CHAPTER FOUR

SAVANNAH

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Ryder leans against the wall off to the side of the stage and crosses his arms. He's watching me.

Which is his job.

Damn stupid muscular arms.

Why is he so sexy?

And annoying.

I focus back on the interviewer and camera and push down my shame. Ryder knows exactly how attracted to him I am and that given the chance, I would've slept with him last weekend.

Not now.

Now I'm going to have him replaced. I can't work with him. I want to fuck him. And throttle him.

He'd probably like it.

I bet he's into a whole range of kinks.

Huh, stop thinking about having sex with your hot bodyguard.

"Savannah, do you think there will be a third film? Fans absolutely would love to see you and Nick on screen together again." Sunshine Rivers, the interviewer from Hollywood Today, asks.

I turn to Nick and smile cheekily, playing it up to the audience as they clap madly.

He leans his arm behind my chair and stretches out his leg. "That would be great. Working with Savannah is a dream."

"Aww, you two are adorable." Sunshine sighs and the crowd loses it again.

"He plays a lot of pranks on me." I slap his thigh and he catches my hand.

"So the rumors of the two of you dating are...?"

"Not true." Nick kisses the back of my hand and wiggles his eyebrows. "Or are they?"

Everyone laughs, and I can't help but shoot a glance at Ryder. He's running a hand over his jaw, glaring at Nick. Beside him Gina whispers something to him and it gets under my skin.

She still likes Nick, and I've wondered if something ever happened with them. He doesn't discourage her, and it irritates me. I don't have any romantic feelings for Nick, but sometimes the flirting is awkward for everyone watching.

Especially when everyone knows he's doing it with a dozen other girls, and Gina is making a bit of a fool of herself.

I can't say anything to her—I told her he's a player and she didn't take my advice—so I was hoping my chat with him would have been enough.

Perhaps it's one-sided.

Either way, I hope there isn't a third movie because I'd like to see if her work ethic improves without him around. And I'm ready to take on some other roles.

The Golden Globe nomination is going to open doors, so I'll wait eagerly for the announcement and call from my manager.

The rest of our set on the show winds up and Nick and I stand, wave to the crowd, hug Sunshine, and then walk off.

Gina hands me my water bottle and phone, and Ryder steps up beside me.

"Where's my coffee, squirt?" Nick teases Gina.

I roll my eyes and drink from my bottle.

"What will you do for me if I get you one?" She giggles.

"We can negotiate." He winks at her.

Fucking hell.

I start walking. "Gina, can you make sure the team has everything ready for tomorrow—"

"Fine, I'll get you a coffee," she speaks over me, crossing the line.

I stop in the hallway and glance between them.

"No. You won't. Where is Cindy?" I ask Nick, referring to his PA.

"She had a medical appointment." Nick leans over and kisses my cheek. "Calm down. We are just having fun."

Calm down?

Ryder clears his voice and I glance up at him. Something on his face tells me to let it go. I draw in a slow breath.

"I'll go sort the team." Gina presses her lips together and walks off after giving me a droll look.

"You're mean to her." Nick bumps my hips.

"No, I'm not. She works for me. You need to stop encouraging her." I start walking again.

"She's a fan." He shrugs as his phone rings. Then wiggles his fingers as he turns in the opposite direction to take his call. "Gotta go, babe."

Ryder walks quietly an inch behind me as I keep my thoughts to myself. But I sense his support in an unspoken way, as if he was as unimpressed with that scene as I was.

Maybe I need to speak to Gina.

––––––––

LATER IN THE AFTERNOON, we head into my manager's office for the last meeting of the day.

Michelle leaps up from her chair when she sees me. "Congratulations, honey."

"Thank you." I grin, hugging her back. She glances over my shoulder, and I follow her line of sight. "Oh, don't worry—"

"About me. I'm in training." Ryder's deep timber voice says super deadpan.

"You don't look like you're last off the rank." Michelle boldly looks him up and down.

"The terrorists in Iraq didn't think so either. But Ms. Sinclair is the boss."

My mouth drops open as Michelle snickers and walks back around her desk.

"You were in Iraq," I say, then swallow.

