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“Can we? Because right now, we are kind of at a cease-fire, and I’m afraid if we do—”
“All-out war will start again?” He chuckles, a sound that has my heart rate picking up.
Sure, I’ve heard him laugh, but with me, not in fun. The only time I’ve heard the sound was the first time I met him, and now, hearing it again makes my legs wobble.
“Basically.”
“Believe it or not, I think we can. I’m a professional. You’re a professional.”
I lift my hand in mock shock. “Wait, I’m a professional now?”
His head dips, and I fear he’s about to drop the niceties and chastise me. Instead, his lip tips up, and I realize he’s playing with me.
And this is something that I’m not ready for because if I think moody Pax is hot, playful Pax is fire.
24
Paxton
@Stargossip: Is it just me, or do Brad and Teagan have zero chemistry?
@SpikesandCollars: So true! I bet this is worse than that first vampire movie!
@TwistedTealover: We’ll see. They might surprise us.
@Deathtothesystem: @TwistedTealover No chance. They both suck weeds.
I’ve shocked her.
Well, good because I shocked myself. We both should be on equal footing in this.
It’s hard to dislike her, knowing I didn’t have all the facts. Based on the conversation I overheard, she wasn’t involved in getting Teagan this role.
That was all her father. He’s the one who I dislike. Not Mallory.
I was unfair to her, and while I might not say those words out loud, I’ll do my best to steer the ship to water.
If I’m being honest, my opinion of her started to shift before that phone call. I have no idea when it happened, but somewhere between her going to bat for Teagan, reading lines with her at every free moment, and her unending determination to improve this situation, I realized she works hard and genuinely cares for her client.
I don’t think it’s all about the money, and it certainly isn’t about the family legacy—two things I can admire in any agent.
In Hollywood, it’s easy to lose sight of a passion to help. When money gets involved, the waters get murky.
I have no intention of telling her all this, but I’m tired of fighting. With no good reason to walk around this island going out of my way to be a dick to her, I’m waving my white flag.
An invisible one.
One in which Mallory can’t look at me in the way she does, hands on her hips, and I told you so written all over her face.
We’re halfway to the shoot location when it occurs to me that maybe Mallory doesn’t realize the leak is still an issue. I stop and turn toward her, not wanting to have this conversation around everyone else. Not knowing who’s responsible makes things difficult.
“Did you know that there has been a new post about the set every day, sometimes multiple times a day, since we’ve been here?”
“What?” she bites out. “Nobody told me! I thought that was handled.”
“I’ve been checking every day.”
Her hands fly up. “My phone hardly works here. I have barely been able to check any of my social media. When it does work for a brief second, I have business to handle. You’re lucky enough to be established with employees.”
She has a point.
She sighs heavily. “Stefan fired all those people for no reason.”
I lift a shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe not. The person responsible for posting might be gone, but that means they have an accomplice feeding them information.”
She nods. “So many possibilities.”
“Exactly. Whoever is doing it needs to be stopped and fast.” I run my hands back through my hair. “I didn’t drop weeks of my life and desert my other clients to come to this isolated island for nothing.”
“Same. Well . . . at least about the life part.” She nibbles her bottom lip, and my eyes follow the movement. “This isn’t good.”
What’s not good is that all thoughts of the leak have vanished because now I’m staring at her full, plump lips, imagining in great detail if they still taste the same. Going a step further and wishing to see them wrapped around my—
“When did Natasha arrive on set?”
“Huh?” My head shakes as I try to rid my mind of her lips wrapped around my cock. “No clue. Why?”
Her nose scrunches. “Just wondering if maybe she’d have some insight.”
“No harm in asking.” I watch Mallory closer, and I know something more is going on in her head. “But something tells me you have another theory.”
She glances around the area, lowering her voice when she speaks. “You know that saying, there’s no such thing as bad publicity?” Her fingers tap on her hip as she thinks.
I close the distance between us, reach out, and take her restless hand in mine.
Mallory is about as shocked as I am by my actions. While it’s not the first time I’ve stopped her tapping, it is the first time I’ve held her hand in mine when I wasn’t actively glaring at her.
