Her mind shot back to that morning with the banana pancakes, to the name she’d seen on Chuck’s phone. Maddy. She’d thought nothing of it, and apparently, she should have. It had to be this same Madison. Chuck clearly knew her well enough to have her saved in his phone under a nickname.
Her breath had left her along with the ability to say more than three words.
“What is this?” she asked, and numbly handed the tablet to Chuck.
He grabbed it with a frown. She watched his eyes dart over the words and images. They grew wider by the second until a look of panicked guilt swallowed his whole face.
“This is not what it looks like,” he said.
The hackneyed phrase bounced off her ears thanks in part to shock but more so to the fact that the fate she’d been running from her whole life had just sunk its teeth into her like an angry dog.
A scandal. And she was caught in its jaws just like her parents.
TJ leaned forward and plucked the iPad out of Chuck’s hands like a card from a deck. “For the viewers keeping score at home, a piece ran online this morning that shows somepretty compromisingphotos of Chuck on the set ofSafe Gamblelooking rather friendly with a production assistant. Chuck, what can you tell us about this? Who is Madison Bilton, and does she have anything to do with the reason you got fired?”
Chuck flinched and dropped any sense of cordiality. “What is this? What are you doing?”
“I’m simply wondering if there’s more to the story here. Those photos suggest that there was something going on between you on set, and—”
“There was nothing going on between us,” he blurted, and turned to Olivia. “Liv, this is not what it looks like, I swear.”
“Then what is it, Chuck?” TJ said. “You lied to your significant other about why you got fired, and now these photos show up.”
“I didn’t lie!” he cried. He reached for Olivia’s hands resting in her lap, but she pulled them away. “Liv, please.”
“If you didn’t lie, then tell us the truth right now, Chuck,” TJ taunted.
Chuck was all but panicking. He squeezed his hands with a pained grimace. “I can’t—I literally can’t! Liv, I swear, they are turning this into—”
“What’s going on, Chuck?” Olivia asked, finally finding her voice but still reeling in shock.
He looked at her like he was being strangled. His brow knit; his lips twisted. Something sat on his tongue ready to explode, and keeping it in was nearly killing him.
“Looks like someone has been keeping secrets,” TJ cut in.
“Stop!” Chuck said, and burst out of his chair. “You can’t do this. Parker, this isn’t—!”
Parker stepped in with a serious look on his face and holding up his hands like a referee. “TJ, this isn’t the direction we agreed on.”
“No, but it’s an interesting one,” TJ said with a mischievous sneer.
“Interesting or not, you know we can’t go there,” Parker said, his hands still raised.
Chuck was pacing and swearing, yanking his styled hair into a mess.
Olivia was completely numb and vibrating with fear at the same time.
Couldn’t go where? Chuckliterallycouldn’t talk about it? Had Mansi been right that he’d been forced to keep quiet?Most important,who the hell was Madison Bilton?
Her instinct to run, to protect herself from harm, kicked in hard. She popped out of her chair and dashed off toward the house.
“I think we’re already there,” TJ said with an ominous cackle.
“Liv, wait!” she heard Chuck call behind her. And then directed at TJ, “You asshole! Why are you doing this?”
She left it all behind and ran inside for the guest bathroom, remembering that Chuck had scoped it out for cameras. And at least this one had a door with a lock, unlike the other.
When she got there, she shut and locked the door behind her and found Chuck’s stash of products lining the sink. A shower stall stood at one end on the other side of a toilet. Everything was shades of cream stone and green glass. She sat onthe closed toilet to keep her legs from giving out and tried to take a deep breath.