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  “I’m sure you have,” Riley countered. “Although the grapevine seems too high up for someone like you; I’d have thought you get all your gossip from the gutter.”

  Alex shrugged off the insult. “A little bird told me that your acting career is about to take a nice leap,” he said, dropping his voice a little lower. He inclined his head towards her, his eyes gleaming.

  Riley’s heart skipped a beat in her chest and she stared at him in surprise. She’d been so careful to avoid giving anyone details about her upcoming gig—at most, she’d told friends that she had landed an acting job and that it was going to be months of filming. Who the hell told him? Quick on that thought was the corollary that if someone had told Alex about her part, she might be the one to take the fall; she’d signed a twenty-page non-disclosure agreement before the production company had even given her access to the parts of the filming script that were relevant to her role. If someone thought she’d blabbed, they could decide she was in breach—and kick her off of the project.

  “Tell me exactly what you’ve heard,” Riley said sharply.

  Alex grinned at the shock and consternation on her face, sitting back on the other side of the booth.

  “I really should make you beg for it,” Alex said, shaking his head. He reached up to the breast pocket on his suit and plucked an ornate, gilded fountain pen out of it, flourishing it for a moment before he grabbed a cocktail napkin and scrawled a quick note on it.

  Alex slid the napkin across the tabletop towards her, face down, and Riley picked it up, turning it over to see the two words written on it: Galaxy Wars. She half-gasped, her heart beating even faster in her chest as dread began to weigh down her stomach.

  She tore her gaze away from the napkin and looked at Alex, wishing that she could incinerate him with a glance. “What do you know? How did you find out? Who told you?”

  Alex looked to be truly enjoying her flurry of panic, taking a sip of his dirty martini and setting the glass down on the table with a clink.

  “Keep your voice down; you don’t want to torch a perfectly good opportunity,” he said in a low voice.

  Riley took a quick, deep breath, pressing her lips together to conquer the impulse to throw her drink in his face and slap him. Instead she finished her cocktail in a few hard gulps, setting the glass down and exhaling sharply.

  “Okay, tell me what the story is,” Riley said more quietly.

  “Let me order another round,” Alex told her, raising a hand to hail one of the bar staff.

  Riley hesitated, wishing that she could just walk away from the conversation; but until she knew what information Alex had and how he’d gotten it she couldn’t tear herself away. She took her phone out of her purse and, as Alex ordered another round of drinks, sent a quick text to her friends. Sorry guys, something came up and I’m not going to be able to make it out. We’ll celebrate next time I have a day off though! She sighed as the bar waiter left to grab their drinks.

  “Okay, Alex—enough. Talk already,” Riley said, keeping her voice low.

  Alex smiled, knocking back the last of his martini. “Once you get to a certain level in this business, it becomes a very small town,” he explained. The condescending tone of his voice irritated Riley, but she knew better than to give into the impulse to deliver a quick comeback.

  “So I’ve heard,” she said. Their second round of drinks arrived and Riley tried to steady her nerves. Lord, give me patience, she thought without enthusiasm.

  “I’ve come up a bit through the ranks, and now that I’m Talent Relations Manager at Empire State Production, it’s just part of my job to make sure I get the earliest news about any up-and-coming talent.”

  “It sounds like you’re doing very well for yourself,” Riley said, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

  “You can imagine how surprised I was when your name came up in a meeting the other day.” Riley raised an eyebrow. “Word on the street is that you were hand-picked by the executive producer.”

  Riley felt a wave of exaltation; she had been flattered to think that she’d done a good enough job to stand out to the casting team—but to be so good that the executive producer wanted her for the role?

  “That’s good to hear,” Riley said.

  “Apparently he went over the heads of the casting team; they wanted someone else for the part but he insisted.” Alex gave her a long look. “I wonder what inspired him.”

  “My performance,” Riley said firmly.

  Alex shrugged. When he spoke again, his tone changed; he wasn’t the silky, slick mover-and-shaker—he looked shrewd.

