“About forty-five minutes ago.” Ayla swallowed hard. “He’s already in the air.”
Silver nodded as her throat closed. Ayla set down her tablet. “Mr. Meadows arranged everything. He just told me to follow through.”
She wanted to ask how Ben had been, how he’d looked, whether he’d given any damn indication that he cared about leaving her, but she wasn’t sure she was in the right mindset to expose herself to Ayla by asking the questions.
“I’m sorry, Silver,” Ayla whispered. “I didn’t know what to do, and you don’t usually like being interrupted when you’re in the gym.”
“That’s a really lame excuse.” Silver said. “Maybe you’d better work out where your allegiances lie because I don’t need someone around me who carries out my father’s orders without consulting me.”
Ayla’s lip wobbled. “I thought—we thought it was for the best, because . . .”
“Because all you care about is my career, right?” Silver went to find her phone, which she’d left recharging on the desk. “Where’s my cell?”
“Mr. Meadows knocked it off the desk this morning and broke the screen. He took it with him when he left.” Ayla looked like she was about to burst into tears. “He said to say sorry and that he’d ordered you a new one, and he’d pick it up on his way home tonight.”
Silver fought the urge to scream at yet another example of her father’s high-handedness.
“I’m going to take a shower. Text my dad and make sure he knows I’m waiting on that phone.”
She turned away and Ayla cleared her throat.
“There is one more thing.”
“What’s that? Did you arrange to have Ben’s plane blow up in the air or something? So that he wouldn’t bother me again?”
A tear slid down Ayla’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, Silver.”
Silver held up her hand. She really wasn’t interested in making her assistant feel better about her choices when it felt like someone was jumping all over her heart.
“What thing?”
“Inola called. She wants you to meet her, the production team, and the rest of the potential cast in Utah.”
Even the thought that she’d possibly gotten the role of her life didn’t make her feel better. “Sure. When do I need to go?”
“This afternoon, actually.” Ayla rushed to show her two sets of travel documents. “It’s top secret so they’ve only told people today.”
“Fine. Call me when it’s time to leave.”
“Oh, and Silver?” Ayla said. “The Internet and electricity will be down for the next few hours. Dee reported a problem in the kitchen and health and safety said we have to turn everything off.”
“Great.” She turned to the door. “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up when we’re leaving.”
She made her way back up the stairs, aware that her body was hurting, and that all she really wanted to do was go to bed and cry herself to sleep. She hadn’t slept much the night before because she and Ben... She pushed the thought of him smiling down at her away. If he could walk out without a care in the world over such a minor disagreement, then he didn’t deserve her thoughts.
She turned on the shower and stripped off her workout clothes, her gaze settling on her reflection where the rough abrasions of Ben’s beard still showed on her skin. She was not going to cry over him. If he didn’t have the balls to stand up and have it out with her, then he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was, and he didn’t deserve her.
She’d told him that their relationship would only survive if they both tried their best to make it work. It seemed that he’d given up at the first roadblock. She knew he doubted he was worthy of being loved, and that he feared being abandoned, but at some point he had to believe in something....
Obviously, it wasn’t her.
She’d pushed him too hard. She’d demanded he respond to her because she still thought she was a star who could get anything she wanted. Maybe he hadn’t agreed with anything she’d said, and he’d just gone along with her stupid fantasies to avoid an argument. She stepped into the shower and turned her face into the water where she could pretend she wasn’t crying at all.
Ben had been right all along. She couldn’t have everything she wanted. And, in his own particular way, he’d made damn sure to drive that message home.
Chapter Twenty
Whenever he entered the house, Ben obsessively checked his cell just in case there was