“Morning.” His voice was rough, like he’d recently woken up and hadn’t yet spoken.

I smiled politely and took a bite of the bagel, my eyes moving to the left, away from Cole, looking for something, anything, to focus on. I hadn’t prepared for this, had hoped he would be as uninterested as I was in conversation. My eyes found Becky, one of the producers, the one who was leading this meeting, and willed her to begin. I shouldn’t have arrived early. I should have ducked in at the last minute, and would have, had Mary not been a freakin’ drill sergeant, her schedule worked down to the minute, any hope of my lagging disappearing with the first tap of her Timex.

“How late were you at the house last night?” Oh my word. He wasn’t letting this go.

“Shhh…” I hushed, glancing around, worried about who might hear. It was the wrong thing to do, him shuffling up in his seat and leaning closer, his head close to my ear.

“It’s an innocent question. How late were you there?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. You’re welcome, by the way. For watching Cocky.” I turned my head slightly to him, not too far to touch him, but enough that I saw the curve of his mouth when he grinned.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I took the last, painful bite of the bagel and pushed the rest aside. It was a calculated amount of nibbles. Enough not to offend, not too much for Mary to think I actually liked it.

“I wish you’d stayed.”

My heart lost a beat in those words. I tried to recover it, tried to breathe normally, to act normally. I wish you’d stayed. A simple grouping of four ordinary words. But they were like peanut butter cookies. Four simple ingredients: peanut butter, sugar, flour, and egg. Together, they created something most women loved.

I hated peanut butter cookies. And I hated that sentence out of his mouth.

Because no matter how much it would have complicated everything, no matter how much of a mistake it would have been—

I wish I’d stayed too.

Becky cleared her throat and began the meeting, and I, for a little longer, was saved.

CHAPTER 83

Summer was acting weird. Weird even for her. Jumpy. Skittish. Avoiding eye contact. Avoiding conversation at all costs. Cole stared at the wall in his trailer and tried to think of the last time they’d had a direct conversation with each other. In the conference room? Right after he’d returned from LA to an empty house. That had been it. And that hadn’t been much of a conversation at all. And that’d been a week ago.

He’d tried pissing her off, and she hadn’t bitten. He’d tried being friendly and she’d cut him off. He was running out of options, other than dragging her into his trailer and forcing her to talk.

“You there?”

He flinched at the voice and turned to Justin, who sat opposite him, script pages spread out between them. “What?”

“You zoned out. Did you hear anything I just said? About Tokyo?”

“No.”

“Rentho’s Tokyo premiere is next week. We need to shift your shooting schedule to accommodate it, so Don wants to know how many days you’ll be out.” He arched an eyebrow, pen in hand, twitching above a calendar. “Five?”

“The Japan premiere is now? I thought we were waiting.”

“They bumped it up, back in July.” Probably around the time of Justin’s accident.

Cole nodded. “I’m not going.”

“Why?”

“We’re getting stuff done here; this is more important. When are we filming thirty-eight?” Thirty-eight. The sex scene between Royce and Ida.

“We were going to push it ’til after the Japanese premiere. Don wants to give Summer some more time to—”

“No,” Cole interrupted. “We can’t wait.” He couldn’t wait. Not an extra minute, much less a week. The sex scene had been another add-on, one he’d pushed the writers for. One that Summer had fought tooth and nail. “We’ll do it next week, and I’ll skip the premiere. Send Charlize instead, she loves those things.”

“When are you just going to admit to yourself that you like her?” Justin put down the pen, and Cole looked away.

“I do like her. That’s not an issue. I like you, too; though I hate admitting that even more.” He grinned, but Justin didn’t grin back.

“Stop fucking around.”

Cole’s grin dropped, and his gaze hardened. “I’m not fucking around. She’s hot; I’m hot. There’s a flirtation there. If I want to fuck her, I’ll fuck her. If I want to like her, I’ll like her. If I want to hate her, I’ll do that too. The movie is most important, and everything that I’ve been doing with her is for that end game. The Fortune Bottle is killing it in those cuts. You know, you’ve seen it.”

“So that’s what this is? You’re playing the little Georgian’s heartstrings to get your movie a statuette?” Justin’s gaze never left Cole’s, the strength never left his shoulder, his voice didn’t back down, and Cole respected that. Even when he hated it.

“Nobody’s playing that girl’s heart. She won’t give me the time of day.”

Justin laughed, pushing away from the table, to standing, his hands resting on the glass top of it as he leaned forward. “She’s protecting herself, Cole. The best she can. Hell, if I had a snatch I’d put a steel trap on it before I stepped in the same room as you.”

“She’s not protecting herself,” Cole said, his head tilting up to look at Justin, his hands tightening on the edge of the chair arms. That wasn’t what Summer’s frostiness was all about. It was because she didn’t like Cole, despite the attraction between them.

But as he said the words, worked through the thought process, there was, in the back of his mind, doubt.

CHAPTER 84

SCENE 38: ROYCE AND IDA: LOVE SCENE AT ROYCE’S HOUSE

When Mary banged on my door, I ignored it, my arms wrapped around my knees, my thumb pressing at buttons on the remote without thought. I used to wonder why they put a TV in my trailer; it wasn’t like I had time to lounge around and watch cable. But now I knew. It was for moments of panic, the last line of defense against skittish actresses whose toes were itching to leave. Mary banged again, her delicate little fists doing an impressive number on my locked door. The phone on the kitchenette rang, the third time that had happened in the last fifteen minutes.

I had understood the scene, I had known the need for it, I had finally stopped my complaining and been a big girl about it but now time had run out. It was time for the scene. And every pep talk I’d given myself had run out of gas. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. No.

A new voice joined the chorus outside my door, and I tightened my grip on my knees. Him. I turned up the volume, Judge Judy giving it to some redneck who had promised to babysit a dog, then didn’t. I murmured support and almost missed the jiggle of my trailer’s handle, the door swinging open, the glare of incoming sunshine sliced by one muscular male form. My eyes dropped to the giant key ring now dangling from my lock. Figured. It was only a matter of time. I had hoped for Don. Or Eileen. Or anyone but him.

“I’m not doing it,” I repeated, my eyes back on the TV, and there was still hope, in all of this madness, that I wouldn’t cry.

“You have to do it. You signed a contract.” He spoke from the middle of the room, the door settling shut behind him, his legs slightly spread, hands hanging at his side. This was his first time in my trailer, and it was too small of a space for both of us.