The Sweetest Mistake

by Layla Valentine

  “The big deal is that I can’t afford to be honest!” Juliette said, tears rising in her throat. Two-thirds of her paycheck was now gone because of a few careless words. She’d never been so angry.

  “It’s okay, baby girl. That contract won’t hold water,” Dominic said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair as he looked at Albert.

  The producer looked back at him coldly, neither of them backing down.

  “I know you think otherwise, but I’m not an idiot,” Dominic went on. “When Juliette and I started seeing each other, I sent a copy of that contract to my lawyer. He says that it would be a hell of a fight in court to prove when and where we were when we broke contract.”

  Albert’s mouth tightened, and Dominic gave him a cold smile. “In other words, Price, you’ve got no proof. The movie finished ahead of time and right on budget. You don’t even have a damn thing to hold against us. If you try to cut Juliette’s pay, I’ll use every damn bit of mine fighting you in court. And it won’t take long for me to win.”

  Albert leaned forward, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Fine,” he grated out harshly. “You’ll both get your full pay.”

  Juliette beamed, lost for words, as she and Dominic stood up. They’d done it. They’d won.

  “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Albert,” Dominic said coolly. “You too, Ed. I hope to see you around. And I hope that you’re willing to go to bat for Juliette because you know that she’s damn good.”

  Edward nodded. “I will see to it that we work together again, Juliette. You have my word.”

  Juliette was taken aback. Mild-mannered Edward standing up for her in front of Albert Price?

  She thanked the director and allowed Dominic to steer her out, her head spinning. What in the hell had just happened?

  Chapter 19

  “Dominic,” Juliette said as they walked out of the studio and toward his car. It should have felt like a victory that they could finally leave together, but she was too distracted to really be able to relish it. “What’s going to happen now?”

  “Nothing,” he replied, opening the door for her before taking his seat on the driver’s side. “My next job is already lined up, and you heard him admit that the pay cut isn’t going to happen.”

  “Okay, but what about me?” she asked, trying not to get upset with him. “I don’t have anything lined up. This movie was supposed to be what launched everything for me. If Albert goes around telling everyone in the business how much I suck—”

  “He won’t,” Dominic said simply. “Edward has a lot of pull, and I’ve got some sway myself because of the numbers I bring in at the box office. Once the movie comes out, people will see how good you are, and they’ll want more. Price won’t want to draw attention to himself by being the only one not singing your praises. All you have to do is keep being yourself and word will spread.”

  Juliette wiped away the tear that slid down her cheek. That was all good news, of course, but it didn’t answer the big question that was burning inside of her.

  Dominic reached out and took her hand over the console. “What’s wrong, baby girl?” he asked. “We won! And now we can be together, and it doesn’t matter a damn if the whole world finds out.”

  That did it. The floodgates opened, and Juliette began to cry. Suddenly, she was crying so hard that Dominic pulled the car over and tried to pull her into his arms. She swatted him away hysterically and buried her face in her hands.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, his voice catching with worry. “Juliette, come on. Talk to me.”

  “How do I know that I’ll have you?” she asked when she could speak again. It took a while. “You said a whole lot of things on the island, but how do I know that you won’t just go off and date your next co-star?”

  “Uh, well, for starters it’s a buddy cop movie,” he said. “So my co-star is a guy.”

  Juliette threw her hands up in frustration. “Dominic!”

  He let out his breath slowly, realizing that he couldn’t joke his way out of it.

  “It’s a fair question,” he admitted. “If you can hold it together long enough, I’d like to take you back to my place and give you a proper answer.”

  Chapter 20

  They got to his place a short while later, and Juliette kept her head down so that no one could see her swollen eyes as they walked up. The last thing she wanted was any kind of tabloid gossip about her getting her heart broken by the Hollywood heartthrob.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” she asked when they walked into his immaculate apartment.

  “Of course,” Dominic said. “Take a shower if you want. That always makes me feel better after a rough day.”

  Juliette hadn’t planned to take him up on it, but when she got a good look at herself in the mirror, she changed her mind. She looked awful. The pancake makeup had smeared all over her face. Her mascara had streaked down her cheeks, and her foundation had wiped off completely.

  She turned the shower on with a sigh and stepped under the hot water. Whatever was going to happen with Dominic was going to happen now. She wasn’t sure she was ready for it, especially after everything else that had happened today. There was no choice, though. It was better to know, even if that meant getting hurt.

  As she was washing her face for the second time, she heard the door open. “It’s just me,” Dominic said. “I figured you might want something warmer to wear. They’ll be way too big, but…you were shaking earlier.”

  The door closed before she had a chance to reply.

  Juliette finished her shower and stepped out. Dominic had laid one of his sweatshirts on the counter along with a pair of jogging pants, and she pulled them on once she’d dried off. They nearly swallowed her, but he was right: being dressed more warmly made her feel much better.

