Chapter 12
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Shayne had just completed a dozen phone interviews and one quick call with Chester. As usual, he downplayed her concerns and told her that she needed to “trust him to do his job.” He even went as far as to remind her where she’d be without him.
She knew that the end was near. The writing was on the wall and it read: Chester is an asshole. She just wasn’t sure how or when it would come but she knew it would. Once the movie wrapped, she would come up with an exit strategy. For now, she intentionally pushed all thoughts of Chester from her brain.
She paused and inhaled deeply. All of her focus needed to be on the project. She was scheduled to fly out of Hope Falls in a few hours and this was the final rehearsal before the first day of filming.
Once she felt a little more centered, she entered the room. Before she made it two steps, Ruby stepped in front of her, drink in hand.
“I have good news and bad news.” Her friend whispered as she handed Shayne a green tea. “What do you want to hear first?”
“Bad news.” It was the choice that Shayne always made. There was no way she could enjoy any good news when she knew that bad was right around the corner.
Ruby scrunched her face as she shook her head no.
Shayne’s lips tilted up in amusement. “Why do you ask if you know you’re not going to like my answer?”
“Why do you pick the wrong answer when you know I’m going to tell you the good news first?” Ruby countered.
“Fine.” Shayne conceded. “Good news.”
“Brawny Man is single.”
Shayne didn’t get her hopes up often, but that statement had just sent them skyrocketing. The more time she spent around the man, the more appealing he became. He maintained a quiet authority, a dependable steadfastness, and a commanding air that had her hormones going as wild as teenagers on Spring Break.
“He is?” her voice was thin from the strain of excitement.
Ruby nodded subtly.
Shayne snuck a peek at Evan, who was standing several feet away talking to Kyle. Her breath caught in her throat the way it always did when she looked at him. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking. She was around good-looking people all the time. Evan was more than that. His attractiveness was so much more than physical. Although, between his thick brown hair, strong jaw, whiskey-tinted eyes, and gladiator physique he was no slouch in that department. Not to mention what had started as stubble had grown into a full beard and it was giving him quite a bad boy vibe that she was a fan of. A big fan.
She was not in his direct line of sight but she felt like he was watching her. So she linked her arm in her friend’s and they walked to the opposite side of the room to a large window that overlooked the town. She pretended to point something out to her friend as she asked, “How do you know? Did you ask him?”
Ruby had been threatening all week that if Shayne didn’t broach the subject with Evan, she would. Each time, Shayne had forbidden her to do so. Secretly she’d hoped that for once, Ruby wouldn’t listen to her.
In all honesty, Shayne had basically been biding her time until Nolan showed up. No amount of forbidding would stop her beloved, well-meaning, meddling make-up artist from getting to the bottom of whether or not Evan was dating anyone, or worse, in a serious relationship.
“I didn’t have to ask him,” Ruby enthused. “Vivien did all the work for me.”
Shayne felt a tinge of jealousy spread through her as she asked, “Vivien asked him?”
“Yes. She point blank asked if he was single. He said he was.”
“Was she flirting with him?” Shayne had no right to ask and even less of a right to care, but she did and she did.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. She also flirted with me.”
Fair point. The gorgeous redhead radiated flirtatious energy like the sun radiated heat.
Ruby’s eyes narrowed in a detective squint as she continued, “And I didn’t get the feeling that she was asking for herself.”
“Do you think she was asking for Audrey?”
Ruby shook her head discretely. “I don’t think so. She asked about a brunette that he’d been in there with last week.”
“A brunette?” The feeling grew in intensity.
Great. Now she was jealous of some anonymous woman she didn’t even know.
Ruby glanced over her shoulder in a clandestine fashion. Shayne casually turned her head as well, possibly blowing the entire covert mission. When they both saw that Evan still stood across the room deep in conversation with Kyle, Ruby continued.
“He said it was his ex.”
“His ex?” Shayne’s heart hiccupped. That was the only way to describe it. Her heart jumped into her throat.
In Shayne’s way of thinking, an ex was even more disheartening than someone new. That meant that they had shared history. A past. There was some reason that they’d been together.
Evan didn’t give away much and she still wasn’t able to read him the way she could other people, but she had picked up that he only acted deliberately. He was serious. If he was in a relationship with someone, it wouldn’t have been casual.
“An ex.” Ruby nodded. “Vivien asked about a hot brunette he was with last week. Brawny Man said that she was an old friend. Vivien basically called bullshit. He admitted she was an ex. She said they looked cute together and it seemed like they were in their own world and didn’t even notice that anyone else was there. He said that the brunette was there to tell him that she was engaged.”
“Engaged?”
