Secret Daddies (Reverse Harem Daddies)

4. Devon

4

DEVON

I yawned as I made my way to the makeup trailer, rubbing a hand across my face to try and wake myself up. Dammit, these early mornings always kicked my ass. I just had to focus on how much good this movie was going to do for my career—and the fact that I could take a couple of months off when it was all done.

Taking a sip of my coffee, I let the warm, bitter flavor spread over my tongue. Even though it was probably some of the shittiest coffee on earth, there was something I enjoyed about the taste of a cup of joe straight from the communal machine at the food stand on set. Reminded me of when I first started doing this, when so much as having a coffee before I began filming felt like a luxury. Even now, in the middle of shooting for a movie that probably cost more than I would make in a lifetime, it took me back to those early, hungry days when I would have done just about anything to make a name for myself in this business.

And make a name for myself I had. I passed the trailer labeled with my name, and I couldn’t help but pause and grin at the sight of it. Didn’t matter how many times I saw it, it would always be a novelty to me. If I could go back in time ten years and show the teenage version of myself all of this, I doubt he would believe me.

Nah, that was a lie. He would have. I’d always known I was destined for big things, in that arrogant way you do when you’re a kid. Nothing and nobody could have convinced me I wasn’t going to get everything I wanted handed to me on a platter. Sure, there had been a whole lot of hard work before that platter arrived, but now that I was here, I knew it had been worth it. Every step.

Well. Almost every step. You didn’t get as far as I had without stepping on a few people in the process. God knew I’d probably made some enemies over the years, but in a business like this, you had to be cutthroat if you wanted to get where you were due to go.

I let out one more yawn and popped a piece of gum before I opened the door to the artists’ trailer. I knew from experience that no artist appreciated having coffee breath huffed in their face first thing in the morning, and the best way to make it work on a set as big as this was to keep everyone on your side. I had seen some real messes springing from guys who just weren’t able to keep their egos in check and treat the rest of the crew with basic decency—shit, some of the makeup jobs and costuming I’d seen in revenge were downright hilarious…

“Hey, good morning,” I said to nobody in particular. I didn’t know who I was going to be working with on this movie specifically, but I figured there would be at least some of the same crew who had worked on Cormac. But instead of hearing the usual rush of cheerful voices greeting me, I heard just one.

A voice I recognized at once.

“Hi, Devon.”

My head snapped up, eyes widening. There was no way that could be who I thought it was, not a chance in hell. I hadn’t heard that voice in years—the better part of a decade now, at least. Finally, my gaze fell on her—and there was no more denying that it was exactly who I thought it was.

“Maya?”

Her name escaped my lips before I could stop myself. The shock was written all over my voice, even I could hear it. She looked a little different, but it was still undeniably her. The same long auburn hair pulled back into a braid at the back of her head, the same green eyes with flecks of gold where they caught the light, the same smattering of freckles over her slightly uneven nose. The same woman I’d fallen for all those years ago, standing right in front of me as though I had managed to whisk her here from the past.

“Oh, so you do remember my name?” Maya replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She gestured to the seat in front of her, next to the mirror. “Sit. I need to get to work.”

“I—what the hell are you doing here?”

“You really forgot what I do for a living?” she snapped back, crossing her arms over her chest. There was something about the icy tone to her voice that didn’t seem right, coming from her—I had always known her as this warm, sweet girl, but here she was, a grown woman, glaring me down like she wanted to take a chunk out of me.

“No, it’s not that,” I replied, taking a few steps toward her, measuring them slowly so I didn’t spook her. I felt like she might make a run for it at any moment, just to put some distance between us—though, I figured if she was working, she likely wasn’t going anywhere.

“I just…I thought I would have seen you working on one of these projects before,” I continued, keeping my voice as casual as I could. I didn’t want her to know how thrown I was at her presence, not by a long shot. If we were going to be working together, then I needed to keep whatever was going on between us professional.

