Chapter 49: My Heart Breaks Again

I can tell the exact moment Dante's eyes land on the sheet of paper because his fingers freeze. "Where did you get that?"

"Your notes blew off the table and I was picking them up." I shouldn't have looked at them, I know, but it's too late for such regrets. "Is this a character in your script? You're using this? Using me?"

He doesn't speak for a long moment. Too long. And when the words finally come, he talks slowly, as if choosing every word carefully. "Writers use real people as inspiration sometimes, Ash. It helps us create characters that feel authentic. But a lot of influences go into a character. Bits and pieces from different people and different experiences."

I'm still frozen in his arms. "Her name is Ashley."

"That was the director's decision. It's his girlfriend's name - purely a coincidence."

"But this note about me isn't a coincidence. You have a comment about her running a bakery... about her having emotional baggage..." But my eyes keep going back to the weaknesses: