Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JOSH
“Mrs. Westwood wants to see you in her office.”
Bex’s voice snapped him out of the daydream he’d been reliving all week.
Dawn in the farmer’s field. The one where he and Cass were looking into the director’s monitor, with her round ass nestled against the tops of his thighs. The scent of her hair enveloping him, the fire in his blood chasing away the chill he’d felt all morning. Then his mouth dropping to her neck, his hands sliding around her bare waist—because in this daydream their clothes had conveniently disappeared, and it was no longer minus fuck-you degrees out—to palm her tits and drive his cock into her dripping pussy …
And once again, he’d missed the last twenty seconds of second unit footage he was supposed to be reviewing.
Shit. This was exactly why he stayed away from distractions on set.
He hit pause and refocussed on the screen. The shed scenes should slide seamlessly into the field shoots from last week. If he could concentrate on them long enough to sign off.
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” he muttered, not bothering to look up at the fidgety PA .
“Um, Mr. Graham, sir, she said now,” Bex said, exiting his office door and calling over her shoulder as she left, “And you might want to check your email.”
Sure, Melanie, I’ll jump! Exactly how high would you like that? Don’t mind me, I’m trying to direct a multimillion-dollar movie. Josh tried his best not to glare at Bex’s back. He could practically hear Cass’s sweet voice in his ear, reminding him the young PA was just doing her job, and had been nothing but incredibly helpful.
He sighed. “Hey Siri, take a note. Make sure Bex gets a good reference,” he said into his phone as he pulled up his inbox, already halfway down the hall to Melanie’s office before he froze in his tracks.
Who’s Dawson’s mystery girlfriend in Canada?
Dawson James stays warm in the Great White North
The sweetest man in Hollywood found some sugar in Calgary
Dozens of photos, splashed across all social media platforms. Each post shouted similar interpretations of the cheesy headlines he was looking at now. Big, bold sans serif letters and big, bold full colour pictures. Some taken through a paparazzo’s telephoto lens, others with a surreptitious snap on a cellphone. All from set over the course of several weeks.
A grainy photo of Cass tugging on Dawson’s suit months ago in the converted athletic facility. A wide shot with their heads together and laughing in the farmer’s field with the sunrise glowing behind them, Dawson looking like a previously unknown Hemsworth and Cass all gilded and gorgeous, her red lips a fiery beacon in the snowy morning. One from just yesterday—he recognized her hangover clothes—with Dawson shooting a dopey grin down at her, her hands all over his chest.
Half the pop culture-consuming world would think Cass and Dawson were madly in love.
“What the fresh fuck is this?” Josh demanded, barging into Melanie’s office without knocking. Three heads turned to him with wildly different expressions. Melanie sat behind her glass and metal desk in her temporary office with a calculating look on her face. Dawson rocked on his heels in the corner with hands shoved in his pockets. A middle-aged man who looked familiar pecked away at a laptop, face oddly blank.
“That,” Melanie said, pointing at the same headlines pulled up on the oversized monitor, “is free publicity.”
“I ordered a closed set.” Ever since Cass had hinted that Brynne’s chilly personality was more shyness and less divaness, he’d closed the set when filming emotional scenes. Without the extra bodies milling around, Brynne’s “visualising time” had been cut down to a fraction.
And now there were paps sneaking around when Brynne thought they had privacy. “How the fuck did someone get close enough to get these?”
“They have their ways,” the man chirped, his voice overly animated, as if trying to make up for the overzealous administration of Botox halting emotion at his eyebrows. “As long as we don’t let Brynne get cast as getting between them. We don’t want her looking like a homewrecker.”
“Hard for her to look like a homewrecker if there were no homes to wreck,” Josh bit out through clenched teeth, swivelling his head to the man striking keys on his laptop like he was playing a piano concerto. “And who are you?”
“Bernie Scott. Promotions,” the man said. Ah, that was where he recognized him. Bernie Scott had worked on several projects with Melanie, the latest of which the lead actor had been nabbed for drunk driving. A few unsanctioned photos from a remote film set were probably a welcome, and comparatively sedate, diversion. He hit a few more keys and shut his laptop screen. “It’s a bit of a situation.”
“It’s an opportunity, not a situation,” Melanie said, and Bernie’s mouth pulled into a semblance of a grin.
The film was getting attention. Like Melanie said. Free publicity. A good publicist could spin anything. Any time the film hit in the news cycle was a win.Josh should be delighted with this.
