CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Paige patted her stomach and fell into the couch cushions with a groan.
“I ate too much. Why didn’t you stop me?”
Back in London, they’d met Max this morning for brunch and the restaurant the men had chosen was a buffet. Paige had filled up on chocolate chip waffles, lemon-poppy seed muffins, bacon, ham, and some lovely croissants. She’d even managed to down some dessert – a light coconut custard.
Now she was miserable.
“Stop you?” Nate marveled, his hands on his hips. “How does a man tell the woman he loves that she’s dancing with one of the seven deadly sins?”
“Gluttony?”
His brows rose. “Sadly it wasn’t lust, although I think you could make a case for sloth right about now.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re mean, Mr. I-Can-Eat-Anything-And-Look-Like-A-Runway-Model.” She nudged his leg with her foot. “Say that again.”
“Lust? Or Sloth? I have a feeling if I’m not careful I might see Wrath as well.”
“You got to see so much lust this morning we were late to brunch. No, I meant say it again. You know.”
His expression softened and he knelt down between her legs. “I love you.”
She sighed and ran her fingertip along his jawline, enjoying the scruff that tickled her fingertips. “I love you too. So much.”
He’d said it every day but she didn’t think she’d ever tire of it.
He shook his head. “I love you more.”
“You’re so competitive. We love each other. This isn’t a contest.” She lay down on the couch and closed her eyes before muttering, “But I totally love you more.”
“You don’t, but I’m going to let that go. Is that how you want to spend the afternoon with Mike and Amy? Lying on the sofa, bemoaning a brunch buffet? It’s a bit different than our original plans.”
Shit, she’d forgotten all about that. She’d agreed to go see a movie this afternoon with the other couple.
“I’d like it noted that I said a buffet wasn’t a good idea. Now let me go upstairs and freshen up so we can get ready to go. You know I hate to be late.”
Nate only laughed. “You hate anything where you can’t wear pajamas.”
He was beginning to know her so well.
* * *
Paige was halfway up the stairs when his phone went off. Garrett, his publicist. Maybe there were new pictures of him and Paige in the tabloids. She needed all the publicity she could get after her meeting with the New York executives. They’d wanted to change too much of her book for her to be able to sign on. “Hey, Garrett. What’s going on?”
“Nate, I’m sending you a blind item I came across. I’m pretty sure it’s about Paige’s meeting with the studio guys a few days ago. Did she say anything to you? I thought you would want to know.”
“Okay, let me open it.”
He clicked on the link and began reading.
A certain blonde bestselling author who is dating a hunky Brit had to put her foot down yesterday when meeting with the studio brass. Sources confirm that said author was blindsided by studio demands that Brit boyfriend not star or direct in the movie based on her bestselling series. The brass said he was tainted and couldn’t fill the movie theatre seats. The author took her book and agent and walked right out the door. There would be no compromises. She and boyfriend are a package deal. Looks like she lost out on millions because of true love. Will she regret it? Only time will tell.
“Son of a bitch,” Nate muttered under his breath, his heart hammering in his ears. “This is definitely the first I’m hearing of this. Do you think it’s true?”
“I don’t know,” Garrett confessed. “Half of these blind items are true and the other half are bullshit. She didn’t say anything at all?”
Not one fucking word.
“She said that they wanted too many changes to the story plus there were location issues as well. Fuck, I never wanted her to put her career on the line for me. Jesus, she walked away from millions.”
What had she been thinking? Nate couldn’t wrap his mind around her actions. This was what Paige had dreamed of.
“She knows what she wants. I’ve heard of these guys and they were trying to intimidate a newbie. Good for her that she stood her ground.”
Good for her? Losing out on this deal couldn’t be called good. This was madness.
“She lost this because of me… I’ll never forgive myself.”
Doubtful Paige would ever forget that he’d cost her the chance of a lifetime. She might pretend that everything was all sunshine but inside she had to be crushed. Her relationship with him shouldn’t come with this high of a price tag.
He wasn’t worth the sacrifice.
“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing, Nate. She had her agent there and I doubt Kris Lawson was going to allow Paige to walk away from a great deal. The only reason I brought it to your attention is that I thought it was important for you to know that Paige fought for you.”
Something she shouldn’t have had to do. This was his own fault. His own stupidity. Stella, the gift that kept on giving.
“Thanks for letting me know, Garrett. I really do appreciate it. I’ll talk to Paige.”
“Let me know if we need to spin this in any way. Right now it’s a blind item but it could blow up on us. We don’t want anyone thinking the studio didn’t want you.”
Except that was the exact truth if this little article was to be believed.
“I’ll let you know. Thanks again.”
Nate hung up the phone and headed straight upstairs, taking them two at a time. He and Paige needed to have a little chat.
* * *
Paige was in the bedroom pulling a sweater over her head when she heard Nate’s footsteps on the stairs. He was impatient to go to the movies but they had plenty of time. She’d allotted thirty minutes for the ten-minute walk to the theatre. She’d been thinking they might stop at the coffee shop for a hot chocolate and a slice of their lemon cake. Nate might not think it was cold but she did. Winters in London were much different than what she was used to.
“I’m ready, handsome.” She smoothed down her hair and slipped on a pair of leather loafers. “But don’t worry, we have loads of time.”
