CHAPTER NINE
Gannon gave Paige a break. He considered her not ordering him out of the seat next to her a small victory and was even more pleased when she actually talked to him. He’d been wrong about his princess, and he was looking forward to finding out what made her tick.
He glanced in her direction. She was huddled against the window, and he couldn’t tell if she was giving him extra space for his big frame or if she was trying to avoid any accidental physical contact.
She yawned and closed the book she’d been paging through.
“A little light reading?” he asked, tapping the book in her lap.
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyes and held up the book. “Homework,” she said by way of an explanation.
It was a thick psychology tome on the narcissism epidemic in America.
“Homework for what?” he asked, studying the cover.
Paige flipped the book around and tapped the jacket photo of the author. “My mother.”
Gannon snatched the book from her and studied the picture. He could see the resemblance especially around the eyes and the jaw line that Paige shared with Dr. Leslie St. James. Of course, Dr. St. James looked as though she’d never wear a pair of holey jeans like her daughter or be caught without her hair done and subtle makeup on.
“Wow.”
“If you think that’s impressive,” Paige said, pulling her phone out of the seatback pocket and flipping through her photos. “This is my sister.”
She showed him a screen shot of a younger woman, nearly a carbon copy version of her mother in a white coat staring unsmilingly at the camera.
“Another Dr. St. James?”
“My sister, Lisa. She’s doing a neurosurgery residency at Sloane Kettering.
“How often do you get the ‘why are you wasting your time with this’—”
“Drivel, garbage, pandering,” Paige filled in, and he felt immediately offended on her behalf.
“Do they have any idea how hard you work?”
“I sit around off camera getting wanna be starlets coffee. Meanwhile, my sister is saving lives, and my mother is freeing people from behavioral patterns that have afflicted them for lifetimes.”
“You don’t buy that crock of shit, do you?”
She smiled at him. A real one, and it warmed him from the inside out.
He’d noticed from day one that she was gorgeous in the girl-next-door way. Her big, denim blue eyes framed by thick lashes, her high cheekbones and their light dusting of freckles highlighted the delicate hollows beneath. And he was enjoying the up-close view.
“I don’t buy it entirely,” she admitted.
“So why are you wasting your time with us drivellers?”
She went quiet on him, and he could feel her withdrawing on him. “Oh, no, princess. No shutting me out. What you whisper in my ear on this plane stays here. Besides, I told you about my nonni.”
She sighed, and he knew he was close to winning.
He pressed his luck. “How about this? You can tell me, and I will have no outward reaction whatsoever.”
He had her. “You won’t ask any questions? Make any inappropriate comments?”
“When have I made any inappropriate comments?”
“I don’t know? Maybe when you called me ‘princess’ at my job for the last year.”
Gannon took her hand and traced an x over his heart. “Cross my heart.”
She studied him. And Gannon watched those cool blue eyes calculated the risk as her hand held steady over the thrum of his heart. She tried to tug it away, but he held fast.
“Ugh. Okay,” Paige finally agreed, yanking her hand out from under his. Gannon leaned in, all ears.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she demanded.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re going to take a bite out of me.”
“See how much fun it is to say what’s on your mind?”
She cleared her throat, ready to deliver a lecture. “Gannon, I need you to behave. I’m not about to start flirting with the star of my show. I’ve worked my ass off getting here, and I’m not going to have that derailed by people starting rumors about me and… you.”
“I am behaving,” he argued. “I’m just waiting for my assistant director to stop stalling and tell me what she wants to do with her life that’s not reality TV.”
She dropped her head back against the seat. “No outward reaction whatsoever,” she reminded him.
“None,” he confirmed.
“I want to produce and direct.”
Gannon didn’t move a muscle. Paige met and held his gaze, but he didn’t break. She looked away and primly opened her book. Her disinterest in his reaction lasted all of thirty seconds.
She slammed the book shut. “Okay. I’ll allow a small reaction.”
“Then that would be ‘duh.’”
“Duh?”
Gannon shrugged. “You should already be a director. You had two years on Andy, and I like the guy, but the only reason he got it and you didn’t is because he’s got a dick and family relations. You end up doing half of his job anyway.”
Paige blinked.
“Cat and I pulled for you this season, but Andy’s the nephew of one of the suits, and they’re grooming him for one of the bigger shows.”
“Well, hell.” Paige’s breath whooshed out of her, tension slipping from her slim shoulders.
“It’s a tough industry for women,” Gannon said. “The network wanted to give Cat her own design special between seasons, and she turned it down because she didn’t feel confident enough to demand to call the shots yet.”
