7
“Who else is here already?” Maria asked Conor with studied casualness as she accepted her heavy, old-fashioned room key. “Ramón?
Nava?”
The hotel proprietor’s freckled nose crinkled charmingly when he smiled. “You’re the last to arrive, Maria-My-Dear. Same rooms
as last time.”
“Good.” She tossed her room key in the air, caught it with a flourish, and winked at Conor. “I like an audience when I make
a grand entrance.”
He chuckled and waved her toward her room, after reconfirming that she didn’t want help with her bags. Of course, she did
actually want help. But not from Conor, and not because she truly needed assistance.
She simply needed an excuse to see Peter immediately.
After several trips down the hall, she had all her luggage stacked outside her suite. Ten more swift steps brought her to
his door, and she knocked firmly.
It took him a minute to answer, long enough that she started bouncing on her toes in impatience. But once his door swung open,
she feigned calm like the talented thespian she was and offered him a brisk wave.
“Peter!” Her greedy gaze devoured him, from wavy dark hair to broad, bare feet. “Could you possibly help me put my suitcase on the luggage rack?”
Normally, Maria was not a fool for men. Not anymore.
But they’d been on separate continents for far too long. After Cassia and Cyprian’s late-summer feast, the show didn’t pick
up their story again until winter’s merciless chill had turned their island desolate and bare of food, so filming had stopped
for three endless months.
And she’d missed him each day of their time apart. All of him. Those wary brown eyes. That wall of a chest. His rusty laugh. The endless strength powering his every stride, and
the quick wit sharpening his talented tongue. And now, now...
There he was. Her sexy monolith of a Viking.
Only not hers, of course. Even though she’d turned down a dozen potential hookups in their months apart, unable to erase his
image from the backs of her eyelids anytime she closed her eyes to kiss someone. So, in the end, she hadn’t kissed anyone.
She hadn’t hooked up. She’d spent her time among friends and family and taken care of her own sexual needs with the very competent
help of her various LELO toys.
Given more time, she might get over this uncharacteristic burst of sentimentality concerning him. Just... not yet.
“Well, hello to you too, Maria.” He leaned against the doorway with a lazy smile, feet and arms both crossed. “I’m doing great.
Thanks for asking.”
She raised her brows. “So you’re a fan of small talk now? Good to know.”
“In your absence, I’ve become a paragon of politeness and good manners.” His brows beetled in feigned confusion. “For some
reason, it’s much easier to be nice to people when you’re not around.”
In deliberate provocation, she snapped her fingers. “Less chitchat, more lifting of my luggage, skitstovel .”
“Brat.” He pushed off from the doorframe, shaking his head. “Let me rephrase: For some reason, it’s much easier to be nice
to people who don’t call you a shit-boot.”
But his shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter as he brushed past her, so close she could sense the heat of his skin,
and he gripped the handles of her two largest bags.
She unlocked her door with a grin, the exhaustion from a day of travel suddenly gone. “I missed you too, Peter.”
After testing the weight of the heaviest suitcase, he sighed. “More disgusting snacks?”
“You know it,” she told him cheerfully.
With a sort of grunting noise, he heaved the suitcases over the threshold. After she rolled her carry-ons inside, he brought
in the final bag and placed all the suitcases on the couch and the luggage rack, so everything would be within easy reach
as she unpacked.
He held out his hand, palm up, and she stared at it in confusion.
“Do you...” She tilted her head. “Do you want a handshake? Or a low-five?”
His fingers wiggled in mute demand. “I’m waiting for my tip.”
She snorted. “Here’s my tip, then: Always ask for the money up front. Otherwise, unscrupulous foreigners will take advantage
of your unparalleled politeness and good manners.”
That did it.
His laughter filled her suite. She watched his face crease in mirth and wondered—as she had repeatedly during their filming
break—whether he might be able to offer her a real future together someday. If not now, then next month or even next year.
From what she could tell, he’d devoted his life almost entirely to his profession before now. That could change, though. He could change, and so could his priorities.
A career was all well and good. But it couldn’t make him laugh like she did.
And if he let her, she intended to show him that. Starting now.
Their first day back on set was a blast.
Everyone seemed fresh, eager to return to work, and delighted to coalesce once more into their tight-knit little crew of friends
and colleagues. They quickly fell into a familiar rhythm, even as they shot at a new location, one they’d likely revisit often
over the years.
