Chapter 3
Autumn
Breaking off from a cluster of polite conversation, I leaned against the railing on the back, open-air, viewing area of the Spirited Massachusetts cruise ship. With a glass of red wine in my hand I watched the sun retreat behind the silhouette of Boston’s jagged skyline.
Lights snapped on all across downtown; the city yawned and opened its eyes to embrace another Saturday night. The last fiery gasp of sunset had simmered into smoldering yellow-red coals, and was slowly being devoured by the deepening purple sky and the glassy, black harbor.
It was beautiful.
We were out far enough that you couldn’t hear the traffic, sirens and horns Mom always referred to as the soundtrack of Boston. The night was serenely calm, save the gentle clap of water against the side of the ship and the dull, droning music that leaked out of the dance hall whenever someone opened the ornate glass door that separated the back deck from the main cabin.
I used my phone’s camera to make sure the wine glass hadn’t smeared my lipstick. I’d snuck away a few times to check my makeup and outfit. I wasn’t a fashionista by any means, but I certainly watched enough videos online to be confident about my smoky eyes and subtle lips.
Ok, my lipstick wasn’t all that subtle, but it did at least match my three-inch heels and the only formal cocktail dress I owned. I loved this dress. It was a knee-length raspberry red dress that was snug enough for me to pretend to have curves, with a cold shoulder and sweetheart neckline.
None of this was for Dante, I reminded myself as I turned off my phone. I slid it back into my studded, red clutch and glanced around again. He probably hadn’t even come to the wrap party. The lady I was just talking to said that stunt people rarely ever showed up. I hadn’t seen him on the boat yet, not that I’d really been looking.
When a couple excused themselves from their small group and disappeared inside the ship I heard Mom’s distant sharp laugh. It made me smile on the inside. She was having the time of her life. Despite her abandoning me immediately to go pester one of the actors, I was glad she dragged me here.
She did so much for me that it felt nice to do something like this for her.
I glanced over my shoulder at the small groups of people lounging on the brightly colored, exterior couches. Seeing them smoke, laugh and generally unwind dulled some of the uneasy feeling I’d been carrying with me since agreeing to come.
How silly was it to get worked up about this party?
For better or worse no one even knew I was here.
If the crew and cast cared about the botched stunt from earlier in the week they didn’t show it. They were more wrapped up in gossip over the next project that was coming to town or complaining that the Massachusetts film tax credit was being challenged again by the mayor.
What happened still crinkled my shoulder blades together, and I was probably never going to get another acting job, but it made me feel a little better knowing they weren’t going to run me off the ship with torches and pitchforks.
I sighed. I could at least enjoy the one night I almost had an acting career. That, and the open bar was nice.
Something else had been buzzing around the back of my mind since being yelled at by the director. A sense of relief.
I did some acting in school but I never wanted to actually be an actor, not really. I was glad I did it, and once I can stop cringing at the thought of how it all went, I’d have a great story to tell my friends. But honestly? I was kind of glad that whole thing was over.
The whole process was extremely stressful! No one ever told me how chaotic film making was. Most of the time I had no idea where I was supposed to be or what I should be doing. I always felt like I was one step away from being screamed at by someone who was also under a tremendous amount of stress. Ninety percent of the time I was bored out of my mind and the other ten I was having heart attack at how quickly things moved. Either I was completely in the dark or there was a gigantic beaming spotlight on me.
That’s why I was looking forward to getting back to my YouTube channel where there was zero pressure. I was just having fun and screwing around and I didn’t have to worry about making any mistakes. Hell, most of my screw ups just went into the videos! My fans loved it.
I sighed again, letting the lull of the gentle water and my second glass of wine calm me down for what felt like the first time in weeks. It was over. Things could finally get back to normal now.
That soothing calm didn’t last long. Soon enough the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I took another long sip of wine trying to ease the sensation, but that didn’t help.
I was being watched.
Was Mom looking for me? She was the only one that cared I was even here.
Casually scanning the people on the deck, it didn’t seem like anyone noticed me. It was my second pass when one of the groups opened up that I caught a familiar set of dark eyes staring me down; they belonged to Dante Marks.
I could’ve recognized those dangerous, brown eyes in my sleep…probably because every night this week I’d dreamt about them. His eyes, his hands, the weight of his body covering mine… I took a deep breath to keep the stutter from my breath and glanced away.
It had cooled considerably being on the harbor now that the sun had gone down, but thinking about him warmed my cheeks. That excited, pickling sensation rolled down my blouse like hot oil.
