With His Consent (For His Pleasure, Book 13) (13 page)

Well now it really was impossible.

It was so quiet in the apartment, and dark, and she could hear some clock ticking somewhere. It was driving her crazy. Scarlett liked to fall asleep to the TV, or maybe a fan.

But this silence with the ticking clock was maddening.

In the darkness, she began to think of Terrence and all those times he’d done terrible things to her. She began to think of when she was a little girl, and the darkness had been almost complete and total, and she’d wanted to cry knowing that nobody would come tell her it was all right.

She began to think of how someone had chased her earlier.

That damn clock!

Scarlett got out of bed, intending to find and silence that stupid clock. When she got out to the living room, she noticed that Bryson had opened his laptop again at some point before coming to bed.

It was open and the bright screen was staring at her, inviting her to just have a quick look.

She crept over to it—curious about the revisions he was working on. She wanted to know everything about him. She wanted to understand how his mind worked.

Reading his writing made her feel so close to him.

She sat down and read the page that was on screen. She noticed a little typo—a missing period, and added it almost without thinking.

Then, she grew more curious still. She scrolled all the way back to the beginning of the script and started reading from the start.

It took her mind off the darkness and the fears. Took her mind off how alone she’d been. How alone she’d probably be again someday soon.

It was striking how much of the screenplay Bryson had changed in such a short time. It was very different than what she’d read just the other day. The rewrites were very substantial—no wonder he’d been freaking out about them. There were more typos, which she fixed as she read. There was no point, she thought, in leaving mistakes there when they were so obvious.

As time went by and she got more entranced by the story, she started to forget she was only intending to fix obvious typos. She also fixed a few other things.

For instance, there was a moment between the two main characters and the woman said something totally unbelievable.

A woman would never—ever—say that line, Scarlett thought, shaking her head slowly. She changed the line. She didn’t really think about whether it was right or wrong to do that—she just thought that it needed fixing.

After a couple of hours had gone by, she was almost done reading the screenplay.

She’d totally lost track of time. In fact, she didn’t notice that the sky outside had begun lightening.

She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her as Bryson walked into the room and stood watching her.

There was another bit of strange dialog that Scarlett just knew needed fixing.

Scarlett was just starting to change it when his voice frightened her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She screamed and turned around. “Shit. Bryson, you—“

His eyes were wide with barely repressed rage. “Scarlett, what are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you came out here and started messing with my work?”

She suddenly realized just how bad this looked. “I just was reading at first.”

“At first. Who told you that you could read my unfinished work, on my computer? That’s my personal shit, Scarlett.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m so sorry.”

He walked forward and bent down to see the computer screen. “I saw you typing, Scarlett. You were changing my script.”

“Just typos.”

“Just typos? You didn’t change any words or edit my stuff?”

She grew quiet, thinking of those little wrong bits of dialog that she’d “fixed.”

She licked her lips, trying to find a way to explain how it had been. “I made a couple of other minor changes. Just tweaked one or two lines that looked strange to me.”

Bryson literally ripped the computer away from her, holding it in his arms like a baby. “You need to leave.”

“Okay,” she said, terrified, unable to even move. “I’ll go. I’m so sorry.”

“Get your stuff and leave,” he said.

She nodded, not looking at him, not wanting to see the anger in his eyes that she so clearly heard in his voice. She stood up and got her clothes, then changed in the bathroom. When she glimpsed herself in the mirror, she looked like a stranger.

She looked like a terrified little kid.

But this was nothing new to her. Disappointing and angering people was nothing new at all.

She was dressed and heading toward the doorway to leave when he came out of his bedroom with his arms folded.

“Scarlett,” he said, and he actually sounded regretful.

She turned, looking at him with the first stirrings of hope. Maybe they could still talk this out, maybe she could explain what a silly thing this all was. “Yes?” she said, her voice quivering.

He looked down and sighed. Then he looked at her again, his jaw trembling. “I just can’t work with you anymore—I can’t see you anymore. You’re fired, Scarlett.”