by Angel Payne
“No shit.” Time to let the snark fly. “I was seeing if I could keep plants alive first. You know what’s going to happen to my plants if I run off to the Mediterranean with you?”
“Faye can check on them.”
“No, she can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She’s my boss, Harry.”
“The boss who happens to think you walk on water.”
He was right. Faye Mellencamp and I had formed a mutual admiration society from my first interview at her small but chic Newport Beach office. Landing a position with her had made purchasing this place possible. And the new car. And even a little bit of savings in the bank, too. A decent nest egg…
For what?
To spend on who?
I swallowed against the ache that came with the demands, invading my chest and forming a lump at the base of my throat. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have called the feeling loneliness. But I did know better—and I was proud of that. At twenty-four, I had already accomplished so much.
Including that whole changing-the-world thing. Right, girlfriend?
Frustrated growl. And the easy recognition that I directed it as much at Harry as the taunting voice from inside. “This is crazy. Traipsing off to Arcadia for eight to ten weeks is just—”
“Six.”
“What?”
“Six weeks,” he corrected. “That’s all Arcadia is going to give us for the shoot.”
Groan. “Then tell me we have more for pre-production.” A significant pause. Another. “Harry?”
I swore his discomfort had its own special static. “Two months for pre-production.”
Harder groan. “I had to ask.”
“Now do you understand why I need you? You’re used to pressure like this.” Thanks to the dozens of shoots I’d assisted him on during our years at Chapman, he knew I couldn’t argue the point. “It’s going to be tight but we have no choice. Arcadia’s given us the window and we have to abide by it. As soon as we leave, everyone on the island will be wrapped up in a big-ass celebration—a week-long festival to celebrate Evrest’s engagement.”
“Oh.” I sounded as nonchalant as a sixteen year-old at a shoe sale—and just as gawky and confused—and eventually short on budget for everything I wanted. Stir in zits and I’d be dandy. “He’s getting married?”
“That’s the plan.”
Harry sucked at containing his sarcasm more than I did with the little green monster. Cue the Cam Special: awkward laugh topped by a stab at glib. “‘The plan’? Sounds like they’re scheduling him for an execution instead of a wedding.”
“Strong chance he’d agree with you on that.”
“An arranged marriage?”
It was angrier than I intended. I had no place rendering an opinion on the matter. I wasn’t naïve about this. Pre-arranged marriages were still acceptable, even normal, in many countries. But attempting to connect a gorgeous, worldly hunk like Evrest Cimarron with such a cold and archaic practice…yeah, the gray matter threatened to implode.
“That part’s a little more complicated,” Harry answered. “But I can explain it in detail once we make it to Arcadia.” A smirk snuck into his follow-up. “I promise it’s very interesting. You won’t want to miss it.”
“Bastard.”
“Adorable bastard. You always forget the important part.”
I tried to laugh as I rose again. Only the slightest surprise set in when my phone shook next to my ear—because of my trembling fingers.
Did I dare consider his offer?
I was still asking the question, wasn’t I? Telling. Perhaps revealing. Fine; I still contemplated it. More than a little. Wasn’t that understandable? A movie shoot. A real one in the real world, not a class project or a music video as a favor for one of Harry’s friends. And not in just any setting. The island of Arcadia, seen by few outside eyes before. Even the business people who traded with the country had likely not seen it as we were about to.
In many ways, we’d be like explorers. Discovering a new land and in turn, teaching them about ours. Columbus and the Indians, only with better plumbing. I hoped.
A chance to change the world.
Even if just a little.
But I couldn’t lie to myself. As noble as that sounded, my intentions weren’t all light, goodness and Angelina Jolie. This was a chance to be near Harry again. I wasn’t so delusional to think he wouldn’t find a way for Beth to come, as well—if he hadn’t given her the lead in the movie already—but a pressure cooker like this could do strange things to people. And intrinsically, Beth wasn’t “strange”. She was actually pretty nice, to the point that I already knew she’d gracefully welcome me on the shoot and mean it. But that was because she had bigger things to focus on—like herself. It didn’t make her bad. It just made her an actress.
