Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 21 - Chapitre 30

Camila had been planning it since Saturday afternoon.Damian did not know that. He came home on Sunday to candles again and music again and the smell of something from the good restaurant two streets over because Camila had ordered his favourite and plated it herself and the distinction mattered to her in a way she would not have said out loud.She was wearing the blue dress this time. Not the red one from the rosemary chicken evening. Different dress. Different energy. The blue one was quieter and more deliberate and she had chosen it specifically."Sit down," she said when he came through the door. "Everything is ready."He sat.She brought the food and the wine and sat across from him with the particular warmth of a woman who had decided the evening was going to be exactly right and had done everything in her power to make it so.And it was right. That was the honest truth of it. The food was good. The wine was the one he preferred. The music was low and the candles were lit and Ca

Helena was at the catering table pouring coffee when she heard the heels.She did not look up immediately. Sets had all kinds of people moving through them. Producers. Visitors. People with clipboards and people without. She had learned not to track every new sound.But then Jordan's voice came from across the floor."Can I help you."Not a welcome. A question with a wall behind it.Helena looked up.Camila Calloway was standing at the entrance to the main floor in a grey coat that cost more than Helena's first month of rent. She was looking around the set with the composed interest of someone who had walked into rooms like this before and found none of them particularly intimidating.Her eyes found Helena.She smiled."I was in the area," Camila said. "I thought I would stop by and see what all the fuss was about."Jordan looked at Helena. Then back at Camila. "This is a closed set.""Of course," Camila said pleasantly. "I will only be a moment. I just wanted to say hello to Helena."

Helena knew something was wrong before anyone said a word.She walked in and two crew members stopped talking. Not rudely. Just suddenly. Like a switch.She poured her coffee. The catering assistant who always saved her the good cup did not save it today.She told herself she was imagining it.She was not imagining it.Jordan found her twenty minutes before the first setup."Walk with me," Jordan said.Helena followed her to the small production office at the back of the warehouse. Jordan closed the door."There is something you need to know," Jordan said. "And I need you to hear it from me before you hear it from someone else.""What is it," Helena said."There is a rumour going around," Jordan said. "Industry circles first. Now online." She looked at Helena directly. "Someone is saying your casting was not based on merit. That you have a personal relationship with someone in authority here. That the role was not earned."Helena stared at her."Who is saying this," she said."I do no

The message came on a Wednesday evening.Helena was at her kitchen table with leftover pasta and her script for Thursday when her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen.Camila Calloway.She put her fork down.She looked at the notification for a moment without opening it. Then she picked up the phone and opened it.It was not words first. It was pictures.Four of them.Damian and Camila at what looked like a rooftop dinner somewhere. Damian smiling. Not the polite smile Helena had seen him give at events and business dinners. The real one. The one that reached his eyes. Camila beside him with her head tilted toward him and her hand on his arm and the particular ease of two people who were exactly where they wanted to be.The second picture was candid. Someone had caught them laughing at something. Damian's head was thrown back slightly. Helena had not seen him laugh like that in the last year of their marriage.The third was quieter. Just the two of them somewhere private. A kitchen

The house was smaller than Helena expected. She did not know what she had been expecting exactly. Damian lived in glass and clean lines and spaces that announced themselves. She had assumed his mother would live somewhere similar. The kind of home that said we have always had money and we have never had to think about it. But Eleanor Graves lived in a terraced house on a quiet street with a blue front door and window boxes and a garden that someone clearly loved. Helena stood outside it for a moment before knocking. Then she knocked. Eleanor opened the door almost immediately. As if she had been waiting just on the other side of it. She was smaller than Helena imagined. Warm eyes. Silver hair worn simply. The kind of woman who looked at you and made you feel immediately that she was actually seeing you and not just looking in your direction. "Helena," she said. "Come in. Please." Helena stepped inside. The hallway was warm and slightly cluttered in the way of a home that was ac