Page 12 of The Malibu Arrangement

What. The. Hell.

Chapter Nine

POWER PLAY

Celeste

I flip on the light and Max bolts upright. “Turn those fucking lights off!” he screams.

I shake my head. The audacity of this man. Max struts into my office—his office now, technically, after the merger—and has the nerve to dictate my lighting preferences? I find myself wishing for a stadium floodlight concealed in my desk. I'd love nothing more than to blind that chiseled jawline with 10,000 watts of pure spite. And while we're indulging fantasies, why not add the air horn I should stock in my desk for just such a billionaire ambush?

“Max,” I say. “What are you doing here, why are the lights off and why did you just scream at me to turn the lights off in my own office?”

He lunges for his suit jacket crumpled on the floor, slams it over his face and lets out a guttural moan that sounds like it's being torn from his chest. "Kill those fucking lights right now," he hisses through clenched teeth, "or I swear to God I'll drag myself down to Iris' office this second and watch your career die before lunch. One word from me is all it takes."

I go over to my desk, not making a move to turn off the lights and proceed to pore over some overdue projects. The Richards screenplay, set for a theatrical release in January, is demanding my attention. Several emails from some high-powered agents, the same agents I’ve submitted to several times and have rejected me, are in my inbox waiting to be answered.

“If you don’t turn out that light…” Max gets off the sofa and hunts around for the light switch. His eyes are closed, so his hands are searching blindly. “Where the fuck is the switch.”

"Don't you dare touch my light switch. I can't read in the dark, unlike you since you’re apparently a vampire. An emotional vampire, that is.” I jab my finger toward the door, my hand trembling slightly. "Go haunt some Michelin-starred restaurant or whatever corner of the universe you usually terrorize. This office—my office—is off-limits to you. Get out."

He somehow finds the light switch and turns off the lights. I go over to the light switch and turn it right back on. “I said leave.”

“Would you shut the fuck up,” he says, turning off the light again. “I need to talk to you and I need it dark.”

I cross my arms in front of me and tap my foot. So now he’s bossing me in my own office. It apparently wasn’t enough to humiliate me in the at The Centurion, an event that still has the office tongues wagging even if it didn’t - yet- result in my unceremonious departure from Dreamscape. But now he has to drive across town to invade my space. I’m now thisclose to calling security. And I would, except there’s a tiny voice that’s telling me that I need to hear him out. If I want to keep my job, I need to calm down.

We battle over the light switch for what feels like an eternity until Max's hand clamps down on mine with crushing force, pinning it against the wall. That contact - Max’s hand gripping my wrist - suddenly makes my entire body jolt like I’d been struck by lightning. Every nerve ending is suddenly, violently alive. I hate this. I hate how my pulse hammers in my throat, how I can't draw a full breath with him this close. His face hovers inches from mine, jaw clenched, those impossibly long eyelashes still pressed tightly together. The heat radiating between us is unbearable. My knees nearly buckle as a white-hot ache spreads through my core, my body betraying me completely as desire floods every inch of me.

My throat closes. I can't breathe, let alone speak. His peppermint breath hits my face in hot waves, and I'm seized with a violent urge to sink my teeth into his lower lip, to invade his mouth with my tongue, to consume that goddamn mint taste straight from the source. His eyes remain squeezed shut, like he's bracing for impact, and the space between us crackles with something dangerous—primal attraction or pure hatred, I can't tell which. The distinction blurs as electricity shoots through me. My body betrays me, molten heat flooding my core, while my mind screams in protest. I want to hate this. I need to hate this.

"Leave the fucking light off," he spits, teeth grinding like tectonic plates. The words hit me with physical force—a slap across my face. My stomach plummets as if I've missed a step in the dark. This magnetic attraction I'd been feeling—this electric current I thought was crackling between us—evaporates into nothing. Just my pathetic imagination. Again. Heat floods my cheeks as humiliation burns through me, acid-sharp, dissolving whatever gossamer thread had momentarily connected us.

“I won’t,” I say. “The light stays on and you’ll leave before I call security.”

"The light goes OFF!" He slams his palm against the switch with such violence that the wall shudders. The room plunges into darkness, but not before I catch a glimpse of his face—eyes clenched so tightly that the skin around them has gone white, jaw locked, a vein pulsing at his temple. My stomach drops as realization hits me like a physical blow. Those aren't the eyes of someone annoyed or angry. Those are the eyes of someone trying desperately not to scream.

“Okay, okay,” I finally say. “I’ll leave the light off.”

"Thank you," he mumbles, then collapses onto the couch. The cold rag trembles against his face as he presses it there. My stomach knots. What an idiot I've been. All this time, I thought his insistence on darkness was just another power play—the spoiled heir making demands because he could. But seeing him now, curled like something hunted, I recognize it. Mom after her third round of chemo, her fingers clawing at bedsheets, voice breaking as she begged me to "kill that light, please Celeste, it's like knives." And I've been doing this to him. Deliberately flooding his space with brightness. Using against him the very thing that once tortured someone I loved.

I sit down in one of my chairs. “Is there anything I can bring you?” I ask softly.

He shakes his head, then winces at the movement. "I called my doctor," he says through gritted teeth. "He wants to send a nurse over with the Triptan, but it's like throwing a water balloon at a forest fire. When the pain gets this bad—" his voice catches as he presses his palms against his temples "—I always end up in the ER with an IV drip, begging them to knock me unconscious."

"Oh. Do you get migraines a lot?" The words escape before I can stop them, my voice betraying me with its softness. A violent wave of guilt crashes over me for being such a bitch about the light—damn it—though not enough to make me forget he invaded my space without permission. Why the hell is he even here? My eyes burn into his face, desperately hunting for answers while my heart hammers against my ribs with pathetic, humiliating hope: maybe he came for me, maybe he's finally going to apologize for his cruelty. I swallow so hard it hurts. Right. And maybe unicorns will burst through the fucking ceiling and shower us with glitter.

He shakes his head, the motion causing him to grip the edge of the table until his knuckles blanch white. "No. Haven't had one in years. And have never had one this..." His face contorts as a fresh wave hits him, eyes squeezing shut, jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumps in his cheek. "Christ. Just put a bullet in my skull and be done with it."

I pace the length of my office, heels clicking against hardwood. The Ayana Chawinga meeting looms in my calendar—a showrunner every studio in L.A. is courting, yet somehow is interested in us. Jayden Harris's new screenplay sits half-read on my desk, already promising enough that I've dog-eared several pages. My phone blinks with unanswered calls; my inbox counter shows double digits. Yet here's Max, sprawled across my love seat with a damp washcloth over his eyes, his migraine pills nowhere in sight, making no move to leave. His cologne still hangs in the air between us. I watch the slow rise and fall of his chest and bite my lip, caught between wanting to smooth his furrowed brow and needing to shove him out the door.

I finally clear my throat. “Um, when will your nurse be here with your meds?”

“She’s not fucking coming, I’m going straight to the hospital,” he says. “Listen, I need to tell you why I’m here. I need to get this out before I mercifully pass out from the pain. Because when it gets this bad, I usually do pass out, but I need to get to the hospital before that happens. Let me get this out and then I’ll call my chopper to take me over to UCLA.”

“A chopper? Where will a chopper land?”

"On the roof of your building. My pilot's standing by for clearance. The pain—Christ, it's like someone's drilling through my skull with a jackhammer. I need UCLA's migraine unit now. Every second we waste, I can feel another piece of my brain being shredded. I can barely see straight anymore."