Page 32 of Touch Me

Matthew comes over and gives me a hug. “I’m sorry. This is agreat role for you. But there will be other great roles.”

Maybe, I think, as I watch them leave. But this is the one Iwant.

I start to call Evelyn, but I’m too much of a wreck and hangup before she answers. Then I shut my phone off entirely.

I slip on some shoes, grab my car keys, and head out. I haveno idea where I’m going. All I know is that I want to walk. I want to be alone.

Most of all, I want to think.

ChapterTwelve

“Where the fuck could she be?” Ryan paced Evelyn’s formalliving area. He’d come over the moment Evelyn had called with the news thatJamie had been fired off the picture.

“Matthew and Carson went to her,” she told him now. “She wasupset but holding up when they left. That was about three hours ago.”

“Shit.” He sagged into an overstuffed armchair. “Thatfucking excuse of a human being did this to her.”

“Oh, he definitely did,” Evelyn said, taking a seat oppositehim.

“No, I’m talking a long game.”

Evelyn frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve had my people poking around. That photo was sent to TheEye anonymously, but I’ve got a few strings to pull there, and we wereable to nail down the source.”

“Raine?”

“Might as well be. Annalise Vail.”

Evelyn nodded. “His girlfriend. She asked me to rep her afew years ago. I turned her down. Didn’t like the way she looked at people.”

“You’ve got good instincts.”

“Why would she have been at the clinic? Did she go thereherself and just got lucky?”

Ryan shook his head. “My guess is that she’s been tailingJamie for a while. My wife’s got a rep as a wild child. A valid rep, if alittle outdated.”

“You’re a good influence.”

“Yeah, well, she’s still Jamie. But Annalise was probablyhoping she’d hop on stage at a strip club. Or pick a fight over a sale rack.Something Raine could use to get her kicked off the set. Once Jamie was gone,Annalise would be in.”

“She’s a climber, that one. Wouldn’t put it past either ofthem. For that matter, Raine may not know.”

“He knows,” Ryan said. “And right now, I don’t care abouteither one of them. I just want to find my wife. She’s not herself right now.”

“Hormones.”

“And the pregnancy is the whole reason she’s lost the job.”

Evelyn frowned. “You don’t think she’d—”

He drew in a breath, then let it out slowly. “I don’t know.I hope not. She swore she wouldn’t do something like that without talking to mefirst.”

“But?”

The dull headache he’d been fighting all day startedpounding. “But Jamie’s pissed off right now. She’s scared for her career. Andshe’s impulsive. She’ll want to get back at Raine. And how better to do thatthan to wrangle her way back onto the movie.”

“And she can only do that if she’s not pregnant.”