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Duffy shifted position. “How about a kiss?”
“Exactly what I had in mind.” Bram’s voice was liquid sex.
She manufactured a silky smile. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
He dipped his head, and just like that, she was sucked back to the past—the day of their first on-screen kiss.
She’d stood by another railing then, one that looked down on the Chicago River near the Michigan Avenue Bridge. As usual, they were spending the first couple of weeks shooting exteriors before they returned to L.A. to film the rest of what would be their fifth season. It was a Sunday morning in late July, and the police had temporarily closed off the area. Even with a breeze blowing in from the lake, it was already nearly ninety degrees.
“Is Bram here yet?” Jerry Clarke, their director, called out.
“Not yet,” the A.D. replied.
Bram hated early-morning calls nearly as much as he’d come to hate playing Skip, and Georgie knew for a fact that Jerry had assigned a production assistant to get him out of bed. Her hands curled over the railing. She couldn’t wait for today to be ov
er. A year might have passed since the ugly night on the boat, but she still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done or forgiven herself for letting him go so far. She coped by pretending he didn’t exist. Only when the cameras began to roll and he turned into her Skip Scofield with his gentle, intelligent eyes and worried, caring expression did she let down her defenses.
They’d dressed her that day in a skinny, but not too skinny, T-shirt and a short, but not too short, cotton skirt. The producers had begun letting her have more auburn added to her hair, but she still hated the curls. Not only did the network own her hair, but they owned the rest of her, too. Her contract prohibited body piercing, tattoos, sexual scandal, and drug abuse. Apparently Bram’s contract forbade nothing.
The director exploded in frustration. “Somebody go find the son of a bitch!”
“The son of a bitch is right here.” Bram slithered forward, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his bloodshot eyes at odds with his light blue knit shirt, pressed chinos, and preppy wristwatch.
“Did you have a chance to look over the script?” Jerry said with open sarcasm. “We’re doing Skip and Scooter’s first kiss.”
“Yeah, I read it.” He pitched a cigarette butt through the railing. “Let’s get this bullshit over with.”
As she stood there in her girl-next-door clothes, she hated him so fiercely she burned with it. Those first few years, she’d been so determined to see him as a moody romantic figure waiting for the right woman to redeem him, but he was really just a garden-variety snake, and she was a sucker not to have figured that out right away.
They ran their lines and found their marks. The cameras began to roll. She waited for the magic to begin as Bram transformed himself into Skip.
SKIP
(Gazing tenderly at SCOOTER)
Scooter, what am I going to do with you?
SCOOTER
You could kiss me. I know you don’t want to. I know you’re going to say that I’m—
SKIP
Trouble.
SCOOTER
I don’t mean to be.
SKIP
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
(SKIP looks searchingly into SCOOTER’s eyes, then slowly kisses her.)
Georgie felt the hard touch of his lips, and this time the magic didn’t work. Skip’s lips should be soft. And Skip shouldn’t taste of cigarettes and insolence. She pulled back.
“Cut,” Jerry called out. “Is there a problem, Georgie?”