Stick to the point, Saxon.
Fine. If Harry and Beth did decide to fill their free time during the shoot with the horizontal mambo, I had a great backup plan. His Majesty, King Dark and Sexy, would be perfect for some harmless mental swoonage. He’d be busy making engagement party plans, landing him smack in the file of beautiful but safe, meaning I could openly fantasize to my heart’s content. Now I just had to put extra vibrator batteries—or an appropriate electrical adaptor—on my packing list. Crap. Were Arcadian maids the snooping type?
“Cam?” Harry busted into my thoughts—and the flawless, shirtless image of Evrest Cimarron that had broken in again. “You still there?”
“Hmm? Duh. Yes. Of course I am, bastard.”
A fast psshh. Then with a shit-ton of caution, “You’re quiet. I hope that means you’re talking yourself into this.”
I bit the inside of my lip. Now that I was out of my imagination and back into my head, a thousand more protests attacked. I owed it to myself to voice the main ones. “Look, Harry—”
“Awww, no,” he volleyed. “No, no, no, honey. Not the ‘Look, Harry’. Not now!”
“For one thing, I’m not your honey anymore. But as long as you’ve conveniently brought up the subject—”
“Really? You’re using Beth as your excuse to turn me down?”
I fought to ignore the lump of dismay in my chest—as well as my anger for indulging it to start with. “So she is going.”
“Why does that even matter to you?”
I quashed a huff. Fine, I was jealous. A little. Why the hell that shocked him was beyond me.
Maybe because he’s moved on and you haven’t?
Shit. No matter how it got sliced, the truth stung. Sometimes right behind one’s eyeballs, in the middle of what should have been a perfect Saturday morning.
Gritted teeth. The beginning of a headache. The kind that would cling all day. A stupid, stabbing reminder of reined-in tears.
“Dammit, Harry. It doesn’t matter in the least and you know it!”
“Okay, okay. Of course I know.”
But his tone was still skeptical. He released a measured breath, easing the headache at least a little. At least his gentlemanly side resurfaced.
“Look, Cam. You were the top name on my list for this call. All right, you were the only name. Nobody’s qualified for this in the same ways. You know me. How I work. And hell, you nearly minored in film production. I really do need you.”
I took a breath myself. Time out. We both needed it. And yeah, it felt good to savor what his confession did to my bloodstream. I’d forgotten what his reassurances felt like. They were nice. Damn nice.
A smile finally crept at my lips. “Okay, knock that off.”
“Knock what off?”
“The sweet and sincere thing. It’s easier when I can just call you a cocky ass.”
“Call me whatever you want. Just follow it up with a screaming ‘yes’ and we’ll be good.”
“Didn’t we just confirm that I don’t scream anything for you anymore, Mr. Dane?”
Silken rumble. “God, Cam. I’ve missed you.”
Shit. That official
ly screwed my resolve to save the swooning for King Evrest. Thank God for my dexterity with the mute button, engaged before Harry could hear my conflicted whimper.
Conflicted? Understatement. I felt like a rabbit who’d gotten used to the winter in my burrow, only to be told it was spring and I could run in the sun again.
And what about the woman who’d kept me safe in the burrow?
“Faye.” I blurted her name after opening the line again. “What about her, Harry? I can’t just up and quit, not after everything she’s—”
“Who says you have to quit?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You haven’t taken a single sick day since you started with her. You have at least a month of time off already on the books, and I’ll bet she’d let you have the rest on credit.”
Brain, picking up crayons—and connecting dots. Fast. “You bet she would, huh?” I didn’t bother hiding the pointing finger in my tone. “And you just happen to know all about my work attendance…how?”
