Five
Brooke sat across the limo from Jillian, trying to hold on to her patience in the face of almost no sleep and Jillian’s unreasonable demands.
“Ms. Dempsey?” The secretary for the Entertainment Tonight reporter they were supposed to be on their way to meet said on the other end of the line, “Are you still there?”
Brooke opened her eyes. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry, but this morning is Hugo’s only opening for the next six weeks. Are you sure Ms. Bailey can’t make it?”
“Um…” Brooke’s gaze skimmed across the limo to Jillian, and she tuned in to her boss’s conversation with Charlotte, Jillian’s agent.
“Look,” Jillian was saying in her you-work-for-me, how-can-you-be-so-stupid tone, “this is very simple, Charlotte. It’s not a negotiation. How many times do we have to go over this? You tell Blue Sky Airlines that if they want my face representing them, then free first-class airfare wherever they fly in perpetuity is part of the contract. Period.”
“No,” Brooke told the woman on the other end of the line, simply not up for attempting to rationalize her boss back to the interview today. “I apologize for the schedule change, but she’s not going to make it.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem for me.” The woman was perky and friendly. “That means I can grab a latte from the barista next door, who also happens to be really hot.”
Brooke thought of Keaton and smiled. “Lucky you.”
She disconnected and double-checked the rest of Jillian’s appointments.
Jillian didn’t say good-bye to her agent. The only way Brooke knew she was done talking to her was the long-suffering sigh from across the car.
“Honestly,” Jillian said. “The incompetence in this industry is unfathomable. I don’t know how so many people make so much money.”
Brooke had learned to stop commenting on Jillian’s statements within the first week of working for her. She’d also learned which questions to answer directly, which questions to answer with questions, and which questions to ignore completely.
The ping on Brooke’s phone hadn’t even died out before Jillian barked, “What’s that?”
“Confirmation of your cancelled interview with ET,” Brooke replied smoothly as she read the text from her sister.
Another long night. These fall allergies are so hard on Justin.
That news made Brooke’s heart sink. She instantly pictured her nephew curled up on the couch watching cartoons with an oxygen mask on, coughing and wheezing. And while Jillian bitched about something that didn’t matter, Brooke asked her sister: Are you seeing the doctor today?
Yes. Follow-up appointment with the allergist. He’s consulted with the pulmonologist who saw Justin in the hospital, so I’m anxious to hear what kind of treatment plan they put together. I’ll get the final report they sent Provident too, but not for another week. I’ll likely hear from the program before I get the report.
Tension crept into Brooke’s shoulders. That report was the last element they needed to complete the file for Justin’s entry into the bronchial thermoplasty research study for children. A procedure that offered Justin one last hope at a normal childhood.
Fingers crossed. Keep me posted, and hug Justin for me.
Will do. Don’t kill you know who. At least not until after we find out about the program. If he doesn’t get in, do what you need to. I’ll always help you hide a body.
Brooke huffed a dry laugh. Will do my best.
“Are you texting privately during work hours?” Jillian wanted to know.
“No, ma’am,” she lied.
“Then why are you laughing?”
Brooke lifted her gaze to Jillian’s. Her boss’s eyes were blue as well, light blue to Brooke’s dark. And Jillian was a blonde. While the other woman was also twelve years older than Brooke, she looked the same age. Her skin was alabaster perfection, her makeup applied in a rigid routine every morning. Jillian was media perfection personified. The woman was absolutely gorgeous. And her body was as flawless as her face. Her looks had won her a lot of roles and earned her a lot of money. The glamorous facade had left the woman beneath bitter and bizarre and lonely.
“I was laughing because Hugo’s secretary was all but licking my boots to get you back for the interview.”
At first, the ease with which Brooke had learned to lie to Jillian had unnerved her. But she’d quickly realized that what she did and who she was with Jillian didn’t affect who she was with the real people in her life.
And when a slow, haughty, satisfied smile came over Jillian’s beautiful face, Brooke relaxed.
