“Is it always like this?” I ask him as we leave yet another party in the Hills. The house was breathtaking, the people there even more so. I met actors I’d watched since childhood and those who are just now hot commodities. So many gorgeous creatures, I hadn’t known what to do with myself or what to say. Not that I had to say much of anything. Most of these people love to hear themselves talk.

All night, I had to check myself from turning to whisper a comment in Killian’s ear. Because he wasn’t there. Why can’t my brain and body seem to get that message?

“Is what ‘always like this’?” Scottie answers, nose deep in his phone calendar.

“The endless pushing.” I ease my shoes off my feet, wincing. Thanks to Brenna, I now own my own Louboutins. My appreciation for them died the first time I put them on. “Two months we’ve been at it. At this point, I feel like a snake oil salesman.”

Scottie’s lip twitches. “I do so love your expressions. Don’t change them. They add color to your persona.”

“Good to know,” I mutter, then nudge his arm with my elbow. “I’m talking to you. Get your nose out of that thing. It’s indecent.”

Good lord, Killian must have learned that imperious brow quirk of his from Scottie. This man’s is downright glacial. But he does put his phone down.

“What is the problem, Ms. Bell?”

“I go to these things you and Brenna book for me, and the parties y’all seem to think I need to attend, and I feel…I don’t know. Fake. Like I’m faking it.”

Scottie stares at me as our hired car snakes down the twisting mountain road. When he speaks, his tone is softer than I expected. “You are faking it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Calm down.” Scottie leans back, resting one ankle on his bent knee. “In here, we are simply Libby and Gabriel—”

“That’s your name? How did I not even know your name?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Back to the point—”

“How old are you, anyway?”

He glares ice chips. “Twenty-eight.”

“Back the truck up. Really? I thought you were in your thirties.”

“We see what we want to see. And if you’re good, you make people see what you want them to see. For my job, if I skew slightly older I’ll garner more respect and credibility. All bullshit, but appearances matter in this world.” He pins me with a look. “Which is precisely my point. Stardom is an illusion, an ideal carefully cultivated by persons like myself and Brenna. In private, you can be yourself. But the moment you step in the public eye, you become Liberty Bell, talented ingénue—”

“Hey! I can be sophisticated.”

“Who,” he says over me, “is taking the music world by storm with her unique sound. That is all they’ll know. Because that is all you’ll show them.”

“I just want to be me.”

“You misunderstand. You are being you. Merely another version of you. It is armor, Libby. If you give them all of yourself, the world will drain you dry. But if you go to these events and act a part—something they’re all doing as well—you have a certain freedom. It isn’t real. Therefore it isn’t really you who’s constantly being watched and judged.”

I get what he’s saying. It still deepens the pit of loneliness that’s been haunting my insides. “Is that what Killian does?”

Scottie’s gaze goes sharp. “Not with you. Or his inner circle. But you have to have seen the difference in how he acts with the rest of the world.” Scottie’s hand drifts toward his phone, left lying on the seat cushion. “And he’s had years of practice. He knows just how much to give without losing himself.”

I’m not so sure. He was lost when I found him on my lawn. I saw him come back to his own, saw the shadows leave his eyes. Together we were happy, solid, alive. And I left him. Just as surely as he left me.

Suddenly, I don’t want to talk anymore. I just want to crawl in bed and burrow under the covers, pretending that I’m not constantly reaching for someone who isn’t there.

Scottie’s right. As days pass, it does get easier. It’s not exactly fun, but it isn’t the torture I made it out to be. And when I perform, even on my own, the adoration of the audience is a beautiful thing. Killian had it right: it is addictive, almost as good as sex with him. But I’ve known that bit for a while. And though I feel myself getting into a groove, finding my place, it’s still all wrong. I can’t shake the emptiness inside me—an emptiness I’ve never experienced before now.

A week later, Scottie leaves me to check on Kill John in London. It takes all I have not to beg him to let me go with him. Brenna will remain with me in his place now. And though I’ve missed her and love her company, her presence is another thorn in my side. She’s been with the guys—with Killian—all this time. I constantly want to ask her about him. And I constantly refrain from doing so. Call it pride, but I don’t want to hear about him from second-hand sources.

Tonight, Brenna has taken me to a club. I don’t blame her. That’s the way the guys relaxed after “work.” Me? I’d rather play my guitar in my room.

The place beats with music so loud the floor rattles. Bodies writhe, laughter breaking out in disjointed bursts. Beautiful people, impeccably dressed and with perfectly capped smiles, wide and fake, are everywhere—eyes on everyone else. Watch and be watched.

I hate it. Longing for my porch hits me so hard that I struggle to catch my breath.

“I can’t stay here,” I tell Brenna at my side.

She nods. “Thank God. I’m really beginning to hate this shit.”

We make an about face, and Brenna calls our car service.

Back in my suite, I take a long, hot shower. It doesn’t seem to wash the fug off my skin. I’m imbued with an ugly feeling: time of my life, and it’s a void. I dress myself in my beloved Star Wars shirt that used to be Killian’s. The soft cotton caresses my skin as I pull on sweats and go back to the living room.

Brenna greets me with a cocktail. She’s been serving me way too many of these Pity Party of One drinks. I reach out to take it from her, my fingertips brushing the icy glass, when a wave of nausea hits me so hard I double over.