UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT Chapter 26

I stood in the corner with a flute of champagne, yet my eyes kept drifting to Serena.

Her smile glimmered under the lights, a small blaze stoking a restless heat in my chest. And still, a faint unease gnawed at me, as if something were missing.

Scanning the room, I suddenly realized Mia was gone.

She’d come tonight in a pale blue bodycon dress that traced her lithe, early-twenties figure—she should’ve stood out in any crowd, yet now she seemed to have vanished into thin air.

I set down my glass and slipped out of the ballroom, following the corridor.

The hotel’s top floor had a rooftop terrace. The night breeze carried the electric hum of San Francisco’s neon. I pushed open the glass door and, from a distance, saw a slender figure folded over the railing, shoulders trembling as if stifling sobs.

It was Mia.

I softened my steps and eased closer. The wind lifted her short hair; the pale blue dress clung to her petite frame, the hem slightly translucent in the light, the faintest outline of lingerie beneath.

With her back to me, her narrow shoulders shook like a fallen leaf. Her fine, broken sobs sounded like a tale of endless grievance.

“Mia?” I called softly, keeping my voice gentle.

She spun around, eyes brimming with tears, panic etched across her face.

When she saw me, she exhaled in relief and hurriedly wiped her cheeks, her voice catching. “Liam… what are you doing out here?”

I stepped to her side, leaned on the railing, and asked warmly, “Everyone’s inside celebrating. Why slip out here? What happened?”

She bit her lip, dropped her gaze, and was silent for a few seconds—then, like a snapped string, she threw herself into my arms. Her hands wrapped tight around my waist, her face buried against my chest, and she burst into tears.

She was as soft as cotton. The fabric of her dress was thin enough that I could feel the thrum of her heartbeat; her warm, damp skin seeped through my shirt, heat tightening my throat.

Her chest pressed against mine, those shy young curves trembling in the night breeze, sending my pulse into a tailspin.

“Liam, I… I’m so useless…” she sobbed, the words breaking as if torn from her core. “I left my hometown—left everything—to chase my acting dream. I don’t want my parents to worry; every time I call, I tell them I’m doing great, but the truth is… I’m not. Not at all!”

Her tears soaked my shirt, each warm drop a pinprick to the heart.

I patted her back lightly; my fingers brushed the smooth slope of her shoulder by accident, the heat of her skin making my fingertips jolt.

Forcing myself to stay focused on her, I murmured, “Mia, take your time. What’s going on?”

She lifted her head—eyes dewy, cheeks flushed, lips trembling like a flower heavy with rain. “For over a year I’ve run to audition after audition, facing producers and directors who keep crossing the line. The way they look at me makes me sick. I don’t want to compromise, don’t want to sell myself… but my career hasn’t moved at all. I can’t even land a walk-on in some web series! Tonight, seeing Serena so successful and everyone so happy for her, I… I just feel like such a failure, so wronged. I didn’t want to ruin the mood, so I slipped out here to cry.”

Her voice snagged, threaded with despair and helplessness, cutting straight through me.

I thought of her in practice—how focused she always was, her clear eyes like a still lake, too pure to touch.

But the darkness of this industry coils like a snake, sinking its fangs into her dreams.

Chasing the Spotlight