Someday, Brooke would get caught in a lie. And when she got caught, she’d get fired. Vanity wasn’t Jillian’s worst trait. Vengeance was. And for Jillian, vengeance stemmed from insecurity.
But if Brooke just kept all that in perspective, did her job, and watched her back, she’d make it through another year.
And that was all she needed. One more year.
Then she could take Keaton’s advice and find another job.
“Rendezvous at the steps on the trail tonight.”
Remembering his words murmured against her ear sent shivers through her again. She bit the inside of her lip to keep her smile at bay opened the cover of her iPad, and tapped into Jillian’s calendar.
“I cleared your schedule this morning, but I haven’t filled in this extra time on the set.” Brooke glanced at Jillian, who was inspecting her manicure. “Did you have specific people you’d like me to contact for meetings? A schedule you want me to put in place, track, follow? What’s the purpose of this change? And of going in early?”
Jillian’s lashes, woven to extend them to a ridiculous length, lowered. Her lips, filled every three months with Botox, pursed, hiding a secretive smile. And Brooke knew with absolute certainty that whatever came out of Jillian’s mouth next would be a lie. So she closed the cover on her iPad and waited.
“I heard someone special was going to be on the set. I thought we could scope things out.” Jillian’s foot swung a little, and her gaze traveled out the window with an evil little gleam. “There are a lot of big names and handsome men starring. I hope you won’t get distracted.”
Brooke had lost count of the number of movie sets, parties, and events she’d attended in Jillian’s shadow, but never once had she acted inappropriately. And, oh, the opportunities… They appeared around every corner. This business was second only to a brothel in sexual activity.
Don’t kill J. At least not until after the appointment.
Brooke ground her teeth and pictured her nephew.
Another year for Brooke was nothing. Justin still had a lifetime to face.
“You’re always my first priority, Jillian.” Brooke forced a smile and held Keaton in the back of her mind. Knowing she’d get to see him tonight would be what got her through another trying day. “I haven’t heard you talk about anyone special in a while.”
“Hmm. I reconnected with him last month at Steven’s birthday party in Beverly Hills. The one you didn’t attend because your nephew had a little…contest of some sort, remember?”
It had been a robotic competition that Justin had been working toward for six months, and he’d won first place in his age group for the entire county. So Brooke smiled at Jillian’s attempt to make her feel jealous over missing Steven Spielberg’s birthday party, which couldn’t have meant any less to her. Nothing against Steven, but she’d never met the man. Justin, however, would have been crushed if she’d missed his competition.
“I do,” Brooke said, remembering how excited Justin had been that day. And she also knew what Jillian meant by reconnecting, but she wasn’t touching the topic of her boss’s sex life, so she refocused on work. “I can check around when we reach the set to see if we can get some promo shots today, how does that sound? You look gorgeous today, and photos of you in blue always make your eyes pop in magazines.”
“That’s a nice idea,” Jillian said, staring out the window. “Even nicer if we can find my friend. I’d love to get some…suggestive…candids with him.”
Brooke frowned. Jillian was in a drawn-out divorce from a billionaire entrepreneur who had turned Jillian in for a much younger, perkier model two years before. It didn’t help that the soon-to-be-ex himself was also younger than Jillian. Or that Jillian was struggling against a bulletproof glass Hollywood ceiling where the age limit was set so low, anyone too old to limbo might as well lie down and die.
But Jillian’s narcissism had perpetrated a lot of her own problems. That coupled with vengeance for her husband taking up with a younger woman… Well, simply put, nothing good could come of Jillian’s desire to see this mystery man—today or any day in the near future.
“At our last meeting with Charlotte, didn’t she say it would be better if you didn’t—”
“Charlotte doesn’t understand publicity.” Jillian waved Brooke’s comment away.
In fact, Charlotte was one of the best publicists in the industry. And she’d told Jillian to lay off the younger men—for her career and her divorce. Pictures of herself in “suggestive candids” with this guy were Jillian’s way of walking into the fire because she needed to feel the burn to know she was alive. She could be self-destructive in a lot of ways. This was only one.
