Page 2 of Scarred Heart

Here, things were the complete opposite—a façade I wouldn’t subject myself to if it weren’t for my best friend.

Lex only chuckled, sipping his whiskey.This was his world.He’d grown up in his dad’s office, hanging around the studio after school and during summer breaks.After lifting a hand to acknowledge a pair of suited executives a few tables away from ours, he said, “You needed an excuse to get out for a little while.Relax, have another drink, take a breath.Work will be there later.”

“Who said I was thinking about work?”I asked, even as my thoughts returned to the phone in my pocket.It hadn’t buzzed with an incoming message, yet my fingers twitched out of a need to check the damn thing.Again.

He snorted, giving me the sort of look one friend gave another after a decade of joint shenanigans.“Call me psychic.”

A redhead in a pantsuit spotted me as she walked past with a glass of wine in one hand and her phone in the other.Though she was in the middle of a conversation, our eyes locked, and her gaze softened.I knew that look—the spark of interest as she took me in.

What a shame my phone buzzed when it did.I grabbed itandpulled it out, my heart pounding in expectation.The redhead might as well have not existed as I skimmed a text from one of my contacts back on the East Coast.In the week since Rose Goldsmith’s store had all but burned to the ground, the only thing anyone knew for sure was the presence of an accelerant at the scene.Arson.

“How many times are you gonna do that?”Lex asked, eyeing my phone once I placed it face down on the table.“Your friends in New York are working on it.There’s nothing that piece of shit Damian Fields can do to stop your patent from being approved.”

Easy for him to say.He hadn’t stood back and watched with a sinking heart while scorched timbers fell onto smoking ruins.He hadn’t heard the heartbroken weeping from the girls whose bridal gowns had gone up in flames.There hadn’t been a question in my mind of how the fire had started and who was behind it.Arson was one of Damian’s go-to methods for getting rid of competitors.I’d only waited for the initial report to confirm my suspicions.

Lex finished off his drink, then held up his glass to a passing server, signaling for a refill.“It’s almost funny seeing all the love you’re getting online.”

“All the loveMilesis getting,” I corrected.He would be in Hawaii by now, living it up with his new wife while I did my best to keep things together on this side of the Pacific.Somehow, I doubted Aria had his full attention, especially now that Damian’s team had begun to leak information about Miles’ past, including a bar fight that had resulted in his opponent being paralyzed by a traumatic brain injury.

Lucian Diamond, one of Miles’ friends and heir to a media empire, worked with his girlfriend, Ivy, and their digital team to flood the internet with positive stories.Photos from the lavish wedding were interspersed with tales recounting the stress of finding last-minute replacements for the bridal party’s attire.They worked toward drumming up sympathy and admiration to drown out what painted him in a negative light.

I swirled the ice in my glass, seething, pushing it as deep down as I could for the sake of keeping up appearances.Not for my sake but for Lex, whose father was one of the recipients of the humanitarian award presented earlier this afternoon.

What would it have been like having a father worth looking up to?From the time I was barely old enough to count to ten, bystanders had assumed I would take the reins and oversee the family’s shipping empire.As if I’d want to play any part in the way Dad encouraged exploitation, cost cutting, conveniently ignoring regulations to increase profits.

In contrast, Alexander Landry was currently in the center of a group of admirers scrambling to get his attention like a bunch of neglected children, hoping Daddy would tell them they were his favorite.He might not have noticed the way they tried to claw each other out of the way, but I did, and it made me laugh to myself.

Lex noticed, snickering.“Don’t ever let him try to fool you,” he muttered as he watched the worship people heaped on his old man.“He loves it.He only acts like it gets on his nerves, the way they kiss his ass.”

“What about you?”I asked.“Do you hate having your ass kissed?”

“Me?”He shrugged blithely.“Why bother acting?What’s the point of owning a studio if you can’t enjoy the perks of the position?”

“Careful,” I warned, not joking anymore.“That sounds a hell of a lot like the sort of shit the studio heads said back in his early days.”They probably said much worse than that.

He scoffed before accepting a fresh drink.“A bunch of old pricks who couldn’t get laid any other way.Everybody knows Sunset Pictures would never get mixed up in some vile shit like that.”

They were one in a million, then.I would’ve told him so, but his father’s assistant came over to murmur something in Lex’s ear.My thoughts wandered, and my gaze followed suit, drifting over the clusters of people socializing and networking rather than eating the lunch provided to us.

There!It’s her!I was on my feet in an instant, scanning the room in search of the blonde who looked so much like my past.“Who did you spot?”Lex asked once he noticed me gazing over the heads of countless strangers.

Where the fuck had she gone?

“Nobody.”I was too stressed.That was the problem.My overwrought brain was going haywire while my team worked their fingers to the bone in hopes of completing the patent application and getting it out before Damian’s team could do the same.We had no way of knowing exactly how far along they were in the application process.I only knew I’d lost two team members in the past year who’d ended up as employees of FieldCo not long after.

How much had he offered them?How much did a person’s professional integrity go for nowadays?No doubt he would’ve guaranteed legal representation if we chose to sue, but then there was no proof they’d sold our company’s secrets to him.Not yet, anyway.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”Lex rolled his eyes dramatically when I looked his way.“What is she doing here?How would somebody like her get in?”

“Who?”I followed the direction of his gaze to find a girl with auburn hair and arms full of bangles chatting with a few women.The word ‘bohemian’ came to mind.She was wearing Birkenstocks, for Christ’s sake.

“Summer Strawbridge.”His nose wrinkled like the name smelled foul.“A wannabe director with a shitty attitude.I hope she doesn’t think she’ll get work here.”

I didn’t answer.I couldn’t.Because once Summer drifted away, I caught sight of the woman she’d been chatting with—a tall, willowy brunette.

And Rowan.

As beautiful as ever, she tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear and let her fingertips trace her earlobe so she could fidget with her earring—a gesture I would’ve recognized anywhere a decade after I’d last seen it.

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