Redemption of a Hollywood Starlet. Kimberly Lang
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from shouting at him to stop.
“But you know it works.”
But Jason Elkins? He was a good actor—a big box-office draw—and they worked well together on camera but she didn’t like him all that much. He was a little too egotistical and not exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
She bit back each of the dozen comments she wanted to make about where they could stick this grand publicity plan. She had dues to pay again, and it seemed her penance wasn’t quite over, after all. “Fine. I’m a team player. Whatever’s best for the project.”
“Smart girl.”
She stood and reached for her shoes. “Don’t patronize me, Finn.”
“I wasn’t.”
He seemed sincere and Cait felt a bit bad. She was just too jumpy around him, ready to go straight to Worst Possible Meaning.
“Those were honest words from a friend.”
Something icky rolled into her chest and brought a dull pain with it. Caitlyn chose her words carefully. “We were many things to each other, Finn, but I don’t think we were ever really friends. Now we’re colleagues, and there’s no reason why we should be enemies, but I don’t think we can be friends, either.”
Finn’s face was impassive, but she recognized the look in those green eyes. She hadn’t hurt him with her words—past experience had proved he was impossible to hurt—but he was disappointed. Whether in her or her words or his own inability to charm her, she didn’t know. She’d last seen that look three years ago as she’d walked out his door.
“I’m going to go get something to eat before I have to get back to Wardrobe. I’ll see you around.”
With that, she left him in her trailer and forced herself to walk calmly across the lot with a smile on her face. She even managed to make small talk with the crew as she grabbed a sandwich. She was proud of herself. Not for the way she’d left things with Finn—that had actually left a strange hollow feeling in her stomach—but for the fact she’d held her ground and set her boundaries.
But now that he wasn’t right in front of her, all the old confusion and hurt—and, okay, she’d admit there was some residual desire and memories of good times and old feelings mixed in there as well—were rolling around inside.
So while she’d claimed hunger, she couldn’t find her appetite.
As she sat in the makeup chair, she closed her eyes and tried to connect to the feelings so she could channel them into Rebecca later. When Martha started on her hair she opened her eyes and concentrated on acting as if everything was just fine. Normal. Same as yesterday.
Martha chatted and told jokes and Caitlyn laughed in all the right places.
Maybe she was a good actress, after all.
CHAPTER THREE
FINN didn’t need to watch the filming—in fact, he probably shouldn’t, since Farrell was notoriously temperamental and quick to bite when he felt his directorial turf was being trod on—but something drew him tonight whether he liked it or not.
Cait’s parting shot bothered him. Oh, he’d been well aware before that she was carrying some kind of grudge against him—which was totally undeserved, because he wasn’t the bastard in this situation. He wasn’t the one who’d walked out.
So she wanted someone to blame? For what? It nearly destroyed me—personally and professionally. That did explain a lot of the shouting the night she’d left. He’d known she was starting to get a bit of backlash from their adventures, but “personal” hadn’t come into it.
Or so he’d thought.
He’d chalked it up to overreaction from not getting the chance to read for that part she’d wanted in some film, and expected her to be back after she’d calmed down. The next thing he’d heard, she was in London.
She’d left the damn country without even saying goodbye. That still left a bad taste in his mouth.
London had changed her; she wasn’t that fun-loving free spirit she’d been back then. She looked the same—he ignored the memory of the flash of heat that had moved over him when he’d walked into her trailer and found her dozing on the couch in just her underwear—but she wasn’t the same. This new Cait was reserved, careful and locked down tighter than a maiden aunt—and equally disapproving. Every now and then she’d let something slip that made him think she was merely pretending to be someone new, but the mask always fell right back into place, making him wonder if he’d imagined it. What had happened to her in London to damp that inner fire that had once drawn him like a moth?
Not that he wanted to go there again.
Nonetheless, he was standing there watching, even when he had a ton of paperwork waiting for him. He could easily list a dozen things he should be doing instead of sitting here watching Cait prepare to make out with Jason Elkins.
His earlier compliment to Cait hadn’t been empty flattery. In fact, he’d been astounded by how good she was as Rebecca. He snorted when he remembered that Cait’s mother envied her the part. Even thirty years ago Margaret Fields-Reese would have been totally wrong for Rebecca, and if he wanted to be honest—privately, at least—Cait’s mother couldn’t have pulled it off at Cait’s age. Cait might have spent the last ten years in the shadow of her parents’ talent, but she was about to grab the spotlight all on her own.
That much he understood better than anyone else here, and he couldn’t help but be proud of her.
Still, his brain had a hard time reconciling the Cait he knew and the roles she’d used to play with the woman now dominating each scene with quiet, heartbreaking strength. No wonder Naomi was spitting nails. Cait owned this film now. She would rule award season.
But even knowing Cait was simply in character, doing her job while the cameras rolled and thirty people watched, Finn was surprised at the strange kick that landed in his gut when Elkins kissed her.
And it only got worse when Cait kissed him back. The passionate embrace seemed to go on forever.
Farrell finally called cut and Cait rolled out from under Elkins immediately. Two women hurried over to fix her lipstick and hair while the crew readied for the next take.
“Not jealous, are you?” Dolby spoke from behind him.
That feeling wasn’t jealousy. “Why would I be?” he asked casually.
“Don’t know. All I do know is that the second he put his hands on Cait you looked like you would like to beat Elkins into a mushy pulp.”
The truth was good enough here. “I just don’t like him.”
“Ah, but every woman between the ages of fifteen and fifty does.”
And that equaled money at the box office. Finn shook his head. He knew all too well that personal likeability had nothing at all to do with job performance. Hell, his father was a prime example of a lousy person doing a good job, so his distaste of Elkins made little sense under close inspection. He’d had a lifetime of practice in keeping personal dislike separate from professional needs. It made things much easier. It took practice to keep everything in its proper box, but it worked well—until someone like Cait came along and screwed it all up.
As Brady would say, he needed to keep the bigger picture in focus. Folly was the important thing, and he needed to keep his focus there and there only. “I still don’t like the idea of sending Cait out with him to bait the paparazzi. He’s a womanizer.”
“Bit of the pot calling the kettle black, I think.”
For the second time in two days Finn really wanted to punch Dolby in the mouth. It was the only the third time in the entire seven years they’d been partners he’d been pushed like this, and Finn recalled Cait had been part of the reason that