If Kit hoped for a renewal after the initial one-year term, she had to make sure she looked good even if she was heading to the gym or popping out to grab groceries. “There’s also an ‘unacceptable weight gain’ clause, but hey, at least my lawyer got the ‘moral turpitude’ one struck out.”

Noah scowled. “You should’ve told the assholes to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

“Giant mortgage, remember?” She shrugged. “It’s almost like another acting gig for me, and to be honest, the cosmetics people treat me nicer than most directors.”

“You’re fielding movie offers left and right.” Noah angled the plane east in the crystalline blue sky. “You don’t have to do anything that makes you unhappy.”

He was so protective of her, always had been. He’d come to her town house in the middle of the night when she’d freaked out after catching a photographer peering through the window; he’d also made the police take the stalking seriously from the very start. That protectiveness was part of the reason why his betrayal had hurt her so badly. It was as if he’d become a different person that night, a person who didn’t care about her at all.

“That’s just it.” Chest hurting, she looked out the window. “The cosmetics deal will give me the freedom to sign more movies like Last Flight. Not that I didn’t have fun doing the superhero movie, but my heart tends to sway toward script-driven dramas.”

“You’re an amazing actress.” Noah loved watching her on-screen. “Whatever you choose, you make it better.”

“Some scripts can’t be saved, Noah.” An unexpected laugh.

His lungs began to work again. He’d caught Kit hesitating and choosing her words several times during the flight, and her body language… there was distance there. Distance he’d created, so he couldn’t fucking cry about it now.

“Harper got this one offer for a movie about erotic insect-women who wanted to sex men to death.” She was no longer staring out the window, her smile like sunshine. “I was meant to be the insect empress, and oh, I got to wear the ‘diamond’ string bikini.”

Noah tried very hard not to imagine Kit in a string bikini; the last thing he needed was a hard-on. Kit was flat out the sexiest woman he knew. “Tell me you still have the script,” he said, managing to pull off a light response.

“I might have saved it.”

He smiled. “Was that the worst one?” Talking to her this way, it felt like having his Kit back again. “No wait, I want to know something else more.”

“What?”

“Did Hugh make an offer yet?” he said, referring to the owner of the most well-known adult magazine in the world.

“Yep. Hundred grand.”

“Pfft. Total lowball. Hold out for at least nine figures.”

Open laughter. “I don’t think they paid that much even for Abigail Rutledge, and she’s the reigning queen of the A-list.”

Noah was suddenly sorry he’d brought up the topic. The idea of random men jacking off to Kit’s naked body made him want to punch out the lights of every other male in the fucking world. “Would you do it?” he forced himself to ask. “Pose nude for the right money or the right photographer?”

“Nope. And I won’t do nude scenes either—it’s in all my contracts. If the director wants a flash of breasts or whatever, they bring in a body double. No exceptions, and I don’t care if the stance loses me roles.”

Noah unclenched his jaw. “You feel strongly about it.” Good. So did he.

She took a long time to reply, her face pensive when he glanced over. “I love my mom, and I think she has the right to showcase her body any way she chooses.” The last words were soft and fierce both. “But… when I was in junior high, boys in my grade were ogling the nude spread she did at forty-five. It was the ‘Mrs. Robinson’ issue, and it spread through the male population of the school like wildfire.”

Noah suddenly realized he’d seen that spread; every man of a certain age probably had. He was fairly certain one of the boys in his class had tacked it up on the back of the door to the gym locker room.

Feeling a little ill, he shook his head. “Hell, Katie.” The affectionate term just slipped out, but lost in her memories, Kit didn’t seem to notice.

“It wasn’t the first time—she’d done spreads when she was younger, but I wasn’t old enough to be bothered by it then.” She reached up to fix her headphones. “I wasn’t ashamed of her. I think she’s the most astonishingly gorgeous woman I know, and I admire her confidence.” Love and pride entwined. “It was just weird and uncomfortable to know that the boy I sat next to in math class, or the boy who was my crush, would probably go home to jerk off to pictures of my mom.”

“They use it against you?” Noah asked, furious at the thought of her being bullied.

Hugging herself, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “A few snotty remarks, the odd snigger, one dipwad plastering my locker with the spread, but that was it. My classmates were all from prominent entertainment or sports families, so my mom was hardly the first parent to be in the media.

“Drugs, cheating, white-collar crime, public drunkenness, you name it, one of the parents had been busted for it.” She blew out a breath. “But it mattered to me. I want to have children, Noah, and I don’t want any child of mine to ever be put in the position of knowing other kids are passing around naked photos of Mom.”

“I get it,” Noah said, awed by her strength. If that had been him he’d probably have spent his entire school life bloodying noses and breaking jaws. “Good thing you weren’t a boy.”

“I should call you a sexist pig for saying that, but in this case you’re right. Can you imagine going over to a friend’s house and finding nude photos of your mom pinned to the walls?”

Noah shuddered, skin crawling. “Thank God I’m never going to be a father—some of the shit I’ve pulled is insane.” He’d been photographed in bed with three half-naked women for Christ’s sake. It had been for a magazine editorial, but still. “How the hell would I ever explain any of it to a son or a daughter?”

Kit shifted in her seat to face him. “What do you mean you’re never going to be a father?” A pause. “I’m sorry—that was insensitive.”

“No, it’s all right—it’s not medical. I just know I won’t make a good father, so I’m not going to saddle some poor kid with Noah St. John as a dad.”

Regardless of his mood or the demons in his head, he was always very, very careful. The one time he’d had a scare, it hadn’t been because he’d fallen down on the job but because the condom had torn. Thankfully, the groupie he’d been screwing at the time had been on the pill, so he’d dodged that bullet.

He’d put a private eye on her to make damn certain, because if he had fucked up and fathered a kid, he’d have taken responsibility—financially at least. “I’m actually thinking of getting it taken care of permanently.”

“What?” Open shock. “Noah, you can’t do that. What if you change your mind?”

“I’m not a good bet as a father, Kit. You know that.” He met her dismayed gaze. “Would you want me as the father of your child?”

Her face froze. Not saying a word, she turned to stare out the window.

It felt like a punch to the solar plexus. “Exactly,” he said quietly.

But Kit didn’t stay silent. “You could be a great father,” she said without warning. “It’d involve trying and working hard and being accountable rather than burying yourself in whatever hell it is that makes you so angry.” Her words vibrated with emotion.

The bones in his jaw grinding against one another, he didn’t respond.

“You have to make a choice, Noah.” Harsh words. “I made a choice as a child to not let my parents’ lifestyle damage me to the extent that I ended up a druggie or a self-destructive waste of space. Whatever it is that’s behind your behavior, you made the opposite choice.”