Dante was surrounded by half a dozen people who were gushing over the various stunts he’d done on the film. He was so handsome that it was difficult to look at him. All cleaned up, I couldn’t believe how dashing he was! I had to clench my teeth to keep my mouth from hanging open. Clean-shaven, he looked crisp. His hair was closely trimmed on the sides, longer on the top and was combed back with a little gel.
In a sea of dark clothing and muted tones, Dante’s neatly-tailored white suit virtually glowed. Black accents of his watch, shoes, pocket square and tie made the whole outfit not just pop, but sizzle.
He was dressed so sharply that I was surprised the people talking to him weren’t bleeding. No one could enter or leave the area without laying eyes on him as they walked by.
My red dress that I thought was so daring looked so unbelievably tame in comparison.
God…The confidence he must have to pull that suit off.
Confidence? I nearly laughed out loud. On set I’d seen him take a corner so hard in a school bus that it rolled completely over. He also flawlessly choreographed a fight with ten men, and become engulfed in flames, all on camera in front of dozens—occasionally hundreds—of people. Never once did he crack under pressure. If anything, the scarier the stunt was the more self assured he became!
Of course a white suit wouldn’t bother him, I snorted.
Dante smiled politely, offering handshakes and hugs as people drifted in and out of his group. He spared those that stayed only a fraction of his attention, before his eyes found their way back to me.
Why was he looking at me? Then I remembered how I sobbed into his chest, and my whole body started to cringe. He was probably joking about me with his friends. How mortifying!
I tried to wash away my shame with the last of my drink, but of course it didn’t help. No amount of wine was going to ease that kind of embarrassment. All I wanted to do was run away, but I was trapped on this stupid boat for at least another hour. Maybe I could find a closet or a bathroom to hide in…
“Hey,” he mouthed the word at me from across the deck. I had to squeeze the railing to keep my legs from giving out. My empty wine glass slipped out of my hand and went right off the side of the boat.
Shit!
I snapped around just in time to watch it splash into the water. Gripping my clutch with renewed tightness, I surveyed the area as casually as I could, but it didn’t look like anyone saw what happened. I played it off with an exaggerated stretch and hoped no one noticed.
All it took was watching Dante’s lips move and I turned into a pathetic mess. Not a great start to the evening.
Unless I was going to jump over the side and swim to shore—an idea that was becoming more and more appealing—I knew there’d be no escaping Dante. He mouthed the word again, and this time I noticed that no one else turned to leer at me. They were all too focused on him and each other.
Well, good. At least he’s not making fun of me. I bit the corner of my lip and tugged at my silver stud, feeling a little bad at jumping to conclusions.
I never did properly thank him for what he did for me on set. Between the safety crews and the director, everything had happened too fast for me to get my bearings. And by the time everyone was finished with me, Dante was gone.
Just a quick hello, then I can run away. I swallowed my breath and found my resolve. I carefully lifted a new glass of wine from the tray of a wandering server and waited at the rear of the crowd surrounding Dante.
It amazed me how he could be a rock star in this world while being completely unknown by the public. Every impressive thing the main character did in the movie we worked on was really done by Dante, yet acting megastar, Grant Brent, was the one who’ll get all the awards come Oscar season.
This was a mistake, I realized hovering uncomfortably just outside the circle of people, and began turning back to the distant skyline. Dante was too busy for someone like me. Or so I thought until Dante abruptly excused himself from the excited mob.
“Tonight you’re going to save me,” Dante whispered. He was suddenly so close that the low, sexy rumble of his voice in my ear was chased by his hot breath as it licked across the back of my neck and set my skin on fire. The cool breeze sweeping in off the ocean did nothing to put that fire out.
With a disarming smile he gracefully excused himself from the group, glanced at me and dipped his head to the railing toward an emptier part of the deck. The ghost of his fingertips grazed my lower back, sending butterflies of excitement up my spine.
I knew instantly that tonight just took a hard turn in a direction I hadn’t expected.
“You’re quite popular,” I said, when we were as far away from everyone else as we could get. I took a sip of wine and prayed to think of something better to say. We weren’t alone on the deck, but being with him made it feel that way.
“There’s only so much hot air I can take before floating away.” Dante’s gaze drifted out over the water, he raised his thick eyebrows in a tired expression. Stealing himself back from introspection, Dante turned back to me and stole the glass of wine from my hand before I could protest. “You mind?”