“You two, I swear, you’re both so young.” Jillian sighed in exasperation, then looked down at her hands with an expression Brooke had never seen before. Confusion? Pain? “You’ll both understand someday. It’s not easy to get old. Especially in this business. It strips you down. Takes everything. Leaves you with nothing.”
A pang of pity pulled in Brooke’s chest. Pity was an emotion Brooke rarely experienced. Everyone had problems, and everyone chose how they dealt with them. She didn’t have a lot of sympathy for people who simply chose poorly and wanted to sit around and complain about it.
But from Brooke’s perspective, Jillian’s life was hard in a lot of ways that weren’t visible to the naked eye. She may have money, but money didn’t provide the kind of security Jillian needed—job security, emotional security. Everything Jillian produced for her job came from inside her. Jillian created something out of nothing but raw Jillian. And when a person gave and gave and gave without some other source of support, without some other way to refuel and refresh their soul…shit happened. Addiction, depression, and suicide happened. Crazy happened.
Brooke had seen it in the music industry over and over.
“Sometimes you’re put on a trajectory with the people you need most, right when you need them. Sometimes even before you need them,” Jillian said, looking out the window, her gaze distant. “The perfect time, the perfect place, the perfect second chance. That’s what this feels like.”
This was stolen wisdom—it certainly wasn’t Jillian’s. Brooke knew if she pressed Jillian on what those words meant, she wouldn’t be able to answer. Most of the time, Brooke felt like Jillian was living from the pages of a script, even when no one else was around.
But she didn’t challenge Jillian or even speak to her for the rest of the short drive. Instead, she thought of Keaton. Of how their paths had collided. But this wasn’t the perfect time or place for the two of them to connect. And they’d never had a real first chance, so this couldn’t be the second.
Still…there was something magical about meeting up with him again. And about connecting so instantly and completely. Her travels with Ellie had introduced Brooke to a lot of people. More than she could ever count or than she’d ever remember. Yet she couldn’t say she’d been so comfortable so instantly with many people in her life.
The limo turned into a lot and stopped. Their driver, Henry, spoke to the guard at the gate, and Brooke lowered a window so she could show the guard their passes. As soon as the glass was back in place and the car started moving again, Jillian had her mirror out to check her perfect makeup, searching for reassurance and accolades from Brooke.
And once the primping was done, the plotting began.
“Now, you just stay with me. Once I find him, you can make arrangements with a photographer.”
As soon as Henry opened the door, Jillian hopped out and was gone. The older man offered his hand, and Brooke took it as she climbed out.
“Whoa,” she said, tucking her arm through Henry’s and pulling her sunglasses over her eyes. “I just stepped into the oven.”
“Gonna be a hot one today.”
She frowned at Henry. “Do you have a cool place to hang?”
“Yes, ma’am. A café about a block over. Free refills on iced tea, and they let me sit there as long as I like.”
She smiled. “Okay, but only one glass of sweet tea. The others are unsweetened. Can’t have your blood sugar spiking.”
He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”
They both squinted against the Texas sun toward Jillian posing for paparazzi with their lenses sticking through a side fence.
“I think she found the photographers,” Brooke said.
“Some of ’em anyway.”
Brooke felt tired today. Not sleep-deprived tired, though she was that too—pleasurably so. But worn-out tired. “How much longer are you going to drive for Jillian, Henry?”
“Just between you and me, Miss Brooke?”
“Always.”
“Another year.” He turned his head and smiled, his weathered face crinkling everywhere. “Till my youngest grandson graduates medical school. I’m helping out.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“How about you?” he asked.
“Just between us, Sir Henry?”
He laughed at the nickname she’d given him on her first day. “Absolutely.”
She returned her gaze to Jillian, who was now chatting with various people outside the studio in the warehouse district of downtown Austin.
“A year,” she told Henry, then grinned at him. “Till my sister graduates nursing school. I’m helping out.”