“Yeah, I got called in last-minute to cover for someone who’s on maternity leave,” she explained, sounding exasperated. “Can you sit down now, please?”

I did as I was told, sinking into the seat before her and staring at her in the mirror as she started to gather everything she would need to work on me. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t fucking believe it. How had we never run into each other before?

I had hoped, when I had to move on so quickly, that we would be able to reconnect again through work, but it never happened. I’d figured she dropped out of the industry like so many people did to go and do something different with her life, but here she was, standing before me, the makeup brush in her hand as she looked me over with narrowed eyes.

“It’s really good to see you again, Maya,” I murmured to her before I could stop myself. Her mouth pressed into a hard line.

“You did a pretty good impression of pretending you never wanted to see me again, before.”

I winced. She had every reason to be pissed. I had gotten an offer at a major studio just as filming for the indie project I’d met her on had wrapped up—it was a last-minute thing, and they wanted to fly me out that week to meet with them. I hadn’t thought anything would come of it, so, being a twenty-year-old jerk-off, I’d rushed off without bothering to tell her or anyone where I was going. I figured I’d be back by the end of the week, licking my wounds and telling myself that it was all good practice for when I actually managed to get somewhere in the business…

Instead, I’d gotten the job, and I started work right away. The studio had me sign all kinds of NDAs and contracts, and I had been freaked about so much as telling anyone what I was working on. When I got a new phone via my contract, I lost her number, so I couldn’t have told her even if I wanted to. Yes, it was a jerk move, but I had been young, and I wouldn’t be anywhere close to where I was in my career right now if I had passed up the chance.

Besides, what we’d had…it was just a fling. Or at least that’s what I’d told myself after I left. I had never gotten involved in the cliché of an on-set affair before Maya, but the moment I’d laid eyes on her, something ravenous woke up inside of me that demanded I have her all to myself. I couldn’t get enough of her—we would sneak off for quickies in between scenes and then spend all night at my tiny rented studio, fooling around and watching movies and chatting about our dreams for the future. I could still remember wrapping a strand of her beautiful hair around my finger as she told me everything about what she had planned, all the goals she’d worked so hard to set into motion.

And when I left, I figured we’d find a way to each other again. That we’d work on the same project or something, and pick up where we left off. But now, seven years had passed, and I hadn’t laid eyes on her—until I found her glaring at me in the mirror of the makeup trailer on my biggest movie yet.

“Look, Maya, I’m sorry?—”

“Don’t bother,” Maya shot back, cutting me off before I could get out anything else. “It doesn’t matter. I’m over it.”

She grabbed a brush and started applying something to my face—with a little more force than I thought she technically had to. As she pulled back to inspect her work, my gaze flicked down to her hand—no wedding ring. Which didn’t mean that she was single, but she wasn’t married either. Same as me—probably focused on the work over finding anyone to settle down with.

“You’re not acting like you’re over it,” I pointed out. She let out a sharp sigh, cocked her hip to the side, and rested her elbow against her waist.

“Listen to me, Devon,” she told me firmly. “I don’t care about what happened between us in the past. I’m here to do a job, and so are you. I want to keep this professional. No mention of what happened between us before, you understand?”

“Sure,” I replied, but I couldn’t help a slight smile quirking up the corner of my lips. “You know, there are plenty of girls who’d want everyone to know about?—”

“Don’t get cocky,” she warned me, and she grabbed a different brush and started working on my face once more.

“I can’t promise anything,” I replied, grinning at her. She didn’t quite make eye contact with me, but as I watched her in the mirror, I could have sworn that I saw the hint of a smile cross her lips.

And that smile—I knew in that instant that I would do anything to see a little more of it.

And that whatever chemistry we’d had back in the day, it was just as real now as it was then. Over the next few months, it was going to be tough to keep my thoughts to myself—but who was to say she wouldn’t start to soften on me in the process…?