Chapter 2
After dinner, even with the gentle violin music drifting through the air, the atmosphere still felt a bit gloomy.
When the band left, Jason came over and leaned down so we were eye to eye. With a resigned smile, he pressed a kiss to my lips.
"Linda, I already got the wedding ring back. Still not over it?" he said.
"She's just a newcomer, curious about everything. Why bother getting worked up over her?" he added.
"You went back on your word," I said.
Jason looked genuinely puzzled. "What?"
"You told me you'd only ever bend for me, but today, you tolerated that dog for her," I said.
He hadn't expected that this was the reason I'd been so quiet.
Seriously, even people who didn't care about celebrities know how famous Jason was.
His social media followers numbered in the hundreds of millions.
But even after years in the wild and shady world of showbiz, he remained a decent man.
Jason's eyes curved with a gentle smile as he gently rubbed my hair.
"I didn't think you were the jealous type," he teased.
He met my gaze, his eyes filled with starlight.
"To me, she's just a kid chasing her dreams," he said. "She reminds me a lot of my younger self."
"I just wanted to give a hand to who I used to be. That's all," Jason explained, kissing me with quiet sincerity.
But my instincts were always sharp.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before Nora appeared in my world again, stirring up trouble between Jason and me.
*****
It wasn't until a friend called me that I found out about it.
She said, "Did you know? Jason put one of your company's unknown newcomers on my hit show, Back to the Farm."
"Word is, he even agreed to guest star on the director's next show to make it happen," she added.
She also sent me a promo poster for Back to the Farm, announcing the next round of guest stars.
I checked Nora's social media and saw that she had reposted the same promo.
She posted: [My "big boss" (not really) said a rising star shouldn't be left in the shadows, so I got some one-of-a-kind love.]
The post, paired with the photo of her being patted on the head as her profile picture, felt loaded with meaning.
At that moment, a surge of anger shot through me.
Even though he didn't show his face, I recognized it was Jason's hand, thanks to the red mole on his ring finger.
As much as I hated to admit it, he had really pissed me off.
That frustration gnawed at me, like a lion that only ever showed its soft side to me, but now was hiding its claws for someone else.
Even as my heart sank, a sly smile curled at my lips.
If Nora felt so good about being a guest star, then I would make her "one-of-a-kind love" vanish into nothing.
I called my friend back.
After hearing me out, she was over the moon, couldn't believe her luck. "Don't worry, Linda. You've dropped so much cash that you're basically the top shareholder. The director will, of course, give all your company's newcomers guest spots. Not doing so would be disrespectful."
Ten minutes later, it was lunch break. Everyone grabbed their phones.
By then, both newly signed performers and old-timers who'd been forgotten for years discovered they had been announced as guest stars on the country's top reality show, Run For It.
Except for Nora.
The news spread like wildfire through the company.
People in this industry were experts at reading the room.
Almost immediately after hearing the news, they flooded social media with posts thanking me.
[Ms. Quinn, you're amazing. We're all rising stars now.]
[As expected of Ms. Quinn. She made sure everyone got a spot that others would fight for.]
Though these newcomers weren't famous yet, there were many of them, and each had a small fanbase.
Within half an hour, the comments in Nora's section, where people had congratulated her for landing the movie star boyfriend, completely disappeared.
The gossipers had already started speculating, piecing together clues about why I was targeting Nora.
Nora's eyes were red, her face flushed with humiliation after being publicly called out.
The way she tried to show off and provoke me ended up making her the punchline in everyone's eyes.
She lowered her head in disgrace and slipped into the elevator, planning to leave the company.
But she happened to run into two newcomers who were talking about her inside.
One of them said, "I've never liked Nora. Everyone in the industry knows about Mr. Winters and Ms. Quinn's relationship, but she just has to be the other woman, bringing Mr. Winters breakfast and coffee every day."
"She totally deserved it. She should look at who she is before trying to steal Ms. Quinn's man," the other one said.
Nora didn't say a word, her fists clenched tight, looking utterly humiliated.
With tears in her eyes, she bolted out of the elevator the moment the doors opened, not even glancing back.
I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, watching her scramble into a taxi.
I had never been a forgiving person. If she dared to provoke me in public, then she needed to be ready for what I'd do in return.
I wanted her to understand that she shouldn't have tried to flirt with Jason, and she definitely shouldn't have messed with me.