The next day, the phones at Pangu Pictures practically exploded.
Band's voice was shot, and the smile lines on his face were so deep you could probably trap a fly in them.
"—Yes, Mr. Vance has officially accepted our invitation to serve as a consultant… No, our collaboration with Ms. Connelly has been very pleasant…"
He hung up, collapsed onto the couch, and flashed Link a victory sign.
"We did it! Link , we freaking did it! All of Hollywood is buzzing right now—saying we're so devoted to artistic integrity that we even brought in those old hardliners who hate our guts as consultants! And Harvey? Three screenwriters' scandals blew up in his face. Now he's hiding like a turtle in its shell, not daring to say a damn word!"
Link leaned back in his executive chair, silent.
He just twirled the Parker gold pen in his fingers and stared out the window. The sunlight was perfect.
He knew people like Harvey. When they got hurt, they didn't scream—they waited. Waited for the one chance to stab you clean through.
The office door flew open without a knock.
Director Chuck Russell walked in. No script, no storyboards. The fire that usually lit up his face was gone, replaced by exhaustion. Dark circles hung under his eyes.
He walked straight to Link's desk, planted both hands on it, leaned forward, and stared him down.
"Link ," Chuck said, his voice dry and tight, "we've got a problem with the movie."
Band's grin froze.
"My female lead," Chuck said slowly, enunciating every word, "is on the verge of depression because of you."
Link stopped spinning the pen.
Chuck straightened up and paced the office.
"The last couple of days on set, she's been completely spaced out. Flubbing lines. Losing focus. Her eyes are swollen all the time. Yesterday afternoon, the makeup artist heard her crying in the restroom."
He stopped dead and turned around, his gaze sharp as scalpels.
"Your damn 'couple PR strategy'—it's everywhere. But where the hell have you been?"
"Do you have any idea how people on the crew are looking at her now? They think she's just a pretty face who slept her way up by clinging to the producer!"
Link's temples throbbed.
He tried to remember the last time he'd spoken to Cameron privately.
It was that night outside the restaurant, when she kissed him on the cheek.
After that… newspapers, phone calls, meetings, strategy sessions. He'd been busy putting out the media wildfire he himself had started—and forgot about the girl he'd pushed right up next to the flames.
He'd turned her into a headline, then left her alone inside it.
A restless, choking irritation rose from his chest to his throat. For the first time, he realized that his perfectly calculated plan had missed the one thing it absolutely shouldn't have.
"If this keeps up," Chuck said coldly, "my movie is going to shut down sooner or later."
Link set the pen down and stood up.
"Link ! Where are you going?!" Band panicked. "New Line's lawyers will be here in half an hour!"
"Let them wait."
Link grabbed his coat without looking back.
"I'm going to see my leading lady."
—
The moment he pushed open the stage door, a heavy, oppressive atmosphere hit him in the face.
The lights were blazing, but no one spoke. Even the crew walked on tiptoe. It felt like stepping into a graduate thesis defense.
Link didn't see Cameron.
He did see Jim Carrey.
Half his makeup was off—one side of his face looked normally exhausted, the other still smeared with that eerie green grin. He leaned against the dance floor bar, tossing an apple up and down, staring straight at Link.
There was none of his usual manic energy in that look. Instead, he seemed eerily calm—like a psychiatric doctor observing his patient.
Link nodded at him, about to walk past.
"Hey, boss."
Jim Carrey stopped him, his voice hoarse. He crushed the apple in his hand with a loud splat, juice dripping through his fingers.
"You broke your prettiest toy."
Link halted.
Jim didn't look at him anymore. He just stared at the mangled apple in his palm, talking to himself.
"When she smiles, she's like the sun. And now… the sun's about to set."
Link clenched his jaw silently.
Without a word, he headed straight for Cameron's trailer.
The door wasn't locked.
He pushed it open. The air smelled of perfume and makeup.
Cameron sat at the vanity, her back to him. She wasn't crying, wasn't making a scene—just holding an eyebrow pencil, carefully drawing a sharp, winged line. Over and over.
In the mirror, her face looked drained of color.
"Do you need something, Mr. Link ?" she said without turning around, her voice floating out of the mirror—polite, distant, like she was talking to a stranger. "Or is there another PR moment where I need to change my expression?"
Link walked up behind her and looked into the mirror at those dull, tired eyes. All the lines he'd prepared—the big picture, strategic necessity—got stuck in his throat. Not a single word came out.
Damn it. He felt like an idiot.
"I screwed up," he finally said, his voice dry.
Cameron's hand paused for just a beat.
"In my plan," he continued, stumbling over his words, "the focus was fighting Harvey, publicity, leverage… I dragged you into it, but—"
He couldn't finish. Even to himself, the explanation sounded awful.
Cameron finally put the pencil down.
She turned around and leaned back against the chair, tilting her head up to look at him. The rare awkwardness on his face cracked the ice around her heart.
"So?" she asked softly, still a little sharp. "You're done apologizing, and I go back in front of the cameras to keep playing the Hollywood sweetheart who's madly in love with you?"
"I don't know."
His answer made her freeze.
For the first time, she saw that his eyes had lost that cool, calculating confidence. He looked… rattled.
"I know how to fight wars. How to scheme. How to win," he said with a self-mocking smile. "But this… I don't know how to do this."
He glanced at the newspapers scattered on her table.
"I don't know how to fix it. I just know I shouldn't have let you handle all this pressure alone."
The trailer fell silent, except for the low hum of the air conditioner.
Cameron stared at him, at the handsome face now wearing an expression like a boy who knew he'd messed up badly.
The resentment in her chest suddenly melted away.
One tear slipped free, cutting a thin line through her freshly applied foundation.
She didn't wipe it away.
She stood up and stepped closer to him.
"Link ," she said quietly, looking up at him, "that day, in front of everyone, you said you were pursuing me."
Link swallowed, saying nothing.
"That sentence," she moved a little closer, close enough to catch the faint scent of tobacco on him, "was it real or fake?"
His mind went completely blank.
He opened his mouth, struggled for a long moment, and finally forced out:
"…I don't know what's fake."
Her eyes dimmed slightly.
"But," he added, as if steeling himself, his voice tight, "asking you out to dinner tonight… that part is real."
Cameron looked at his clumsy yet painfully sincere expression and burst out laughing. Tears still clung to her lashes, but her smile was like sunlight breaking through clouds.
She didn't give him a chance to say anything else.
She rose onto her toes, reached up, looped her arms around his neck—
And kissed him.