“Just give me a moment. I’m not programmed to prioritize my needs.”

“Oh girl, that’s my specialty. Come on. Let’s get selfish,” Helene said with a wink.

Amanda smiled back at her as a wave of sadness washed over her. The truth was, she knew exactly what she needed. “I need Sam. I need to talk to him.”

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Sam came back from the bathroom to see his phone screen shining in the dark. He’d changed the Do Not Disturb settings on his phone as soon as he and Jesse had landed in Bali. He knew he’d miss Amanda like crazy, but even with his international cellular plan he couldn’t spend his whole vacation with his brother texting his new girlfriend. But as he crossed the expanse of their private beachside bungalow something told him whoever was blowing up his phone wasn’t reaching out with a calm, friendly hey-how-ya-doing.

He scooped his phone up and saw the text from Walls.

Sorry to bug you, man. But you need to see this.

They are destroying your girl online.

Sam clicked through to the article Walls had sent him, his blood boiling as he saw the headline. He clicked back to his messages and saw similar texts from Corie and Lilah with the same article and more from Bossip and TMZ. There was another text from Zach just saying to call him when he could. He had a feeling what it was about.

He called Walls.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“No clue. I just got off the phone with Corie. They are trying to keep Miss Leona from seeing it for now. What’s the play? What do you want me to do? You want me to call Coffey?”

“No. He won’t care about this. I mean, he will, but he trusts me. He won’t freak out unless I freak out.”

“Are you freaking out?”

“Not sure yet. I need to talk to Amanda.”

“You sure? Looks like her people leaked this.”

“What people? She’s—” He almost let slip that she wasn’t a writer, but a personal assistant, but he knew she still felt embarrassed about her job even though there was nothing to be embarrassed about. “She doesn’t have people. This isn’t her style of bullshit.”

“Well, someone leaked it. What do you want me to do? What’s the next move?” Walls asked just as Sam heard the door to Jesse’s side of the bungalow open. His brother ambled in, half asleep, scrubbing his hand over his face, then sat down on the edge of Sam’s bed. He had his own phone in his hand.

“Nothing. Don’t do anything yet. I need to talk to Amanda. If I know her the way I think I do she had nothing to do with this. She doesn’t want this kind of attention or this kind of heat.”