  After combing her hair and twisting it up off her face, Juliette looked at herself in the mirror to be sure that she’d gotten all the makeup off her face. The face that looked back at her looked pale and exhausted—hardly the best look for asking the sexiest man alive if he wanted to be with her—but it wasn’t like there was anything she could do about it now.

  “In here,” Dominic called from the living room when she stepped out into the hall.

  She met him in there, and he handed her a steaming cup of coffee and gestured to the couch. Juliette wrapped her hands around the mug as she dropped down onto the couch.

  “We might as well get right down to it,” Dominic said, taking a seat in the chair beside the couch. “You’re right. I have a serious history of getting involved with my co-stars.”

  “Why is that?” Juliette asked.

  “To be honest, for a long time, I did it because it was fun. I kind of felt like I was living the dream, you know?”

  She did. It was how she’d felt about him in the beginning.

  “Then, after that…” He shrugged, moving his hands out to his sides for a moment. “It became convenient. I mean, who else did I see all the time? You know what filming schedules are like.”

  She took a sip of her coffee. That was a good point; she wouldn’t have been able to have a relationship while she was on location if it hadn’t been with Dominic.

  “Then there was the fact that we all had some pretty good chemistry. I mean, that’s why they cast us together, right? It made sense to me to see where it went.”

  “So why did you always break up with them?” she asked, getting to the crux of the matter. “Did you just get bored?”

  Dominic shook his head. “One thing you’ll soon learn is that the tabloids tell anything but the truth. It was probably about a fifty-fifty split of dumping them and being dumped.”

  “For real?” Juliette asked softly. “The almighty Dominic Hawk got dumped?”

  “For real.” He grinned and shook his head. “The long and the short of that is that it’s better for the tabloids if I look like an asshole playboy. It sells more copies. But it was never the life I was looking for, and it’s never really
the life that I led.”

  “I want you to be honest with me about this more than anything,” Juliette said, gathering her courage and taking another sip of coffee for fortification. “Do you really think that what we have means something?”

  His dark blue eyes met hers and held steadily. “Yes,” he said, leaning forward, his strong hands clasped between his knees. “I really do.”

  She took a deep breath. “Why?”

  He paused, really thinking it over. It was tense and awful to wait, but she appreciated the fact that he deliberated it. She would have trusted a quick answer much less.

  “I think you’re beautiful,” he said at last. “But, even though that’s what caught my attention, it’s more than that now. You’re kind. You’re determined and honest. You’re exactly the woman I’ve been hoping to meet.” Dominic gave a smile that was almost shy. “If you give me time, I can prove how I feel to you. I’m in love with you, Juliette.”

  Her lips parted. It should have been too soon to even think about that, but somehow it wasn’t. She hadn’t even known how much she’d wanted to hear those words until he’d said them.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. There was relief in his eyes now, and she could feel a slight trembling in his hands. He’d been just as nervous as she had.

  “Now can I do what I’ve been aching to do since the moment we left the island?” he asked, tracing her lips with his thumb.

  “And what might that be?” she said coyly.

  His lips on hers were the only answer she needed.

  When the bedroom door closed behind them, Juliette recognized the wicked light in his dark blue eyes. Dominic undressed her slowly, kissing every inch of the skin he uncovered as he did so.

  “I like how you look in my clothes,” he murmured as he tugged the pants down and then kissed his way up her long legs. He pushed the sweatshirt up, kissing her stomach and up over her rib cage. As the shirt came off over her head, he pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Juliette.”

  She sat up, tugging his clothes off as well, revealing the body that amazed her. She ran her hands down the muscles of his broad chest and then over his abs. They flexed under her touch.

  When he pushed her back again, he was naked against her. Dominic took her hands and pressed them to the pillows above her head and then braced himself with his free hand.

  “I just want to look at you,” he said. “I want to see what’s mine.”

  Juliette was more than happy to let him do so. She’d never imagined that someone could look at her with such fierce pride and such clear desire.

  His gaze skimmed the rapid pulse in her neck, down to her breasts, to where her flat stomach dipped in with each breath. To where she was already soaking wet for him.

  “There are a million things I still want to do with you,” he said. “But for now, baby girl, I just want to be inside you.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, already squirming underneath him. She could feel how hard he already was, and she didn’t want anything more than to feel him moving inside her. She was so empty that she ached.

  She watched as he reached down, gripping himself and running the head of his cock up her slit, gathering her moisture. Then he thrust forward slowly, watching as he filled her.

  Juliette’s head fell back as he sank inside her up to the hilt. It had only been a few days since they’d been together but, as good as that had been, it hadn’t been like this. This wasn’t just sex; he was making love to her. For the first time, she really believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that what they had was real, and that it could last. Not just that it could, but that it would.

  Dominic dipped his head and kissed her, thrusting leisurely, stirring himself inside her. He let her pleasure build and build knowing that they didn’t have anything to hide and nowhere to be but where they were. His own pleasure was clearly building with it. Her skin was slick against his by the time his jaw clenched.

