Warnings: Contains drug and alcohol abuse.
...
A strong burn of whiskey washed over the embers of shame and regret Donna had drunk to a dying flicker. The sound of her glass smashing against Harvey's wall had been silenced, and she'd almost diluted the pain of her dad giving up on their relationship. He'd warned of his guilt when he'd told her to stay out of his affairs, and she felt like a fool, defending him to the world and risking everything for absolutely nothing.
The press were going to paint her as a colliding villain trying to pervert the course of justice, and her dad no longer gave a shit about her. Worse, she was probably to blame for that. Who knew how far he'd spiraled in the three years she'd kept him at a distance? Not that she was in any position to judge his sobriety when she was popping pills like a puppet to get through the day.
With her head slumped in one hand, she downed her drink with the other, waving over a refill. The bartender said nothing as he topped her up, which she appreciated. The man knew how to read a room, unlike the barbaric arm that swung her abandoned purse onto the polished wood, the thud stubbornly defying her privacy.
She'd walked back to The Ludwig, trying to salvage the morsel of dignity she had left, but Harvey squashed it as he swept up her whiskey, pompously stealing it with a swift swig.
Christ he was an asshole.
"What are you doing here?"
The words felt heavy and inflated in her mouth, but she forced them out.
"Isn't being a courier below your pay grade?"
Her slur as she signaled for the bartender prompted Harvey to dissuade the man with a hard glare. The hint was met with a subtle nod, and when water arrived in place of more alcohol, he slid the glass in front of Donna. "Drink this."
Her voice lilted lazily as she stretched across. "Thanks for the concern, counselor, but I'm fine ."
The attempt to steal her glass back rocked her stool dangerously before she caught the counter — narrowly avoiding catastrophe. And Jesus… if he'd known she was going to drown herself in the cheapest house whiskey, he wouldn't have stupidly given her time to cool off.
"My concern isn't for you, it's for me." He stated his vexation bluntly. She wasn't the only one who had a reputation on the line, and his career couldn't afford to be splashed all over the gossip rags. "I can't be seen mopping you off the floor and dragging you to the E.R."
She gave an indignant, breathy snort. "Why not? Logan would have the paparazzi waiting, and you'd get your ailing victim photos."
The icy disdain that clung to her manager's name made him second guess who was actually in charge, her or this Logan guy. Her manager sounded like a prick, no better that the studio executives who'd threatened to sue her.
With another sip of whiskey, he pushed down his gnawing dislike for the entertainment industry. It didn't matter if she'd been acting under duress or not — she'd still played the part, and he was determined to draw his boundaries around her entire entourage if he had to. "I said to be relatable, not a train wreck."
His gaze moved over her hunched shoulders and sweaty, flushed cheeks, lingering on her roguish cocaine-chic look. She was still too damn easy on the eyes, pulling off the hot-fucking-mess vibe and spiting women everywhere, but he wouldn't glamorize the state she was in. "Not everyone can afford private health insurance."
"Not everyone has a dad who is going to prison —" she hiccuped "— because of a fucked up relationship with his daughter."
The hard line of her self-deprecation contradicted the visible tremble in her hands. It was impossible to get a lock on what was real; if she was contriving a pity party or had become a victim of her own talent, fooling herself into drumming up guilt.
Either way, she was making things more dire than the truth, and he pulled out a stool beneath the bar, peeling himself onto the seat. "I wouldn't be sending your father off to the gallows just yet."
"Since when?" She wobbly shot back her sarcasm. "I thought the Harvey Specter school of gloating would be open for business."
"Academic policy says not to kick a man when he's down."
Pitying her was one thing, but he understood the kind of betrayal she was facing. If someone had been able to explain away his mom fucking a man who wasn't his dad on the kitchen counter, his life might have turned out differently. Donna's antics were insufferable, and he had no respect for Jim as a parent, but it wasn't his job to judge their screwed up relationship, only the facts of the situation.
"Your father is guilty, but Ross thinks Jim did the wrong thing for the right reasons, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I'm inclined to agree."
Her doe-eyes flashed wide, glazed with confusion. "What does that mean?"
"It means he's being set up, and I'm willing to go out on a limb to prove it, but I need something from you first." He drained the last of the whiskey, pointedly thudding the glass next to her. "The drinking needs to stop. Same with the media frenzy. I don't care if your manager books a Vanity Fair cover on the moon, you come to me first, you ask me, and you trust me ."
Defiance tensed her twitching jaw, but he stayed firm with his demand. "You have an airtight FMLA clause woven in your contact. Legally, you have fourteen days to produce a medical certificate for stress leave which the studio has to sign off on."
"Stress leave?"
Another small hiccup propelled her contempt.
"So instead of getting fired, my career gets suffocated."
"From what I've seen, you need the break."
He spied her purse coldly, not sure she was sober enough to piece together his disapproval of substance abuse. But then her face burned red as she angry fumbled for the clutch."