“Actually—” I began, but let it go. What was I really going to protest? It was an open bar; it wasn’t like I actually paid for the drink. Still though, it was a little rude to take someone’s drink!
Watching him rotate the glass just to drink from the part of the rim that was stained with my lipstick was hotter than it had any right to be. He dragged his teeth across his bottom lip, catching an errant red drip.
“Sweeter than I remember,” he handed the glass back to me, the hint of a smirk caught in his eyes. The look made my veins vibrate; I didn’t know how much more of his dare stare I could stand before I had to be soaked up with a mop. When I went to take the glass from him, he pulled it back at the last second. “Don’t lose this one.”
Crap he saw that!
Panicking, I let out a nervous giggle. I thought about blaming it on the buzz I had going from the wine, but decided to change the subject entirely instead. Snatching the glass, I blurted, “You, uh… You look so different with clothes on.”
“Have you seen me naked?” Dante asked with genuine curiosity.
How was that not a thing he intrinsically knew? I could count on one hand all the people who’ve ever seen me naked.
Dante cocked his head and let his eyes trail down the length of my body, undressing me as they went. He was so direct and blunt that it took me by surprise. “I would’ve remembered you.”
“What?” I immediately started to blush, and desperately changed the conversation to keep the mental image of us naked together from fully forming in my mind. “No! Of course not! I mean, now that you’re not in a green jump suit covered in ping pong balls.”
“I’d still take a mocap suit over those ridiculous shorts any day of the week.”
“They weren’t that bad!” I snapped the reply. Why was I defending them? It wasn’t like I picked the outfit out. I was just a little nervous around him and it was making me a little defensive. I forced myself to relax through another sip of wine. “OK, yeah they were pretty bad.”
“As a general rule I never trust any clothing you can’t be dragged across the pavement in.” Dante propped his shoulders on the railing, breathed in the crisp ocean air and lost himself in the view.
“Oddly specific rule.” Was that a joke? Did he joke? I studied his profile looking for a smirk or anything else that would give away whether he was being serious or not. I didn’t think he was, but I wasn’t fully sure. It was extremely difficult to read him.
“You feeling alright?” Dante turned back to me.
“Yeah, I’m OK.” The dull pain of my scratches and bruises seemed to flare up at their mention. It was a nightmare trying to conceal all of the ones on my legs with makeup.
An image of my hands coming off his bloody back flashed across my mind. My eyes bulged. How could I stupidly forget about that?
“Your back! Shit. Are you alright?” I remembered the wisps of smoke that trailed from his back where the latex suit had melted to his skin after being pelted by flaming debris. My memory filled up with blood and the smell of burning plastic to the degree that my body gave a little shutter. Instinctively I reached out and touched his shoulder. His hard-packed muscle deceptively hid beneath the fine white suit.
He glanced at my hand, then looked at me, a warm smile cracking his stoic features. “I’m good. It looked worse than it was.”
“You looked pretty bad!” I swallowed, lifting my hand and awkwardly smoothing out my dress with it.
“You look radiant tonight.” Dante’s gaze followed my hand, then flicked his eyes up to meet mine. Ever-so-slightly they narrowed like a camera lens coming into focus. With Dante there was an air of danger in his secretive, bourbon eyes. “It’s Autumn right? My favorite season.”
“Thanks.” I fought the rising heat in my chest with deep breaths of the cool salty air, and tried to keep the smile swelling in me from reaching my eyes. Dante drank in the silence between us as someone might savor a decadent dessert after an expensive meal.
Dante mercifully broke his stare to wave a drink over from one of the gorgeous servers. In their black slacks and breezy, white button-downs both the men and the women were clearly models or acting unknowns, probably working these jobs just to network. I’d worked in the service industry for years and I’d never seen anyone at Dunkies that looked like them.
“Rum?” A wry smile spread across his lips as Dante paused for a beat to lift two shots of dark liquor from the waiter’s tray and place them on the ship’s railing.
“Oh, no thanks.” I brought my glass up, but didn’t drink from it, then felt weird about not drinking from it and took a quick sip.
Dante raised his eyebrows in a suit-yourself gesture. He clinked the shot glasses together; downing one, before pitching it off the side of the ship. It sailed out in a wide arc and splashed into the inky water below.
“Now your wine glass won’t be so lonely.”