In this episode’s script, Cassia and Cyprian finally encountered the island’s gate to the underworld, and they did so while
perched on a craggy cliff more than a hundred meters above the pounding Atlantic waves. The late-November wind howled. The
cold rain lashed.
Sure, shooting there was uncomfortable as hell, but it was a pivotal moment. Dramatic. Maria’s favorite type of scene.
In reality, the ostensible gate to Tartarus was a small blowhole that tunneled all the way from the top of the cliff to the
ocean below, and it sprayed a new puff of shiver-inducing water with every vicious crash of surf against the towering limestone.
After the SFX people got through with the scene, though, that hole would be larger and more ominous. The puffs of ocean water
would become steam. She imagined there would be a spooky-as-fuck soundtrack accompanying Cyprian and Cassia’s discovery.
And despite their shivers, she and Peter were acting the hell out of their script.
By the time Ramón and Nava were satisfied, everyone was shaking with cold but bright-eyed with accomplishment.
Given the weather conditions, they’d even gotten permission to use a van to return to their various lodgings, and they were basking in the vehicle’s warmth as they made idle conversation and dropped crew members off, one by one.
Then Ramón got a call on his cell. After a few seconds, his smile died.
“Are you certain—” he began, but whoever was on the other end cut him off.
Discreetly, Peter caught Maria’s eye and gestured toward their director in mute question, and she shrugged and spread her
hands.
After another minute, Ramón nodded, his forehead deeply furrowed. “Okay.”
He disconnected the call, then studied the van’s nubby carpet for a moment as the vehicle trundled toward their hotel. Finally,
jaw tight, he looked at Maria and then Peter.
“When we get back to our suites, the two of you have a virtual meeting with Ron. As soon as you arrive.” With a sigh, he raked
a hand through his dark, wet hair. “I would accompany you, but I can’t.”
Peter frowned. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you this, but...” Ramón trailed off, lips thin and white around the edges. “You should be prepared.”
That wasn’t ominous at all.
“I thought Ron and R.J. had dropped the idea. For the record, I argued against it, and so did Nava.” The director and line
producer made eye contact, and her chin fell to her chest as she sucked her lips between her teeth. “The showrunners want
to dramatize how Cyprian and Cassia would have starved over the winter.”
Oh. Oh . So that was what this meeting was about.
Not a huge surprise, really. Part of her had understood it was coming from the day she was cast. And when Peter inhaled sharply
a moment later, she knew he’d worked it out too.
He’d once told her he didn’t care why the show had chosen to cast fat actors as Cassia and Cyprian. Then, only moments later, he’d said they weren’t a team and wouldn’t stand united on the set.
Well, if she’d wanted to learn whether Peter’s priorities had shifted since that venomous conversation in an LA parking lot,
she was in luck.
“I would say more. I really would.” Ramón pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s just that Ron ordered—”
“It’s okay.” She reached over to give him a consoling pat on the arm. “We get it.”
“That makes two of you,” Nava muttered, her face hard. “ Fuck .”
The rest of the ride, Peter didn’t speak or look at her, but that was fine. The decision ahead should make him think hard. She was thinking hard too, marshaling her various arguments and reviewing the groundwork she’d been
laying for months to prepare for today.
Any battle she chose to enter, she intended to win.
When they entered the hotel, Ramón put his hand on her shoulder, squeezed, and gave it a little shake, then did the same to
Peter before disappearing into his suite. Nonverbal support, and she appreciated the gesture.
Halfway down the hotel hallway, Peter unlocked his own suite door and shoved it open so hard it thumped against the wall.
“We can use my phone,” he said brusquely and held the door for her without making eye contact. “I’ll bring you a towel and
start a fire.”
Did he actually intend to talk to Ron right now ? Was he really trotting to obey the showrunner’s unreasonable edict like a whipped dog summoned by its master?
“Peter—” Her short bark of laughter contained no humor. “Peter, we should talk before we meet with Ron. Besides, we were outside all day , and I need a hot shower before we do anything else.”
His jaw ticked, and he didn’t move from his doorway. “Ramón said we had to call right away.”
“I am literally shaking with cold right now.” She spoke clearly, enunciating every syllable. “So are you. And we both know
this meeting can wait twenty minutes.”
When he didn’t respond, didn’t budge or concede her point, something in her withered.