as she watched Julian’s impassive face flicker with understanding, that he wasn’t going to save her.

They say your life flashes before your eyes in those final moments.

But that wasn’t true.

There were no beautiful, sepia-filtered replays of her accomplishments as she soared, unhindered, through the open air above Julian Vargas’ staircase.

There were only regrets, the feeling of singed skin, and the smudges of neutral walls in her peripheral vision.