Chapter 11
Chapter 11
The next few weeks were like running a marathon, if Jaime were doing it barefoot and on eggshells.
Scarlett had refused to explain what had motivated her meltdown, but that was fine. Jaime didn’t need her to explain. He just needed them to get the work done.
And they were. The words were finally flowing, and more than half the episodes were written. As long as they avoided any more snags, they were going to meet their deadline. The actress Zoya had recommended had turned out to be great, and they’d gotten her on contract, so Nate and Videon were thrilled.
But underneath all those accomplishments, Jaime felt like a mess . In the heat of his argument with Scarlett, Jaime had blurted out that he wasn’t over her. God, what a mistake.
Not what a lie —it wasn’t a lie.
Saying it, though, had been dumb.
All Jaime could do was pretend it wasn’t true. He didn’t have room in his life for those feelings, and he ought to be trying to smother them with a pillow.
But they were so freaking present. Hunger that cracked his chest in two when Scarlett would laugh. Pride that made him smile like a loon when she liked a line he’d written. Lust that blazed in his veins when she stumbled into the kitchen in her pajamas.
Or bent over something.
Or sighed deeply.
“Okay,” she said, looking up from her laptop, “now we just have to write the blocking for the chess match.”
“We can leave it vague,” he protested. Jaime was feeling too vulnerable to withstand Scarlett in full chess-genius mode. “You can handle that on set—”
“No, we can’t.” Scarlett’s eyes, Jaime would’ve sworn, sparkled. It was as if the Perseids were falling in there, and he wouldn’t put it past her to arrange that somehow. “You’re always saying that if it’s dramatically significant, we have to spell it out in the script.”
This was what he got for explaining his philosophy to her. “But—”
“We’ve also been at this for six weeks, and you still don’t understand chess.”
Unwilling to watch her pretty, mocking face any longer, Jaime scrubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Damn it, I don’t have to. That’s your job.”
“I never took you for a coward.”
If Jaime weren’t a coward, he’d tell Scarlett why he couldn’t look straight at her anymore. Why, for the last few weeks, he’d cut their after-dinner conversation shorter every night. Why he felt as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air these days.
It was pure self-preservation. All too soon, she was going to leave him again. He needed to put up some walls around his heart if he was going to survive it.
“I’m just efficient,” he replied with an impressive amount of coolness. That was the note he needed to hit with her more often. “We don’t both need to be good at everything.”
“You ought to be at least proficient at this,” she insisted. “Maybe we’re not writing things in the most dramatic possible way because there are elements that you don’t get.”
He dropped his hands. “It’s too late for me to understand this game.”
“It’s never too late, Jaime Croft.”
For chess, or for something else?
See, this was exactly what had his teeth on edge. It was one thing to crave Scarlett the way he did, so sharply he could almost taste the longing. But it became another thing when she looked right at him and said something like that . Something so provocative that it was all he could do not to step over the coffee table and kiss the words straight off her lips.
He could ask her what she meant. Or he could try to snag the piece of cheese she’d used to set the trap.
Because she was right and he was a chicken, he did the latter.
“ Fine ,” he gritted out.
“Really?” Scarlett jumped to her feet, which did amazing things to her figure, and dashed across the room to get her chess board.
So far, she had written every single line in the script that had to do with the mechanics of chess. She’d explained it all to him, walking through the moves on this board, but mostly, Jaime had watched her lips move. Basked in the half smirk she didn’t bother to hide while she explained the trap she was luring some imagined opponent into, the brilliant joke she was about to play on them.
He hadn’t understood any of it, but he’d felt it. Felt her pride and her intelligence and her wit. And they’d just been more fuel on the fire of how much he wanted her.
Scarlett set the board down carefully on the coffee table before grabbing a throw pillow off her couch and dropping it onto the floor. She sat down, crisscross-applesauce style, and began setting up the board.
Jaime muttered curses under his breath while he watched her. This was going to go so badly for him, but it was making her happy, so he would endure it.
