CHAPTER FOUR - RACHEL
“Jeffery!” I called out to my assistant to give me his opinion. He came from across the room and folded one hand across him with his other hand to his chin. I let out a long breath. “It’s too big. We’re going to have to cut it down. I don’t think it will be in the shot.”
Something about that morning had me nervous as hell. I didn’t know what the hell was going on with me but I was already at my wits end and usually that wouldn’t happen until at least later in the afternoon. Maybe I was PMS’ing?
“I think you should just push it back a bit. It might help, and you’d do better trying before taking a saw to it,” Jeffrey noted.
“That’s not going to give me enough. Get the specs list and let’s see if we missed anything else. I’m not about to present this to Brock until it’s absolutely perfect.”
We took the list and right away I saw the issue. I pointed my finger on the sheet. “That’s supposed to be five feet instead of eight. My messy handwriting strikes again.” I took a deep breath and turned to my carpenters who stood against a counter I’d been using as a makeshift desk. “This has to lose three feet, let’s make it happen, please.”
They gave me some murmurs, and two of them took to the mock up stage and pulled the board down and carried it out while the other four stood around trying to look useful.
I turned my head to Jeffery. “Remind me why we need all of them?”
“Well, it certainly isn’t because they’re nice to look at.” He made a sour face to the crew who looked about as good as they smelled. They were a cranky bunch. Jeffrey pulled me into his arms to console me. It had been a rough day already and it didn’t seem like it was ever going to end.
I broke away from him and turned around glancing over my shoulder. “Okay, that should put us on track, I’m just going to—”
I slammed right into a solid wall of chest. The pleasant scent of his cologne hit my nose with a dose of nostalgia, and I lifted my head to his gorgeous hazel eyes which were just how I remembered them, and left me just as breathless.
“Duncan Kelley.” The name rolled from my lips before I could even stop it. Even though he nodded, I didn’t think it was real. “What are you doing here?” My heart twisted like someone gripped it with razor sharp teeth and all the old feelings came rushing back to me; the love and the pain.
“Don’t tell me. You’re the set producer?”
He took a deep breath, and I couldn’t stop taking in the sight of him. His hair was much darker than it had been when he was younger, making those pale, hazel eyes seem like they were glowing in their sockets. There was more of him too, the thick cord of muscle across his chest and down his arms had my fingers twitching to touch him. Then there were the tattoos. I’d never imagined he’d have so many, the black markings enhancing his muscles and made him look like the warrior he was.
He appeared even more fierce than the day he ripped out my heart. Suddenly, anger ripped through me. He had some nerve showing up at my job. What was he even doing here? “Well?”
“I’m security.” He glanced over my shoulder at Jeffery. “Don’t let me interrupt you and your boyfriend. I’m supposed to be checking in.” His voice was also a lot deeper than it had been when he was in school like it had weathered with age and experience. Perhaps it had.
“Jeffery is my assistant and friend.” I folded my arms around my waist and pulled my lips into a tight line. I didn’t owe him an explanation, though my mind went back to the time he’d seen me paying the lawn boy my mother had hired. Duncan had come across the yard so fast that the poor guy had tripped over himself to get away. He’d always been that way until they day he’d decided that he didn’t care anymore.
He’d come to me talking about the Navy, and I’d always been so supportive. Had I known that he was going to up and leave me with a broken heard, I’d not been so inclined. I even promised to wait for him, to be there when he got out, but a week later, all I’d gotten was a lousy text telling me there was no future for us. He’d told me that I had a whole big life in front of me and he wasn’t getting in the way. He hadn’t even given me a choice, just like my father, he’d made the decision then and there what my life, my future would be. At least my father always had the guts to say it to my face.
“You can go wait over there by the doorway. I have to make a call.” I walked across the room and stepped behind one of the larger props I’d designed and pulled out my phone. I had a bone to pick with my best friend.
Her voice was already filled with caution as she said hello. “Please tell me you had nothing to do with this, Shauna.”
“With what exactly?”
I could hear the worry in her tone.
“Don’t play stupid. You’re the smartest woman I know, which leads me to think you were having an off day when you decided to put me and your brother in the same place!” I tried to keep my tone level, to keep it from turning as harsh as Duncan’s natural tone when she began to apologize.
“I’m sorry, Rachel. It’s just that I felt it was time for the two of you to work things out. He’s not really seeing anyone, and neither are you. You’re both living in the city now, we could all be together again, one big happy family like the old days.”
Her words were spilling out so fast I could barely wrap my mind around them.
“He broke my heart, Shauna. He left me, making it perfectly clear where we stood.”
“You still love him. Don’t lie. You ask me about him at least once every other week and then get mad if I try to discuss him for too long.”
I had been trying to use restraint and had even made her promise we wouldn’t let the break-up come between us.
“And how often does he ask about me?” I waited for her response which came after a bit of hesitation.
“He asked me about you the other day.”
“Really? And how often does that happen?”
“Okay, it’s not often, but it’s the way he asks and when he asks. Rachel, he’s never stopped caring, I just know it. Please talk to him.”
“I have no other choice, do I?” She’d made sure of that. I’d see him every single day until this production was over and as I was thinking of what to tell her next, her phone cut out.
“Hey, I have another call. I’ll call you back.” She hurried off the phone, and I peeked around the prop, seeing Duncan who was ducking off to the side on his phone. I guess that was the other call Shauna had. He’d called his sister too. I knew the two hadn’t planned this together because Duncan was just as surprised as I had been.
I stared as he chewed his sister out. God, he was gorgeous. He’d really grown up to be a beautifully fierce man. I tried to ignore the heat building between my legs and quenched the burning with anger as I crossed the room.
I walked right up to him where he leaned over whispering into the phone and tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around and straightened, becoming a good head taller, and I looked directly into his eyes. “Tell Shauna I’m not done with her.” I crossed my arms and shifted on my feet, as Jeffery waved for my attention over Duncan’s shoulder mouthing ‘are you okay?’.
“I’ll call you back, Shauna. Neither one of us is done with you.” He hung up the phone and spun around to see Jeffery giving him the eye. I had no doubt that as fierce as Duncan was, Jeffery wouldn’t back down if need be and he wouldn’t let anyone disrespect me.
Then he turned back to me. “We need to talk.”
Need to talk? I remembered the night that he broke up with me over a fucking text. He didn’t have the guts to agree to talk then.
As much as I tried to forget, I’d remembered it like it was yesterday. My eyes were filled with tears trying to make out the harsh words on the screen, while I clinched my phone in my hand. I was sitting in the backyard, under the tree we used to climb, where I got my first skinned knee, and he was the one to comfort me while his sister went to get my father. That dreadful night, I texted him that we just needed to talk it out, but instead he wrote that he had nothing more to say; what was done was done.
I dropped my hands to my side, balling them into fists as I glared at those damned hazel eyes. “I’ve got nothing more to say to you.”
As his eyes softened, I turned and stormed away.
I wasn’t going to give him the chance. He could save it.