Chapter 6
Evie
The Chemistry Test
“I— I need to get some air.” I slid out of the booth before anyone could protest.
“Oh, my God. I—” Skye sputtered. “This is so embarrassing. Evie, let me come with you.” She stood, but I put my hand up.
“No, I need to—not you. I’ll be fine. I just have to go. It was nice to meet you,” I said to Glenn.
“Are you sure? It’s still early,” Glenn protested.
I muttered an apology and rushed out of the bar, freezing in the lobby. Out or up? Pausing to close my eyes for a moment, I opened them and went to the elevator, quickly pushing the button.
“Evie!” Sebastian called to me, but I refused to look back.
I stepped inside and reached for my purse, digging for my room key.
Sebastian caught the elevator, sliding in just as the doors started to shut.
“Sebastian—”
“He’s no good for you,” he blurted.
I leaned forward and pressed the button for my floor.
“Don’t be alone with him again,” he ordered.
I raised my eyebrows. “Excuse me? You’re not my fucking handler. Where is this coming from?”
“A concerned friend. That man is no good, Evie. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” I scoffed. The elevator started upward, and I stared ahead. “I don’t trust anyone in this fucking town.”
“Then why did you come back?”
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. I stepped forward, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, allowing the doors to close.
“Sebastian—” I protested, but in a flash, he leaned over me and smashed the emergency stop. I flinched, waiting for the alarm, but there was none. I glanced around. What had just happened?
“Answer me, Evie. Why did you come back?”
I looked up at him. His green eyes, the color of forest leaves, pierced into mine.
“Sebastian, someone’s going to come open this door.”
“We’ve got three minutes.” He didn’t take his eyes off me. “Answer me.”
“I was invited. Dante—”
“I don’t believe that. You wouldn’t come back just to be in a stupid movie.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s my mother’s legacy,” I snapped.
His eyes softened. “I’m sorry. You know that’s not—”
“Look, thank you, I guess, for the flowers.” I shrugged. “I’m not going to take them from Skye, but they were a nice gift. I don’t have anything else to say. I look forward to our working relationship.” I gave him a tight, straight-lined smile.
His eyes widened, and he leaned back against the wall, a short laugh coming from his chest. “You look forward to our working relationship. What kind of line is that?”
“It’s a necessary one.” I sighed deeply. “Sebastian, I know—”
“Know what? That you ghosted me? Broke my heart and fucked up my brain permanently? Because I don’t think you do. If you did, you wouldn’t be acting so damn cold.”
I opened and shut my mouth.
Ghosted?
He told me to go.
I stood there speechless, taken aback by his accusation.
“Thought so.” He smirked and crossed his arms over his suit. “Now, why are you here?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” How could I confess that I was here to murder as many big-shot men in this industry as I could before I was inevitably gunned down?
He stared at me as if trying to bore into my soul.
They were so intense, I broke contact, my gaze sliding down his body and resting at my own feet.
The longer we stood in silence, the heavier the tension grew.
“I never thought I’d see you again.”
Same.
“I know. I’m sorry. I should have found a way to warn you I’d accepted a role,” I mumbled, stepping back and leaning against the elevator doors.
“Like a phone call? Or a text? You have my number,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Really? You wanted me to call after five years with no contact?”
“Yes, really. You’re acting like we’re strangers. Why? What did I do to make you shut me out of your life?”
You stayed.
A heavy weight began to grow in my belly. It had been selfish of me to ask that of him. And looking into his eyes now, I wasn’t even sure he remembered.
“You’re acting like everything is black and white, and it’s not. I—”
“I was in love with you.” His eyes grew shiny. “I told you so many times how much you meant to me. How I couldn’t do this without you. You never once said it back. You were my first everything, Evie. Do you know what that did to me?”
“I—” Tears welled in my eyes, obscuring my vision.
“Did I mean anything to you?” His voice cracked as he asked, and suddenly, he wasn’t the man I’d met this afternoon. The charming, cocky movie star. He’d reverted back to the boy I knew and loved all those years ago.
