Page 20 of Let’s Make a Scene

Again, he nods, his expression serious. “If the point is to have our picture taken then I guess we’re going to have to be fairly tactile with each other.”

“Sure,” I agree.

He’s sitting across from me. There’s a coffee table and several feet of clear air between us; he hasn’t laid one finger on me since I entered this room, and I already feel like my body is coming apart. The thought of being tactile with him is… Well, dangerous is the word my brain supplies.

But we’re actors. We’re going to be in a film together. I can hold hands with him without having a total meltdown, right? I just need to be professional.

Some of my discomfort must show because that earnest furrow appears between Jack’s eyes again. “The biggest difference this time around is that we’ll handle it like adults,” he says. “Loads of communication, very clear boundaries.”

Why does Jack Turner-Jones talking about boundaries make me want to squirm in my seat? I am such a mess. Is a man talking about behaving with basic respect really doing it for me? Apparently so. God, the bar is on the fucking floor these days.

“Everything can be agreed in advance,” he continues evenly. “I won’t touch you without asking. No surprises.”

At those words, my eyes fly to Jack’s, and he’s gone very still. Perhaps he’s doing the baby antelope thing too, but I can see what’s happening in his head as clearly as if it were being projected on a screen in front of the two of us. It’s the same thing that’s happening in mine.

My fingers tighten around the arm of my chair as a hundred remembered moments flash through my mind. The memories clash together, hot and vivid and angry, and I feel my heartbeat accelerate. There’s a bead of sweat making its way down my back. Jack’s jaw clenches and I watch the muscles tic.

“No surprises,” I repeat.

Jack looks away, breaking eye contact, and the air rushes back into the room. He rubs his fingers absently across the left side of his chest. I draw in a long, cool breath. Is it possible to drown in sexual tension? Is that even what this is? It feels more like a medical catastrophe. Maybe I’m not hopelessly attracted to my worst enemy. Maybe I just have the plague. Fingers crossed.

“If there’s anything else you need to make this work, you can just tell me.” His voice has dipped, a rougher timbre to it that vibrates through my bones. I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried that I’m obviously not the only one affected by whatever is going on. “It’s important that you feel —comfortable.”

“Fine,” I say at last, because deep down I knew I was going to agree to this before I even walked through his door. My reputation is in shreds, but my career is too important to me. This is how I’m going to get my life back on track, and the fact that Jack hasn’t been utterly awful about it is a surprising bonus.

“I’ll probably regret this, but what the hell.” I exhale slowly, lift my water bottle in a toast. “Things can hardly get worse. Why not throw a fake relationship with my nemesis into the mix? Let’s do it.”

“Not a rousing display of enthusiasm, but I’ll take it.” Jack lifts his bottle and clinks it against mine. “To a new chapter,” he says, but as the words leave his mouth, I find myself wondering if a new chapter is even possible, or if the story of the two of us was written thirteen years ago.

THEN THIRTEEN YEARS EARLIER

Chapter 8 CYNTHIE

As we rattle down the long gravel drive toward Alveston Hall, Hannah lets out a low whistle. “Holy shit, this place is amazing.”

I look out the rain-streaked windshield of my old Ford Fiesta, and I have to agree. Even in this miserable weather, the building is beautiful: U-shaped and three-storys high, built out of the local limestone with tall, white-framed windows, glossy greenery crawling cheerfully up the walls.

“It used to be a rectory, apparently,” I say, having memorized the details on the website. I’m so excited about this whole adventure that I devoured all the information I could find.

“A rectory?” Hannah wrinkles her nose. “Like for a vicar?”

“I think rectors and vicars are different,” I say vaguely, because that hadn’t been covered on the history page of the site.

“Either way, it’s massive. All these Regency books about the poor son joining the church, and they were living in mansions like this.” She shakes her head in dismay. “And now I can’t even afford a studio flat in Chippenham.”

“Yes,” I agree, “you are truly the most tragic spinster of them all.”

“Shut up.” Hannah nudges me as I maneuver the car into a parking space, next to several much nicer, shinier vehicles.

I turn off the ignition and we both sit for a moment, looking up at the beautiful Georgian building.

“Are we really doing this?” I ask, not for the first time. “It could be such a disaster.”

Hannah’s hand comes up to rub my shoulder. “It’s not going to be a disaster. You’re just being too hard on yourself. You said rehearsals went well.”

“I said they went better,” I amend. “Which isn’t saying anything, because the only way they could have been worse than the table read would be if I had actually projectile-vomited in Jack Turner-Jones’s stupid face.”

“His face is stupid,” Hannah agrees loyally, even though a few weeks earlier she had been munching popcorn in front of A Tale of Two Cities, rhapsodizing about his eyes.