“Good, because I think we need to talk before we go.”
She hadn’t noticed his expression but she did now. His jaw was tense and his lips a thin line. Her beloved wasn’t happy and ten minutes ago he’d been over the moon.
“Okay,” she drew out the word. “What do you want to talk about?”
He shoved his phone in front of her face. “Garrett sent me this.”
She read through the blind item, heat suffusing her cheeks. Jesus, that girl in the corner taking notes must have leaked this. Kris was sure that Burt and Ernie wouldn’t do it.
“Nate, I can explain.”
She heard his indrawn breath and he turned sharply away. “Christ, do you mean it’s true? Did you walk away from a multimillion dollar movie deal?”
Well, yeah. But she’d had a good reason. Pacing back and forth, muttering to himself, Nate was acting like she’d shot someone in the streets. This was not a tragedy; it was just a temporary setback.
“Will you please sit down and let me explain? I’ll start from the beginning.”
Jerkily he sat, but his hands couldn’t seem to settle, landing first on his thighs, then the mattress, and finally crossed over his chest. Great, terrific body language. He wasn’t that open to her explanation.
“Kris and I met with the two execs. Burt and Ernie, of all things. They gave me the usual snow job. Blah, blah, blah. They love the books, they love the script. We went through my list of ideas and they gushed some more. It was all good but then they started with their own ideas, which were horrifying. Toward the end of the meeting they sprung the issue on us. They felt like you couldn’t fill the seats after the two box office bombs. Then they said the narrative would be all about you and your threesome instead of the movie. I told them that you had received great reviews for your work on those films and the tickets sales weren’t your fault. I could see they were going to continue to argue so I just cut them off at the pass. This was why I’m fighting for control. Then they admitted that Stella Riley had put these ideas into their heads which told me that they absolutely couldn’t be trusted with my movie. So, I told them basically that if they didn’t let me make the decisions I was ending the meeting.”
He looked up, his usually clear blue eyes almost gray. “Stella? Bloody hell. That girl is a menace to society. I wish I’d never met her. And so you just walked? That’s it?”
Paige smiled at the memory. “We’d both stood and I had my purse over my shoulder. This was too important to give in.”
Nate stood and grabbed her shoulders, his expression full of anguish. “Have you lost your mind? You may have lost the chance to make Flynn a reality.”
She wasn’t sure what Nate was angry about. “If not this studio, then another one. This is why I didn’t sign the first contract offered to me months ago. I need the control. I certainly can’t trust these guys. They have lousy judgment.”
Whirling around, he stomped back and forth, his chest heaving as he scraped his fingers through his hair. Finally he stopped and turned to her, his jaw tight.
“You walked away because they didn’t want me?” She started to speak but he cut her off with a wave of his hand. “It doesn’t matter why they didn’t want me, Paige. It doesn’t matter where the idea came from. Jesus, woman, I’m not worth losing millions over.”
He was but he wasn’t the only reason she’d walked away.
“I already have money.”
His cheeks turned red and he snorted in derision. “You’ve blown what might be your one and only chance to get this movie made over me. I earned every bit of what they said and then some. I’m the one who made that mistake. You will not pay my price or suffer because of what I did.”
“I don’t feel like I’m suffering, Nate. You’re the one upset here, not me. I’ll make the movie when the time is right. Don’t you want to play Flynn anymore? Don’t you want to direct?”
If he’d changed his mind, he hadn’t said anything.
“Of course I do. But the thought of you losing out because of my being an idiot is too much to bear. I won’t have it.”
He was being so sweet and yet so dimwitted at the same time. There was no way she was going to do this movie without him.
“We’re a team,” she argued. “You said that yourself right before I left for the meeting. We do this together or not at all.”
He looked at her squarely, tilting her chin up so she was staring into his eyes. “You should have launched me. Told them you’d look at other actors and directors.”
She shook her head. This was what he’d been trying to say in his roundabout, longwinded way? “Not on your life. You’re Flynn. I told them that. As for directing, you and I are in sync about this movie. We’re a team and we’re going to do this together. Us against the world, handsome.” She tilted her head, a horrible thought occurring to her. “Is that what you would have done if the positions were reversed? Would you have launched me, as you put it?”
He smiled then, but it was sort of sad and cynical. “It’s a nasty, cutthroat business and it’s survival of the fittest, love. You have to put yourself first. You may never have this opportunity again.”
Perplexed and confused, he still didn’t understand what love and commitment meant but she was going to show him. This was his first serious relationship since he’d become a star.
“I’m putting us first.” There was no way she could make this movie without him. “This isn’t about us as a couple, Nate. This is about you being the perfect person to play Flynn and how in sync we are about the film. This is about business, not love.”
His dubious expression clearly said that he didn’t believe her and she didn’t have any more words to convince him. Time would show him how serious she was about this. When he saw a week or a month or a year from now that she didn’t care about the movie, he’d understand that this was no sacrifice.
Checking his watch, he exhaled noisily. “We’re late for the movies, but I want you to know this discussion isn’t over.”
He could talk until he was blue in the face. She was at peace with what she’d done that day and she’d do it again in a heartbeat. Money and fame didn’t matter. She had everything she could ever want right here with Nate.