What it Takes (16 page)

“Quiet on set! Action!” Andy called and they strolled slowly, repeating their lines. After the required steps and lines, Patrick gently took her arm.

“Have dinner with me,” he said.

“David, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she replied.

“Julia, I love you. I always have, I never stopped.”

She sighed. “David, you’re married to Chloe. I’m married to Seth. Don’t you think we owe it to them to make our marriages work?”

“Don’t you think we owe it to ourselves to follow our hearts and be happy?”

She laughed and touched his cheek, but started to tense. “We had our chance. You walked away.”

“I won’t make that mistake again.” He pulled her to him and kissed her. She resisted, like her character was supposed to. It felt different than a real kiss so Kelsey relaxed.

She pushed him away. “We can’t do this.” She turned to walk away.

“Kelsey, wait!”

Kelsey froze.

“Cut!” Andy bellowed.

“Damn it!” Patrick snapped.

She turned to look at Patrick but he was already walking toward the beginning of the scene. His hands were clenched in his hair, causing a string of crew to trot after him so they could fix it. She followed him slowly, her arms crossed, her eyes down as she tried to figure out how, or why, he would have made such a mistake. Patrick had never missed a line. In fact, he’d had it right in every rehearsal. So what had happened?

When she reached him, he wouldn’t look at her. His eyes were closed and he stood still as a statue as the stylist fixed his hair.

“Again! Action!” Andy called from his director’s chair.

They repeated the scene verbatim. This time, when he grabbed her arm, he was gentler about it. Kelsey turned and spoke her line.

“I won’t make that mistake again,” he said, pulling her closer.

Their lips met and Kelsey immediately felt a difference.

There was heat that wasn’t there before, coursing through her body from the point of their connection to her toes. She forgot her role and kissed him back, everything else temporarily forgotten. She needed to kiss him. She realized she’d wanted him to kiss her for some time. Her free arm slid up to his shoulder.

He responded by pulling her tighter and kissing her a little harder. Her lips parted as his tongue brushed them lightly. She muffled the sigh in her throat and was vaguely aware of the camera circling them. After what seemed like forever, far longer than it should have been, she pushed away. His eyes were wide and bright and she was gasping for air.

She shouldn’t have felt like that. The kiss shouldn’t have felt so real.

“We can’t . . .” she said too quietly, forgetting the rest of her line.

“Cut!” Andy cried again. “Jeez people, what the hell? You had it perfect in practice. Back to the beginning!”

Kelsey looked at Patrick, who was staring at her. She furrowed her brow in confusion and he opened his mouth to say something. She held up a hand and shook her head, pretty sure she didn’t want to hear what he wanted to say. She turned and strode back to the beginning of the scene again, wrestling with her feelings.

Was this what it would be like every time she kissed Patrick on set? She’d never felt like this when she had to kiss Grayson. Was this how these romances started? If Patrick kissed all of his co-stars the way he’d kissed her, she could certainly understand why.

Kelsey stood with her arms crossed, eyes closed, and lightly tapped her fingers on her upper arm. She needed to regain control. There had to be a happy medium between the first kiss and the second. She didn’t think she could handle another kiss like that second kiss. She kept her eyes closed until Andy asked if they were ready. They both replied that they were.

“Action!”

They strolled and repeated their lines perfectly again. When they kissed, it was gentle and warm. Kelsey was able to kiss Patrick back and keep her wits about her, but she still felt the spark.

She pushed away. “We can’t do this,” she said and the tears started to form. It was more than just her line, she hoped he realized that. She turned to walk away and he grabbed her hand.

“Julia, wait.” He got it right and the tears gathered just above her lids. “Have dinner with me, for old time’s sake.”

She slowly nodded, then swallowed. “I’ll think about it. That’s all I can promise.” A tear fell.

“I can live with that. For now.” He let go of her hand and she hurried away.

As soon as Andy yelled “Cut!” Kelsey picked up the pace and ran behind a black utility van owned by the studio. She furiously wiped her cheeks, trying to stop the flow of tears. That kiss felt too real for her liking and she had to figure out why.

She decided that it was all about the characters. She was simply feeling what Julia felt, that was all. She frowned at that thought. She couldn’t accept that it had anything to do with Patrick.

It had nothing to do with his soft, warm, inviting lips.

Stop it!
she screamed silently. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. He did that way too often.

Kelsey heard female voices on the other side of the van and pressed her back against the vehicle to listen.

“Did you see that kiss?”

“Oh my god. That was so hot. I wish he’d kiss me like that.”

Kelsey’s cheeks felt like fire and she lightly pressed her fingers to her mouth.

“Oh, I know. I wish
anyone
would kiss me like that. It looked amazing.” They mumbled something else, then giggled, and walked away.