“Engaged,” Ruby confirmed as she opened her mouth and sucked air in.
“You said that all in one breath.”
“I know.” Ruby exhaled as she rubbed her belly. “And with this one pushing up against my lungs that’s not as easy as it used to be.”
Her friend had grown bigger in the past week. Maybe even in the past day. For the first few months the differences in her body from the pregnancy were imperceptible. But the farther along she got it seemed like she was changing every day. As Shayne looked down at her friend’s ever-expanding baby bump, a sense of awe came over her. “You’re growing a human in there.”
“I know, right?” Ruby looked just as amazed. “It’s crazy.”
Shayne’s moment of awe was cut short when she sensed motion behind them and had a feeling that at any second they’d be interrupted. “What’s the bad news?”
“Bad…? Oh, right.” Ruby’s eyes widened. “I forgot. I have serious baby brain. From everything I’ve read it’s not supposed to affect me until after I have the baby, but my memory has been seriously shot for the past—”
“Bad news,” Shayne prompted as an urgency rose in her chest.
“Sorry. He said that he’s not interested.”
Panic gripped her throat like a hand strangling her. “Not interested in what? In whom?”
In me? She asked silently.
“In a relationship. He said it was because of his track record. And that he was single, end of story.”
They both stopped talking when they heard footsteps come up behind them.
Kyle’s assistant, Janine, stepped to Ruby’s right. “Shayne, Kyle’s ready when you are.”
“I’m ready.” She handed her tea back to Ruby.
Shayne approached Kyle and as she did so, she let her eyes graze across Evan’s strong profile. He stood only a couple of feet from them. Every time she was this close to him she felt the tell-tale signs that the butterflies his nearness summoned had arrived and were flitting around in her stomach.
He was wearing a gray T-shirt that molded to his sculpted upper body. The material stretched taut in all the right places. His pecs, his biceps, his shoulders. If the whole hotshot thing didn’t work out, he could easily be a fitness model.
His expression was, per usual, enigmatic. Ninety percent of the time he was the epitome of the strong, silent type. But in those rare ten-percent moments, he was charming, insightful, and funny. She never knew when those ten-percent moments would come but that just made the glimpses behind the curtain of his personality that much more special.
She knew more about him than she had an hour ago. He was single. He had a bad track record. He had no interest in having a relationship. And he had an ex who was engaged to someone else. But with those questions answered, others popped up.
Why wasn’t he interested in meeting someone?
Was he upset that his ex was marrying someone else?
Did he still have feelings for the hot brunette?
Were brunettes his type?
“Shayne Fox.” Kyle announced loudly as she joined him.
“Kyle Austen Reed.” Shayne smiled as he opened his arms and she happily stepped into his waiting embrace.
Kyle was a larger-than-life person. She tried to figure out what was real about him and what was a show? But after knowing him only a short time she knew that all of it was real. He was one of the good ones. He was honest, hard-working, and genuinely cared about people. Those were descriptors that she could use for few people in her industry.
“Attention, everyone,” Kyle announced grandly to the room of approximately ten people. “We only have Miss Fox for a few hours before she’ll be leaving us for the weekend. So, let’s get right to business.”
Shayne ran through the lines and did her best to ignore the man that was distraction personified.
As she and Kyle blocked out a particularly pivotal scene with the stunt coordinator, she had to keep her thoughts from drifting toward the only man that had ever sparked passion in her. She wondered what it would be like to have all of his intensity focused solely on her. She imagined how it would feel to have his large, tanned hands run up her inner thigh. She fantasized about how his mouth would feel sucking on the particularly sensitive area just below her ear. Her efforts to contain her thoughts were like putting sunscreen on after you get home from the beach. Pointless.
She’d always prided herself on being headstrong. When she decided to do something, she was single-minded in her pursuit. Some called her stubborn, she considered herself resolutely determined. If she set her mind to something, she accomplished it. But nothing she did, no amount of resolve had stopped her from thinking about Evan.
From the first time she saw him, he’d invaded her thoughts to the point that she would totally blank on where she was, what she was doing, or even who she was. With only three days out from the first time Kyle would call action, she didn’t have time to waste on a school-girl crush. She needed to get this, whatever this was, out of her system.
During the entire rehearsal there had been a constant tug-of-war going on in her brain. One side pulling her toward Evan, the other tugging her back to reality. She was relieved when Janine gave them the ten-minute warning. As soon as rehearsal was over she was flying to Los Angeles and then onto New York. A few days, away from Evan, was just what she needed to clear her head.
“Something still doesn’t feel right,” Kyle commented as he looked down at the script.
