“Not that.” I marched across the room and poured the Lagavulin into my glass.
“I’ll have some more, thanks.”
Grumbling under my breath, I strode over to him with the bottle and snarled, “You’re lucky I’m not pouring it over your head.”
Amusement glinted in North’s beautiful eyes as I filled his glass. “Then tell me why.”
Later, I’d blame it on the whisky and the fact that he’d lowered my defenses with his brutal honesty about his past. Settling back down, I locked eyes with him and admitted, “I don’t trust actors.”
Surprise slackened his features. “At all?”
“Except for Lachlan, and perhaps Brodan Adair, yeah. I don’t trust actors.”
“Why the fuck not?”
His boyish ire made me smile, but I smothered it since he looked so piqued. Then he shook his head. “No, that can’t be it. You are far nicer to other actors here than to me. It’s a ‘me thing.’”
With more nonchalance than I felt, I confessed, “You’re kind of my type. And I have a terrible record of dating actors like you who treated me like shit.”
Stunned, North stared at me for a second too long and too fiercely. Heat crawled over my skin, and I could feel my body reacting to his focused attention. “Are you …” He cleared his throat. “Are you telling me that you’re attracted to me and that’s why you hate me?”
That tension stretched between us again, but this time it was straining to snap for a different reason. Like, if it snapped, it was because we’d jumped each other.
Wrenching my eyes from him, I looked down at my glass. My cheeks burned hot, and my body thrummed with need. Oh, shit. “I don’t hate you.” I forced out and then said as a reminder to myself, “I just don’t trust you.”
“That’s nice to hear after what I just confessed.”
I winced at the slight hurt in his voice. “Sorry. I really am. It’s not your fault. But I can’t change how I feel.”
“Well, that’s not good enough.” North shook his head. “I want to know why, when you know so little about me, that you’ve decided I’m untrustworthy.”
“I’m sure you’re great. But I have a no-actors rule because of my unhealthy attraction to your type.”
“To my type?” My explanation seemed to piss him off more.
This was going so well.
“I’m not being judged for myself? I’m being lumped together with a bunch of guys you think are exactly like me? Well, that’s wonderful. That’s what everyone wants to hear—how not fucking special you are. One of many! Just like all the others.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re being a drama king right now.”
“Fuck you. See how you’d like it if I lumped you in with a ‘type.’”
Hmm. That would hurt my feelings. Why did I always say the wrong things to this man? And why couldn’t he be an asshole who bottled up his feelings and didn’t tell you what he was thinking? For the second time, I apologized. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“Not good enough,” he repeated. “I told you my sob story. Now you tell me why you’ve treated me like crap for the misdeeds of others.”
God, when he put it like that … I groaned and rested my head back on the armchair. “I have been kind of a bitch, haven’t I?”
“Terse and unfriendly, yes.”
My lips twitched. He couldn’t even call me a bitch. I melted a little more. And then thought,what the hell?North had just laid out some pretty vulnerable stuff about himself.
Guess it was my turn.
I lifted my head to meet his inquiring gaze. “Guys have hurt me a lot. Not just guys. Friends too.”
He scowled unhappily. “In what ways?”