Ryder crosses his arms. "You think they hire mall security officers to protect the elite across America?"

Michelle clears her throat and I swing my head back to her, then again to Ryder.

This conversation is not over.

Damn. I've offended him.

"Thank you for your service," I say, and he snorts, unimpressed.

"You two can bicker later. Let's talk about this nomination," Michelle says, sitting back down.

I need to apologize, and I will.

I skip over to one of the chairs and do a little dance. "I can't believe I've been nominated for a fucking Golden Globe."

––––––––

A FEW HOURS later, I drop the box of fan mail on my kitchen counter while Ryder does his thing inspecting the house.

I'm still a little annoyed at him for trying to rearrange my schedule this morning. And for not telling me who he was last weekend.

But I was rude.

He did an excellent job today and despite wishing the world would disappear and he would rip off his clothes and then mine, I'm rethinking my initial reaction.

Maybe I won't replace him.

Learning he was in the Middle East, fighting to protect his country, snapped me out my shame and silly attitude. I plan to apologize before he leaves.

I'm also stressed about Gina. Something feels off. It might be better if I tell her to find another job.

Working together has impacted our friendship more than I've been willing to acknowledge. Filming is intense and I guess I just hadn't noticed how much we've grown apart.

In a nutshell, I'm her boss. The demands of my company are huge now, so the power balance is too large.

I hate it.

I want my friend back.

I've never been someone who had a lot of friends. Just one or two.

It was me, Gina, and Nicole. Then Nicole married the love of her life, a South African man, and moved across the world. She's pregnant with their second child.

To say our lives are worlds apart in every way is an understatement. Neither of us hear from her anymore. Gina and I remained friends. She started working as an assistant, and I waitressed and went to audition after audition.

Then got offered the role of Charlotte and the rest is history.

Gina is my only friend outside of Hollywood. And it's very hard to know if the new people I've met after becoming famous are real.

Nick, yes, but our friendship lacks substance. I can almost guarantee that if he needed to railroad me to get what he wanted, he would.

Michelle is my manager.

Briar is my personal assistant, but I probably trust her more than anyone.

It's a dog-eat-dog world and I'm at the height of fame. The worst time to expect people to show their true colors.

I pull a bottle of wine out of the fridge and pour myself a glass. I sip the Californian Sauvignon Blanc and let the news sink in. I'm now a Golden Globe nominated actress.

Wow.

It hasn't been announced yet, but if I had someone close I trusted, I'd tell them. Jack and Ryder obviously overheard.

This is the sort of thing I'd tell Gina—before she worked for me—and I suddenly feel alone and empty.

Ugh. My career might be amazing, but my personal life is a mess.

Maybe it's just that I'm not making an effort. I swipe open my phone and hover over her name.

It doesn't feel right.

I do not trust her.

Recently she's made comments that lean toward a little nasty and envious. She was so supportive of me when I was waitressing, but now she acts like my family—she can't stand seeing me succeed.

Telling her I've been nominated might just trigger her further. She'll hear soon, but I don't want her to be the first person I tell.

I put the phone down.

Man, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't feel like this about your best friend.

I take a large sip of my wine, then pick the phone up again. Swiping, I find my mother's phone number.

It rings and goes to voicemail.

A familiar sadness comes over me.

I'm not even sure if my own mother will have it in her to celebrate with me. She wants money. She's angry I haven't given it to her.

So, because I'm a sadist, and there's no one else, I call my father.

He's the one person in my life who never believed I could make it. Still, to this day he is yet to tell me how proud he is of me.

Instead, he makes fun of the movies I'm in, calling them "that low-class flick you starred in" despite the fact it broke box office records.

Well, Father darling, your daughter has been nominated for a Golden Fucking Globe.

How will you turn that into a failure?

I gulp down more wine as the phone rings.

The last time we spoke, he asked me to send money so Candy—I kid you not, that's her name—could get a boob job. To help her back pain.

Jesus, as if I'm that dumb.

Maybe she should get off her back, my mother once said, and it was pretty funny.

"Well, you're not ringing for money, so there's that." Dad says upon answering. Then sighs.

