by M. S. Parker
Me, I was having a hard time trying to avoid his eyes. Everywhere I went, it felt like his eyes followed after me.
He wasn’t obvious about it, which was good, but more than once I’d felt him looking at me—and that alone made my heart race, made my breathing catch.
I had to stay away from him.
But it was getting harder and harder to resist him.
14
Glenn
It had been three days.
I could still taste her.
I could still feel her hands on me, her body against mine.
And if she didn’t stop ignoring me…
If only I could get someone else to ignore me.
Everybody around us kept talking about all the chemistry between Florence and me, about how perfect we looked together. And I couldn’t go anywhere without Florence following me.
It was like she was somehow connected to me with an invisible string.
I was going out of my mind.
Almost everybody was in the commissary, eating. I’d slapped together a sandwich and brought it back to the main set so I could have some level of peace and quiet.
I needed to focus on the script and get the rest of it memorized.
They wanted to start shooting as early as next week, and while I had most of it committed to memory already, I still had some areas that were shaky.
“There you are.”
The sound of Kurt’s voice had me looking up from my script. I picked up my bottle of Coke and took a sip, gesturing to the chair next to me.
He sank down onto it, then grimaced. “This thing is miserably uncomfortable.”
“Tell me about it,” I replied. “My ass is numb from sitting in it half the day.”
We were in two of the chairs that were used in the ‘kitchen,’ and uncomfortable was putting it mildly.
“How do you think things are progressing?” Kurt asked.
Hell. I should have expected this. I’d flubbed my lines a couple of times, missed more than a few of my cues.
“Could be better on my part, I guess.” I took another drink from the bottle then put it down. “I’m working on it. I promise.”
“Okay. You have seemed a little…distracted.” He smiled, the grin looking sleazier than anything else. “Might have something to do with your co-star?”
“Yeah.” It took every ounce of my acting ability to muster up a smile in return, but I managed it. I couldn’t get why everybody was convinced Florence and I were some sort of power couple. A handful of dates didn’t make for some destined love story.
“I thought so. Happy to hear it. It will be excellent press for the studio, you know.” He slapped his hands on his thighs, then got up to leave. He paused, though, and winked at me. “She’s a honey, I’ll tell you that.”
As he left, I looked back at the script. I had to focus and stop letting Maya distract me and control so much of my thoughts.
But that was easier said than done.
The rest of the day dragged on, but I kept my attention on Florence better than I had—or on the job, at least.
“Sir, you have a call.”
I looked over to see one of the younger studio employees standing at my elbow. He gave me a quick smile, then gestured off behind him. “The phone in Mr. Thornton’s office is the closest.”
“Who is it?
“Your manager.” Another smile. “He told me to tell you…” His face went a little red. “If you dodge his call, he’s going to come down here and kick your ass.”
I laughed. “No, he’s not. But that’s funny that he thinks he can.”
I followed the kid, and in a few short minutes, I’d locked myself up in Kurt’s office and was leaning against the desk.
“Hello?”
“Hello to you, too, Glenn. How are the first days of rehearsal going?” Peter sounded satisfied about something.
That could be problematic for me. Usually the things that pleased him were the very things that led to problems or nuisances for me.
“Pretty much just what one would expect.” I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear, staring at the door. “Is that all you called for? It could have waited until I was home.”
“It could have. But I wanted to check in with you, and I’ve got a party today with one of my other clients. Are things going well with Florence?”
I rolled my eyes up to the sky and stared. Florence. Always St. Florence. I wasn’t going to let my exasperation show. “Well enough.”
“Excellent. I’ve heard some good things coming out of the studio about you, and the buzz has already started about you love birds doing this film together. It’s looking good for you, Glenn. Damn good. I’ve been thinking…have you thought about proposing to Florence?”
I almost dropped the phone. Grabbing the receiver, I lowered it and stared, wondering if I’d lost my mind—or if maybe Peter had lost his. “Are you crazy?!”
“You’ve been dating for almost a year.”
“Come on. She was out of the state for almost four months, and we’ve gone out a handful of times. It’s too soon for that kind of talk.” And while I didn’t dislike Florence, I sure as hell didn’t want to marry her.
A flash of Maya’s face. Her smile slid through my mind.
“It’s never too soon if it’s the right woman.” Peter sounded smug and pleased. “I hear you’ve been a bit distracted lately…by a member of the fairer sex.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought about the conversation with Kurt earlier and wanted to strangle the idiot. “I am distracted. But Florence isn’t the cause. Look, I’m spending time with her, but a marriage proposal is off the table. Don’t you dare go leaking something to the press to indicate otherwise. I’m serious.”
Peter was quiet.
Fuck. “Tell me you haven’t,” I said.
“Oh, I haven’t. I was thinking about it. But if you’re seriously not that interested, and you end up pulling out, then it would do more harm than good. So, if she’s not the reason you’ve got your head up your ass, then what’s the problem?”