Even if it meant the fandom would get their hands on every unedited still shot, scouring for Easter eggs Josh had meticulously planned. And Brynne would retreat further into her trailer between takes. And everyone would see photos of Cass cozying up to Dawson with her hands all over him and those wide doe eyes of hers gazing into his.
He wanted to launch the free publicity through the window.
“It would look better if the shots were all of Brynne and Dawson,” Bernie said. “It would make people want to see if they look as hot on screen as he and Cassidy do in these photos. But as long as we can get some good photos of her, we can work with this.”
Melanie jumped in. “Or we could work the angle that Dawson just has chemistry with everyone. Release the screen test footage?”
Dawson shot her a quelling glance and read over her shoulder. “Has Cassidy seen these?”
“I would assume so,” Melanie said in a distracted voice, still scrolling through headlines. “It’s trending on socials.”
“Since we got a bunch of people in here talkin’ ‘bout her, seems like a pretty good idea to find out.”
Melanie furrowed her brow. “Why does that matter?”
Because she’s not his , Josh wanted to growl, but swallowed the words. Terry had hired her a wardrobe assistant. Maybe she needed another one. Then she could focus on the design and look of the movie and not be so hands on. Specifically, hands on Dawson. Unless she wanted to spend all her time touching him. Her hands weren’t on Brynne nearly as often. Fuck.
Josh refrained from kicking the foot of the nearest chair.
Melanie waved her hand. “Cat’s out of the bag. Best we can do is control the story. Besides, the gossip cycle is short. If we don’t move fast, this could all blow over before we even figure out our angle. ”
“And if she hasn’t heard already, she’ll get wind of it soon enough,” Bernie added.
“In the meantime, let the paps shoot what they will, Dawson and Cass looking chummy?—”
“Intimate.” Bernie cut in, his eyes sparkling. “Everyone loves an on-set romance.”
Fuck on-set romance. Terry was getting a budget increase to hire more set security, along with another wardrobe assistant, as soon as this meeting wrapped.
“Cassidy didn’t sign up for this,” Dawson said, feet planted. “I’m not putting her in an uncomfortable position.”
You have no idea the positions she wants to be in .
Still, it was the first smart thing anyone in this room had said. Unlike Melanie, who seemed hellbent on turning a couple of leaked photos into the next great love story.
“We don’t need to make it formal and let the story play out?” Melanie mused, looking at the ceiling as her head wavered back and forth.
Josh felt his heart get sucked through the floor. Suddenly the thought of sending her on dates twenty-one through thirty, even with assholes like the architect, to get her out of this sounded like an easy out.
And then she’d be at the mercy of any number of shitheads. Just so he wouldn’t have to see her with Dawson. Not like thinking of her with other men was much better.
Cass had just said she needed a break, both from men and all the drama dating brought. However bad Tinder was, dating in the public eye was worse. At least a few commentators would say something shitty about her, that she’d probably see, and crush her already fragile self-esteem even further. He wiped his hand over his face.
“No.”
All the heads in the room turned to him.
“What do you mean, no?” Melanie blinked at him. “Studios pay good money for exposure like this. ”
Melanie was right. Studios planted leaks like this all the time, hoping to get this kind of interest. And here they were, with fans clamouring for information and media buzzing before they had released a teaser trailer. The hype machine hadn’t started, and a few blurry photos had garnered more attention than anything he’d ever worked on. It was exactly what he wanted.
Should want.
What he wanted was Cass as far away from Dawson as possible.
Fuck. Josh prowled around the edges of the room. Melanie hated it when people told her no, especially when it got between her and money. The only time she didn’t hate it was when …
“Brynne works better with a closed set.” It wasn’t a lie. Melanie tripped over herself to make her favourite actor happy, and if this partial truth got Melanie on board, then so be it. “I made a commitment to her. No unsanctioned cameras on set.”
The fact that Cass and Dawson wouldn’t have an extra reason to get close, posing for pap photos, had nothing to do with it.
Melanie traded a glance with Bernie, who shrugged, face blank, though that could have been the Botox wiping away his emotion. She took a final look at the headlines and sighed. “Fine.”
Well, shit. That was easy. “Good, Cass doesn’t need that kind of scrutiny,” Josh said, then added, “or Brynne.”
Dawson nodded slowly his expression unreadable. “Right. Wouldn’t want to worry her about being trailed by photographers.”
And he didn’t need the distraction of wondering if she wanted that.
The last of the crew trickled past his open door and out of the building for the night. The artificially warm lights were thrown off by the w all sconces’ LED bulbs flickering along the hallway, and Josh repositioned his monitor to avoid the glare. He eyed the modified storyboards in grim determination.