“Yes, you did,” I whispered. I pressed my lips together tightly. Him close to tears had me close to crying as well. “Sebastian, that night changed me.”
“I’m not talking about your mom. I’m talking about me.
About us. What we did before we went to the studio.
Forgive me if I don’t believe you when you say I meant something.
You left a few days later and never looked back.
Tell me, Evie. How long did it take for you to forget me?
” He pushed off the wall and stepped toward me, raising one arm to pin me against the doors.
As he leaned into me, I could smell the whiskey on his breath.
It mixed with his cologne in a delicious, dangerous concoction.
My breathing quickened as I tilted my head to look up at him.
“A month? Maybe two? We saved ourselves for each other, but we never made promises past that night. Tell me, who was the next guy you fucked? Did he look like me?”
“You’re drunk,” I said but didn’t push him away.
“So? Answer me.”
“No,” I said firmly. I lifted my hands to his chest to push him away, but when my palms fell against his muscles and I could feel the hard lines of his chest, my resolve fluttered. He must have caught my reaction, because he chuckled.
“That’s all because of you.” He moved back just slightly, and I breathed in relief as my hands dropped from his body.
He reached for the top of his shirt and began unbuttoning it, pulling it open to reveal a spectacular set of abs decorated with tattoos.
They were all movie themed, but the one that caught my eye was a large chainsaw on the side of his ribcage, with a bloody ribbon that said, Groovy.
It was from Evil Dead. One of my all-time favorite movies.
My vision glossed over the rest of his ink and focused on the muscles. I stared, counting each pack.
Eight.
“With you gone, I stopped fighting this town. I threw myself into work, made sure I could cry on cue. When I wasn’t on camera, I was in the gym, molding my body into what they wanted. And man, did they want me. Your rejection did wonders for my career, Evie Reyes.”
I tore my gaze from the V leading beneath his pants. “I was in a bad place mentally, and I needed to cut ties with everything in this town.” I was this close to telling him the complete truth about why I was here, but he interrupted my thoughts.
“But now you’re back.” He reached out, his knuckles grazing my jaw.
Delicious shivers slid down my chest, through my stomach, and settled between my legs. I tightened my core and inhaled deeply, trying to steel myself.
This was bad. I turned my head toward the doors. When was someone coming to help us?
He leaned back in, and reflexively, I tilted my face up as he nuzzled his nose against my cheek.
“Evie, this feels like a dream. It’s been five years, and the moment I saw you across the lot, time went away.
It could have been five days or five decades, I won’t stop feeling how I feel about you.
” His hand brushed my hair back behind my ear, and I gasped as he whispered in my ear.
“And I can tell by the way you stare at me that you feel it too. Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?”
My heart had slowed, but each beat screamed in my ears. His head moved, inky black hair falling over his eyes. His lips hovered an inch from mine. If I moved even a fraction...
A pounding on the doors rattled the metal, bringing me back to what was about to happen. I shoved Sebastian back and moved away from the door.
“That’s from the book, not the movie,” I said lamely as Sebastian glared daggers at me.
“Are you okay?” a man shouted from the other side.
A low growl came from Sebastian as he leaned forward and pulled the emergency button back out. The doors opened a moment later, revealing two security guards and a maintenance man.
“It’s fine. Button got pushed by accident,” Sebastian muttered. The men looked from Sebastian, with his unbuttoned shirt, to me with my flushed cheeks, and embarrassment flooded me. I put my hands over my face.
“Everything good?” the maintenance man asked again.
“Yes, thank you,” Sebastian said.
The men left quickly.
Sebastian exited the elevator then turned to me, reaching his hand out. “Come on. Let’s go to your room so we can keep talking.”
I stared at him blankly, the heat from my face gone. Slowly, my gaze raked up his gorgeous frame. If I took his hand—if we went to my hotel room—there would be no talking.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. No. I’ll see you at the table read tomorrow.” I reached out and pushed the button to close the elevator. Only once the doors closed and I couldn’t stare into those beautiful, haunting eyes could I breathe again.
Fuck me.
He wasn’t going to make revenge easy.