“Smart man,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She wanted the damn robe off. It was annoying her, but they were shooting—or supposed to be shooting one of the scenes where somebody broke in on her while she was changing and Sebastien’s character rode in to save the day. She was wearing only a bra and panties for it, up until he grabbed clothes for her to put on, right before hauling her out of the house. Under the robe, all she wore were the bra and panties. Sojo had announced, privately, that they would get any scene that involved her scantily clad out of the way early on. Since the robe was supposed to protect the lingerie and she needed the lingerie for today’s work, she was stuck. She wasn’t about to have this argument—discussion—whatever—with Sebastien while she was in her panties.
Sebastien finally spoke and this time it was through clenched teeth. “How about you explain to me how you didn’t tell me he was the dad, because I distinctly remember . . .”
His voice trailed off and Marin cocked a brow. Propping her hands on her hips, she started to tap her foot. “Yes? You distinctly remember . . . ?”
It was almost cute, how he glared at her for a minute and then spun away. Stalking over to the window, he stared outside, although she doubted he was seeing anything out there.
“Let me refresh your memory. You decided that congratulations were in order—for both of us. Even though we both tried to cut you off, you just kept going and before I could correct you, you just climbed on your high horse and rode on out of there. I even chased after you, trying to catch up with you on the porch and you didn’t want to wait—not even for two minutes.”
“I was fucking jealous!” he shouted, spinning around to glare at her. “I’ve had a thing for you for as long as I can remember and there you were—” He stopped, sucking a breath and blowing it out so hard, his entire body worked with the movement. “I was jealous, okay? So maybe I assumed it was Dash’s. You were dating him and . . .”
“One or two dates doesn’t exactly paint us as any sort of fixture, Sebastien. I haven’t even slept with him if you must know.” Her heart was twisting in her throat now. The look in his eyes wasn’t that much different than if somebody had knocked him across the head, but she was too busy processing what he had said. “What . . . you . . . just what does that mean that you had a thing for me? You were . . .”
She huffed out a breath and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ve been all shut down over the past year because of Monica. You were going to ask her to marry you.”
For a moment, Sebastien said nothing. He looked like he was still taking in everything that had been said in the past few minutes. Finally, he sighed. “Hell, Marin.”
As she watched, he moved over to the couch and dropped down, scraping short nails down his jaw and drawing attention the fact that he, like Dash, was expected to be scruffy-looking for much of this movie. Dash, whether he had five o’clock—or even ten o’clock shadow—still managed to look pretty. A year ago, she might have been able to say the same about Sebastien.
Now he looked dangerous. Heart-stopping. Breath-stealing. The scar stretched from his left eye down his cheek, almost to his mouth, paler against his tanned skin and that imperfection somehow just drew more attention to the surreal beauty of his face. He was still beautiful. She knew he didn’t see it, but he was still so beautiful. His eyes came up to hers and the hard sigh that left him seemed to come from the very bottom of his soul. “I did love Monica. But I was a kid when we hooked up and what I was looking for . . . Shit, it wasn’t what you need to make it last. I get that now. I know the difference. I . . .” He looked away, then. “We don’t need to do this. Look, I care about you. Maybe a little too much and it was rubbing me wrong thinking that Dash and you were . . . well . . . Top that off with the fact that the hound dog can’t keep it in his pants and that’s why I was going nuclear. I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to him and I’ll . . . I’ll get my head straight. I thought I was getting better at that, but guess not.”
He shoved upright, the muscles in his arms straining against the sleeves of his white T-shirt. He started toward the door.
Marin said softly, “You’re always trying to walk away when I’m trying to tell you things. I wasn’t done talking to you yet, Sebastien.”
One big hand clenched at his side. “Marin . . .”
“Sebastien . . .” She echoed his low tone as she moved closer. “Here’s the thing. You . . . well, you need to hear what I’m saying, okay?”
He turned slowly, facing her.
“Yeah? Why is that?”
Marin licked her lips and went to slide her hands into her pockets, only to remember she was in the dumb robe.She looked down at it, and then shook her head. Pointing at him, she said, “Don’t leave. Otherwise, I’ll just hunt you down and if we end up having this out on the damn set, you’ll be sorry.”
He grumbled behind her and she moved down the short hall to the small bedroom the trailer was equipped with. There, she had a real robe, not that pitiful excuse for one and she shrugged out of it, reaching for hers just as Sebastien appeared in the doorway. She caught sight of him and stilled.
His eyes slid down, lingering on her breasts.
Hurriedly, she grabbed her robe and jammed her arms into the sleeves. “Damn it, Sebastien.”
Heat burned in his eyes. “Sorry.” Then, in a mocking echo of the words she’d flung at him weeks before, he said, “It’s not like I haven’t seen you all naked before.”