When she was done, she gave each of the knights a twist so the white ones faced each other, and the same with the black.
“That’s not necessary,” she explained, “but I think it looks cool.”
Which he’d remembered from when they’d been kids. That was pretty much the only thing he remembered, and it was a thing about her , not a thing about chess.
“Sit.” Scarlett pointed to the bit of floor directly across from her, and he slid down to take his designated place.
“So, um, I think I remember how all the pieces move.”
“How about you tell me, just to refresh.” Yeah, unlike Nate, Scarlett wasn’t going to fall for his bullshit.
Jaime quickly ran through how the pawns, bishops, and knights could move. He got to the rooks, which had always been his favorites. Their linearity was comforting. “And last but certainly not least, the queen can do anything.”
“Queens are powerful like that.” Scarlett shrugged, accepting that she was a queen, at least when it came to this. “It seems that I was wrong. You do know the first thing about chess.”
Jaime wanted to pound on his chest. He wanted to crawl around the table and pin Scarlett to the floor until his yearning receded.
But none of that would fit with his new detached affect, so instead, he just shrugged. “I do what I can.”
“Here’s the thing, though: you’re thinking about it all wrong.”
“You don’t start with how the pieces move?” That seemed like a necessary precondition to everything else to him.
“Not if you want to get good. No, you have to learn to see the board.”
“I see the board fine.” Jaime double-checked just to make sure, and yup, there it was, as clear as day: a chess board.
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Have it your way—you’re a master at the rules of the game. But if you only think about how the pieces move and not what you’re trying to create, you’ll never improve.”
“My goal isn’t to win a world championship. I just want to make a television show.”
“One that hinges on the drama in Emily’s matches, right? Don’t you think you need to learn to analyze the board for that?”
“That’s what my on-set chess expert is for.”
Somehow, he was going to have to make those four months on set enough to last a lifetime. Maybe he could find a way to snip up the way she made him feel and sew it together into a quilt, one he could huddle under when she left and the nights were cold again.
“And your on-set chess expert thinks it would be even better if you were both bringing something to the table.”
He was going to bring plenty to the table, including an understanding of the mechanics of filming the damn thing. “You plan to weigh in on camera angles?”
“You bet I do.”
Scarlett meant it too. She was ineffably competent. A few weeks into filming, and she’d probably be as good at it as he was. She was going to step in Jaime’s world and adore it. All the different kinds of people on the crew, the careful way they gathered shots, like building up paint on a canvas. The sheer power of watching actors work in person. It was going to be a joy to see.
The thought warmed Jaime through. “Okay, fine. Tell me how to see the board.”
Scarlett gave one of the black knights another twirl. Jaime loved the rapid, elegant way her fingers moved. The way she touched the pieces was almost indecent.
“I’m not saying that you need to, like, memorize the algebraic notation and work up to blindfolded chess or anything—”
“You can play chess blindfolded?”
“I used to play several blindfolded games a day, just for kicks.”
The thought was unexpectedly erotic. Jaime had a zillion other questions, but out of a sense of self-preservation, he swallowed them.
“You have to make moves in order to do something. To serve some kind of strategic goal. My game really improved once I began to work backward,” she said. “What kind of an endgame did I want to play? And so what did I need to do in the opening or in the middlegame to achieve that? But that’s too complicated for a beginner.”
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
“So let’s go with this. For now, imagine that there are only pawns on the board. It’s an old thought experiment of Seirawan’s, but it’s legit. Pawns are so crucial for helping you get to the board you want to have. So the first thing you need to do is to think about your pawns. What do you need to move and when and where to open up the board the way you want while also keeping your power pieces protected.”
Explaining this lit her up. It was scary how easy it would be to pretend that they were still kids. That this brightness of Scarlett’s came from youth and naivety, that it wasn’t affected by a world-wise woman. He couldn’t afford to forget what he’d learned and what it had cost him—even if he wanted to.
“Pawns only. Got it.”
“Then analyze your knights and bishops. Try to avoid losing them early. And if you do sacrifice one, get something good for it.”
