Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,30
throat, and steeled myself for what was to come.
“You hate The Girl in the Yellow Dress.” He held up a finger to me, letting me know it wasn’t my turn to refute his allegations before he continued, “You act like the world found your diary, and the rest of us are just going out of our way to taunt you with it.”
I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out that Declan did go out of his way to taunt me with it.
“Do you have a point?” I demanded instead.
“I’m so glad you asked because, yes, in fact, I do.” Beautiful or not, he was evil. I was sure of it. “Cam could have never printed your name or told the story without your expressed legal consent. I’ve been sued enough times to understand a little bit about the American judicial system, and I’m pretty sure you lot have pretty strict laws on slander and all that codswallop.”
My lips glued together in a thin, unyielding line. He didn’t seem surprised at my lack of comment. In fact, I daresay he looked perfectly smug at the absence of a rebuttal.
Delving into my personal life was nothing new. His never-ending curiosity had become a theme of our drives. Unlike Madeline, he didn’t just focus on my life according to The Girl in the Yellow Dress. If anything, it felt like he was trying to disprove things about me he could have only found in Cam’s book.
“If you never wanted anyone to know, then why let your name be written on it?” His tone shifted, turned into genuine interest, and I knew we’d moved beyond the territory of him just trying to get a rise out of me. He really wanted to know.
Like a startled hermit crab, I quickly sank back into the comforts of my shell. His question was more complicated than he could ever know, and the answer was far too personal to share with the likes of Declan Davies.
It was far too easy to forget exactly who it was sharing the seat beside me in the decadent limousine. It wasn’t just that he was movie star. It was the fact that he was an internationally recognized celebrity, who managed to chip away at the numbing cocoon I’d spent four years erecting around myself. Declan might have bated me with teases and tortures, but that didn’t make his ability to spark such vivacious emotions in me any less scary.
“Can you just shut the hell up for five seconds, or do you really enjoying hearing yourself that much?” I snapped with the bite of a pit-bull.
Whether he had a reply or not was irrelevant because as the car had barely drawn to a halt, I made my swift escape, slamming the door behind me as I charged through the back lot.
Walking away, I knew he wouldn’t follow me today, and I thought about how ironic it was that I hadn’t realized that we’d made any progress forward until we took such a monumental step backwards. It was easy to distract myself with the routine I’d fallen into, once I had officially become a part of Madeline’s entourage. My momentary lapse in judgment had sealed my fate. The vulnerability Madeline had tricked me with might have been long gone, but I was far from being dismissed from her services.
Predictably, Madeline was still in her daily morning session with Ms. Louna when I arrived at her trailer. I didn’t bother entering. The strange sounds and shapes they made with their mouths during what Ms. Louna deigned ‘diction exercises,’ had been amusing at first. They both looked like complete idiots, but getting spit on one too many times during the P’s, had put me off of that.
Alfred gave me the procedural glance before completely ignoring my best smile which was usually reserved for recitals and winning dance competitions.
“Still playing hard to get?” I joked, nudging him with my elbow and finding him so solid that it was my body that was moved by the motion.
His black expressive eyes stared down at me, yet offered no hints to the emotions within. “Ms. Little wanted me to tell you that there have been some alterations to the call times, and you should go wait for her in the wardrobe department. She’ll join you momentarily.”
“Thanks, Al.” I cringed when the nickname only made the huge man frown at me harder.
The usual colorful personalities that filled the wardrobe area were absent, and even though Madeline’s assistant Fran was already