Kelsey rubbed her cheeks one more time and blinked her burning eyes. She walked around the front of the van, holding her head high, acting stronger than she felt. Andy was watching the scene on one of the field monitors, looking for any reason to do it again before they moved on. She silently prayed he didn’t find one.

“Kelsey,” Veronica called from her left. Kelsey turned and pasted a smile she didn’t really feel on her face. “That was awesome,” she squealed. Kelsey nodded unenthusiastically. “Have you been crying?” Veronica took a step closer and studied Kelsey’s eyes.

“I was supposed to, remember?”

“Not really. It’s called acting,” she joked but stopped when Kelsey didn’t laugh. “Do you want to talk?”

Kelsey shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Why were you crying?” she leaned in and whispered.

Kelsey shook her head as the tears brimmed over again. What was she supposed to say? That she was falling in love with Patrick? What was wrong with that? Veronica wouldn’t understand. She would probably encourage her, and Kelsey didn’t want that encouragement.

She didn’t want to love Patrick.

“Jeez, calm down,” Veronica said, taking Kelsey’s shoulders and staring into her eyes.

Kelsey wiped her face. “Sorry,” she said calmly. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“You’ve been pretty stressed lately,” Veronica said matter-of-factly.

You think?
Kelsey thought.

“You know what you need?” Veronica asked, smiling widely.

Patrick sat on a bench and closed his eyes as he pictured Kelsey’s face and wondered what had just happened. That kiss felt so real, but, he had to remind himself, they were acting. He was David, she was Julia. They were playing parts, right? Then why had it felt so different?

He shook his head. Everything always felt different with Kelsey.

He recalled the terrified look in her eyes and wondered why. Had his breath smelled bad? No, he’d had a mint on the way to the set. Had it been a bad kiss? It couldn’t have been, not the way she’d kissed him back. Had she been kissing him, or had Julia been kissing David? What would Kelsey tell him if he asked her?

She’d tell him she was in character, but something told him he wouldn’t believe that. There was more to that kiss, more to her response, than script. She’d been visibly troubled and afraid. It suddenly occurred to him why, and it all went back to that conversation they had while they’d been dancing.

She’d been hurt before. The only explanation he could come up with for the look in her eyes was that she was afraid of being hurt again. But if she was afraid, did that mean she felt something for him? His heart raced at the thought and he slowly grinned. That had to be it. If she didn’t, that kiss would have been just part of the job. Kelsey hadn’t acted that way.

So, if this was as real for her as it was for him, he knew she must think he would hurt her. But why would she think that?

“Oh no,” he groaned as his head dropped into his hands.

His reputation. It had haunted him the whole time he’d been working with her. Grayson had told him as much.

Love ’em and leave ’em.

That was what she thought he did. He’d told her it wasn’t true. It was nothing more than casual sex. Well, it was for him at least. Did she still think he’d had real feelings for all of those women?

He’d never felt anything like what he felt for her before. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He wanted to be near her, to hear her laugh, to see her smile. He wanted to touch her face, kiss her lips, hold her in his arms. The need almost overwhelmed him at times. She’d never worked with him before; she couldn’t know how differently he’d behaved around other women. How could he make her understand?

“Veronica, Kelsey,” Andy called out and Patrick sat up, looking around. Everyone was hidden by the slight hill and it sounded like Andy was ready to move on. Patrick stood and ambled over the rise in time to see Kelsey walking away with Veronica by her side. His heart skipped another beat.

He had to convince her that she was different, that this wasn’t normal for him.

That this was real.

Nine

“D
id you really order this much?” Kelsey asked Veronica as she considered the cart full of sweets at her door. Veronica simply laughed from behind her. Kelsey shook her head and chuckled as she signed the receipt and handed it back to the bellhop. “Thank you,” she said and wheeled the cart into the room and Veronica helped her spread its contents out on the coffee table. Kelsey pushed the empty cart into the kitchen area before taking her seat next to Veronica on the couch. She picked up her dish of chocolate ice cream and french fries.

Veronica wrinkled her nose as Kelsey dragged a fry through the ice cream and ate it. “Ugh,” she said and Kelsey laughed. “Where’d you pick that up? Your pregnant sister?”

Kelsey shook her head. “No, actually, I used to work in fast food. I picked it up there. Wanna try it?”

“No, thanks.”

While they had waited for their desserts to be delivered, Veronica had freely talked about almost everything in her life: her childhood, her family, even her ex-boyfriends. Kelsey had almost envied Veronica’s openness and made it her goal to be a little less guarded with some things. It would probably do her some good to open up to someone.

Well, someone other than Patrick.

“So, what was it like?” Veronica asked suddenly.

Kelsey took a moment to remember what they’d been talking about. “What? Working at McDonald’s?”

“Yeah. Well, everything, I guess. I’ve only ever known Hollywood.” Veronica shrugged as she took a bite of a cookie. “I don’t know anything about a ‘normal’ childhood.”