“Well? What is it then?” I asked, feeling out of the loop.
Alina pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s just really hard for me, okay?”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “We just need to get through today.”
Anger flashed in her eyes and she wiggled away from my grasp. “It’ll be the same tomorrow,” she said cooly.
I was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out what her problem was. “Alina, just because you’re stressed doesn’t mean you can take it out on me,”
She shut her eyes tight and ran one of her manicured hands through her soft white locks. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that everything is going so well for you, and my life is completely falling apart—”
“Everything is not going so well for me,” I said. “I know it looks that way on the surface since I’m going to get a larger role in The Black Castle, but that’s like… the only thing that’s going right.”
“What do you mean? That’s the only thing that needs to go right,” she said. “All these guys, this drama, it doesn’t matter as long as your career is going well. That’s one of the first things I learned about show business. As long as you have the part, the fame, the money, everything else is secondary.”
“I could give you the same advice,” I said. “You’re getting caught up in this drama with Rachel. It doesn’t affect your career at all.”
“But it will!” she said, her eyes pleading. “Rachel’s husband is here, and you heard from dinner yesterday that he was involved with the show in season one…”
I blinked at her.
“The reason they never pressed charges for what happened in the first season was because he has something on Reese.”
I froze, rooted to the spot. I remembered the conversation I overheard between Oliver and his ex-boyfriend in the alleyway. The rumor was that Reese had a reputation. “You mean that he and Mason used to be a thing? That he’s got some kind of reputation for sleeping with actors he works with?”
Alina shook her head. “No, worse. He’s got something… awful on Reese. So much so that he can blackmail him whenever he wants.”
I raised my eyebrow at her. “What could he possibly have on someone like Reese?”
“I don’t know that much,” she admitted. “But what I do know is that now he has something on me.”
“Oh please Alina, you don’t have to be afraid—”
She showed me her phone screen. It was open to her messaging app. There was a grainy photo of Alina still with her dark hair, looking about ten years younger, getting plowed by some guy on a bed.
“Alina, what is this?” I asked, my eyes going wide.
“Blackmail. From her husband,” she said gravely.
“…is that you?” I asked, examining the photo.
She looked down in shame. “Yes…”
“You did porn?!” I exclaimed.
“Maybe a little bit,” she admitted.
“Wh—”
“I was young, okay? And whatever, pretty much everyone in Hollywood does it.”
As much as I willed it not to, the image I had in my mind of Alina was rapidly shifting into something I didn’t recognize. I tried to remain non-judgmental.
“Then… if everyone in Hollywood does it, why are you afraid of it getting out?”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she looked up at me and said, “I don’t even know how he found it… but if this gets out, it’ll end my acting career.”
“Why?” I asked. “Everyone has a sex tape, like you said.”
“Not one like this,” she said.
Something heavy was in her voice now. My face fell.
“What do you mean?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“That guy in the tape… that’s the director from the Netflix show that made me a household name.”
My heart was beating fast as I put the pieces together. “So you slept with your boss…” Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered me, but I was doing the math in my head. Her first-ever Netflix show starred her playing a fifteen-year-old. “Alina… how old were you?”
“Seventeen,” she said breathlessly.
There was silence between us for a moment as that sunk in. She looked younger than seventeen in that photo, but I wasn’t going to ask any more questions about it. I didn’t want to know.
“That’s under the legal age in California,” I said.
“I know,” Alina said.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I was from a poor family in Michigan, using the last of my savings to visit a friend in L.A. I was invited to an afterparty after some art show and met the director there. Rumor had it that he was about to begin casting for a new Netflix series. I saw my chance and I took it.”
I could relate to the lure of fame. When I was younger and still trying to get into acting, I got a few offers to do porn, but they all seemed super sketchy. But then again, I’d never been that desperate like Alina had.
“It only happened with him a few times,” she said. “And it got me where I am today. If I had the chance to go back and do it over again, I would,” she said with a fierce determination burning in her eyes.
“I don’t blame you,” I said, pulling her into a hug.
She squeezed me tight. When she pulled away, her mind was right back onto business. “Which is why it’s so important that this never gets out. If the fans of The Black Castle ever found out about this, I’d be ruined. People wouldn’t be okay with someone underage sleeping their way into a role.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” I agreed grimly.
“Netflix would drop me. The authorities would go after that director, ruining his career too…”
“That wouldn’t be your fault, though,” I said. “You were a child. He’s a predator.”
Her eyes were burning with anger as she looked up into mine. “I knew what I was doing. I was sick of being treated like a kid. I was a year shy of being old enough to do that anyway —
