How to End a Love Story(66)

“I’m worried,” she starts, then stops as she feels his other thumb brush across the pulse point at her neck. “I’m worried we might be starting something that could end . . . badly.”

“Hm,” he says, and brushes his thumb slowly back and forth on that one spot. “Go on.”

“I think maybe we should talk about some . . . ground rules.”

“Ground rules.” He nods against her forehead.

“I don’t want it to affect our work. Maybe it is already.”

“But how would you know if you didn’t read my script?” he teases her, and his lips seem to bait her closer.

“I was going to,” she murmurs, and it feels like her pulse is beating faster just to chase the feel of his skin. “But I don’t have a printer.”

“Hm.” He smooths his thumb over that one spot, then presses a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Fine. Let’s go.”

She frowns as the warm heat of his hands and body retreat from her. “What?”

He walks away from her down the hallway, into his bedroom.

“Let’s go to the office,” he says from the other room. “We can talk about how this will or won’t affect our work there. I just have to put on some clothes.”

“But . . .” She walks a few steps and stops outside his bedroom door. He’s in his boxer briefs, and he lifts a brow at her appearance.

“Helen,” he says firmly. “If you come in here, I’m gonna fuck you on my bed until you forget your name, my name, and whatever very smart and important questions you have brewing in that beautiful head of yours because you can’t think straight from how many times I’ve made you come. So if you don’t want that, you should stay . . . put.”

“Oh,” she says softly, and falls back against the wall. “Okay.”

He laughs, and shuts the door in her face.



They don’t talk much in the car as Grant drives them to the studio lot. She’s entirely too aware of him, and though he isn’t touching her, she feels her cheeks flush every time he glances in her direction. The weekend security guard waves them by after they flash their drive-on badges, and she isn’t sure what to do with her hands. Grant shoots her a crooked, reassuring smile that seems to wedge right into a wobbling corner of her heart. Almost there, it seems to say.

They walk past the usually bustling soundstages and rows of empty white trailers. It’s a sunny January day in Burbank and Helen is grateful for the excuse to wear sunglasses beside him.

“Have you ever been here on the weekends?”

“No,” she says.

“There’s usually some people working in the offices in the building,” he says as he holds the door open for her. “Not a lot, but . . . showrunners are a type A lot.”

“Oh,” she says.

“Suraya has a decent work-life balance,” Grant says as they walk into the elevator. “Thank god. The last showrunners I worked for would never break the room before eight p.m. I think they must have hated their families.”

The ride is a short, tense one and when the elevator doors ding open, they observe the ghost town of the bullpen outside their writers room.

“Come on,” he says, and leads the way through the familiar office space. He unlocks the door to the writers room, then shuts it behind them with a soft click, and Helen shivers.

They sit down across from each other, in their usual seats.

“So,” he says. “You’re worried it’s going to affect our work.”

“How could it not?” She crosses her arms. “I have to sit here and look at you every day for the next seven weeks.”

“Four weeks,” he counters. “After that, you’ll be on script, writing your episode, and when you get back, we’ll be at the point in the season where everyone’s ‘in the room’ but basically working remotely on their scripts all the time. Then production will start, and you and Suraya will always be wanted on set for something or other, and then after that, the room will be officially over and you’ll just be on set all the time.”

“And you won’t be there?” She frowns.

“Not unless Suraya needs me, but she’s more the on-set type,” he says. “My reps are already sending me materials for next shows to consider.”

“Oh,” she says.

“You said you had ground rules,” he says, tapping his fingers together in a way she’s seen him do in exactly this manner, when they’re working on a story beat just before he’s about to pitch something that throws the entire thing into the trash.

“Yes,” she says. “First of all—we both know this can’t . . . go anywhere.”

Grant nods slowly, tense. “Fair enough.”

“Either of us can end this, at any time,” she says.

He snorts at that. “So like any relationship, then.”

“This isn’t a relationship.”

Grant lifts a brow. “We’re negotiating the terms of how and when I get to fuck you,” he says. “I would say there’s some kind of relationship here.”

Helen swallows. He’s right, she knows.

“Not a real one,” she says. “Not a public one. Nothing on social media.”