“I’m just in a rut. With everything going on, I’m having trouble finding my focus,” I lied. I needed to get the hell over this…problem I had, and it was now glaringly clear that I needed to do it fast. “But I’m getting better. Okay?”
When I came back into the studio, it was almost empty. Florence was there, along with Maya.
Florence had already been to wardrobe and makeup, and her face was scrubbed clean. She wore the clothes she’d arrived in, not the period-style clothing made for her character.
Either way, she looked beautiful. There was no denying the fact that she was gorgeous, a typical All-American girl.
But the woman I found myself staring at was Maya.
She had her back to me and was talking animatedly, using her whole body to do it, her hands ever in motion. As I moved closer, she bounced up onto her toes and I caught the last few words—nothing that made sense, but I caught the excitement in her tone.
She was so damn pretty. So damn…real.
In a city where everybody played a part, she was the one person who was genuine.
I knew that didn’t seem fair to others. I doubted Florence was playing a part with me, but she never seemed to be herself, either.
“Hello, ladies.”
Maya spun around, and the glow on her face dimmed. She tucked her hands behind her back and rocked onto her heels, looking from me to Florence before offering a strained smile. “Hello, Mr. Jackson.”
I would have told her to call me Glenn, but Florence came up to me, already talking about what a great day of rehearsal we’d had—it hadn’t been that great—and how excited she was to start shooting.
“Yeah, yeah. Me too.” I nodded, trying not to let my gaze stray to Maya. “I was wondering if the two of you might be interested in joining me for dinner.”
“Oh, we’d love to!” Florence said.
I looked over at Maya. She was busy inspecting her
toes. “I’m a little tired. But Florence, you should go.”
She turned to grab something—a purse—and hitched it over her shoulder. “You two have fun, okay?”
“But…” Florence hesitated, then smiled. “If you’re certain.” Then she turned her eyes to me. “I guess it’s just us.”
“I’m thinking this movie will change our careers.”
Florence leaned in, gazing at me with rapt eyes. She’d wanted to change, so she’d ridden home with Maya and I’d gone to pick her up.
She’d been dressed to kill too. Fortunately, I’d figured as much, so I’d put on a decent pair of pants and a nicer shirt, although I wasn’t putting on a suit. I didn’t care what my manager thought. Suits irritated the hell out of me.
Florence didn’t seem to mind.
She also didn’t seem to mind that I’d taken her to a nice Italian restaurant on the outskirts of town instead of one of the white tablecloth and candlelight affairs.
We were less likely to be recognized here, but still, I’d asked the manager for a table in the back and he’d accommodated us.
Now, as she dragged a fork through the cannoli she’d ordered for dessert, I drank a glass of wine and tried not to think about how much I wished Maya would have joined us.
I hadn’t had a bad time. Florence was easy enough to talk to, and once she’d actually started to talk and not just sigh at me, we’d had a decent conversation. She’d always wanted to be an actress, so our careers were at least something we had in common.
She’d come from the Midwest and lucked out almost as soon as she came to Hollywood, unlike a lot of people who plodded along for years and never got so much as a chance.
She asked me more about my parents, and how I’d gotten my start. That had come courtesy of my dad. He’d been an actor too. A pretty good one, up until my mother died. After that, he’d just lost himself. He’d been gone for five years.
A slim man approached and laid the bill down, and I peeled some bills off and passed them to him without even checking the amount. As Florence finished her cannoli, I tossed back the rest of my wine then smiled at her. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes.” She licked her lips, smiling at me from under her lashes.
Dread burned inside me.
Thirty minutes later, I knew I’d had every right to feel that dread as Florence took my hand and tugged me closer.
“Why don’t you come inside?” she asked.
She angled her head toward her front door. We’d made the drive mostly in silence—her thinking heavy thoughts, and me thinking up excuses to combat this very event.
“I can’t,” I said, hoping nothing I felt showed on my face. “I’ve got to get home and put some more time in, going over my lines. The clock is ticking.”
“You can’t come in, even for a little while?”
“I better not.” I dipped my head and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth, moving away before she could try to deepen it. “If I do, I might not want to leave, and Kurt will kill me if I don’t get those lines memorized.”
I left before she could say anything else, climbing into the car and backing out of the drive casually, like I wasn’t escaping.
The sad look on her face made me feel like a piece of shit.
But I wasn’t going to play along with this farce that I was part of this happy, Hollywood couple. Not anymore.
I needed to own up to it. Tell the truth.
And I would.
Soon.
15
Maya
“Morning, Harrison.”
He gave me his normal nod, but his smile was absent.
“What’s wrong?”
The big man glanced up the stairs and sighed. “It’s Miss Woods. She hasn’t gotten out of bed. She won’t open the door or talk to me. I don’t know if she’s ill or if it’s something else.”
“I’ll go talk to her.” I rested a hand on his arm.
He looked caught off-guard, then, slowly, a smile bloomed across his face and he nodded at me. “Thank you, Miss Cruz.”
I headed up the stairs, hoping I wouldn’t get lost. I’d only been to her room once, and the house was massive.
