Chapter Three
Ginny slammed into a hard chest and firm hands caught her upper arms when she would have ricocheted off. She looked up to see who she’d run into—and up. The man was tall. Admittedly, Ginny was a bit on the short side herself, and she was used to working with actors who tended to be two inches shorter than their bios claimed they were, but this man towered.
He wasn’t bulky—more David Tennant than the Rock—and then he spoke and her impression of Doctor Who hotness was confirmed.
“Easy there, luv.”
His accent hit her in the knees and they wobbled—but luckily the tall, lanky Brit still had a hold of her arms and steadied her. “That accent isn’t from around here.”
“I’m with him.” He jerked his chin toward her dressing room door and stepped backward after making sure she had her feet under her.
“Ah. The infamous entourage.” She arched a brow. “Bodyguard?”
She’d met Jack’s bodyguard back when they were together—some old friend of his from way back who rippled with muscles—but she didn’t see that guy anywhere and a new bodyguard would explain why Tall, Dark, and British had been guarding the door. He didn’t have the intimidating bulk she associated with bodyguards, but now that she thought about it, she distinctly recalled this tall drink of water shadowing Jack as he made his way across the set with her. She’d barely been aware of him at the time, but now she couldn’t imagine how she’d missed him. The man was seriously dishy, in a gawky British way.
“I look like a bodyguard to you?” he asked, matching her eyebrow for eyebrow as his own left one bounced up.
“Looks can be deceiving.” A playful smile quirked her lips before she even realized she was flirting. With Jack’s bodyguard. Like that wouldn’t be awkward at all if she and Jack decided to do the relationship thing again.
As if on cue, the dressing room door opened behind her and Jack stepped into the already crowded space. One of his hands went automatically to the small of Ginny’s back. She wasn’t sure he was even aware of the touch, but the bodyguard certainly was. His eyes flicked down to the contact and the corners of his mouth tugged down.
Jealous, big boy?
Jack bent down—he didn’t have to bend nearly as far as his bodyguard would have—and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
“Sure,” she murmured, her voice unaccountably hoarse.
It wasn’t him making emotion lodge in her throat. She hadn’t fallen in love with Jack. They hadn’t known one another well enough for that. But she’d definitely fallen in love with the idea of him. The fairy tale fantasy of what they could have been together. A Hollywood power couple. The next big thing. Not that she was only in it for the fame, but… hell, she certainly wouldn’t have minded being the girl everyone wanted to be.
She’d been on the verge. And then she’d been stupid. And petty. And it had all come crashing down.
“You all right, luv?” that sexy British accent asked as Jack walked away and Ginny quickly wiped whatever he must have seen off her face.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked with a cheery smile. She nodded after Jack’s retreating back. “Shouldn’t you be going with him?”
“In a minute. It isn’t every day you get ambushed by an ex.”
“Isn’t it?” she asked cheekily.
He grinned, going along with her attempt at levity—thank goodness. “Your love life must be much more exciting than mine.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She had a feeling Tall, Dark, and British could hold his own in the romance department. “Who are you, anyway?” She was sure he hadn’t been around when she and Jack had been sort-of-together—but then the people who surrounded fame tended to be a rotating cast depending on the whims of celebrity.
“Jude.”
“Jude, huh?” He didn’t offer anything more, but she was almost glad for that. She liked avoiding the real stuff for now. He could just be Jude and she’d just be Ginny. As if none of the drama around them existed. “Your mom have a thing for the Beatles?”
His lips took on a wry cant. “If you believe her, my mom had a thing with one of the Beatles—though she would never confess which one.”
“My, my, that is scandalous.” She grinned, studying his dark, slightly floppy hair. “You do look a little like George.”
“Here I always thought I was more of a Paul.”
“Ginny.” A PA appeared at her elbow. “We’re ready for you.”
“Right. Sorry.” She flashed one last smile up at the Brit. “See ya later, Jude.”
He nodded and she turned away, feeling his eyes following her as she made her way back to the set. She tried to smother her smile, but she felt like it was bursting out of her. She snuck a peek over her shoulder and found him still watching her—and she had to bite back another smile.
Obviously their little flirtation couldn’t go anywhere. He was part of Jack’s entourage for crying out loud. But it had still been fun to flirt a little. To forget that she was untouchable in Hollywood and simply enjoy talking to a man. One without an agenda. One who had just wanted to make sure she was okay after her ex blindsided her by showing up on set.
He was nice. And his accent was sexy.
It didn’t have to go farther than that. That was enough to have her walking on air.
Jude frowned after Genevieve as she made her way back to the set to make the crew cry again.
She hadn’t been what he expected.
Not that he’d really known what to expect, but he’d formed a certain image of her after listening to her bitch about Agatha on that tape and the playful, mischievous, appealing woman he’d just spoken to didn’t fit into it.
No one had ever said Genevieve Jones couldn’t act.
But it hadn’t felt like an act.
It had felt like a moment. Like they’d connected on a real level—even if they were only playing around. Flirting about the freaking Beatles—not as if he’d never heard that reaction to his name before. But he kind of… liked her.
He hadn’t been expecting that. He’d always sort of dismissed her as a person, but now…
Jude swallowed thickly, thinking about his role in her downfall. And she had fallen down. He’d taken a certain pleasure in it when it happened, schadenfreude at seeing her arrogance brought low, but now something queasy and thick roiled in his gut.
He moved in the direction Jack had gone, remembering the casual way Jack had touched her before bending down to kiss her cheek. Had there been a love connection between Ginny and Jack? Had he ruined that somehow when he made the tape public?
The idea bothered him, but he didn’t want to look too closely at why. It couldn’t be jealousy. He didn’t want Ginny Jones… even if he now felt a little sorry for her. And for his role in the destruction of her career.
Jude stepped out of the house where they were filming and into the sunshine beyond. Jack had already vanished, but his publicist was still out front. What was her name? Something old fashioned. Biblical...
“Ruth?”
She looked up from her phone, her expression still half-hidden behind her glasses and the fall of hair over her face. She waited as he approached, then informed him, “Jack and Ginny are going to meet after she’s done filming for the day.”
Goody. Jude smothered the familiar frustration that his life had descended to the point where whether or not two ex-lovers were going to see one another at the end of the day had an impact on his career.
He wanted to ask who cares? Or then what? He wanted to ask what the hell he was doing here. Why he was covering this redemption tour at all, but he found himself asking something he hadn’t intended to say at all. “What if I could get Dame Agatha here?”
Ruth’s eyes lit behind her glasses. “Could you? That would be amazing. Jack’s amends to Ginny could be helping her make amends to Dame Agatha Kelly. Do you think you could really get her?”
“It’s possible. I’ll see what I can do.”
He slipped away before she could press him for more details—and before he could change his mind. He didn’t want to examine this feeling—he’d gotten good at avoiding introspection these last few years—but for some reason Jack wasn’t the only one who wanted to make things better for Ginny.
Moving up the sidewalk, Jude pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number he knew by heart, waiting as it rang.
“Jude, my boy. It’s been entirely too long since you phoned.”
“Hello, Aunt Agatha.”