“I’m beginning to question the wisdom of teaching actors all our trade secrets,” Wes said.
Curt laughed. “Your job is secure. All us actors want is that next big break.”
Zahara picked up a water bottle and downed half. “What time is it? Where’s the crew? Are we shooting this today, or what?”
“They should be setting up by now,” Wes said. “I’ll go check—”
“Z.” One of the production assistants called from the stairwell to the roof. “Michel wants you in his office.”
Keaton, Wes, and Mark all made that third grade, you’re-in-trouble hum. Zahara would have played along with their teasing, only something told her this wasn’t a joke. Something about how quiet Chase had been over the last twenty-four hours and how hard the gears of his brain had been turning. That, added to the missing camera crew and the fact that Michel wanted to see her, not the whole stunt team, perked Zahara’s spidey senses. And not in a good way.
On the ground floor, she made her way through the blocked-off streets to a trailer serving as Michel’s office. The sight of Chase sitting on a curb nearby, forearms on knees, wringing his hands, made Zahara come to a dead stop.
The minute his head came up and he focused on her, she knew this was bad.
“What did you do?” The question came out as a harsh accusation. “What in the hell did you do, Chase?”
He jumped to his feet and gripped her biceps. “It was the only way. It’s going to be okay.”
Zahara’s stomach dropped into a well of ice water. “What did you do?”
“I told Michel.”
She sucked a breath. A rush of heat turned the ice water to a swamp. “You told him?”
“If we both sign a letter saying our relationship was consensual and began before this movie, we’re in the clear. Michel totally understood. Said it’s really just an HR bug.”
Zahara narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t just an HR bug, and he’d been doing this long enough to know better. All that aside, he’d promised to keep this between them until much later. Until after she’d finished her part in the movie. “No. That’s too easy.”
“I thought so too.” His expression brightened. “But I couldn’t sleep last night, so I dug into the SAG guidelines.”
This situation didn’t fall within the guidelines of the Screen Actors Guild. “You know this business has more to do with relationships than SAG.”
“But, Michel was super cool about it.”
Oh no. No, this wasn’t over. She could feel another shoe waiting to drop. A marble shoe on a glass floor.
“Now I can tell Lila to take a hike,” he said, “and she can’t hurt us.”
Zahara lifted
her hands. “That just puts us right back in the situation we started with—me messing around with an actor who’s been messing around with a married woman.”
“I’ll straighten out the press. I’m not ashamed of you, and I’m not going to hide you or the baby. This way, we both keep our jobs and we get to be together. That’s the best thing for all of us—you, me, and the baby.”
This was so wrong, on so many levels. She had to go in there and face her boss, tell him she’d been screwing an actor working on the same film? Admit to getting knocked up? All with a man in the midst of an affair and divorce battle?
“Oh my God, Chase…” Her face burned with anger, with shame, with fear. She pressed both her hands to her cheeks. “I can’t believe—”
“Zahara.” Michel’s voice sounded behind her. She closed her eyes and swallowed her pride. “Come on in.”
He disappeared into the trailer, and Zahara felt the ground fall away. She exhaled hard and cut a look at Chase. “You’d better not be here when I get done.”
She forced herself not to slam the trailer door behind her and stood in front of Michel’s desk. “I…I have no words to tell you how sorry I am, Michel. This is so…” How did one say clusterfuck in a politically correct way? “I can’t even.”
“Oh, Zahara.” He sat back in his chair and gave her a fatherly smile. “I’ve been in this business a long damned time. This is nothing compared to what I’ve seen over the years.” He picked up a pen and offered it to her across the desk, then tapped a sheet of paper. “This is the disclaimer for the relationship. I just need you to sign it to make the big bosses happy.”
She picked up the form and scanned text that cleaned up the mess so completely, the situation seemed to bleach itself down to a single statement.