  “Don’t get it twisted, honey,” he told her. “You’ve got about five of your fifteen minutes of fame left. They’ll make you give your all for this movie and when you’re all dried out you can expect to go right back to fighting tooth and nail with all the other wannabes, just to wind up playing the mom in infomercials for cough medicine.”

  Riley’s hand tightened on her glass and she scowled. “You know, I think I’ve missed this aspect of your personality most of all,” she said drily.

  “I can offer you something better,” Alex told her. “If you agree to pass information to Empire State, I have a role ready for you when filming is over—a role that no one is going to forget about as soon as they leave the theatre.”

  Riley stared at him in confusion for a long moment. “How in the world would information from me do anything for your production company?” She shook her head in disbelief, taking another quick sip of her cocktail.

  Alex smiled slowly, leaning in closer and lowering his voice to a near whisper. “As I’m sure you’re aware, Empire State is one of the biggest production companies in the industry,” he explained. “And part of how they got to be where they are is by carefully timing their film releases.”

  Riley shrugged; that made sense, but she still couldn’t think of how information about the filming of Galaxy Wars 3 would help.

  “There’s an Empire State flick scheduled for release in the same week as your project, and the word from above is that Galaxy Wars needs to flop.”

  “Okay…but I’m still not getting how me telling you anything about filming would make that happen,” Riley said.

  “The director has a temper,” Alex said with a shrug. “One of those brilliant but tempestuous directors who takes offense if you suggest he shave off ten seconds of a scene. If enough information gets out, we predict he goes postal and cancels filming—or at least throws enough of a tantrum that the release goes off-schedule.”

  Riley stared at Alex in shock. She had never so much as gotten a parking ticket in her life; not only would what he was suggesting be a breach of contract, but she thought there were probably laws against it. More to the point, if word got out about her sabotaging the first ever major production she was lucky enough to be involved in, her Hollywood career would be over before it even started.

  “Thanks for the drinks,” she said, knocking back the last of her cocktail. She picked up her jacket and purse and stood to leave.

  “Wait,” Alex said, reaching out and grabbing at her wrist. Riley raised an eyebrow and Alex sighed gustily. “I’m authorized to give you another offer, if the promise of the role isn’t enough.”

  “Tell me what it is,” Riley said, not quite sitting down.

  “If you agree to act as my company’s mole on set, I can offer you five hundred thousand for it,” he told her quickly. “Think of it as a thank-you from the higher ups.” Riley felt a chill work down her spine. “That’s in addition to a real role in one of our next productions, something you’ll actually be visible in.”

  Riley pressed her lips together, pulling her hand free of Alex’s grip absently. The role was one thing; even if she didn’t get much traction out of the Galaxy Wars part, just having it on her CV would bump her pay grade in the eyes of other producers. But the promise of so much money was almost more than she could resist. She had been living paycheck to paycheck ever since coming to LA; half a mil
lion dollars was enough to pay her bills for years, with enough left over to devote herself completely to getting ahead in the industry. With that kind of money I wouldn’t have to wait tables for years. I could go on auditions every day of the week until someone hires me. But fast on the heels of those thoughts, Riley remembered the heavy agreements she’d signed, the legalese outlining what could happen to her if she was caught in breach of contract.

  “I need to think about it,” she told Alex. “Give me some time.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” Alex said, and though he tried to look as smooth and slick as ever, Riley caught the unmistakable relief in his eyes that she was even considering the offer. “After that it’s off the table.”

  Riley nodded and turned away, carefully walking towards the employee exit with her thoughts spinning.

  SIX

  When she finally parked in her assigned spot outside of her apartment building, Riley was feeling so out-of-sorts, she was surprised she hadn’t gotten into an accident on her way from the restaurant. It was still early; but any thought of meeting up with her friends was gone. She climbed the stairs up to her apartment slowly, thinking about the offer that Alex had made her. Can I really trust him on this? It would be just like him to pretend to be more important than he is, and throw me under the bus at the first opportunity. On the other hand, he’d looked as though he was doing better for himself—a big shot in production, even; and he had known about her casting—that was the kind of information only someone well-connected would have at their disposal.

