Action

“Lingerie,” she said breezily, hoping he could read her mind and understand that she was trying to buy some time. She hoped he would get it and play along. “Don’t get your hopes up. I’m still mad at you so you don’t have a hope in hell of seeing it.”

Derek looked up at the mention of lingerie. The intensity in Jack’s expression disappeared as soon as he saw Derek watching. Davina almost smiled. He knew what she was doing. He rolled his eyes dramatically. It made her proud.

“Second verse, same as the first,” he told her in a bored voice.

She flicked the kettle on before pointing at Jack.

“I don’t care if you think I’m repeating myself. I have a genuine complaint. You ruined my movie,” she said. Then she thought about it. She turned to Derek. “Actually, so did you. I think the two of you have some apologising to do.”

She folded her arms and waited. They gaped at her.

“Seriously?” Jack said.

“Typical,” she threw up her arms. “Why can’t men just apologise? It doesn’t make you any less manly.”

Derek seemed to be struggling to follow the conversation.

“And another thing.” Davina pointed at Jack. “You thought it was rubbish and I was wasting my time. At least Derek believed in the project and didn’t make fun of me. Didn’t you?”

Derek puffed himself up.

“I think the film had merit, all it needed was the right expertise.”

“See?” Davina pointed at Jack.

Jack’s eyes narrowed.

“It was a terrible movie, Davy,” he told her. “The script was laughable, at least the bit I was in. I don’t know about the rest.”

That hurt. She looked to Derek for support.

“Was it awful?” she asked the crazy man with the stun gun.

“It could have been better,” Derek said. “But you were in a hurry.”

“Exactly.” Davina turned back to Jack. “In a hurry because of you. If you hadn’t set a stupid deadline then I would have had time to improve the script.”

“Look,” Jack said evenly. “You need to face up to the fact that you aren’t the world’s most gifted filmmaker. You can do other things.”

“Like what?”

“Davy,” Jack said through gritted teeth, “I don’t think this is the time or the place for this discussion.”

Davina had lost her focus slightly, but since the conversation was distracting Derek, she thought it was the perfect time to have it.

“Derek doesn’t mind, do you, Derek?”

Derek looked confused. He eyed the stun gun. Jack clenched his jaw.

“You can bake,” Derek said helpfully.

Davina rewarded him with the sort of smile she’d give a puppy. He seemed pleased and less likely to zap her unconscious.

“I can bake,” she

said and that reminded her of the brownies in the pantry. “Who wants a brownie?”

She crossed the kitchen in front of Jack to get to the pantry. Even in the midst of a crisis Jack could irritate her like no one else. For a second there she’d forgotten that she was trying to buy some time until a plan hit her. Her palms began to sweat.