The smell of it.
That was what had done her in.
She’d almost puked right there and had dropped the pills. Dash rushed after her, calling her name.
Where had she been standing—
Something rattled, rolled.
With dread, she looked down and realized Dash had just found the bottle—with his foot. The large bottle of vitamins went rolling across the floor and stopped only when Sebastien caught it with his boot.
She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hand as he stooped down and picked up the bottle, eying it narrowly before looking up at her. After a moment, he looked over at Dash.
“I guess congratulations are in order.” His voice was low and pleasant, his gaze unreadable.
Marin pressed her lips together and when he came to stand in front of her, she didn’t let herself back away.
He extended his hand and she reached out, slowly taking the bottle of prenatal vitamins from him.
“I guess you two were more serious than you let on, huh?” Sebastien gave her a tight smile and then nodded at Dash. “I assume this is what you’re blaming on him, right?”
Dash opened his mouth, sputtering, but Sebastien was already striding down the hall.
She went after him.
He was already at the door.
“Sebastien, wait.”
She caught his arm as he went to open the door. Heat arced between them. “Did you hear me?” she demanded.
“I heard you.” He looked down at her, eyes flat. “I need to get going. Didn’t plan on staying. I just came by to tell you something anyway.”
“But . . .” She searched for something to say, unsure where to start. Things were moving way too fast. Two months ago, she’d been trying to fight the tug she felt toward Sebastien. Then she was suddenly naked with him and before she could even figure out how that had happened, he was calling her another woman’s name in his sleep.
Now she was pregnant.
And he thought the baby was Dash’s?
Clearly he remembered nothing about their night together. She’d suspected it for a while, but it was like that entire night was a blur.
She just couldn’t keep up.
“You haven’t told me anything yet,” she pointed out, a desperate attempt to keep him from leaving. Even if it just kept him here a few more minutes, it would be a few more minutes she didn’t yet have.
“Yeah . . . there is that.” He hesitated, then after a moment, slowly reached up and cupped her cheek. “I was an asshole the last time you came out to my place, Marin. I said some things I shouldn’t have. Actually, I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have. I could give you a lot of reasons why, but . . . hell. None of it matters now.”
His gaze slid to her belly and he nodded one last time.
“Take care of yourself. See you next week when we start rehearsing.”
He didn’t look back at her, not even once as he headed down the steps.
As for Marin, she would have called out his name and demanded he stop, but a weird knot, bigger than her own fist had settled in her throat and it was choking the life and voice out of her.
Chapter Twelve
“I didn’t think it was possible, but you two are even better together than I’d expected.”
Sojourne Torré, the director, stood in front of them at the end of the first day of shooting and looked like she wanted to rub her hands together. Her dark face was creased with a wide smile and she caught Marin’s cheeks in her hands, planted a quick kiss on her mouth. “Beautiful, honey. You two are just beautiful together.”
Marin laughed as she pulled her robe on. “You’re just saying that because you want me to go out with you, Sojo.”
As for Sebastien, he was trying not to think about all the smooth bare flesh she was covering up.
They’d just finish shooting a dream scene—one from his character’s point of view. It was a bit more emotionally charged than he would have expected a guy like Rand to experience, but in Rand’s defense, the man had been dying at the time.
He accepted the T-shirt somebody offered him and pulled it on. He wasn’t much for robes, but the wardrobe staff hired for this project had plenty of people who’d worked with him before. A moment later, he was passed a pair of jeans to pull over the ridiculously brief jockey shorts and he was finally somewhat comfortable with the fact and hoped he could stop mentally imagining cow guts and sheep brains.
Normally he didn’t have to worry about things like that, but when it came to shooting intimate scenes with Marin, he’d developed a system. He had to focus on gross, unappealing things and half turn his brain off or he’d do what was considered pretty crass in the business.
He’d get a fucking hard-on.
Leaving the shirt hanging out, he focused back in on what Sojo and Marin were talking about and watched as the director winked at Marin.