Free (For His Pleasure 14) With His Belief by Kelly Favor Page A

form in her stomach. Would this vicious cycle never end?
    “Great. Then I’ll see you bright and early, I guess.”
    Nicole finally stepped forward. “I’ve called the car service for you, Lydia. I’m sorry you didn’t have an enjoyable time tonight.” Nicole’s voice was cool but still surprisingly friendly.
    Lydia just shrugged. “I should have known that friends of Kallie and Hunter’s would think they were better than me. You’re rich and famous and who am I?”
    “That’s not true, but I doubt I can convince you otherwise,” Nicole sighed.
    “Well, I don’t really care. I’m happy with the friends I do have, right Scarlett?”
    “Sure,” Scarlett said softly, hating the fact that she had to placate this bratty woman, and in front of Nicole to boot.
    The car pulled around and Lydia got in. “I’ll see you tomorrow! Text me, okay?”
    “Okay, I will,” Scarlett said, waving and watching her go.
    Nicole stood next to her, watching the car leave with Lydia inside it. “I wouldn’t have invited her to this had I known she wasn’t on good terms with Kallie and Hunter.”
    Somehow, Scarlett now felt responsible for the whole thing. “She’s just immature. She’s a little bit jealous of all the attention they get.”
    “Is that it?” Nicole asked. “Because she hinted at something else—a secret or something that she’s keeping about Hunter?”
    Scarlett licked her lips. She considered telling Nicole everything, but didn’t know for sure if she could trust her or not.
    Just tell her. Unburden yourself, maybe she can help you find a way out of it.
    But then she thought about how unfair it would be to put Nicole in that position. “I don’t know what Lydia was talking about,” she lied. “I think she’s just angry and envious and wants to cause trouble. But I’ve got her under control.”
    Nicole smiled a little. “Are you sure about that? Because she seems about as out of control as a person can get.”
    Scarlett nodded. “I’ll get her under control. I’d never let her hurt Kallie.”
    “Come on, let’s go back inside and have another drink,” Nicole said.
    “Now you’re talking.”
    The two of them walked back inside together, talking and laughing.

    ***
    The next morning, when she arrived on set, something was definitely wrong.
    Bryson greeted her brusquely. “You’re late,” he said.
    “Sorry,” she said. It was true, she was about twenty minutes late because of some train delays, but normally the first twenty minutes after she arrived were quite dull anyway. “Is everything okay? Something I can do?”
    He shook his head, as the line producer came over. “We better get moving if we’re going to shift these scenes around.”
    “I know, I know. I’m just trying to figure this out.” Bryson was standing with a copy of the shooting script and paging through it as they spoke.
    “Why do we have to move scenes around?” she asked.
    The producer shook his head. “I guess she missed the fireworks.”
    “Fireworks?”
    “I’ll explain later,” Bryson said. He continued flipping through the script.
    “We need an answer on this, Bryson.”
    “Give me ten minutes. I need to think this through.” He frowned down at the pages as if trying to figure out a particularly tough riddle. His brow furrowed and he bit his lip in concentration.
    The line producer gave an exaggerated sigh. “Time is money.”
    “I’m aware of that.”
    The line producer stalked off.
    Kallie looked at Bryson. “I don’t understand. What happened?”
    “Just before you got here, Dale Nolan and I had a bit of a disagreement. He came in this morning with a bug up his ass about the scenes we’re shooting today.”
    “What was his problem?”
    Bryson continued searching his script as he talked. His voice was weary and strangely unaffected. “I could hardly make heads or tails of it. He had some ideas about script changes. Fucking actors. It’s like, no—you’re not a writer and a director and