“So am I.” He exhaled shakily. “Aria, please look at me.”
I owed him that. To not be a coward. Pushing off the desk, I smoothed my dress, ignoring my underwear lying on the office floor or the feel of his cum between my thighs.
North shook his head, fists clenched at his sides. “Walking away from this is a big fucking mistake.”
“I would end up hurting you, or you me,” I whispered, too emotional to speak louder. “I’d rather it end now like this.”
“I don’t want it to end,” he stated simply.
Heartbreakingly.
A huge part of me wanted to fly into his arms and beg him to forgive me so we could just go on as we were.
Yet I knew how drastically things were about to change once he started filming again. I knew all my bitter insecurities would destroy us. Or … my faith in him would be misplaced and he’d hurt me. As long as he was acting, my old wounds wouldn’t allow me to believe he wouldn’t eventually try to use me. Or cheat on me with a future beautiful leading lady.
Rational or not, I didn’t trust him.
And my distrust would come between us.
Staying strong, I lifted my chin and looked him square in the eye. “It’s over, North.”
His expression was winded, like I’d just punched him in the gut.
Self-flagellation gripped me tight as his eyes brightened, seconds before he gave me an angry nod and slammed out of my office.
The sound of the door banging against the jamb seemed to echo and echo inside the space that I’d used as a cage to protect me.
Locked up tight.
Where no one could hurt me.
Except myself.
I covered my mouth with my hand to silence the sobs that wracked my body.
Twenty-Five
NORTH
Usually when I’m on stage or when the camera is on me, I can slip into character like a superhero outfit. Suddenly, I’m no longer North but the very soul of someone else entirely.
To start, we were shooting the film in sequence, and in London where my character, Daniel Stone, has his carefully cultivated life as an intelligence officer blown up. Daniel is not spy thriller suave. He’s a frosty motherfucker, assassin-level emotionally shut down, and part of his character journey over the franchise will be him reluctantly beginning to be part of the world again. To feel again.
All I felt, however, as I delivered my lines was panic.
I had not slipped into Daniel like a well-fitting outfit this morning. To be honest, Daniel chafed. Daniel was the equivalent of wearing a mohair suit infested with fire ants. Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but today’s scenes weren’t going well.
Why the fuck did Daniel chafe?
I tried to push through it, to rely on my skills to get through the scenes, but I knew by Blake’s expression as he approached me after calling cut that things were not going well.
“A word.” He nodded his head toward the far corner of the soundstage, and I followed him. Cast and crew moved around us doing their jobs, hopefully not paying attention to the fact that I was about to be chastised by a director who’d fought hard for me to play this role.
While we’d be shooting some action scenes outside on the streets of London, those weren’t for a few weeks. For now, we were at Elstree Studios where our set builders and art department had created impressive versions of an MI6 office, a members-only club, and Daniel’s sterile London flat. We were using two soundstages, and before we left London, we’d film out of sequence in one of the indoor tanks because I had an underwater fight scene.
As soon as we’d found a private, dark corner, Blake whipped around and stared at me incredulously, hands on his hips.
I blanched. “I know.”
“You do?” Blake feigned shock. “Great. Do you want to fill me in on why you’re acting like Daniel has chronic constipation?”
In Blake’s thick New York accent, the insult almost made me laugh, but I knew that would worsen the situation. “I’ll get it. I’m just a wee bit rusty.”
“Well, whatever is fucking with your mojo, fix it, and soon. The street action scenes are scheduled to an inch of their life, coordinated meticulously with the BFS and Met Police. There is no waiting around for you to switch into character.”
“I know.” My voice hardened. “I’ve got this.”
Blake gave me an appraising look and nodded before clapping me hard on the shoulder. “You’re talented, man. You’ve got that ‘thing,’ that quality that makes you great. But that ‘thing,’ whatever it is, it’s not showing up with you. Find it again. Fast.” He strode off on the unspoken warning, leaving me to stew in my apprehension.
I’d had my ups and downs in romantic relationships, and while I’d always cared for my girlfriends, I could honestly say that whatever was going on with a woman had never infected my work.
Until now.
It had been four weeks since Aria broke things off. Four weeks since I’d left Ardnoch. I couldn’t stay there, so I returned to London with my trainer, and filming started two weeks ago. After we were finished in London, we’d travel to locations in Europe and Asia for the rest of the five-month shoot.
Before Aria, I’d been excited about this movie. This was the part that could launch me into superstardom.
Now I felt like I was missing a limb.
Aria was the reason I’d lost my thing, whatever the fuck it was.
I’d promised myself when the day came that she ended our arrangement, I’d fight for more. I didn’t.
I let hurt and rejection win.
I didn’t fight for her. For us.
Now I understood what all those miserable bloody love songs were talking about. The cliché about days seeming darker, empty, every second meaningless … it was all true. Cliché, for a reason. Without Aria, I felt exhausted by life. But if I didn’t want my career to go down the toilet along with our relationship, I needed to buck the fuck up.
“That’s a wrap for today!” Blake called out. “See you back here tomorrow morning at six a.m.!”
I left before anyone—costars, director, producer, writers—could stop me to talk. As I grabbed my gear and pulled out my phone, I saw I had a text from Theo. He was filming a TV show here in London.
At the Roebuck, if you fancy a drink.
The Victorian pub in Southwark was a ten-minute drive from my apartment on St. Katherine’s Docks and a favorite haunt of Theo’s. There were plenty of exclusive clubs in London that would welcome Theo Cavendish through their doors, but he seemed to eschew fashionable clubs. That’s why his membership at Ardnoch was so surprising. When I’d said as much, he’d replied, “No amount of celebrity contamination can mar the beauty of somewhere like Ardnoch.”
I tried not to be offended that he considered me celebrity contamination.
I quickly typed a reply, Be there in an hour.
It would take me that long to get there from the studios. But I could do with a drink after the day I’d had.
When I walked into the Roebuck later that evening, I found Theo in the laid-back pub, legs outstretched, gesticulating with his hands as he told a story to two women he’d attracted. The thought of having to be sociable pissed me off, and I almost turned and left. But Theo looked up at that moment and nodded at me. He turned back to his companions and said something with that playboy smile that turned people into infatuated idiots.