Page 37 of Read My Lips

“At least it fits on the shoulders.” He plucked at the shirt, near the neckline. “Good job Richard had the sleeves rolled up. They’re a bit long on you otherwise.”

Taking the hint, I shoved them up, hoping to look less like a hobbit stealing Hercules’ dress shirt.

Quietly, Simon stepped in closer, taking my arm, where I’d made a crumpled mess of scrunching the sleeve up. Drawing it down, he diligently folded the cuff back on itself, neatening the fold and rolling it over until it hit below my elbow. I watched, hypnotised by his focus on getting the creases right.

When he let go, he caught me staring. “You do sell yourself short, you know?”

I smoothed something invisible from his dangling tie. “Makes two of us then, doesn’t it?”

How had I ever convinced myself I knew how to play this game?

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

“You just moved your head right out of shot.” Sev’s weighty sigh laser-cut through my attempt to pretend Simon and I were the only two people in the room. “Again.”

“What now?” Frowning, Simon sat back on his haunches, fists resting on his hips, like trapping his interpreter between his Tour de France thighs was an everyday occurrence. All that button undoing and re-doing from getting his shirt off on cue had to be wearing out his fingers, but he’d not complained once.

“Sorry.” Circling my fist over the left side of my chest, I grimaced out the depths of my apology. “Me again.”

By the time we were done here, I’d be jobless for wearing his patience thin, even if we did somehow manage to sell the lie.

Over the top of the camera, Sev’s eyes boggled, wide with disbelief. “You need to stop darting your head up every three seconds like a terrified meerkat and let Simon get on with it. Alright?”

“Right.” My ears throbbed hot. The dream of One and Done left the building forty minutes ago. Feeling like a right dipshit in my knock-off Calvin Kleins from Surrey Street Market wasn’t helping. Nor was being primed to rip off probably-actually-Richard Whittaker’s shirt on her signal, like not-so-Magic Mike.

When Richard and Simon had gone at each other not knowing they were being filmed, the afternoon sun had streamed through the single window. They’d been all golden and sunkissed and spontaneous. We had a bunch of lamps burning at us from the lighting rig Sev set up in the drizzle-misted window – British summer, anyone? – and constant directorial suggestions. It wasn’t natural.

“Look Ben. The footage has to be passable as the full original.” Sev tugged an impatient hand through her hair. “I know you’re trying, but for the twentieth time, we’ve got to get the details and the timings right. And by we, I mean me. Because you’re cocking this up all over the place. No offence. I could really use your help on this.”

Simon squeezed my wrist like he thought I needed reassurance. He wasn’t wrong.

“You’re doing fine.” He was a liar.

“Ach-Evidence does suggest otherwise -em.” Behind the balled fist in front of her mouth, Sev raised an eyebrow. She blatantly thought I’d never had sex in my life.

“Really mature that is.” Mystery of the universe how I actually had.

“Sev.” Even Simon’s patience was whittled clean out of his voice now. “Give us a minute will you? Get a cup of tea and come back in.”

“Why not? Maybe then we’ll be able to get out of here before dinner time.”

Two strides and the study door rushed closed behind her, swerving away from a slam at the last second as it sighed shut against the frame. I still had my shoulders up around my ears.

Right now, this whole plan was glugging away down the pipes because I couldn’t follow simple instructions with a camera pointed at my naked chest. As if I never took my top off down the gym. What was wrong with me?

“Ben.” Simon’s eyes were warm and kind and filled with all the things I knew he’d spent a lifetime perfecting to soothe the anxieties of his most loyal clients. It wasn’t really meant for me. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” I was a complete chump. That’s what was going on. Simon had never been going to be struck with the epiphany we were meant to be together when the camera started rolling and our skin brushed. I shouldn’t even be here. “Every time I move Sev’s telling me I’m doing it wrong.” In no universe was I going to be any good at this at all. “And I’m sorry, but I’m five foot six, not six foot five. I can’t make my body any bloody longer, and my arm doesn’t bend that way, and⁠—”

I cut myself off.

“And?” Simon prompted.

The words lodged like a stolen digestive biscuit in a solid, horribly dry lump at the back of my throat. What was he, psychic? I’d been going to say something truly pathetic like I’m not sexy, hadn’t I?

“Nothing.”