ETHAN NOTICED GREY’S FEET BEFORE anything else. He’d never really been a foot guy, but coming around the corner and spying her bare feet dangling off the arm of his sofa, he suddenly understood why so many perverts were trying to google them. He could easily see himself wrapping his hand around her heel, moving up the delicate indent of her ankle, past her smooth calf, up the tantalizing expanse of her thigh barely covered by her cutoff shorts.
She was sprawled on her back across his couch, nose buried in a stapled packet of paper. Based on the way her expression shifted as her eyes darted across the page, she was reading a script, marking her way through her character’s emotional arc. He forgot all about her legs as he homed in on her face, captivated by her focus. It must have been several minutes before her eyes shifted to him and she jolted, yelping in surprise.
“How long have you been standing there, you creep?” she asked, her tone playful rather than accusatory.
He evaded the question. “What is that? Your chemistry read?”
She sat up, tucking her legs beneath her and unfolding the stapled pages. “Yep. It’s in two days. I kind of can’t believe it, it feels like I’ve been waiting forever.” She looked up at him through her lashes, almost shyly. “You still down to run lines?”
Ethan shrugged. “Let’s see it.”
He moved to the other side of the sectional, grabbing the outstretched pages from Grey’s hand on his way. He settled on the sofa, a safe distance away from her. At least, as safe as he could be while still staying in the same zip code. He skimmed the pages.
“So I’m reading for…Evander?”
“You got it. Do you want some context, or does it not matter?”
“Sure.”
Grey swung her legs around again so she was sitting cross-legged, her hands moving expressively as she talked.
“Okay. So basically there’s this big fancy city—the titular Golden City, obviously—everyone is rich and beautiful, everything is perfect, blah-blah-blah. There are a few royal families that control everything. I’m part of one, Evander’s part of one, he’s all set to marry my character and inherit everything. But, then he finds out—dun-dun-dun—that there’s this secret underclass being tortured and exploited to provide everything they have. Obviously he can’t just keep living his life like everything’s fine, now that the illusion has been shattered. Classic Allegory of the Cave shit, right?
“So then there’s this gang of insurgents, the Noxins—don’t think I didn’t see that eyeroll—who are all former royal kids who have rebelled and live outside the city with the rest of the commoners, trying to bring the city down. This is the scene where Evander is trying to sneak out to join them during the big annual bacchanal or whatever, and I catch him and try to use my feminine wiles to convince him to stay.”
She dropped her hands and looked at him expectantly. His amusement must have shown on his face. “What?”
He laughed a little and shook his head. He could’ve listened to her describe that stupid book for hours. “Nothing. I like the way you tell it.”
She ducked her head down, trying to suppress her own smile. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”
Ethan glanced down at the page. “I think you have the first line.”
“Oh. Right.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked back at him. “Where are you going?” Her tone was neutral. She was holding back, clearly self-conscious about running the scene with him.
He matched her deadpan line reading. “Go back to the party, Caitlin.”
“Catalin,” she corrected.
He squinted at the paper.
“Sorry. Go back to the party, Catalin.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on. It’s those men, isn’t it? The Noxins?” She spoke quickly, without emotion.
He paused for a long time, slowly flicking through the rest of the pages, lost in thought. Her brow furrowed. “I didn’t miss a line, did I?”
He looked back up at her. “I think we should put it on its feet.”
Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Really?”
Ethan was already up, pushing the coffee table out of the way to clear some space. “Playing it for real will be more helpful than just making sure you have your lines down.”
Grey scooted off the couch. “Whatever you say, Mr. Director.”
The two of them squared off, a little awkwardly.
“Um. Do you want me to mark the slap? Or”—she paused—“or anything?”
He shook his head. “Go full out. All of it.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, and what looked like an involuntary shiver rippled through her. The anticipation of what was coming obviously electrified her as much as it did him. He shouldn’t be encouraging it. But it was all for the sake of her career. This was a selfless good deed, using his experience to mentor her. Nothing more.
She shook her limbs out a little bit to cover up her reaction. “Yes, sir,” she said, a devilish glint in her eye.
Ethan turned his back to her and took a few steps away. He heard her voice behind him, imperious, with a thread of vulnerability laced through it.
“Where are you going?”
He whirled around to face her, a note of warning in his tone. “Go back to the party, Catalin.”
She lifted her chin and took a tentative step toward him. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.” Her eyes widened slightly, and she lowered her voice. “It’s those men, isn’t it? The Noxins?”
He glanced back down at the script. He was tempted to play his next monologue in the melodramatic manner it deserved, but thought better of it. It would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise to openly belittle the material.
He realized with a jolt that it had been years since he’d actually acted in anything. In the meantime, he’d been demoted from billion-dollar-franchise lead to living-room-audition-scene partner. Surprisingly, the revelation was freeing, rather than humbling. He let himself settle into the character, attacking his lines with gravitas.
“And what if it is? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them. Have you? Thinking about the cost of all of this. The suffering. The thousands we crush under our feet every day for the sake of our own comfort. It’s tainted. All of it. I can’t live like this for another second.”
Grey stared at him for a long beat, frozen, her emotions shifting from confusion to horror. Slowly, realization dawned on her face. Her voice was hollow, resigned.
“You’re going with them.”
Ethan took another step toward her
“I am. I have to do what’s right. I don’t have any good reason to stay.”
Grey was indignant. “What about your family? Your destiny?” She cast her eyes down, hesitant, then met his gaze again, her voice trembling. “What about me?”
Ethan closed the distance between them and took her hand. “I thought you’d be relieved. You’re free now. You don’t have to marry me. You can be with Kyran.”
Grey tried to laugh but it caught in her throat. She looked up at him in disbelief.
“What makes you think I want to be with Kyran?”
“I saw—I thought—”
She put her hand on his cheek and looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. Her next words came out in a throaty whisper.
“You were wrong. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
She placed her other hand on the other side of his face and pulled his lips down to meet hers. He’d expected her to hesitate, at least for a split second, but she dove in without a second thought.
Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t really remember the kiss from the night of the premiere. He was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything horribly inappropriate. He only remembered that he’d liked it, and that it had felt like the only thing to do at the time. Whatever hazy memories he had of their glorified peck were obliterated by the immediacy of this kiss, the passion and the pleading behind it.
She slid her hands into his hair, and the combined sensations of her fingers and lips were so annihilating that he almost forgot where he was, what he was supposed to be doing. The taste of salt mingled with the sweetness of her mouth, and he pulled back a little to see that she was crying. Right. The scene. He inclined his forehead against hers and brushed a tear away with his thumb, stealing a glance at the script pages in his other hand.