They’d been running and blocking the final scene for the past hour and it was clear that something wasn’t working for the first-time director. It was the tail end of an action sequence where she pulls his character to safety after finding him unconscious. In the scene she props him up against a rock. As he regains consciousness, he’s supposed to pull her toward him and kiss her.
They’d been running the scene, minus the kiss which they weren’t rehearsing. With the clock ticking until she had a hard out, determination burst in her. Kyle was seated in front of her, leaning against the wall, which was serving as a substitute rock, studying his notes.
“What if I say something,” Shayne threw out. “So, it’s not just your eyes open and then we kiss.”
He lifted his head and she could see the wheels turning in his mind. He was giving serious consideration to her suggestion. Slowly, he nodded. “I like it. That could work. Why don’t we run it and whatever comes to Joey’s mind, you say. Be the vessel to tell her story. Be her truth.”
They ran through it once more and when Kyle opened his eyes, she smiled and said, “Hi. You scared me.”
“Better.” Kyle nodded. “But there is still something…I can’t quite put my finger on it….You know what? I need to see the scene, not be in the scene.” Kyle stood and glanced around the room. “Evan, would you mind standing in?”
“Me?” Evan touched his hand to his chest as a look of horror replaced his ambiguous expression.
For the first time, Shayne saw fear in Evan’s eyes. Even when she’d slipped during their hike, he’d never shown even a glimpse of uncertainty. There’d been concern, but not fear. Now, there was definitely fear.
“Yes you! Who better to allow me to see Landon’s humanity, his pain, his intensity than the man who inspired him?”
“I’m not an actor.”
“You don’t have to be. The talented Miss Fox will do all the work. As you saw, she is carrying this scene. Literally. She will pull you up onto the rock and check your vitals and say her lines. All you have to do is open your eyes once she lays her head on your chest. Just as you saw me do.”
Shayne’s pulse picked up at the thought of her cheek being on Evan’s rock-solid chest again. The one time she’d found herself on top of him she would’ve been more than happy to spend the rest of the day draped over him like a human blanket. How something so hard could be so comfortable astounded her. A flush exploded in her as she thought of other parts of Evan’s hard body and just how incredible they might be able to make her feel.
“If you’re not comfortable with it, it’s fine,” Kyle assured him. “I can ask som—”
“I can do it!” Dean, the surfer looking PA volunteered as he started rushing across the room.
Dean was her age, but he seemed a lot younger. He was good looking and he knew it. As much as Shayne appreciated confidence in people, there was a fine line between confident and cocky and he crossed that line. She knew his enthusiasm was because he was an aspiring actor. Getting seen by Kyle Austen Reed was a big moment for him.
“I’ll do it.” Evan’s voice was low and gruff.
The entire room stilled. It was quite a phenomenon to see that even next to arguably the biggest, most charismatic movie star in the world, Evan commanded the space.
“Perfect.” Kyle clapped his hands. “For the next five minutes, you are Landon Carter.”
Unlike Eager Beaver Dean, Brawny Man did not look happy about the opportunity to participate. Which made her wonder why he would do it. Her mind was working on possible explanations when he pushed off the wall and started crossing the room.
Kyle was at his side, telling him to count to three after Shayne lowered her head on his chest and then cough. She assumed Evan was listening but his eyes were locked on hers.
Oh boy.
Every cell in her body roared to life with awareness of him. Each step he took intensified the tingling sensation spreading through her. By the time he reached her, she was vibrating with suppressed arousal. In the next few moments she’d be touching him. She’d be heaving him up to a sitting position. She’d be taking his pulse. She’d be listening for a heartbeat. Thankfully, the scene called for her to be out of breath, so her inability to take in oxygen wouldn’t be a problem.
Before she got any kind of a handle on the situation, Kyle stood back and said, “Whenever you’re ready, Joey.”
Whether or not she was ready for this, it was happening. Just like so many other things in her life, she knew that all she could do was hold on and go for the ride.
Shayne closed her eyes and lost herself in her imagination. It was something that she’d been able to do since she was a kid. She used to transport herself to a warm, safe, place when she was in a scary foster or group home. If she was hungry, she’d create a reality where she was eating a buffet. When she was cold, she’d mentally travel to a tropical beach where the sun shone on her face.
So now, she pictured a fire raging around her. She imagined the fatigue of fighting the fiery beast. She felt the fear of discovering the man that she loved unconscious. She let herself go to the dark place of losing someone that she loved. How helpless and terrified she’d be.
When she opened her eyes, moisture pooled in them. She was in it. She was in the reality she’d created.
“Landon,” her voice was strained with desperation as she used all of her might to lift his heavy form and push him against the wall.