I found it easily enough and knocked on the door.
“Harrison, go away,” Florence said, her voice thin.
I reached for the doorknob and opened it.
She looked at me, the movement achingly slow. Her lashes dropped down over her eyes, and she blinked. After a moment, she sighed, then went back to looking out the window.
“Go away, Maya. Please.”
I didn’t go away. “What’s wrong, Florence?”
To my horror, she started to cry.
I rushed over to the bed and sat down next to her. She reached out and caught my hand, gripping it with surprising strength.
“I can’t…I can’t,” she said. Over and over again.
“You can’t what?”
“I love him so much, Maya. But he doesn’t love me. He barely kissed me last night. He didn’t want to come in—he hardly touches me. It’s like…I don’t even matter to him!”
Guilt twisted my insides into knots, and I struggled not to let it show. “Honey, that’s not true. He asked you out to dinner last night, didn’t he?”
“And then he treated me like…like…like I was his sister or something!” She watched me with despair and shook her head. “He doesn’t want me.”
I remember the burn of his mouth on mine, the urgency of his hands.
Swallowing, I stroked Florence’s hair back.
“Florence, you just have to give it time. Men are…well, they are a mess. He might think he’s being respectful, not rushing you and all.” I offered a weak smile, unsure if I sounded convincing or not.
“We’ve already…rushed.” She licked her lips and ducked her head, looking at me only from the corner of her eyes.
“You mean you’ve…”
Her cheeks turned pink, and she wouldn’t look at me at all now.
“Oh.” I shrugged, trying to ignore the sting of jealousy I felt. “Okay. Well…you know, guys aren’t always in the mood, no matter what people may say.”
Florence looked at me, her eyes wide. “Is that…is that all you have to say?”
“What else do you expect me to say?” For a split second, I thought maybe that she’d realized that I had a thing for Glenn, but then I figured it out. This wasn’t 2017—or even the seventies, the so-called age of free love. My grandmother had loved to tease me about how my generation had most definitely not discovered sex.
This was 1962, and women were still expected to behave nicely and be good girls. Men could be rakes, particularly in Hollywood, but women like Florence, who wanted a respectable career, they didn’t do things like that.
I scooted closer to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “So, you slept with him. Big deal.” Sure, maybe I felt like my insides had turned red-hot with jealousy, but they were involved. Not me and him. And she was hurting. “I guess you’re feeling down because he didn’t…want to come in last night?”
I was treading my way blindly, but when she nodded, I figured I was on the right track.
“Like I said, guys aren’t always in the mood.” I took her hand. “Come on. You have to get up and get moving. You need to get to the studio.”
She tried to resist. “I don’t want to. I barely slept. I cried half the night. If he sees me like this…”
“If he doesn’t see you, he’ll know you’re upset. You can’t ever let a guy see that he got to you.” I gave her a stern look. “And you’ve got responsibilities. You don’t want them thinking you can’t be trusted to live up to your responsibilities, do you?”
She gave me a baleful look, then finally, with a hard sigh, she heaved herself upright. A slinky, pale peach negligee slid off one shoulder, and she tugged it up. “Can you get Harrison to bring me up some breakfast?”
“Absolutely.” I headed out of her bedroom. Leaning against the wall, I
closed my eyes. This was all turning out to be harder than I’d expected. And it sounded like things weren’t exactly going smoothly between Florence and Glenn, either. I’d have to work on that. Somehow.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that her life depended on it.
Nibbling on my lip wasn’t doing anything to help with my nerves, but it was better than chewing on my nails.
And I was seriously nervous.
Glenn had just slid outside, and he was leaning against the wall where he’d kissed me four days ago. I had the timing down almost to the minute.
He stood in the sun, face lifted to the rays and eyes closed.
I had to talk to him, and all I could do was stare and try not to lick my lips…and think about licking him.
Florence had been a bit of a wreck for the first hour of rehearsals, until she finally found her groove and things smoothed out. They were doing a full dress rehearsal, so Glenn was wearing a pair of work pants that, I assume, would have been worn by a man in 1940s America. He also had on a work shirt, but it hung open on his chest.
My fingers itched to trace all that golden, tanned skin and those lean muscles.
I had to go over there.
Slowly, I moved out of the shadows.
My foot hit a pebble and the noise of it skittering across the ground had Glenn straightening and looking over at me.
His eyes widened and I saw the faintest hint of a smile forming on his lips.
“Hi,” I said softly. He glanced around furtively, before his gaze settled on me.
“Hello.”
“We…um…well, I need to talk to you.”
The smile widened.
Oh, boy. “It’s about Florence.”
The smile faded and he propped his shoulder against the wall, his eyes neutral now. Moving a few feet closer, I glanced toward the door that led to the set before meeting his eyes again.
“Florence is in love with you,” I said, the words all but tripping over themselves to get out. I had to do this before I lost my nerve—and my determination. He wasn’t mine. That’s all there was to it. He wasn’t mine.