Capture

As if remembering she was still pissed at me, the concern was quickly replaced with cool anger as she crossed her arms and arched her eyebrows.

"Well…" I licked my lips. No easy way to break it to her, so I tossed her my phone. "… we made the news."

It was on every gossip website.

And trending on Twitter.

Lincoln Greene hooks up with new underage assistant.

Reading it wasn't as bad as seeing the picture of me and Dani kissing or the fact that somehow a camera caught us walking into our "love nest."

Dani set the phone on the kitchen counter then slumped into one of the barstools, covering her face. "That's… bad."

"I was thinking bleak, you know, like black-plague bleak, at least as far as my life's concerned. If you see my shorts wash up along the beach, know it was the seals that did it."

Her laugh wasn't one of amusement, but joy at the thought of something happening to me…

"Does my death amuse you?"

"Right now?" She hopped off the barstool. "A bit. Yeah."

"Still mad?" I asked in a hopeful voice.

Dani paused, her hand on the doorway to the bathroom. She didn't turn around. "Not mad. A bit angry, slightly disappointed, and feeling a bit ashamed. I'll get over it. I've been through much worse."

The words may as well have been a physical knife manifesting itself right in front of my chest before getting plunged directly between my ribs — she even twisted. Swear, she twisted.

"Dani, I'm sorry. I'm trying to do the right thing."

"And I'm the wrong thing?" She turned, her cheeks flushed. "That's what you're saying, right?"

"Kind of." I threw my hands up in frustration. "Yes. No. Hell, we barely know each other. Why are you pissed that I'm being the good guy?"

"I didn't ask you to," she whispered.

"What was that?" I leaned in, already emotionally drained.

"You didn't ask me what I wanted. You decided for me. People do that a lot. I don't know if it's because of my age or because of what happened to me. But for once — once in my life — I want someone to care enough about me to ask before they make a decision that affects me."

The knife twisted harder. Figuratively, since, if it was real, I would be bleeding my heart all over the carpet.

And damn it, she would be right.

"I'm sorry," I croaked.

"I'll get ready, and we can leave. It's almost seven, and you're needed on set. I have a job to do. And so do you."

Maturity points officially went to her, while I backed away from the shut bathroom door and stumbled into the kitchen, wondering how my doing the right thing had turned into the worst thing I could have possibly done.

THE LIMO RIDE WAS awkwardly tense. My phone went dead quickly after I'd showed Dani the picture. Once we were ten minutes out of Depot Bay, it was finally charged enough for me to turn it on.

Demetri had sent me seventeen pictures. All of them included a seal attacking some sort of human or animal. He'd even gone so far as to put my name in a caption above a terror-inducing seal who looked about ten times my size.

Jaymeson's text was next.

Jaymeson: I will kill you.

Great. Just great.

Jaymeson: Kill you dead.

I groaned and cast a sideways glance to Dani. She'd read the text over my shoulder and was smirking.

"Glad you find it funny."

She shrugged.

"Silent treatment?"

She nodded.

"So just to be clear, you're choosing not to talk to me, even though you can?"

A middle finger was raised in answer before she tucked her feet underneath her body, laid her head against the door, and closed her eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Dani

THE MINUTE THE LIMO PULLED UP to Jaymeson's beach house, I jumped out. Lincoln tried to follow me, so I broke out into a run.

He grabbed part of my shirt right before my fingers reached the door. "Dani, don't, not like this."

I sighed and turned. "Look, I'm still your assistant. But you don't need me on set today. I've already texted Pris and let her know what you needed in your trailer for snacks, your laundry's been delivered, and your truck is already waiting for you at the location. I'll pick up where I left off tomorrow, but for right now, can I please just have the day off to think? Or are you going to make me go to work with you? Especially after that picture's been blasted all over the Internet."

Linc's face fell. "Fine." He released my shirt. "But, for the record you don't have to call ahead and do all of that."

"It's my job," I said in a hollow voice. "Unless you're firing me?"

"No." His answer was quick. Even wearing that stupid whale shirt, he still looked gorgeous. His grey eyes always had the appearance that they'd been outlined in kohl. It was easy to get lost in them, easy to forget.

Until now.

Now, staring at him reminded me that we'd had something, a moment, something different, something inexplicable. And he'd just let it pass by without talking to me about it. I was so tired of being treated like a child, yet at the same time, I knew sometimes my reactions were my own fault.

But these last few days, he'd treated me like an equal.

Until at the worst possible moment, when I was at my most vulnerable, he turned into just another one of the protective guys I was somehow surrounded with.