Henry laughed and nodded. “You’re a good girl, Miss Brooke.”
“Thanks, Henry. I needed to hear that today.” She squeezed his arm. “Wish me luck.”
“You won’t need it, honey.”
Brooke followed Jillian, knowing Henry was wrong, but she appreciated his faith in her. She scanned the staff clustered and milling outside the warehouse where parts of the latest Avengers movie were being filmed, but didn’t recognize anyone right away. Brooke had looked over the names of the people involved in the film at the higher levels and knew about half by name, another quarter by reputation. But she usually worked hand in hand with the people who were never listed anywhere other than someone’s payroll roster, which was always where most of the real work got done.
She paused a few feet behind Jillian as her boss sweet-talked an assistant director who had a tendency to hit on Brooke when he was drunk. That wouldn’t have bothered her quite so much if he weren’t married to a lovely woman with three adorable children at home.
With one ear on their discussion, Brooke scanned the area where crews moved equipment, a food cart worker stocked drinks and snacks, and staff conducted impromptu meetings in gaggles of threes and fours.
“We’re doing some staged filming in warehouse B,” Rob, the assistant director, told Jillian, “and there are several smaller mobile stages set up in warehouse A. The stunt crew is blocking out some scenes in there right now.”
Brooke instantly pulled Keaton’s handsome face to mind. She let the director’s chatter about other resources fade, tapped the face of her phone, and wrote a quick message to Keaton.
Hope your new job is going well. I didn’t get a chance to ask you what movie it was before I had to run. Can’t wait to hear about it when I see you tonight. She paused, grinned, and added, And I hope you won’t need much sleep for your day tomorrow.
“Judging by your grin, that text isn’t about work.”
Jillian’s voice made Brooke want to roll her eyes. Instead, she hit Send and turned off her screen. “It’s just ET, forlorn about missing out on your interview.”
That got a placated smile from Jillian. “This way.”
Jillian sashayed toward warehouse A like a queen bee. Brooke followed, curling her iPad toward her chest with one arm.
Rob’s gaze latched on to her, and he stepped halfway into her path. “Brooke, I didn’t see you.” His gaze purposely roamed her, openly hungry. “You look…amazing.”
“Hi, Rob.” She intercepted his hand on its way to her hip and took it in a deliberate grip, shaking it firmly. “How are Amanda and the kids?”
The mention of his family seemed to knock him off balance. “O-oh. They’re…good. Good.”
“Great. Tell Amanda I said hello.”
As she continued on, she heard his faint, “Uh…right…sure.”
Walking into the warehouse momentarily blinded Brooke. It took several moments for her eyes to adjust from Austin’s bright morning sunlight to the dark warehouse. Once she’d focused, it took her another couple of minutes to get her bearings. The space was cavernous, with several huge areas in the roof where the ceiling had been replaced with some kind of translucent material, so the sun filtered through, giving the warehouse an eerie, sci-fi sort of glow.
As the director mentioned, the warehouse had been broken up into different sets where various lighting and filming setups were arranged, but only the one taking up half the rear of the warehouse was being used.
Brooke took a deep breath and relaxed into the setting. Here, Jillian would be swept away by the activity, the energy, the excitement. The burden of coddling and soothing and entertaining wouldn’t be on Brooke’s shoulders. For a few hours, she could be free of those demands, and she anticipated the relief with a Pavlovian response.
She let her mind go and followed Jillian from person to person and group to group, where she was greeted with excitement and reverence. An action scene was obviously being blocked out at the back of the warehouse in a crazy maze of dark, multilevel metal madness. Brooke paused a good distance away from the action, her gaze wandering over the two smashed cars, the varied platforms of metal grates, the stairs…
“Hey, there.”
Brooke turned to the female voice and found a production assistant she worked with often and who shared Brooke’s affinity for chocolate, smiling at her.
“Hey.” Brooke hugged her. “Great to see you.”
“You too. Here for the duration or just a cameo?”