My eyes lit up and mouth dropped slightly. I stifled a shocked, nervous laugh and glanced behind us. There were at least half a dozen people looking in our direction, but they looked more amused than alarmed. It didn’t even seem like the wait staff cared.
Was it because of who he was? Did they just expect a stuntman to do something like that?
“See? No one cares.” Dante hadn’t even bothered to look around and check. He wore the impassive face of someone truly undisturbed by people’s opinions of him, even going so far as offer me a small smirk. “You should try to relax more. Enjoy yourself. Life is short after all, and when it comes to a close…” There was a spark of a deeper truth in his eyes as if he knew something that no one else did, then that look faded into playful wink. “We’re going to wish we threw more glasses.”
“I—I guess you’re right.” I chuckled despite myself, shaking my head. His attitude was so infectious that I couldn’t help, but feel more at ease. Dante was nothing if not interesting and he was funnier than I thought any badass no-nonsense stunt guy had any right to be!
He was also surprisingly easy to talk to. I told him all about my YouTube channel and my crazy, wonderful mom, and of course we talked at length about what happened on set and how terrifying that was for me. I had so much trouble talking to anyone else about what happened, but with him it was different. That uncomfortable disconnect wasn’t there because he went through it too. He had been there and really knew what it was like.
“You fight as hard as you can and at the end of the day, if you survived, then you’ve won,” He said with a casual shrug. “You’re still here, Autumn.”
Thanks to you, I wanted to say, but swallowed the words instead. I didn’t want to be dismissive. I took a breath and let his words soak into me. Regardless how it happened I had won. It was time to put that pain behind me. I didn’t realize how much I needed this conversation until we had it and by the end there was this great weight lifted off my chest.
We talked more or less uninterrupted for ages. I didn’t even know how long- there was never a lull long enough for me to want to check my phone for the time, and we hadn’t started back toward the harbor yet so we still had plenty of time. I was glad for that. I’d spent so much time as a tangled mess that it was nice to let myself unwind.
“I feel like I’m dominating the conversation here.” I laughed through the nervousness that started seeping back into me when I noticed that I was the one doing most of the talking. Every time I asked him a question he’d redirect it into some fun story, make a joke, or turn it into a question for me.
“It’s too easy to get caught up in all of this.” Dante drew a lazy circle above his head, gesturing to the entire film community. He turned back to me, those dark eyes of his hinting at a smile. “I like listening to you talk. You have a refreshing personality.”
Despite the other passengers, for a fleeting moment it really did feel like we were the only ones on this boat. We were all alone in the ocean. Why did I like the thought of that so much?
“So, what is it?” He asked finally.
“What is what?” I carefully replied, noting the shift in his tone.
“You came to me.”
“Oh.” Clearing my throat, I collected myself for what came next. It didn’t help that I was still crazy giddy around him like he was Chris Hemsworth or some other actual celebrity. It made the already uncomfortable words even heavier as I spoke them. “The reason I originally came over was I—uh never got the chance to thank you for… y’know—”
I shrugged. We’d talked about what happened but the way the conversation unfolded I hadn’t expressly thanked him for saving my life. A smirk creased the right side of his handsome, smoothly shaved face. Dante watched expectantly not relieving the tension by just saying what I was grasping at.
Was he really going to make me say all of it?
“Saving my life.” I exhaled hard and fought the pressure behind my eyes. God that was so difficult to face. Hearing the words out loud with someone who was there, made me realize how close I came to dying.
“If you want to thank me—” Dante’s gaze rolled down my body like a bead of hot oil. He downed the shot of liquor then pointed across the deck to the stairway that led to the top floor of the cruise ship. “Do it up there. The view’s nicer.”
With that he walked off to the Employees Only rope that stopped patrons from entering. He unclasped it and a mischievous flash of his teeth beckoned me to join him.
I stared in awe for a moment. He couldn’t be serious? Could he? What happened if we got caught? I glanced around, and although some people glanced our way, again no one seemed to care.
Run, Autumn! Get out of there! I felt the same warning I got on set that day blared in the back of my memory. I was standing near the precipice of a different kind of disaster this time. But it was too late.
The thrill that ran through me had already taken hold. It was as unexpected as it was irresistible. I was a dandelion puff and he was the wind.
Dante saved me from explosions, but…who would save me from Dante?
“You’ve followed me this far.” Dante’s voice was low, but strong and dripping with intent. His eyes narrowed slightly, giving them a carnivorous glow. I was looking into the face of danger, and I hated that I wanted more. “What’s a little further?”