He Loved Her, I Confront Them Loudly

Chapter 2

Every word he spoke reeked of self-righteous justice.

It was like I was the one throwing a stupid tantrum, the narrow-minded woman who couldn't see the big picture here.

All the wronged grief I'd bottled up until that point finally burst right through the dam.

Tears spilled from my eyes before I could stop them, rolling hot and fast down my cheeks.

I stared up at the man standing in front of me, and he looked so utterly strange, so cold and heartless, it made my chest ache.

Off to the side, Sophie furrowed her brow and scurried back and forth between us, all jittery and nervous.

She looked every bit the guilty party who'd done wrong.

When she saw we'd both had our say and the tension was spiking, she ripped the schedule from beside her and held it out, her eyes wide with pure, innocent confusion.

"Mrs. Cooper, please don't be mad! Look at this schedule! Mr. Cooper is just one of my teachers…

"The whole thing's completely packed with classes. I just have such a terrible foundation, that's why Mr. Cooper carved out extra time to tutor me privately."

I took the so-called schedule from her hand.

Turns out it was filled with names of the company's top instructors and most respected senior mentors.

Before this, even the most promising artist never got more than one of these elite teachers assigned to them.

But Sophie? She had every single top-tier instructor in the whole company lined up just for her.

From only a couple of feet away, I looked into Lucas's eyes.

"You assigned all these famous instructors to her?

"Did you even stop to think about the other artists under contract with this company? Is throwing every single resource at her really the rational thing to do?"

That's when Lucas dropped all his nice-guy pretense for good.

His voice held nothing back—raw, unmistakable disgust.

"This is my company! I'll promote whoever I damn well please!

"Sophie has incredible talent and she's gorgeous. She's going to bring this company more profit than you can even imagine. What are you, just a makeup artist? All you know how to do is put on makeup!"

He pulled his brows together into a deep scowl, his face twisted into a mask of utter disappointment.

"I have already dealt with enough stress running this company and keeping this family together. Can't you stop believing every little rumor you hear?

"I don't ever want to hear these dirty, unfounded suspicions out of your mouth again. You're slandering one of the most talented artists on my roster for no reason!"

The second the words left his mouth, he snatched his jacket off and stormed out.

And left me standing there alone, rooted to the spot.

From that day on, Lucas cared less and less about how I felt.

He came home later and later every night.

The housekeeper handed me his updated schedule every single day.

Half the time he was flying out of town for film summits, negotiating deals with platform investors and producers.

The other half he was accompanying brand clients to fancy galas and business mixers.

After our blowup, he even laid down a new rule: All signed artists had to keep at least a few feet distance from him at all times, except during lessons.

Every gossip mill in the company was buzzing that Lucas had married a shrew.

She can't even stand his company's own artists.

His straight-laced, by-the-book act made me second-guess myself more and more.

After a while I started to wonder: was I just being too sensitive?

I forced myself to rein in my wandering, anxious thoughts, and tried my hardest to focus all my attention back on my work.

But then a single photo the housekeeper snapped completely shattered me.

It was taken at an apartment building right near Lucas's company office.

In the picture, Sophie and Lucas held hands and stepped onto an elevator together.