He snorted. “Don’t pull a Sister Camellia on me, girl. Yeah, I called Faye. And I’m not sorry. And guess what? She’s probably more excited about this than you are. I’m surprised she hasn’t called you yet, ordering you to straighten out your files so you can turn them over to a temp.”
I squirmed in my chair. Fought like hell to summon a proper snit at the bastard for daring to call my boss behind my back. I only managed to mutter, “I never said I was excited.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Because you know me so well?
I left the retort unspoken. It’d be useless to voice it. Both of us knew the answer. Of course he knew me that well, because I knew him in the same way. Might’ve made us shitty lovers, but our friendship was quite the E-ticket spin—except at times like this, when he knew he’d ripped down the last of my viable defenses.
And for payback? Made him wriggle on the hook a minute longer, of course.
“So I assume there’s pay for this gig, Dane?”
His combo of growl and groan roughened up the line. “Do you really, seriously, care?”
Of course I didn’t—he probably knew that without a doubt, too—but I relished the stringing-him-out-because-I-could element. Noticeably giggled, just to be sure he knew that. “How much, Mr. Dane? C’mon, I’m a homeowner now. The IRS has me on the grid, not to mention Audi USA Financing. I have to be a responsible girl and all.”
“Responsibility is overrated.”
“Says the guy about to have a mind-shattering load of it on his shoulders.”
Funny. His answering grunt wasn’t so derisive now. “Says the girl who’s about to share that load with me.”
“Not so fast, hot stuff. Contract? Paycheck? I can’t work for Doritos anymore.”
“Hmmm. Well, I managed to renew your card with the union even though you’ve been inactive for a while, so let’s just say you’ll be happy with the compensation.”
“Hmmm.” I was equally blasé about the echo. Harry didn’t need to know that my heart raced so fast with excitement it pounded at the base of my throat—and that every neuron in my brain felt switched on for the first time in a year.
And that my stomach twisted with guilt for all of it, too.
I owed Faye so much. She’d given me a chance I couldn’t kiss her toes enough for. Financial stability like mine was enjoyed by few people my age, much less women. And yes, I liked the work, I really did—but advising millionaires how to become billionaires hadn’t fed a shred of my soul. Forget about the hit it had taken on my social life. Even committing to an advance signup for cycling class at the gym felt like a risk, subject to destruction at the hands of some guy needing to liquidate assets to buy himself out of the doghouse with his wife, mistress, or both.
I missed being on a film set. Period. I missed the bad coffee and the buzz of excitement. I missed being on a team committed to creativity, working to combine light, sound, motion, and words into something completely new—and sometimes magical. Where if only for a little while, I felt part of a pretty cool family.
Changing the world.
If only by a little bit.
Damn.
The excitement turned into an ache. Twelve months of shoving this feeling aside took revenge on my composure in one blow. I forced the phone away while swallowing from the hit.
“Helll-lllo?” Harry’s sing-song tease filled the line. “I know I need to just shut up and be grateful for the silences, but girl you’re making me a wreck.”
Another giggle. It felt good. It felt right. “Oh, dear. We can’t have you wrecked, Mr. Director.”
“What does that mean?”
I tossed back my head as a grin spread across my lips. “It means you’d better tell me when we’re leaving for Arcadia, so I can get properly packed.”
Including the vibrator batteries.
As Harry whooped, I almost laughed again. With my luck, the reality of Evrest Cimarron would be much different than the myth. Up close, he was probably a dog. Or a dick. Or both. But, as they said, a girl could dream. Especially when the adventure of a lifetime awaited.
Chapter Two
‡
Life suddenly feeling like a tornado? Check.
Production assistants tailing me like munchkins on crack? Check.
A “wizard” pulling too many strings behind the curtain and driving me crazy because of it? Check, capital freaking C.
Translation: it’d be a miracle if I didn’t kill Harry before we left for Arcadia.