“Duration. You?” Schedules often fluctuated in this business with staff getting put on, pulled off, and moved around jobs as the norm rather than the exception. And actors’ schedules were even worse.
“Same,” Brooke said. “We’ll definitely have to find a time to get together and scope out the best chocolate around here.”
After Keaton leaves.
Brooke wasn’t giving up a minute of the short time they had left. After that, she’d really need chocolate.
“Deal,” she told Stacy. “So, get me up to speed on the film.” Brooke’s gaze strayed toward the back of the warehouse again, where several men planned out some kind of attack on the set with the filming crew. Jillian stood near the stunt crew, speaking with another director.
“The first thing you need to know,” Stacy said, “is that we’re behind schedule.”
Brooke’s attention was pulled from the shadowed corner. “Oh no.”
“I know Jillian’s going to be a bitch about it. I would have called you, but it just happened. Our stunt guy took a bad fall…”
The rest of Stacy’s words faded in shock. The shock gave way to excitement. And giddiness was bubbling in Brooke’s belly when she cut her gaze back to the darkened corner of the warehouse, where one of the men stood on top of a smashed military-type truck. But it wasn’t Keaton. Her gaze dropped to the man pacing out in front of the truck. He was shirtless, well built, and had dark hair, but that’s all she could see from where she stood.
Someone from the sidelines called, “Ready.”
The dark-haired man dropped into a runner’s stance and shook his body loose.
“Go.”
He ran. Long, loose, easy strides that ate up the distance to the truck. One foot took a step to the bumper. The other foot leapt to the hood. One more effortless hop and he executed a jump-turn-kick move so fast, Brooke almost missed it, and the other guy on the roof of the truck flew backward.
Brooke knew in an instant the shirtless man was Keaton. She’d never seen him work. She’d never seen him fight. And during their weeks together in Los Angeles, she’d only seen a sliver of his abilities when he’d been goofing around with the other Renegades, but she knew without any doubt that was Keaton standing on that truck. Which meant not only did she get to have him in her bed at night, she also got to watch him work during the day.
She had to have excitement oozing from her pores, and she didn’t have the first idea how she was going to lie about this to Jillian.
Up on the top of the truck, Keaton offered a hand to whomever he’d just knocked down, and the two busted up laughing about something. The rich, buoyant sound of Keaton’s laughter inflated Brooke’s chest with joy until it spilled over in her own laughter.
In that moment, the fluttering giddiness in Brooke’s heart made her realize she wasn’t just taking a swim with this guy the way she kept telling herself. She’d already jumped in the deep end.
“I want to be a stuntwoman when I grow up,” Stacy said. “I’ve never seen anyone have so much damn fun at work.”
“Right?” was all Brooke could think of to say.
“Brooke,” Jillian said, tearing her gaze from where Keaton and another guy climbed from the top of the truck and dropped out of sight.
“The fire-breathing dragon beckons,” Stacy said. “Good luck with that.”
By the time Brooke reached Jillian, her excitement shifted to alarm over the deviously pleased glint in her boss’s eye.
Jillian slipped her hand around Brooke’s forearm and turned her toward the stunt set. “He’s here, and he’s even more delicious than he was a few months ago when I saw him last.”
As they approached the set where cameramen and assistants and other staff gathered, Keaton and another man strolled out from around the side of the vehicles, talking to each other. Keaton used his T-shirt to wipe his face.
The sight of his chest and belly shining with sweat shot a streak of wild lust straight through her sex. Images from their night flashed in Brooke’s brain—the way they flexed every time he thrust. The intensity in his expression every time he drove deep inside her. The darkness of his eyes as he watched every flash of pleasure slide over her face. The hunger in his mouth, in his hands, in his body…
Oh. God…
“If you don’t want me to kick you on your ass,” Keaton was saying, a grin splitting his handsome face, “then take three steps back like I told you.”
The other man looked younger than Keaton. He was also very handsome, with more of an iconic American look with ash-blond hair and a square jaw. Definitely Jillian’s type. And age-wise… Well, she’d been going for them younger and younger lately.
