He waited for a response, but apparently she was done.
He looked down at the script and in a fit of temper—mostly self-directed—he hurled it across the room. His home was done in an open-concept design and nothing separated the kitchen from the eating area or the living room. The heavy, bound stack of pages ended up by the aquarium and he continued to glare at it for untold minutes.
It wasn’t until the alarm chimed, letting him know somebody had left the premises that he managed to snap himself out of it.
Swearing, he dragged his hands down his face and then he made himself go over and pick up the script.
When he saw the title, he almost dropped it.
T O R N
He didn’t drop the script, though. He’d throw it away. Maybe burn it in his fire pit.
He might have been able to do it, too.
But he saw the handwritten note next to the title of the script, which was typed in such stark font. By contrast, Marin’s handwriting stood out even more. He knew her writing as well as his own and he knew for a fact that she’d written this note well before their little . . . okay, big argument.
Sebastien,
Read the script. I know you wanted the part before, but it wasn’t right for you. Maybe you don’t want it now, but I can tell this part needs you, and I think you need it. This is your life and it’s time you come back to it. You’re missed, Seb. By a lot of us, and I’m not talking about your fans.We all miss you. Your friends miss you. Your family misses you. I miss you.
I’m playing Marlena and I can’t think of anybody I’d rather have acting as the male lead other than you.
You’re ready for this, Seb.
Read the script.
TTYS,
Marin
He gripped the script tighter, absently smoothing down pages he’d crumpled with his carelessness.
He’d just mail it back to JD. Marin wouldn’t be back out here any time soon—if ever.
He’d mail it back and tell JD he didn’t need a manager anymore.
But that wasn’t what he did.
He went straight into his office and sat down to read.
Chapter Ten
“I’m not going to invest the kind of time I do with you just out of pity. What we have is friendship. Not pity.”
Friends . . . fuck. The last thing he wanted was to be her friend. But yeah, shit. Whatever. “Fine. So we’re friends.”
She reached out and the light touch of her hand on his arm was enough to set his brain to buzzing. “You need to back away, Marin. The things I want from you are a lot more involved than friendship. My control is shit today. If you keep . . .”
She was more potent than whiskey, sweeter than wine.
And she tempted him. ”If I keep what, Sebastien?”
“Back away, Marin,” he said in warning. “Or . . .”
But she didn’t back away. Instead, when he pressed his mouth to her neck, she tilted her head back and he breathed in the scent of her. Her skin was so soft, so smooth. Under his hands, the narrow span of her ribcage felt fragile, but there was nothing fragile about her. Her fingers dug into his biceps and squeezed, her nails a soft little bite.
He shoved up her skirt, baring her thighs, but it wasn’t enough.
“Back away . . .” What was he doing? Telling her to stop him when this was what he wanted . . . needed? She was what . . . no, who, he wanted, needed. Craved. Burned for . . . yearned for.
Marin pushed her hands into his hair. She tugged, hard. Blinking, he focused on her face.
“Do you see me?” she demanded.
Was she serious? “All the fucking time.”
***
Another day. Another dream.
He wouldn’t think much of it—after all, dreaming about Marin was a lot better than what usually filled his nights. Dreams where blood splattered across his field of vision, where he heard Monica scream, when he had the knife and drove it deep inside another person’s body.
Yeah, he couldn’t say these new dreams were bad, and he definitely didn’t miss the nightmares.
But things were different now.
Marin had been here and she’d left that script and now his whole world was slanted a different way.
Now Sebastien was somewhat punch-drunk and he was more than a little pleased with the fact that it had nothing to do with alcohol.
He’d been up until almost three in the morning, and while normally that wouldn’t be a big deal for him, he’d given up on late nights a while ago, roughly the same time he’d given up on the alcohol.
Giving up the alcohol had required he do something else to take the edge off so he’d turned to more intense exercise than even he was used to. He wasn’t working with a physical trainer now, but he’d done that enough to know how to work his ass into the ground. He fell back on the program he’d done when he’d played the part of a Navy SEAL—and added to it. Basically, he wore himself out during the day, didn’t eat worth shit—not part of the program—and then last night, he’d stayed up reading the script.
Yeah, so he was punch-drunk.
Top it off with another surreal dream about Marin.