She could go to Brian and apologise. She could bury her pride and get the scenes on film. She could get the job done and get the hell out of here before anything else had a chance to blow up. The duchess would disappear if Sophia would only stay away from Vic for the duration of her time here. All she’d have to do was keep her head down, her eyes on the target, and her hands to herself. She’d made a career out of the former two skills, and while she’d never been a fan of abstinence, she’d also never let any woman get in the way of what she’d set out to do with her life.

Why was she even debating her options when the choice before her had a clear answer supported by an abundance of arguments in its favour?

Vic.

Vic was the reason she hadn’t surrendered yet. Vic, with her beautiful eyes and her idealistic morals. Vic, who kept doing the right thing even when it was also the absurd thing. Vic, who cared so damn much for so many people and still looked at Sophia as if she were more treasured than the whole lot of them. Vic, who would go back to getting pushed around by her mother and her title until they ground her into dust. “Who does that to her own daughter?”

“What?” Talia tilted her head as if trying to make sense of the non-sequitur.

“The duchess called the press on me knowing full well I was with her daughter. She knows what getting caught would do to Vic’s life, to her sense of self, to her prospects for the future. She knows how much Vic has sacrificed and hidden and been hurt by people she trusted. She knows how awful it was the last time someone dragged her daughter through a public scandal, how much it broke Vic’s spirit, and she risked the exact same devastation again. Who does that to her own kid?”

“Someone who doesn’t cede power easily.” Talia’s eyes filled with sympathy. “Look, this movie we’re making is a fictional representation, but you’ve known all along what the stakes were for your character, and you got into the role by drawing from Vic. Surely you saw the similarities. You get people, you understand their darkness better than anyone I’ve ever worked with, and you’ve had the script for this play from the beginning. How did you expect this to end?”

“I didn’t think about what I was doing with Vic as part of some larger machinations or Macbeth cosplay. I didn’t think about anything at all.”

“Maybe you should start thinking, because Vic’s family isn’t going to let her go easily.”

Sophia shook her head. “Why do you assume they’d have to let her go?”