I swallow dryly. My chest is constricting and my stomach churning. Blindly, I reach for the orange juice.
“Just wanted to check we are good. You know, no crossed lines or any drama,” I say as nonchalantly as I can manage.
It’s the worst acting of my life. But a quick glance at the wounded look in his eyes shows me I’ve somehow pulled it off. He is insulted that I’m worried that he is going to be the needy one.
I hear him swallow. “All good. No drama,” he agrees.
It feels like a thousand daggers are tearing my heart to shreds but I smile and drink my orange juice, as if I don’t have a care in the world. Mackenzie is staring at me but I can’t decipher his expression. For a moment I’m convinced he is devastated and trying to hide it, but I dismiss that interpretation as wistful thinking on my part.
The next time I look at him, he looks cooler than a cucumber. He is giving nothing away. It’s as frustrating as hell. I long to learn what he is really thinking, really feeling. Did last night really mean nothing more than good sex? I’m reasonably confident it was at least that.
After casting a few more furtive glances, I give up and tuck into my muesli. He’s a Hollywood A-lister for fuck’s sake, he has a flipping Oscar, that makes him one of the best actors in the world. I’m never going to know what he is thinking, unless he chooses to tell me.
The muesli feels dry in my mouth. I’m not even hungry but I can hardly sit here doing nothing. I can’t flee yet either. Unless I want him to know that I have totally lost the plot.
I try to cheer myself up. I had fantastic sex, lost my gay cherry, got to fuck Mackenzie Jones. Millions of people around the world would give their right arm to be me right now. But I don’t feel like celebrating, it doesn’t feel like a victory. I damn well knew last night, when he started kissing me that this was going to happen. It is all panning out exactly as I had foreseen. One night with him has ruined me. Broken me. It is a price I had been willing to pay.
Then later on, he had seemed so sweet, so vulnerable. The way he had clung onto me had given me false hope. So, he likes to be a bit submissive in bed. It clearly doesn’t mean that he is emotionally clingy.
I sigh forlornly. Time to man up and start living with the consequences of my decisions. I knew I’d want more, and he wouldn’t. There is no point in moping about it. Nobody has ever really died from a broken heart.
He is staring at me intently again. A little furrow between his brows that looks like confusion. Belatedly, I realize my sigh had been very loud and extremely despondent. I try not to blush.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I give him my best grin. “Yeah, just not looking forward to leaving the yacht and getting back to real life.”
He smiles at me, a warm, genuine looking smile. “Me neither.”
My heart flutters. Being friends will be something, and we still have a few weeks of filming left. And everything is looking hopeful for a season three. Fingers crossed, Mackenzie is going to be in my life for a while. That thought makes me happy. Not just because I think it will lead to more chances to win him over, but because I actually like the prickly, rude, complicated bastard.
Maybe, just maybe, everything will work out.
Chapter twenty
Mackenzie
Pacingmydressingroomlike a caged beast, is not helping me calm down at all. Yet, I cannot stop. I’m about to film a sex scene with Kit, it’s not surprising that I’m vibrating with anxiety.
The technical rehearsal was bearable. Move my hand here. Move it there. Hold for three seconds. Move my leg to the next position. A tightly choreographed sequence that I have no problem recalling. I’m not worried about that part. It’s doing all that while being Cain, looking into the eyes of the love of his life.
Enacting a sex scene with Kit while staring deep into his eyes, as he looks at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world, is going to confuse me. I just know it is. It’s just acting. It’s Cain and Abe making love, not me and Kit. But fuck is it going to hurt. Looking at him and seeing everything I long to see. It’s going to destroy me.
I do another lap of my dressing room. There is no escape from my impending doom, no way out of this. I start to feel lightheaded and dizzy and know I really need to calm down.
This whole stupid situation is entirely made of my own mistakes. I deserve this. I should have known sleeping with Kit would turn out to be a disaster. It was blindingly obvious he wanted nothing more, that for him it would just be a hookup. I’m not so naïve to think otherwise. So why did I? Why did I fall so hard down an emotional rabbit hole of believing it was more?
I shudder and wrap my arms around myself. For once in my life I’m thankful for my awkwardness, my inability to interact with people when there is no script to follow. That morning after the night before, could have been utterly mortifying otherwise. Instead, I had been too overwhelmed and lost to do anything. Floundering in such unfamiliar territory with no blueprint of what to do. I know nothing about relationships, how they work, how to start one. My instincts had screamed at me to hug him, kiss him, or at least show warm delight when he joined me at the breakfast table. Only my anxiety and shyness had saved me from cringe worthy humiliation.
Now Kit will never know that I had completely gotten the wrong end of the stick. At least my dignity was intact, if not my heart.
The whole sorry affair was three weeks ago now. Three weeks of being civil to one another. Well, Kit had been his lovely self, and I had tried my best not to be completely vile. Not that I had succeeded, but whatever. Three weeks is three weeks. It was high time I was over it. I should not still be obsessing over it, playing it over and over in my mind in a never-ending loop. But I am, and nothing makes it stop. Seeing Kit every day is not helping my fragile grip on sanity.
I grit my teeth. It’s the last day of filming. I only need to keep it together for one more day. Then I won’t have to see Kit for months, or ever again, if the show is not renewed.
My chest tightens and I can’t breathe. The thought of never seeing him again shouldn’t hurt so damn much. But it does.
A sharp rap on my door makes me flinch. “Final call!” someone barks and walks away.