In Queen’s Kiss , one of the most gripping games Scarlett described had her blundering early on and surrendering a bishop, only to battle back and win. That was the game where her creativity and tenacity had become legendary.
In contrast, Jaime tended to see a move and jump before he checked all the risks. Even now, when he ought to know better, there was a certain arrogance to the way he crashed into things. He tended to believe he was doing the right things for the right reasons, and it emboldened him. Showing up in Scarlett’s lobby to beg for the rights to her book was fairly on brand for him.
But that had worked out pretty well, in the end.
“You can be white.” Scarlett said this as if she was doing him a favor—which she was. White always went first. “And”—she cast a quick glance at Jaime from under her lashes—“let’s make it interesting.”
“How? You won’t defeat me in four moves? You’ll toy with me for a while first?” Much as a cat might choose to get its rocks off with a mouse before devouring it.
“Sure, that too. But I was going to say if you can take one of my major pieces, I’ll take my top off.”
The breath left Jaime’s lungs in a great whoosh—like patrons running from a movie theater after someone had pulled the fire alarm.
“You’ll ... what?” he managed to say.
“Jesus, I was joking,” Scarlett insisted. “But based on your expression, it’s clearly the perfect bribe. Take one of my nonpawns, and I’ll disrobe. What do you say?”
Her expression was coy. Which was to be expected. Scarlett’s expressions were always coy. But underneath, he thought he saw something else. Something more honest. More vulnerable.
Scarlett wanted to see that Jaime still wanted her.
Which ... that couldn’t be it. Jaime unmistakably did want her. He’d already said as much to her, and clearly he always would feel that way. He’d only been pretending not to want her the last few weeks—which should have put him in line with her feelings on the subject.
Unless it didn’t. Unless she wanted him too.
Scarlett couldn’t. She didn’t. Which was why he sputtered out, “But everyone with a Vogue subscription has seen that.”
For a second, Scarlett seemed almost stunned by Jaime’s feint, and he almost immediately confessed that he was playing, that he would give up his right thumb to see her topless.
But as quickly as her expression fell, Scarlett tugged it back into place. “Except they haven’t seen one of my regular cotton bras. That was La Perla.”
If she’d custom-made that line just for Jaime, it couldn’t have fit better. Jaime would take the everyday cotton over the swanky couture lingerie, for sure. The bra she’d chosen for herself. The one she wore for comfort and not simply for some silly fantasy.
Scarlett really wanted this from him ... and well, as much as this might hurt, letting her see that he still wanted her would only be admitting what was true . He was the one who kept going on and on about honesty. Who kept insisting that both Jaime and Scarlett’s work meditated on truth.
“Well,” he said slowly, “who could resist that?”
Triumph turned up the corners of her mouth. “Let’s go, then.”
Jaime reached for one of his pawns—in a script, Scarlett would insist they write the queen’s pawn —and pushed it forward two squares. “It can do that, right? On the first move?”
“Yup.” Scarlett moved one of her knights forward, vaulting over her own line of pawns in the process—which she’d more or less told him she was going to do. Her eyes shot up to his. “Your move.”
Jaime was so jittery inside, thinking was almost impossible. Strategy? Ha. He couldn’t have recited the alphabet.
That she’d offered this meant that Scarlett might still want him. Might.
Acting on it would be a catastrophically bad idea. Chewing tinfoil was probably wiser than Jaime and Scarlett getting tangled up in each other again. But the possibility for it was there, twisting the fabric of space-time around them as surely as a black hole would.
Maybe they could. Maybe they both wanted to. Holy shit.
Jaime reached for a piece, if only to do something , then he stopped himself. He needed to make the right move here, or at least not make a silly move.
Pretend there are just pawns. See the whole board. Consider what attacks you could make, and what attacks she could make.
Jaime didn’t have to take Scarlett’s king. The goal of this game wasn’t to win in the traditional sense. It was to take a piece of hers that wasn’t a pawn.
Right now, that lone knight of hers was the only power piece she’d put in play, and he couldn’t reach that.