“There you are!”
He jumped as Cass’s bright voice rang out behind him. She stood framed in his doorway, cheeks still rosy from the cold, mittened hands wrapped around a paper to-go cup.
It hadn’t been too hard to avoid her, since he was eyeballs deep behind the camera and she had her hands all over Dawson, again, fixing the lab coat that apparently grew wrinkles organically.
At least it wouldn’t end up on another gossip rag’s landing page.
He grit his teeth and ran a hand through his hair. “A bit late for caffeine, isn’t it?”
“Bedtime isn’t for hours, and don’t police my vices,” she said, toying with the lid. “Besides, it’s a mocha. Only one shot of espresso.”
He crossed his arms and drummed his fingers on his biceps. She looked less than her usual bubbly self, and he doubted it was the lingering hangover from the previous day. Her wide hazel eyes fixed on him expectantly, and he flicked his gaze back to his screen.
The conversation in Melanie’s office had played through his mind all day. They weren’t doing anything wrong, really. Cass knew the same amount she did now as she did before, and if she checked her social media, she’d have the same information as everyone else. And it wasn’t like not knowing would hurt her.
Still, he’d want to know if people were making decisions about him behind his back.
Fuck.
“Do you have anything you want to tell me?” she asked finally.
Josh closed the door behind her and turned on her with the same scowl he’d been wearing all day. She unwound the long-knitted scar f from around her neck, draping it in cozy loops over her arm, and waited.
“What’s going on with you and Dawson?” he said.
She blinked at him. “That’s what you have to say?”
Yes, because I’m a coward . “Set photos are being leaked,” he hedged, building up his courage.
“I noticed. I had about a hundred people tag me yesterday,” she said, and gave a weak thumbs up. “I’m famous.”
“They managed to find a lot of photos with you two together.”
“Photos of me doing my job, you mean?”
So, she knew. He looked past her shoulder and out to the street beyond. “Let me guess. Dawson?”
Cass sighed. “He told me everything.”
Of course the fucking Boy Scout had. It was the right thing to do. Bet he had decided to tell Cass before he’d even left the room, all while Josh had tried to cover his own ass.
“He left that meeting and came straight to tell me about the leaked photos. That the publicist is happier than a five-year-old on Christmas morning, and the fact that everyone wanted to keep me in the dark. Including you.” She dropped into the chair across from him and the hurt in her eyes made him look away. “Were you going to tell me?”
The tension he’d been holding in his chest spiked his gut. “Of course I was.” Just as soon as I’d figured out how.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I was. I wanted to …” He rolled his shoulders. It didn’t matter what he’d wanted anymore. “I just needed to figure out the right way to say it.”
“I’m a big girl. You don’t need to sugar-coat for me.”
Even if she did think she could take it, he’d sent her out to be bruised enough. Josh swallowed a groan. “Our publicist should take over your socials for a while. Lock it down so you don’t get harassed?—”
“No need. I’ve set my accounts to private. You should have seen how man y matches I had on Tinder when I logged on this morning to shut down my account. And really, selling me and Dawson as a couple …” she trailed off, peeking up at him.
He thought about the photo with Dawson grinning down at her even more dopily than usual; the caption Canoodling in Canada emblazoned across the top. Who the fuck said canoodle ? These gossip sites needed better copy editors.
And Dawson was an incredible actor, but none of that looked like an act. That man’s intentions were declared louder than if he’d tweeted them to his eight hundred thousand followers.
“I bet Dawson would be first in line for that,” he said petulantly.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sounded jealous.”
We’re beyond sounding jealous, Lucky Charms. “I wasn’t sure if his ‘gosh, golly, gee’ response was an act or if he really was that concerned.”
“D’s a sweetheart. Of course he’s concerned.”
That made it worse. That Dawson had immediately done the right thing out of concern for her, and Josh had sat on the news all day, stewing, like a selfish asshole.
A soft smile traced her lips. “He also said you stood up for Brynne.”
It wasn’t her I was standing up for. If he couldn’t admit it was because he couldn’t stand to see Cass in another man’s arms, even staged, he wouldn’t take credit for the small bit of goodness that had come out of the day. He shrugged.
“Just talk to me, please,” she said. She stood to leave and paused by his side to squeeze his arm. “This shouldn’t have been a big deal. Respect that I should know these things.”
This was the extent of the confrontation? Just a gentle request not to keep her in the dark? Josh raked his fingers through his hair for the thousandth time that day, and fresh guilt churned his stomach.
“Okay.”