Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
All the girls must’ve gotten their warning to halt assassinating my character. The fake smiles plastered across their faces say it all. Suddenly, everyone wishes us the best. Says they’re happy for our “happily ever after.”
Not one of them says they want to be my friend. Whatever.
Thankfully, Jaxon and I are the final scene of the show. To bring the season to its glittery end, balloons, confetti, and—ugh, what is this sticky crap?—glitter rain down from the ceiling.
“Kiss him!” Betty yells in my ear, still producing my every last moment. I can’t wait to never hear her voice again.
Jaxon must’ve gotten the same direction because he wraps an arm around my waist. But instead of kissing me, he leans in, lips brushing my ear.
“Dingbat? You think I’m a dingbat?” he whispers.
Gleefully—like I’m genuinely thrilled by the sparkly garbage falling on me—I rise on my tiptoes, lean close to his ear (he’s so tall), and say, “Let’s talk after this.”
His large hands grip my waist.
“Where?” he murmurs.
When he lifts me off the floor and spins me around for the cameras, I feel light as air.
“My dressing room,” I whisper back, lips grazing his ear.
And… damn it. That does something to me. Down there. Something I have absolutely no intention of acknowledging. Just biology. Nothing more.
“Okay,” he says, lowering me back to the stage.
He doesn’t exactly give me a soft landing. Asshole.
“And cut!” the director calls.
Jaxon grabs my hand and all but hauls me offstage. His grip is hot, urgent. Everyone watches, stunned—especially the producers—as we slip through the dark hallways.
My heart hammers until I finally get the door to my dressing room open.
“Tanya, Missie, could you give us a second?” I ask my hair and makeup artists.
They exchange another one of those raised-eyebrow looks, but thankfully, they leave.
Now we’re alone.
“What the hell was that? You said nothing as they attacked me. I thought you had my back,” I snap, pointing a thumb back toward the stage.
“Dingbat? Really?” Jaxon growls. “You called me a dingbat?”
I sigh and close my eyes, trying not to lose it.
“I can’t believe you’re harping on that.”
He’s staring at me like I’m the one who’s lost her mind. Maybe I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to defuse the situation. We have the better part of six months to pretend we like each other, so I can’t have him hating me even more already. “You must’ve done some… dingbat thing, which is why I said it. But…”
“You don’t even know me,” he snaps. “You never tried to. And you’ve been rude since day one.”
“Ha!” I scoff. “Me? You’ve been rude. What did you call me—Sticky Fingers? Mocking my…”
I stop. I can’t say my crime. The shame still catches in my throat.
“I apologized for that,” he says, and I’m shocked into silence. Because if he hadn’t said anything, he would’ve had me beat right there, leaving me drowning in the humiliation of what I had done. “You don’t know how to let things go.”
I cross my arms and plant my feet. “Says the guy still mad I called him a dingbat.”
“And all that crying, shaky voice—was that an act? Because you’re way too good at lying.”
I jab a finger into my own chest, stepping closer. “I was saving our asses,” I hiss. “While you sat there sulking. Haven’t you been called worse? Dingbat, dingbat, dingbat!”
We lock eyes, breathing hard.
And then it happens. That thing.
The tension thickens. The air shifts. Something warm and heavy pulses between us. Something neither of us is ready to name.
He licks his bottom lip slowly, draws it into his mouth, and I swear I feel it in every cell of my body.
Then—knock knock knock.
“Jaxon, we gotta go!” a voice calls from the hallway.
Jaxon steps back. Shakes his head. Turns his back on me.
And just like that, it’s over.
Once the door clicks shut, I stagger back until my fingers find the edge of my vanity stool. I sink onto it, dazed.
“What the hell was that?” I whisper.
I shake my head. Let it go. Let it go.
I cannot be hot for the likes of Jaxon Wilde.
Not now.
Not ever.