Page 7 of Now Their Starlet

“This is he,” Edison answers. There’s the sound of a mouse clicking in the background—probably working away on something.

“This is Everett Vaughn... we met a couple of days ago.”

“Ah, Everett! This is a surprise. How can I help you?” His friendly tone tells me that he probably doesn’t know what is going on. He doesn’t strike me as the type to take the news about Andi being put under an emergency conservatorship and losing all of her rights to the woman who fucked him over lightly.

“Are you sitting down, Mr. Wade?”

“I am,” he says, his tone growing more serious when he hears the tenseness in my voice.

“I assume you haven’t checked the news today.”

“No, I tend to avoid it unless I’m in the proper headspace. Why? What’s going on?”

“Andi has been put under an emergency conservatorship... under her mother.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. All four of the others around me seem to lean forward with anticipation for Edison’s reaction.

I hear typing on the other end of the line. He’s probably rushing to the internet the same way I did when I first heard the news.

“Oh God,” Edison breathes out, his voice shaky.

“We were... we were hoping that you’d be willing to help. You’re more familiar with Gina Sterling than any of us, and this is the type of situation where understanding who we’re dealing with could be helpful.”

“How soon can you make it over?”

“We’ll be over in thirty minutes.”

CHAPTER 3

Andi

There’s something strange about waking up in your childhood bedroom as an adult.

Maybe other people don’t mind it.

Me, on the other hand?

This room is a fucking prison.

Literally.

It’s been a week of being locked away in here. A week since Stuart came to my door after I sobbed for hours with a meal—my carefully curated, rabbit food fucking meal with the same portion sizes I got when I was fourteen—and told me that I had essentially lost all my rights.

The conservatorship was approved. Suspiciously quickly. I don’t know what proof Gina got together so quickly—probably all things that have been manufactured or manipulated, just like her throwing herself down the stairs and blaming me—but the end result is the same.

I roll over with a groan, my neck sore from the absolutely terrible pillow I slept on. Unfortunately for my spine’s alignment, all of them are ridiculously overstuffed.

I can’t even find peace in sleep and I’ve been sleeping a hell of a lot more since being locked away. I’m pretty sure I’ve slept away half of each of the days I’ve been here. I don’t even have a clock, so I’ve had to gauge things based on the sun.

Isn’t this kind of thing a torture method? Probably. It feels like torture.

Especially when I’d gotten used to being around the guys.

Beck was right when we first started this whole fake-dating-turned-real-dating situation. Omegas really aren’t supposed to be alone.

I’m starting to notice the effects of being deprived of human interaction.

When Stuart brings me my rabbit food meals, he mostly ignores me. And I’m only fed twice a day, so that’s only four minutes max of seeing another human face. Gina hasn’t even deemed me worthy of her presence since the day she threw herself down the stairs.