“Landon,” she repeated as she went through the motions of checking his vitals. Teardrops slipped over the edge of her bottom lid and fell down her face at the thought that he could be gone.
“Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.” She collapsed on his chest and the second she did, she felt his strong heartbeat beneath her cheek.
On cue, he coughed and she lifted her head and cupped his beautiful face with her hands. When his eyes fluttered open, pure relief and joy evaporated all the fear and sadness that had been racing through her.
A large smile spread through the tears that were now pouring down her face as she said, simply, “Hi.”
When the corners of his mouth lifted, she leaned forward, closing the distance between the two of them. She sucked in a breath just before she pressed her lips to his. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised since she’d been the one to kiss him, but she was. The second their lips touched, a shockwave rolled through her entire body.
She froze. She was kissing Evan. It was bad to surprise your costar with an unexpected lip lock. Yeah, it was in the script, but they were just rehearsing.
“Sorry,” she whispered against his mouth, their lips still touching.
When he didn’t respond she began to move away. That’s when everything changed. His hand wrapped around the back of her neck and she lost herself in a totally different reality: the dreamy intimacy of their kiss.
What started as a tender and tantalizing persuasion turned into a devouring and smoldering heat. Her lips parted and his tongue swept between them, claiming her in demanding mastery. She dissolved into the sensations and willingly succumbed to the forceful domination of his lips, his tongue, and his being.
“Cut!” Kyle’s voice cut through the tornado of sensations raging inside of her and burst the bubble that they’d been in.
She broke their kiss and the moment their lips parted her world was shattered. She was horrified at her behavior. This was as unprofessional as it got.
“That’s it!” Kyle clapped his hands. “That’s what was missing. I felt your fear, your vulnerability.”
He began speaking to the script supervisor, most likely to make sure the changes got made. She glanced around the room and saw that everyone was going about their business. No one seemed to have noticed that the entire world had just shifted, at least her entire world had just shifted.
She looked back at Evan and his face was, surprise, surprise, unreadable.
“I’m sorry.” She pushed off his chest and started to scramble to her feet.
He effortlessly stood and helped her up. Her legs were jelly but somehow, they managed to hold her weight.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Kyle was beaming with excitement as he threw his arm around her shoulders and ushered her out of the room. “That’s exactly what it needed. You, Joey, are the hero that rescues the man you love. You have to be the one that kisses him at the end. And that ‘hi,’ it was heartbreaking. Perfect. Perfezionare. Parfait. Perfecto. In any language, Miss Fox, it was brilliant. You were brilliant.”
She was something alright, but she wasn’t sure brilliant would be what she’d call it. She might’ve just committed sexual harassment. Or public indecency. Or both.
Ruby, her savior, appeared at her side. “The car is here.”
She nodded, still dazed by what had just happened.
“We’ll see you on Monday, Josephine.” Kyle kissed both of her cheeks and as she turned to go, she glanced back inside. Evan was across the room looking out the window.
She wondered what he might be thinking about the kiss. About her. About the kiss!
After saying her goodbyes, she and Ruby walked out of the building and into the waiting SUV without saying a word to one another.
The moment they began driving away, her friend turned to her, her green eyes wide as she began, “That was…”
“I know.” Shayne nodded.
She didn’t actually know, so she wasn’t sure why she would say that.
“You really…”
“I know.” Again, she had no idea why she kept answering with that phrase. She didn’t know why she’d done anything she’d done in the last ten minutes.
Ruby must’ve seen her panic, because her friend’s expression of shock disappeared and she went into assistant mode.
“So, we’ll be landing in LA by two p.m. and from there you’ll go straight to set in Malibu and be in hair and makeup by three. It’s a sunset shoot which means that it has to wrap no later than seven-thirty. You have a late dinner at Katsuya at nine and then you’ll be on a red-eye to New York.”
Her friend kept talking, listing the events and meetings she had scheduled in New York. She was barely listening. She was too busy trying to wrap her brain around what had just taken place. That was more than just a kiss. That was explosive. That was intense. That was mind-blowing.
She’d never known that anything could feel like that. It was almost as if she’d been living in a black and white world and now everything was in color. How could she ever go back?
And it was all because of Evan. She wasn’t sure if she should write him an apology letter for her behavior or a thank you note for showing her what her body was capable of feeling. Or both.
“Do you want me to pick you up a test?”
Shayne tuned back in, knowing that she was no longer following the thread. Shifting so that she was facing Ruby she repeated, “A test?”
“A pregnancy test.” Her friend said with a straight face. “Because after what I just saw, I think you might need one.”
They both dissolved into laughter. It was exactly what she needed to stop her from feeling like the world as she knew it had changed forever…even if it had.