“Last time you told me to take three steps back,” the younger man said, “I dropped ten fucking stories.”
Everyone around them laughed.
Keaton shook his head and slowed as he came to the camera station with a playback screen. “I should have sent you home when—”
His gaze lifted and casually scanned the people around them, pausing on Brooke. Time stopped for a split second. A split second when she saw him in exquisite detail—his hair damp with sweat around his face, his dark skin glistening, his expression filled with joy. Pure joy—for his work and the people he worked with.
Then she saw a spark of excitement flair. And that lifted her happiness to new heights. It was the same spark she saw in Justin’s eyes when she returned home from a trip, the same spark she saw in Ellie’s eyes when they met again after being apart, and, she’d discovered over the last year, it was what life was really about.
“Hey,” he said, drawing out the word with a little wait-you’re-not-supposed-to-be-here confusion that transitioned into excitement as the realization she’d made a few minutes before hit him. “Are you—”
“Keaton Holt?” Jillian’s overly excited voice cut through the myriad conversations, and she moved through the staff and crew as they parted like the Red Sea, allowing her a path toward Keaton.
Alarm skittered through Brooke’s heart, and her gaze cut to Jillian.
“What are you doing here?” Jillian’s face shone like a diamond. The picture of utter perfection. It was her all-in smile. Her nothing-can-compete-with-this smile. Her nothing-I’ve-done-wrong-in-the-past-matters smile. And she had 500 percent of her focus homed in on Keaton. Not the blond he’d been working with. The blond who was now wandering away like the rest of the crew, hoping to escape unnoticed while the she-devil was licking her chops over a different morsel.
“I reconnected with him last month at Steven’s birthday party in Beverly Hills.”
Denial hit Brooke fast and hard.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Not Keaton. Not Jillian and Keaton. She could have anyone else. He was Brooke’s only selfish desire. And they had so little time together.
Holding tight to the last flicker of hope, she darted a look at Keaton—and her stomach dropped to her feet. All the excitement there a moment ago—all the humor and life and happiness—gone. All locked behind a cool wall. One Brooke had seen others use when they were unpleasantly blindsided in public. One that often appeared in awkward and tense situations.
His reaction to Jillian confirmed the truth in Brooke’s gut—Jillian and Keaton had been together. When, where, how—it didn’t matter. Somewhere, at some time, they’d been together.
The images that flashed in Brooke’s head made her stomach clench and burn. She purposely refocused somewhere else in the room to clear her head. Because this was a problem. A really big problem. A potentially disastrous problem. A cut that had the potential to bleed her dry if she didn’t stem the bleeding.
She pulled her iPad into her chest and crossed her arms, as if that would help.
Jillian’s reputation had preceded her, as usual, and the crew had skittered off in different directions. But Keaton was too much of a gentleman to bail, even though the look on his face told Brooke there was nothing he’d rather do right that moment.
“Jillian,” was all he said.
And his voice was so deep and so cold, it made Brooke’s stomach quiver. It made her hope she and Keaton never reached a point in their relationship or their friendship where he ever used that tone with her. Even the possibility stabbed at her heart.
But Jillian didn’t seem to notice the antagonism. She swayed toward him like she moved toward everything she thought she owned, and Brooke’s muscles tightened, preparing to witness them kiss.
But Keaton caught hold of her biceps when her lips were still inches from his. And Brooke stood several feet away in the most impossible, most awkward position of her life. If there were ever a moment she wished the earth would open up and swallow her, this would be that time.
“What…do you think…you’re doing?” Keaton’s voice was private, but filled with who-the-fuck-do-you-think-you-are menace.
Before Brooke could excuse herself, Jillian performed the perfect backpedaling, smooth-it-over routine. “I was just saying hello, of course. We are old friends after all.” She pulled out of his grip but kept her voice light and adoring. “I’m sorry you’re having a hard morning.”
