Free Luster by Tessa Rowan Page A

Falyn…I can’t keep pretending. She’s gotten under my skin and now I’d hate for her to think anything worse of me. Especially after the way I practically booted her out of my studio a few days ago.
    “What do you want? I’m clearly busy here,” I say, my voice low. I knew I was done with this conversation before it even happened.
    She looks at Falyn as if she’s just seen her. “Oh my god! Please forgive me. I’m Dinah. And who might you be?” she asks, clutching her hand against her chest.
    Falyn looks between the two of us at a loss of words. “I’m Falyn. Falyn Morrissey. I actually wanted to go talk to a friend of mine across the room,” she says, trying to get out of our awkward conversation.
    Oh no you don’t, princess. I smoothly tuck her arm in mine. “That’s okay. This will only be a moment.”
    “Okay then.” Falyn pastes on a fake smile, her eyes saying something else entirely. Possibly that she wants to kill me, but who knows?
    “Morrissey, is it? Isn’t your father the owner of all those lovely Morrissey hotels? I’ve stayed at a couple of them. Very clean and well-stocked. I’m impressed.”
    But nothing truly fazes Dinah, and she dismisses Falyn and lets my harsh tone with her roll right off her tan skin. “I just wanted to say hello to an old friend, is all. It’s nice to have met you, Farah.”
    “It’s Falyn,” Falyn tries to correct her. Dinah just pretends not to hear her, in true-form. It’s pointless. The only person Dinah cares about is Dinah.
    She made that supremely clear the moment she used me as a publicity stunt. There I was, waiting for my lovely bride to come down the aisle. Dinah asked for us to have a very small ceremony, just our family and a few friends. She claimed that she didn’t want the paparazzi all over it, so of course I obliged. I would’ve given her whatever she asked for, truthfully.
    But when the minutes turned into an hour I knew something was wrong. I didn’t actually find out that Dinah had left me until her publicist called me from our honeymoon suite in Hawaii, telling me that he and Dinah were in love and Dinah just couldn’t bear to break my heart herself.
    How fucking noble of her. Of course they then decided that would look bad on her, so they turned it around on me, making me look like the bad guy. They told every news source they could about me standing her up at the altar. Never mind that they didn’t have any photos or proof of that—they’ll take a huge celebrity’s word on anything.
    Something glints behind her brown eyes as she takes another good look at me. My muscles tense as I brace for whatever shitstorm she’s looking to stir up.
    “You know Matt,” she begins innocently, smoothing her hair back behind her ear. “Running into you like this. It sort of reminds me when we first met.”
    The hair on the back of my neck rises as I realize where she’s going with this. She’s so damn lucky that I’d never hit a woman. So damn lucky.
    “Back when you were at your…former profession. I don’t suppose you’ve taken to it again?”
    I can almost see my mom in my head, ready to smack me upside the head. I firmly stand in place, but I don’t hold my tongue and my voice rings clear as day. “Fuck off.”
    Dinah sneers at me before turning away without so much as a good-bye. Thank god. But when I look over at Falyn, it’s easy to see that the whole thing has left her confused and uneasy. I don’t really blame her. Only a few people know what truly went down between me and Dinah, so I’ve probably just come off like a stupid bastard yet again.
    I hate for her to think that I’m just this jerk who gets women to blow him and tells them to fuck off. I know I shouldn’t care, but I do.
    “Look, I know this is sort of out of nowhere, but do you want to get out of here? I’ve kind of lost my interest in art for the night.”
    Falyn’s face is indecipherable. A small pinprick of rejection registers in my chest, making me