He could see Paige’s wheels turning. “It’s hard to imagine Cat with a confidence crisis,” she mused.
“She wanted a little more experience under her belt before she said yes to anything else. She enjoys all this a lot more than I do. Eventually, I’ll get back to just contracting, but I think she’ll make this a long-term career.”
Paige cocked her head, a smile playing on her pink lips. “You know, I’m not regretting our seating arrangement as much as I thought I would,” she admitted.
Gannon laughed softly. “I’ll cherish that compliment always. So what do you want to produce?”
“What makes you think it’s not a reality show?”
“Ha,” he snorted. “You have about as much tolerance as I do for the shit. You’re just too professional to show it.”
She didn’t bother confirming or denying, but Gannon knew he was right.
“I’m still working on what kind of project I want,” she told him.
She was lying to him. Those guileless blue eyes were looking down at the book in her lap again.
“But you have to have some idea,” he wheedled. “And I trusted you.”
She blew out a slow breath and stared at the seat in front of her. “My roommate and I are saving up to produce a documentary on women in the television industry. Pay gap, gender stereotypes, sexual harassment. And then we’ll flip it and look at women who have broken through to pave the way for the rest of us.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, you can imagine how unhappy Summit-Wingenroth would be to hear about my pet project.”
“Are you quitting the show?” Gannon asked, suddenly seized by unease. He was just getting to know her. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye when he hadn’t figured her out yet.
She shook her head. “Not for another season yet. Becca and I are saving up so we don’t need to do much if any crowd funding for the production. I need this season and next to come up with my half.”
“You make shit money.”
Paige laughed, not taking offense.
It was true. For the amount of work that he saw her putting in on set, Gannon knew she should have been making almost double what she was.
“We’ve been saving for two years now,” Paige continued. “And shit money is still money. We eat bananas and Ramen and drink tap water when there’s no craft services to be had.”
Gannon leaned back in his seat assimilating the information she’d just given him. So not only was she not a network puppet, but Paige St. James wanted to pull back the curtain and reveal to the world the dirty goings on of television and the women who made it.
“Tell me more,” he demanded.
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When Paige started yawning at the end of every sentence, Gannon decided to let their conversation drop and let her rest. She got the least amount of sleep of anyone on the crew. First to arrive on set, last to leave. She set the example, and everyone else followed suit. When he looked at their little team, really looked, he realized Paige was the glue that kept them all moving, kept them all positive. And he felt like an idiot for not being more appreciative of it.
When her head lolled to the side to rest against his shoulder and she snuggled into his side in her sleep, Gannon wondered if maybe it was time to renegotiate his no women policy.
She was soft and warm against him, and that made him go hard and hot. The sun was setting outside their window as they flew over the mid-west bathing Paige’s face in a golden glow.
He studied her at his leisure now. She had her hands tucked between her knees as if she didn’t trust them to stay still while she slept. Her eyes were closed under the fringe of long inky lashes, and her hair smelled like tropical islands. The worry line that resided between her eyebrows was absent right now. He could see her freckles scattered across her nose and cheekbones. Who knew he had a thing for freckles?
“Don’t you two look cozy?”
Gannon dragged his gaze away from Paige’s face to his sister who was tucking her phone away and standing in the aisle. “We get along better when one of us is asleep,” Gannon joked softly, careful not to jar Paige awake.
Cat was looking at him expectantly.
“What?” he grumbled.
“I knew you had a thing for her,” Cat whispered, looking triumphant in her statement.
“Keep your gibberish down, or you’ll wake her,” he threatened.
“And then cuddle time would be over.” She gave him a playful pout. “Admit it. You’ve been into her forever.”
He gave her his best “don’t fuck with me” look, but Catalina King was immune to his temper.
“I’m just trying to get to know her a little better,” he told her. “Some new information came to light recently—”
“That you want to take our little Paige here and make sweet, sweet love to her?” Cat interrupted.
“Shut the fuck up, Cat,” he warned.
She held up her palms, the King symbol of surrender. “I’m just teasing. You know I love her. I’d do a Zumba routine right here and now if you told me you were throwing Meeghan over for Paige.”
At the mention of Meeghan’s name, Gannon stiffened and Paige murmured against his chest.
“I told you before. There is no me and Meeghan. Now, go back to your seat before I throw you in the overhead compartment.”
“Whatever you say, big brother,” Cat said, reminding him that he was indeed two minutes older than she was. “But you could do a lot worse and, in my opinion, not much better than our Paige here.”