Keaton’s jaw pulsed, but when Jillian didn’t make another aggressive move, he shook out his T-shirt and tossed it over his head. Brooke’s gaze slid down his torso on the way to the floor again, pausing on red marks. Red…scratches.
Her face bloomed with heat. Her sex followed. She hadn’t seen those in the shower this morning. But she sure remembered making them last night. And good God, now she couldn’t think of anything else.
Straddling his lap, his knees spread so wide, her hip joints ached, he thrust with all the strength in his butt and thighs. Unrelenting, consistent strokes that hit their mark and hammered whimpers of desire and cries of pleasure and screams of ecstasy from her.
With one arm wrapped around his neck, the other at his ribs, she’d been digging into him because, one—he’d been so sweaty, her grip kept slipping, and two—she’d needed the grip against the force of his thrust, and three—she’d needed the leverage to pull herself back into him so his next stroke would hit the same out-of-this-fucking-world spot inside her again.
“Come for me, Brooke,” he’d demanded against her neck, even as she was just recovering from her last orgasm. “Come again. So good. Love the feel of you coming around me. Come on, baby. Give it to me. Ah, yeah. That’s it. Mmm, so good. Come on, baby. No limit. Give me another one.”
She shivered. Curled her fingers around the edges of her iPad until they numbed.
“Since we’ll be working together…” Jillian’s voice refocused her. “I certainly don’t want to start out on the wrong foot. Brooke, this is Keaton Holt,” she said, her tone light and charming and—dare she even think…sweet? “The only man who’s ever truly stolen my heart. Keaton, this is my assistant, Brooke—”
“Yeah, I—” he started.
“Dempsey,” Brooke cut in forcefully. She pried her hand from the computer and offered it to him. “Brooke Dempsey. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Holt.” She pulled her hand from Keaton’s overly hard grip and smiled at Jillian. “Mr. Holt and I met briefly in Los Angeles about a year ago. A friend of a friend.”
He stared at her, lips parted as if he’d stopped before the words had come out. His dark eyes sharpened, flicked to Jillian, then returned to Brooke. And they were hard. He closed his mouth and rolled his shoulders back. Now he looked just as displeased with her as he had with Jillian. And yeah, she knew she deserved it, but shit… The way he closed off made it impossible to read his expression, and it hurt. Hurt like hell. She felt like she’d already lost part of him.
“Miss Dempsey,” was all he said. Brooke could only thank God his voice didn’t hold the same frigid ring as it had when he’d said Jillian’s name.
She gave Keaton a nod and hoped he could read the gratitude in her eyes, but she’d never seen him look so miserable. Which seemed like the mood of the day.
Except for Jillian. The emotional undercurrents were lost on the narcissist. “Keaton, since I have time now, I thought we could block out the first stunt scene we’re in together.”
He planted his hands at his hips. “We’re not in any scenes together.”
“Oh, Copalli didn’t tell you?” Jillian asked.
“What?” Brooke asked, frowning at Jillian, but her boss ignored her, and by the purse of Jillian’s lips and the jut to her chin, Brooke knew Jillian was going to color outside those lines again.
“Told me what, Jillian?” Keaton asked with an I-know-what-you’re-gonna-say-and-it’s-going-to-start-a-fight tone. “Because if you think you’re going to do your own stunts, I can tell you right now, that’s not going to fly past risk assessment.”
Jillian laughed softly, clearly happy with the fact that she’d ticked Keaton off. “We’ll just see about that, won’t we?”
Brooke was ready to climb out of her skin. She couldn’t watch these two together anymore. She couldn’t look at Keaton anymore, knowing the plans they’d had for tonight, for any night in the future, were history.
The day suddenly seemed to stretch out in front of her as ten, twelve, sixteen…long, hot, sticky hours of misery.
She cleared her tight throat and told Jillian, “If it’s all right with you, I’ll go check in with the production assistants now.” Without waiting for her answer, she reminded Keaton of her need for their relationship to remain secret with, “It was good to meet you again, Mr. Holt.”