Think about how to open the board.
He needed to get more of his pawns out there in order to give himself more options. He advanced another one.
Scarlett moved a pawn. He played a knight. She advanced a bishop.
After a few more moves, she took one of his pawns. “First blood.”
“Is that good or bad?” he asked.
“It means I’m more aggressive than I should be.”
Scarlett could be as aggressive as she wanted where Jaime was concerned. If she’d tell him what exactly she was up to with this stunt, for example, he’d be over the moon.
Jaime advanced a pawn to protect another one of his, proud that he’d seen the play she’d been about to make.
“Good.”
He felt her compliment in parts of his body that had been hibernating, but he couldn’t give those parts free rein here. Not until he knew what she was up to.
They continued to trade moves. She took another pawn of his. He took a pawn of hers.
“So close,” she said of the attack he’d been planning that she’d interrupted.
“I’m highly motivated.”
“I can tell.”
Scarlett castled, transplanting her rook with her king—the only way you could move two pieces at the same time. It still made no fucking sense to him, but he could understand how hiding the king back in the corner like that would be an advantage.
Then suddenly, Jaime could see it. He could take her bishop with his queen.
It was a senseless move in terms of winning the game. It wouldn’t put him into a strategic position, but it was a perfectly logical move if his goal was to take one of her power pieces—and at the moment, that was one of the primary goals in his life. It went reduce his carbon footprint , take one of Scarlett’s power pieces in this game , and do his part to achieve world peace . In that order.
When Jaime glanced at her, feeling high, feeling drunk, feeling reckless, Scarlett returned his gaze. But her frosty confidence was as thin as pond ice after the thaw had begun.
She saw what he’d seen.
“That’s been there for, like, two moves,” she told him.
And she hadn’t blocked it.
“I’m a little slow.”
“You gonna take it?”
“Hell yes. I may never get another shot like this.”
His fingers steady but his pulse a percussive mess, Jaime took her bishop. He set her piece to the side of the board with a thunk.
“Well done.” Scarlett’s voice betrayed no emotion. Her eyes were another story. Even she couldn’t hide their luminosity.
She was pleased. She’d wanted this as much as he had, and that sent him clear over the edge.
“I guess you aren’t hopeless at chess after all,” she drawled.
“I guess not.” Jaime swallowed.
Scarlett rolled onto her knees, and he wanted to say that she didn’t have to. That it was silly. That he didn’t need a bribe and she didn’t have to take her shirt off—and why the hell had they even made this bet in the first place? They weren’t teenagers.
But then she was tugging the hem of her shirt up, and the words melted in his mouth.
He’d seen the Vogue spread. No, he’d studied the Vogue spread as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls and he was a scholar of ancient languages who alone could crack the code. But a photo of her skin and her actual skin—that of her stomach, soft and pale as moonlight—were not the same. Not remotely the same.
Without a hint of shame, Scarlett tugged her shirt up and over her head. She sent it sailing through the air. It landed next to Jaime with a soft thud.
His brain stalled. There were suddenly too many stimuli to make sense of. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the swell of her cleavage. From the many inches of velvety skin. From her flushed lips and her wide eyes.
Jaime’s attention riveted to her had Scarlett breathing deep, and his own labored inhales matched hers. Goddamn—just goddamn.
He sucked in another breath, and there was the scent of her perfume or lotion, vanilla and something spicy. Something he couldn’t have named on pain of death—but what a way to go.
Every cell in Jaime’s body was suddenly heavier. Staying upright was damn near impossible. How had he survived seeing her naked?
And how had he survived not seeing it?
“You glad we played?” she asked, settling back on her cushion.
“Yup.” He couldn’t have gotten any more words out.
She draped her arms along the couch behind her, relishing his appraisal. The appraisal he’d tried so hard to hide from her but which was undeniable.
Jesus, she was perfect.
“You want to finish this game?”
He shook his head. There was no point.
“Too bad. I have checkmate in two.”
No, she already had Jaime in check, and there was nowhere for him to hide.