  “I can’t take anymore,” he said. “Come for me, baby girl.”

  It wasn’t like Juliette had a choice; she’d been on the edge for far too long, and his next thrust took her right over.

  She gripped his arms, arching her back to take him even deeper, into the very core of her. Then she felt him spill inside her and heard him cry out in pleasure. Dominic groaned against her neck, his thrusts gradually slowing until he simply rested inside her.

  “I don’t want to let you go just yet,” he said roughly.

  She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She didn’t want to let go either.

  Several hazy, euphoric hours later, Juliette finally arrived back at her own apartment. Dominic had asked her to stay with him, but she knew that she needed to get home at some point—if for no other reason than to unpack and do the million little chores that would need attention since she’d been gone so long.

  The first thing that she needed to do was clean out her purse. She hung Tami’s ultrasound picture up on the fridge and then threw away a bunch of useless receipts and old gum wrappers. She checked her bank account and made sure that everything balanced there. It did.

  Then she glanced at the clock. It was almost midnight. She couldn’t really do any of the other things that needed doing until tomorrow because she didn’t want to risk waking Tami up.

  She should probably go to bed, but she couldn’t do that either. She was still too keyed up. Dominic had told her that he loved her. And she had finally been able to admit how very much she loved him too.

  For some reason, that gave her the strength to do something she’d wanted to do for a while now. She pulled her laptop out of its case and set it up on the kitchen table. Then she composed an email to Albert Price.

  Dear Mr. Price,

  I wanted to thank you for the opportunity that you gave me in working on Sunset Island. I truly enjoyed working with you and Mr. Ainsworth. I know that you all took a chance on me, and I sincerely hope that I met all of your expectations.

  Secondly, I would like to apologize for the issue with the contract. Not for breaching it, but for signing it in the first place. I can understand your concerns given what happened on your last production with Dominic, but you had no cause to make me party to any of those lingering issues.

  At the same time, I understand your anger in the studio today, and I apologize sincerely for not being honest with you once the relationship began to develop. I should have informed you sooner.

  I hope that the fact that our behavior remained completely professional and that we met every deadline will make you rethink what you tell people about your experience in working with me. Even if it doesn’t, please understand that it was my pleasure and honor to work with you on this film.

  Yours sincerely,

  Juliette Dietz

  She scanned over the message once and then hit send before her nerve deserted her. She felt lighter for sending it; she wanted to leave things on professional terms, even if she knew she would never work with Albert Price again—and that would be her choice.

  After sending the email off, however, she found she was even more wired.

  A quick glance toward her friend’s bedroom door told her that Tami wasn’t available for a late-night chat. The lights were out, and she wasn’t dumb enough to risk interrupting a pregnant woman’s sleep. Still, she needed something to do rather than stare at the ceiling and wonder if she’d just made a bad situation even worse.

  She pulled her old notebook out of the drawer in the living room table and began to doodle in it as she pulled up a romance movie on the television. At least it was something to do. Hopefully, it would be mindless enough to lull her into sleepiness.

  Like most late-night TV movies, the film wasn’t that great. In fact, her own story with Dominic was much more interesting and not just because she was in it. Handsome movie star meets scrappy country girl.

  It would make for a cute screenplay, she though
t. Maybe for a Christmas movie. She could change the timeline just a bit. People loved a good Christmas romance.

  Juliette paused in her doodling and thought hard. It really would be a cute romance movie, and she felt like people would be interested in it. Who didn’t love a love story?

  She’d spent a lot of time on the production of Sunset Island talking to the writers, and they’d been more than happy to show her the ropes of their craft. Her first attempt at a screenplay might not be all that good, of course, but she’d written before, and it wasn’t like she was going to go to sleep any time soon. Why not give writing a try?

  She began to write her story out, ignoring the one playing on the flickering television set as she became more and more absorbed in the words spilling from her pen. She worked till nearly dawn before her eyes began to close.

  Chapter 21

  Four Months Later

  “Hey, baby girl. How’s the Christmas shopping going?”

  Juliette smiled and braced the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she pulled a baby outfit off a rack. “I’m getting stuff for Tami now,” she said. “How do you think?”

  “Ah, baby clothes. Fun and practical,” he replied. She could hear the grin in his voice.

  “You’d better not say that too loudly on set,” Juliette said with a laugh. “You know what happened the last time you mentioned babies to me.”

  “That’s fine with me,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t care if the whole world thinks that you’re pregnant. We’re free to do whatever we want now.”

  “You’re right, my love,” she replied, her voice light. “But if any studio heads hold back from hiring me because they think I’m pregnant, I will be holding you personally responsible,” she joked.

  “What else am I supposed to do?” he said with a grin. “I have to tie you down somehow before you figure out that you’re way too good for me.”