Fairness disclosure: it wasn’t all his fault. Pinnacle had only given us the financial blessing for two months of pre-production on top of the six-week shoot. The time felt more like two seconds, despite some of the big tasks, like casting and shooting locations, being handled already. On top of that, I was still officially working for Faye, who’d be earning a halo and wings after all this was through. Harry’s prophecy about her was more than right. She was thrilled about what she called “Cam’s big-time movie adventure”, only leveling one condition on my leave of absence. At least one of the Hemsworth brothers had to be invited to the premiere and seated next to her. Harry assured her he’d do everything he could. Hell if he didn’t sound serious about it, too.
Two weeks before “go day”, I turned all my files over to a sweet UCI grad Faye had hired to fill in for me, who pounced into the work like a kitten on a laser dot. It was a little unsettling. I didn’t remember ever having the same spark under me, even when first starting with Faye. The observation nagged during the drive to LAX for my flight.
Three flights and almost twenty-four hours later, our private charter plane dipped over the brilliant green foliage of an island so breathtaking, I wondered if I was still napping and dreaming. Made sense. I’d looked at so many photos of Arcadia over the last two months, my subconscious likely had them on auto-play. But if the pictures painted a thousand words, the real deal blasted a novel’s worth of prose—and I couldn’t access a word. I stared in awe as we circled on final approach to a landing strip stretched against a grove of banana trees. In the distance, a cluster of modest buildings and streets identified itself as Sancti, Arcadia’s capital city.
Harry, seated across the aisle with Beth at his side, leaned over. “What do you think, rock star?”
I grinned. “Is there anything except ‘wow’?”
Beth narrowed her eyes in a playful tease. “Well, I’m thinking I should have listened to my instinct about an extra can of bug spray. And if I have to sleep on a cot with centipedes crawling up my leg—”
Harry stopped her with a raised hand. “Nobody’s sleeping on cots.”
I shrugged. “I’m siding with your woman on this one.” When he hunched into his seat, I fired, “Simmer down, island boy. You and I both know what havoc Mother Nature can play on a shoot. And if she gets ‘help’ from her multi-legged friends—”
“Nobody’s sleeping on cots.” He slung a glare between Beth and me. “It’s handled.”
“
Why the hell are you still playing secret agent about this? Dammit, Harry. I’m your production manager. If the security team on this rock isn’t going to get over their shit and learn I can be trusted as much as you then we may have one hell of a—”
“Cam. It’s handled.”
Ass.
Times like this, I was damn glad he was Beth’s problem now. Smirk. I hid it against my palm while gazing out the window again—though it almost hurt to do so. The crystalline sea, the azure sky, the luxurious green trees…it was stunning, like flying into a postcard.
Wow.
In more than one way.
My smile grew by a tentative degree. Emphasis on tentative. A huge part of my brain still couldn’t believe I was here, really doing this. I hadn’t even told Mom yet. As far as she knew, I was on a week’s vacation with some college buddies. Not a total lie. I planned to call and give her the rest of the story once I couldn’t easily step back onto a plane.
Another part of me, the part I’d started calling “Ms. Saxon”, was doing everything she could not to let out a horrified scream and demand why I’d abandoned her. Gah. I’d just bought new dining room furniture! Faye had even upgraded my business cards. They were embossed now. I had a preferred card at the grocery store and accrued nearly enough points to cash them in for a cast-iron skillet.
Then there was the other part of me. The giddy girl who’d just stepped out onto the craziest high wire of her life—
And loved the view.
Despite being so scared that her lips wobbled, her stomach churned, and her knees trembled.
But…loving that, too.
None of this was going to be easy. I had no illusions about that. But I could handle this; I knew it with gut-deep certainty. Not just for Harry and the team. This was a little gift to me. For the first time in a year, adrenalin was my bestie again. I was pumped about the challenges every day brought. And for the first time in my life, I’d traveled thousands of miles from home. Was about to step foot into a land where no terrain, no road, no anything was remotely familiar.
So, scared was the go-to adjective for the moment. But so were exhilarated, open, and excited.