Page 99 of The Hollywood Switch-up

“Luna.” His voice dropped, raw and aching. “You asked me once what I was afraid of. It’s this. It’s you. It’s how much I want something I’m not supposed to have.”

Say your line. Just say the line and don’t think about his mouth on your collarbone six hours ago, don’t think about the photograph, don’t think about Martin watching this on a monitor with the same eyes that watched you on that beach⁠—

“Then fall.” It came out broken.

He kissed her. And her body didn’t know the difference between the script and last night—she leaned into him, opened for him, and for a moment there was no camera, no crew, no Martin studying the monitor with his fingers steepled, assessing.

“Cut.” Martin’s voice, soft. Satisfied. “Beautiful. But I need more, Anneliese. I need to see a woman who doesn’t recognize herself anymore.” He paused, letting the silence do its work. “You know what that feels like, don’t you?”

They reset. Filmed it again. And again. Each take stripped another layer away—the distance she’d built that morning, the mask she’d worn to set, the lie she’d told Stefan with her flinch, her cruelty, her always am. By the fifth take, Martin was smiling, and Erika couldn’t remember which parts of her performance were Luna’s and which were the wreckage he’d made of her.

“Very . . . authentic.” Martin’s voice found her before she’d even stepped off her mark. “Both of you. Truly special.”

Stefan’s hand found her elbow. She pulled away—gently, deliberately—and kept walking.

She’d made it halfway to the water station when Martin fell into step beside her, matching her pace without asking.

“You have a minute,” he said. It wasn’t a question either.

They stopped at the edge of the set where the sand went soft and the crew noise faded to murmur. Martin stood with his back to the ocean. She could smell his cologne—oud, too much of it.

“I wanted to check in,” he said. “You’ve been doing remarkable work. That scene just now—I wasn’t directing at the end. Did you notice? I just let the camera run.” He tilted his head. “That’s rare. That kind of truth on screen.”

“I appreciate that.” She kept her voice level.

“Which is why I feel protective of it.” His expression shifted—not concerned, exactly. Ownership. “Of you.”

She waited.

“Stefan Cruz.” He said the name carefully. “Your chemistry reads beautifully. I cast for it—you should know that. I saw it in both of you before either of you did.” He paused. “But I’ve been doing this for thirty years, Anneliese. I’ve watched it happen to women who were far more prepared for it than you are.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I’m sure you can.” He reached out and squeezed her shoulder—fatherly, calibrated, skin-crawling. “But the studio is watching this production very carefully. Your performance is the reason they’re watching. I’d hate for anything to compromise that.” His hand lingered a beat too long. “Or to give anyone a reason to look more closely at the casting decisions I’ve made.”

Beneath the concern, beneath the warmth, beneath the thirty years of practice—the same voice that had left a photograph on her nightstand. You belong to this production. To me.

“I hear you.” She held his gaze. Didn’t flinch, didn’t nod, didn’t give him the gratitude he was waiting for.

“Good.” He smiled, patted her shoulder once, and walked toward the monitors.

She stood in the sand with the sun on her face and her skin crawling where his hand had been. Across the set, Stefan caught her eye and smiled—that private one, the one she’d kissed last night under stars from a different lifetime.

Martin’s voice in her ear: I’d hate for anything to compromise that.

It hadn’t sounded like a threat. That was what made it so effective. It sounded like a man who cared about her career, and if she hadn’t found a photograph tucked into her door that morning, she might have believed him.

She might have believed all of it.

Across the set, Stefan stood with one of the grips, laughing about something she couldn’t hear. Easy. Open.

She walked to the water station. Poured a cup. Drank it slowly. I’ve watched it happen to women who were far more prepared for it than you are. She poured another cup. Her hands were steady. She made sure of it.

Stefan found her ten minutes later, leaning against the equipment truck with her script open to a page she hadn’t read a word of.

He stopped a few feet away. Kept his hands in his pockets—she noticed that. After this morning, after the flinch, the texts, the cruelty she’d handed him on set, he was giving her the space she’d asked for.

“You’re holding that script like a shield,” he said. “Who are you hiding from?”