Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

Evan said Open Air was best when it was empty. Guess I’m about to find out.

When we step onto the roof, the city sprawls at our feet, and a vibrant fresco sky spreads out above, smeared with purple and pink-streaked clouds like a watercolor painting. It’s LA, but it’s still January, and I cross my arms over my chest, huddling into the sweatshirt a little more.

“Cold?” he asks.

“Not really. It’s just brisk up here.”

“Hungry?” He leads me toward a table set for two with silver dome covers and champagne flutes. Tulips grace the middle of the display.

“Hungry, yes.” I sit in the chair he pulls out for me and lean forward to sniff the blooms. “This is all great, Canon.”

He lifts the silver domes to reveal crepes and eggs and fruit. Bacon for him, none for me. I’ll never take for granted how he takes care of the details.

“You sure nobody’s coming up here to bust in on us?” I ask, shaking the linen napkin out over my lap and taking up my fork. “Blow our cover?”

“Ari said we have the place to ourselves for another two hours.” Canon bites into his crepe. “The key I used unlocks the elevator. No one can come up here without one. The manager unlocks it around noon to prepare for opening.”

“Did Ari . . .” I hesitate, sip my champagne-lite mimosa, and then press on. “Does she know about us? I mean, that it’s me here with you this morning?”

“No, and it’s killing her. She’ll hound me for information all week. She knows I don’t do this, so she has questions.”

“Did you and Camille,” I start and falter. “Do this? I mean, did you bring her here?”

His chewing slows like he’s giving himself time to consider my question and its implications. What might lurk behind the innocuous query. “Never.”

I cover my sigh of relief with another sip of the mimosa.

“It would be fine if you did,” I say, taking a bite of my eggs. “I just wondered.”

“Neevah.” He waits until I stop busying myself with food and look at him. “Do you want to know what happened with Camille?”

“No, I—”

“Neevah.” He reaches across the table to brush his thumb along my jaw. “I don’t talk about this with anyone really, but I’ll tell you if you want to know.”

Do I? Want to hear about the first woman he broke his rules for? Hear how she seemed special enough to risk his career, his reputation? Was she worth it?

Resignedly, I gnaw at the corner of my mouth and nod.

His hand falls away and, resting his elbows on the table, he steeples his fingers at his chin.

“I’ll start by saying it wasn’t all her fault,” he says quietly. “She thought we were headed somewhere I realized too late I couldn’t go with her. I could have pretended, let things ride until the movie wrapped, but that wouldn’t have been fair to either of us. As soon as I found out she wasn’t who I thought she was, I knew I had to end it.”

“She wasn’t who you thought she was? What happened?”

“I first met Camille at a Vanity Fair party. I’d heard of her, of course, and she’d heard of me, of course. Hollywood isn’t that big of a town. Black Hollywood? Even smaller. She was beautiful obviously. Funny and warm and open. We spent the whole night in a corner talking, swapping horror stories about how phony things could get here. She seemed like me. Like she was tired of artifice—tired of the brittle beauty people and this city are sometimes wrapped in.”

“Wow,” I say, my voice faint, my fingers tight on my fork. “Sounds like a fairy tale start.”

He shrugs, his broad shoulders moving in a careless motion. “I didn’t pursue anything with her because I was deep-diving into interviews and research for a documentary, which took me all over the world. The offer to direct Primal came as a surprise, but not an unpleasant one. It wasn’t something I felt as much conviction around as I usually did my projects, but it was intriguing. I admit, when I heard Camille had already been attached to the project, it made it even more appealing.”

I grab the carafe holding the mimosa and fill my glass to the rim.

“It didn’t occur to me anything would actually happen between us while we were filming,” Canon says. “I’d never done that, never gone there with an actress I was directing. We were attracted to each other. Evan saw it, warned me not to do it. All my instincts behooved me, but for once, I thought why the hell not?”

A self-mocking smile ghosts his lips. “Maybe I was lonely, tired of being solo, horny. All of the above? Who knows, but it happened.”

“Indeed,” I murmur, gulping my drink.

“She made the first move. I might have eventually, but when we were going over the script in her trailer, she kissed me. I kissed her back, and that’s how it started. I can’t say I loved her, and I never told her I did, but I liked her a lot. And we were great in and out of bed.”