“Miss Durant!”

Estelle knew that voice better than almost any other. She picked up her pace, the click of her patent red heels echoing sharply off the shiny marble of her agency’s second floor hallway

She didn’t need this. Not today.

“Miss Durant! I know you can hear me!”

Estelle kept her eyes locked down the corridor, sliding her employee keycard over a pair of electronic locks. They gave way with a pleasant chime, and allowed her to pass.

Unfortunately, her unwelcome guest caught the door behind her before gravity could pull it fully closed.

“I cannot hear you, Mr. Page,” she told him tersely. She tucked a strand of her sleek bob behind her ear and tapped it twice as she went. Her steps were stern and even and loud. “Because if I could hear you, I would be very angry about you breaking our promise.”

“I know that I said I wouldn’t bother you at work again, but—”

Estelle stopped abruptly, John Page skidding into a plant behind her before he could collide with her back. His shoes squeaked on the buffed tile, the sound high and grating. She thought she could hear his breath catch.

She turned and narrowed her eyes. She knew how she looked: mean. She always looked mean, these days. “But what? I was not aware that our understanding came with any exceptions, John. I certainly didn’t offer any.”

He brushed a piece of overlong brown hair streaked with gray from his face, taking several deep breaths. She watched the sweat bead along his brow as he rifled through his pocket and pulled out a stack of glossy headshots.

He looked familiar, in the vague way that so many in show business did. Handsome enough, with kind eyes.

“I promise that Mr. Cassandra is worth a look. I know you’ve been looking for someone to take under your wing. He’s a good person, and a phenomenal actor. I think if you just gave him an opportunity…”

Estelle pursed her lips and crossed her arms. She could already feel the headache creeping up her temples. She had one most days, lately.

She did not take one of the headshots.

“So far, this is precisely the sort of pitch that nearly got your access to this building revoked.” Estelle narrowed her eyes. “I am not an agent, Mr. Page. I never had any designs of being one.”

John paled, but he was nothing if not persistent. He righted the plant he’d knocked down awkwardly and straightened his wrinkled tie. “Listen,I can sweeten the deal this time. Word through the grapevine at my agency is that Julian Vargas just came back on the market.”

Estelle hummed. Checked her nails, like she was bored. “That information is a poorly kept secret. One that I’ve known since Monday. Try again.”

There was a long, tense silence. Like he was making a decision. John sighed.

“I can introduce you to him.”

He seemed uncomfortable with making the offer, but he firmed his expression and nodded once. The nod was probably more for himself than her. “I know his schedule since I filled in for his manager on a shoot last week. If you promise to meet with Mr. Cassandra, I can schedule the meeting so you run into Mr. Vargas organically.”

The offer was…tempting.

Especially for one made by John Page.

Julian Vargas was perhaps the only person in the industry with an appearance fee starting higher than hers. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a jaw that the camera drank in like water.

Estelle couldn’t resent him for his success. He had starred in more critically-acclaimed work in the past five years than most actors saw in a lifetime. He was handsome. He was talented.

He was exactly who she needed to continue her climb to the top.

He was almost as famous for his cultured, suave image as he was infamous for his string of long-term affairs with famous women.

Once someone had Julian Vargas, they didn’t let him go easily. She would have to take this chance quickly. He wasn’t someone that stayed single for long.

But he hated being approached. That she knew from fellow actresses who had tried. He chose you, not the other way around. What she needed was an opening. A chance to be selected.

Estelle tapped her fingers along her arm, slow and thoughtful. She could feel her manicure through the chunky knit of her ivory sweater. “I could get a meeting with him independent of you, you know.”

He knew. The same way that Estelle knew if she really wanted him gone, she could just page security.

“I know. And I know you don’t owe me anything. Just…throw me a bone, Estelle? I promise, he’s worth it.”

And therein was John Page’s real talent as a manager. In a business rife with people who didn’t care, or who only pretended to for show, she never doubted for a moment that he genuinely wanted the best for the people he represented.

“I really like this kid.” John’s eyes were shining with the same naive, guileless optimism she dreaded the most. It was the hardest sort to resist: earnest. “He’s talented. Really talented. Someone somewhere really screwed him over. He should be bigger than Vargas.”

Estelle sighed.

John knew she had a soft spot for the lost causes. She just hid it better than he hid his.

Through the polished glass paneling of the doorway she spotted them — teems of fresh-faced young actors were leaving a group training. The upstarts. The new kids. Her agency retained the best teachers in the field, so much so that even the other companies sent them to their beginner bootcamp.

John’s pet actor could be there one day, if she pushed the right buttons.

She was his last chance, or John wouldn’t be here. He was the sort of guy who hated calling in favors almost as much as he hated liars.

Some long buried part of her, the piece that was sentimental and young, remembered the many kindnesses he had permitted her. He seemed older and gentler than he had been, in those days. Worn thin by decades in an industry like this.

Estelle sighed and pinched her temples.

“I want an itinerary in my email tomorrow.”

John froze, his expression growing impossibly eager. For a moment, the age vanished from his face, and he was as bright and luminous as he had been, back then.

Estelle held up a hand before he could say something that would make her regret this.

“Minute by minute information, John. All of it—down to the tie he’ll be wearing. I’ll see if I can get Mr. Cassandra a screen test for a small part in my latest series. I know he wanted to audition. But once he gets there, it’s up to him. I won’t demean you by just giving it to him.”

John’s eyes watered. “Estelle…”

“Don’t push your luck.” She raised a single brow. They still stung from her appointment this afternoon, thin and perfect and gelled to hell. “We’re even now. The next time you pull something like this, I’m having you escorted out of here, whether you have a client with you or not.”

But if John heard her, he didn’t seem to care. He pried an ancient, terrible phone from the pocket of his tweed suit jacket and shoved the headshots in his breast pocket. “You won’t regret it. You won’t. I promise, he’s so talented.”

Estelle closed her eyes and took slow, steadying breaths. She could already hear the board’s complaints about her tardiness from out here. They always had something to say. It was rarely anything good. “Don’t make promises.”

“I mean it.”

His tone was serious. Unusually so. Enough that she took notice.

“Mr. Cassandra will be something special,” he assured her. He pocketed his phone, and met her eyes. “He already is. And you and Julian will be front page news before the end of the month.”

“I’m going to my meeting now, John.”

His expression softened. Something quiet and fatherly that always made the back of her throat sting.

“Thank you, Estelle!”

But Estelle was already halfway down the hallway, imagining which of the many photographers she knew she would hire to shoot her and Julian in time for the summer tabloids.

And if that was what it took so that she didn’t shed a tear before she had to present to the CEO, well, they’d just have to leave that out of her future biopic.