“I want to be a stuntwoman when I grow up,” Stacy said. “I’ve never seen anyone have so much damn fun at work.”
“Right?” was all Brooke could think of to say.
“Brooke,” Jillian said, tearing her gaze from where Keaton and another guy climbed from the top of the truck and dropped out of sight.
“The fire-breathing dragon beckons,” Stacy said. “Good luck with that.”
By the time Brooke reached Jillian, her excitement shifted to alarm over the deviously pleased glint in her boss’s eye.
Jillian slipped her hand around Brooke’s forearm and turned her toward the stunt set. “He’s here, and he’s even more delicious than he was a few months ago when I saw him last.”
As they approached the set where cameramen and assistants and other staff gathered, Keaton and another man strolled out from around the side of the vehicles, talking to each other. Keaton used his T-shirt to wipe his face.
The sight of his chest and belly shining with sweat shot a streak of wild lust straight through her sex. Images from their night flashed in Brooke’s brain—the way they flexed every time he thrust. The intensity in his expression every time he drove deep inside her. The darkness of his eyes as he watched every flash of pleasure slide over her face. The hunger in his mouth, in his hands, in his body…
Oh. God…
“If you don’t want me to kick you on your ass,” Keaton was saying, a grin splitting his handsome face, “then take three steps back like I told you.”
The other man looked younger than Keaton. He was also very handsom
e, with more of an iconic American look with ash-blond hair and a square jaw. Definitely Jillian’s type. And age-wise… Well, she’d been going for them younger and younger lately.
“Last time you told me to take three steps back,” the younger man said, “I dropped ten fucking stories.”
Everyone around them laughed.
Keaton shook his head and slowed as he came to the camera station with a playback screen. “I should have sent you home when—”
His gaze lifted and casually scanned the people around them, pausing on Brooke. Time stopped for a split second. A split second when she saw him in exquisite detail—his hair damp with sweat around his face, his dark skin glistening, his expression filled with joy. Pure joy—for his work and the people he worked with.
Then she saw a spark of excitement flair. And that lifted her happiness to new heights. It was the same spark she saw in Justin’s eyes when she returned home from a trip, the same spark she saw in Ellie’s eyes when they met again after being apart, and, she’d discovered over the last year, it was what life was really about.
“Hey,” he said, drawing out the word with a little wait-you’re-not-supposed-to-be-here confusion that transitioned into excitement as the realization she’d made a few minutes before hit him. “Are you—”
“Keaton Holt?” Jillian’s overly excited voice cut through the myriad conversations, and she moved through the staff and crew as they parted like the Red Sea, allowing her a path toward Keaton.
Alarm skittered through Brooke’s heart, and her gaze cut to Jillian.
“What are you doing here?” Jillian’s face shone like a diamond. The picture of utter perfection. It was her all-in smile. Her nothing-can-compete-with-this smile. Her nothing-I’ve-done-wrong-in-the-past-matters smile. And she had 500 percent of her focus homed in on Keaton. Not the blond he’d been working with. The blond who was now wandering away like the rest of the crew, hoping to escape unnoticed while the she-devil was licking her chops over a different morsel.
“I reconnected with him last month at Steven’s birthday party in Beverly Hills.”
Denial hit Brooke fast and hard.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Not Keaton. Not Jillian and Keaton. She could have anyone else. He was Brooke’s only selfish desire. And they had so little time together.
Holding tight to the last flicker of hope, she darted a look at Keaton—and her stomach dropped to her feet. All the excitement there a moment ago—all the humor and life and happiness—gone. All locked behind a cool wall. One Brooke had seen others use when they were unpleasantly blindsided in public. One that often appeared in awkward and tense situations.
His reaction to Jillian confirmed the truth in Brooke’s gut—Jillian and Keaton had been together. When, where, how—it didn’t matter. Somewhere, at some time, they’d been together.
The images that flashed in Brooke’s head made her stomach clench and burn. She purposely refocused somewhere else in the room to clear her head. Because this was a problem. A really big problem. A potentially disastrous problem. A cut that had the potential to bleed her dry if she didn’t stem the bleeding.
She pulled her iPad into her chest and crossed her arms, as if that would help.
Jillian’s reputation had preceded her, as usual, and the crew had skittered off in different directions. But Keaton was too much of a gentleman to bail, even though the look on his face told Brooke there was nothing he’d rather do right that moment.