"Your'n asshole."
She swayed tipsily and if he harbored any guilt over pocketing the pills, it vanished in the calamity of her heel getting stuck, the stool crashing over as their glasses went flying. He careened into the chaos, his own chair tipping as he caught her around the waist, preventing a nasty fall. Prying eyes honed in on them, and his grip tightened. "Listen to me," he growled low in her ear. "You wanted a lane, I'm giving you one. Take it or stop wasting my goddamn time."
Her fingers slackened around his bicep, a short breath accompanying a swimming nod, and great — now she decided she could trust him. Quick to dispell the attention they were drawing, he looped her arm around her neck, steadying her tottering fawn legs. With a promise to come back and sort the damage, he managed to steer her to the lobby and into an elevator, saving them both from public humiliation.
He jabbed the button for her floor, his annoyance tingling with unease when her head lolled onto his shoulder with a sleepy purr. She'd clearly lost her coherence the moment she tried to storm off, and given the boozy stench tickling his neck, he wasn't surprised.
Risking a glance down at her deep, heavy breathing, he watched a small patch of drool grow damp against his shirt, her unusually quiet innocence teasing a faint smirk. She was actually tolerable when she wasn't running her mouth off at him.
As they rode up, the peaceful silence gave him pause —maybe he had been a little too harsh in continuously provoking her inner banshee. Especially given the glaring lack of support in her life. If Theodore was her closest friend, he had to question the company she kept in L.A., because everyone else seemed more intent on pouring gasoline than giving good advice. None of which changed his opinion of her, but he made a detached acknowledgment that sometimes people kept playing shitty hands because greedy assholes egged them on.
They arrived at the top floor and he gave her a jostle as the doors parted. "Come on, Your Highness, your chambers await." He drawled sarcastically, unlatching her arm, but keeping his palm at her hip to guide her slow, stumbling steps.
She groggily fished out her keycard, showing no recognition her pills were missing, and he didn't disturb the bulge in his pocket as she clambered into the suite. She was better off without them tonight, leaving him to debate whether she needed help, but the door closed in his face with a finality that said he'd paid his dues this evening, and if that wasn't the goddamn truth.
He'd never met anyone who could invoke so much bedlam.
Brushing the smeared makeup she'd left as a parting gift on his shoulder, he didn't know what to expect going forward. She wasn't the vapid L.A. princess who crowned the magazines in his bodega; that was clear. He had yet to witness her siphoning any joy from all the attention, but whether or not she could get her shit together and bring her intelligence to the table remained to be seen.
The repulsive smell of sweat and booze filled Donna's nostrils as she woke with a start, the harsh drumming in her head thumping over the eerie sense she was being watched. Panic lurched inside her as she swung at the lamp, a hazy yellow light filling the bedroom as it crashed over.
The sound rattled around the stillness, her heart pounding wildly as her gaze raced around the swimming room. No one was there, just shadows playing tricks with her dizzy mind as she struggled free from the damp, tangled sheets.
Mercifully, the water on her nightstand was still intact, and she guzzled it down her parched throat, nausea infusing with the attempt to hydrate. The empty glass clattered on its side next to the upturned lamp, her anxiety rolling in waves as she slumped back down, willing exhaustion to blanket her racing pulse.
She was safe.
At least until the sun rose in a few hours, bleeding around her hangover and forcing her to confront the mess she was in.
Lopping onto her side, she tugged a pillow under her arm, muscle memory forging through the startling night terror, letting her sink back into oblivion.
Beeeeeeep! Beeeeeeep! Beeeeeeep!
Her blaring alarm sounded after what felt like only seconds, except the light in the room was bright and harsher than the fallen lamp, which was still emitting a sickly glow.
Beeeeeeep!
She smacked the fucking thing, trying to recall why it was even set, which opened the door to her consciousness, allowing betrayal and humiliation to crawl nauseatingly beneath her grimy, leather-like skin.
Oh God.
She'd never be able to face Harvey again. But if he was right about her dad being set up, then she had no one else to turn to. The uncomfortable churning of her stomach leapt with more ferocity, and she grabbed the edge of the bedside table rocking herself forward, but the bile rose and fell, suppressed by ice-cold dread.
Next to her hand, a neon pink post-it was stuck to her phone, the chilling cursive of someone else's handwriting locking her muscles in paralyzing fear.
'Play me.'
A violent tremble shuddered through her. She hadn't imagined anything; there had been another person in her bedroom last night, close enough to leave a fucking note.
For all she knew, they were still here, waiting to lure her out.
Thunderous ire gave her fight response a surge of propulsion.
There was no goddamn way she'd be anyone's pawn. With fumbling fingers she swiped away the notification she'd received at 4 a.m., finding and dialing the hotel's concierge. Helplessness wasn't always a matter of choice, but she had one now. And she wasn't going to act on anyone else's rules until she knew exactly what game was being played.