“Not at all.” Sophia lifted her chin the way she’d seen Vic do so many times, trying to channel some of that noble bearing the woman beside her had mustered when she’d talked about her family or her detractors, or were the two one and the same? “I’m not one of those artists who hates to look at their own work.”

“Good, then let’s start at the beginning.” The duchess eyed her for a long minute as if waiting for an objection in some sort of game of chicken.

Sophia refused to give her the satisfaction. Instead she upped the ante by saying, “You don’t have the very beginning available. My earliest work is utterly unfit for most video rental services, but I do believe The Casting Couch will give you a more than accurate picture of what you’re looking for.”

Vic cleared her throat, but Sophia merely smiled at her, trying to reassure her as best she could in the seconds before the duchess dimmed the lights and pressed play.

This was about to get awkward. There was no way around it, but not in the way the duchess expected. Then again, she didn’t pretend to know the full extent of this woman’s aim. Clearly, she wanted to embarrass Sophia, but honestly, what they were about to watch barely ranked on the scale of embarrassing things she’d done to get ahead. If anything, it would only reaffirm for her how far she’d come in the last ten years, and she’d done so only by making films one after another like rungs on a ladder. If she’d missed one of the rungs, she would’ve inhibited her climb, and she had made peace with that long ago. Frankly, she suspected that what was about to happen would be infinitely more uncomfortable for the others in the room.

Maybe that was the point. Perhaps shaming her only served the purpose of shaming Vic, a bank-shot betrayal.

The thought made her stomach twist. She didn’t know what bothered her more. The idea of her past being used against Vic, or the idea that Vic might be weak enough to be hurt by something as superficial as a D-list movie made a decade before they met.

She supposed the latter would serve her right for getting involved with an heiress in the first place. She’d always suspected this whole thing had the potential to end badly, and while it had slipped her mind a time or two, the prospect had never disappeared completely. Still, she hadn’t intended to get in deep enough to feel a responsibility to the woman beside her. It irked her a little bit now that she had.

The opening credits rolled over a cheap jazz synthesiser, and her own name flashed across the screen in a cheap font.

“Ah, there you are,” the duke said excitedly. “Top billing.”