I shake my head slowly.

This was a mistake.

He can't even say hello.

"Hey, Dad." I take another big sip of the wine and walk to the fridge to pull out the bottle. I'm going to need it all tonight. "How are you?"

"Working double shifts to help Candy get this medical procedure she needs."

Medical procedure?

I almost laugh.

I roll my eyes instead and put the cap back on the wine. "It's a boob job, Dad. Not a medical procedure."

"You have no idea how much pain she's in. It's very selfish of you to not help out, Savannah." He scoffs.

Oh, my god. I've met her twice.

"I don't know her." I remind him.

"She's your stepmother."

What?

"That...it doesn't work that way, Dad. You aren't married and I'm twenty-eight," I cry.

He's silent because he knows I'm right.

Does he think he raised a stupid child?

"What do you want Savannah? If you're just ringing to rave about this silly film you're in, then forget it. We're not watching it." His words puncture my heart painfully. "Not when you can't even help your own family."

Candy is not my family.

Fucking hell.

I drop my face and fight back my tears. Does he not care that his words hurt me?

The answer is no.

"It's top of the box office, Dad. It's not some silly film." I say quietly, feeling like the vulnerable thirteen-year-old girl who was told she was making a fool of herself for all this acting and clowning around.

"Yeah, and most of those people are following the Kardashians. What can I tell you?"

How dare he?

Whatever you think of reality stars, he's yet again trying to belittle my achievements and hurt me with that comment.

Every single time.

Why did I call him?

Why did I yet again put myself in a position so he could rip me off my pedestal? A pedestal I fucking earned with hard work and talent.

Fuck him.

"Well, some people think I did a good job, Dad. I've been nominated for a Golden Globe. That's what I rang to tell you. Maybe I'm not useless after all." I yell, then punch the screen unsatisfactorily with my finger, hanging up on him.

I slam the phone on the counter.

"Fucking bastard." I cry as tears fall down my face.

I hate him.

I hate him.

I hate him.

"He is."

I glance up and gasp when I see Ryder leaning on the doorframe.

"Oh god," I say, wiping my face. "I'm sorry you heard that."

"Some people are threatened by others' achievements," Ryder says. "Anyway, don't apologize. He's not the first narcissist I've overheard."

I blink.

"You think he's a narcissist?"

"I'm not a shrink, but yeah I do. They're usually threatened by their overachieving kids." Ryder shrugs. "Unless he lacks complete confidence in himself."

"The opposite. He thinks he's better than everyone else," I tell him.

"Definitely a narc," he says, pushing away from the doorway. "And congratulations on the nomination. It's a big deal."

God, I hate crying over my father. I've done it way too many times in my life and no matter how old I am or what I achieve, he still seems to find a way to hurt me.

"Thanks." I smile and wipe my eyes again. "Ryder, I want to apologize for this morning."

"For?" He frowns.

"Not just this morning. For the entire day. I was rude," I confess. "I can't tell you how many people control my life in different ways. No offense, but you don't come across as someone who is collaborative."

"I'm not," he says and slides his hands into his pockets.

I try to ignore how attracted to him I am, but it's impossible. His blonde hair has enough curl in it to transform easily into a broad chested surfy dude... and to slide my fingers through it if he kissed me.

He looks like he wants to kiss me.

And throttle me.

"Well, I need someone to work with me." I shrug.

"No, you need someone to protect you. There are millions of fans, like those screeching hyenas earlier today, who want to get close to you."

I fight my smile.

They do sound like hyenas.

Speaking of which, I glance at the pile of fan mail and a white envelope catches my attention for no reason.

I pull it out and flip it over.

"Well, those hyenas paid for this house and pay my bills, so I love them." I snicker as I rip open the note.

I enjoy reading my fan mail. They usually say the same thing in different ways; how much they love me, how beautiful I am, and occasionally head into creepy territory about wanting to have my baby or marry me.

Nothing that I haven't already read on the internet.

But if people have taken the time to write me letters and mail them, then I'll read them. I normally read them on a Sunday evening, but I need the boost after speaking to my father.

While Ryder keeps talking, I unfold the standard white card...

Then freeze.