  She stepped into her apartment and locked the door behind her, throwing the keys absently into the bowl on the kitchen counter.

  “Of course this happens when I have good career news,” she said out loud to the empty apartment, throwing herself onto the couch.

  Riley sighed, staring up at the ceiling. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it as she played Alex’s words through her mind for the tenth time since she’d left the bar. On the one hand, no one had ever offered her that much money for anything; and she was fairly certain that unless something changed drastically in the course of her career, no one ever would. On the other hand, the mere idea of being involved in such a risky scheme made her feel cold all over.

  That’s assuming you can even trust Alex’s offer, she reminded herself, sitting up and pulling herself off of the couch. She stripped down to her underwear as she walked into the bathroom, nearly tripping as her jeans gathered around her ankles. If Alex wasn’t just dangling fool’s gold in front of her, then his offer was something that any actress in her right mind would jump at. Riley washed the makeup off of her face and brushed her teeth and hair, examining her reflection in the mirror. She was beautiful; no false modesty prompted that evaluation. But beauty wasn’t enough. Talent wasn’t enough. There were dozens—hundreds—of beautiful, talented actresses in the city, all of them vying for whatever parts they could get. With an edge like what Alex was offering, Riley could get ahead; she could turn her struggling attempts into a real career.

  “Right,” she told her mirror-self. “And then, after you’ve gotten the starring role in a vehicle film and everyone has pictures of you on their lockers, someone will come out about how your big break came from sabotaging a major production company.”

  Riley sighed, rinsing the soap off of her face and groping for her towel. She walked into her bedroom and found an oversized tee shirt in her pajama drawer. She threw it over her head and sat down on the edge of her bed. As soon as it got out that she had sold out one production company to another, her career would be in ruins faster than it had risen; no director, no producer, would ever want to work with her again, and no one in the viewing public would have any sympathy for her.

  Even though she was exhausted, as Riley curled up in her bed, she couldn’t put her whirring thoughts to rest. In the short term, she wasn’t sure she could afford to turn down Alex’s offer; even if the pay she got from the film was good, it was little more than enough to keep her afloat during the filming, with maybe a month or two after that. The half million Alex promised would keep her housed, fed, and living comfortably for at least five years. She couldn’t help thinking that as crass as he’d been, Alex wasn’t entirely wrong; the Galaxy Wars role would boost her earnings, but it wasn’t big enough to guarantee her any good roles after it; it could very well be the high point of her career.

  She debated the two sides back and forth, tossing and turning in bed until she fell into an uneasy sleep, sometime after midnight. Riley hadn’t come any closer to a decision, but she finally pushed it to the back of her mind with the knowledge that if she didn’t get to sleep, she’d miss her six a.m. alarm call.

  When her alarm ripped her out of the light sleep she’d managed to achieve, Riley fumbled for her phone, tapping the ‘snooze’ icon and groaning at the heavy feeling behind her eyes, the ache in her shoulders and hips that told her she’d definitely not gotten enough sleep. She told herself that as soon as the alarm went off again, she’d get out of bed and get moving, no matter how tired she felt; but the next time she heard the alarm, Riley had the uncomfortable feeling that it had been far longer than seven minutes. A quick look at her phone told her that the instinct was right: half-asleep and unaware, she’d somehow managed to shut off the alarm three more times.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  She leaped out of bed, nearly twisting her ankle in the process, and rushed to the vanity where she’d laid out her clothes before going to work the night before. Even with the extra thirty minutes of sleep, Riley still felt as if she was trying to move through molasses. She tugged her clothes on and padded into the kitchen.

  “Coffee,” she muttered under her breath; there was no way she’d be alert enough to make it to the set if she was half asleep. Fortunately, Riley had a stockpile of instant coffee packets. She poured a packet into her water bottle, and filled the bottle from the dispenser in her freezer door. She added milk and a drop of syrup she’d scavenged from the restaurant, and collected the rest of her things as she shook the bottle hard.

  A few moments later she was downstairs, walking out to her car and taking the first swig of her coffee concoction. Riley grimaced at the taste of it, shuddering; it was like jet fuel with a creamy aftertaste,