Page 22 of The Actor and His Secret

But I don’t have time to panic about my lack of professionalism, because Megan is pointing one glitter-painted nail at the screen.

‘Is this him?’ Megan asks.

I freeze. I stare.

I literally cannot believe what I’m seeing.

There’s Adonis. He’s sitting at a table with a microphone in front of him, camera bulbs flashing, the scary looking Italian publicist I’d seen at the premier in the media pen standing off to the side.

He’s flipping something small and folded up and hot pink between his fingers. It’s my fucking affirmation post-it.

Adonis is regaling the crowd of reporters with a story about how it worked, filming the dragon riding scenes when the dragons had to be done in with CGI. He’s got that deep, raspy voice. The voice that told me last night I’m not a tease. Not when I have you waiting for me as he stripped.

Right before he took me to pieces in the best sex of my life.

‘Oli,’ Megan says in a dramatic stage-whisper, a huge-ass, shit-eating grin spreading across her face. ‘Darling. You just fucked Nikos Ridge.’

My cheeks heat as my stomach completes summersaults that would land me on the Olympic gymnastics team.

‘Well actually,’ I say, numb to the world. ‘Nikos Ridge fucked me.’

The revelation that I’d had Armin Wolfe’s cock up my arse the night before sends me into a tailspin. I’m literally dizzy.

We’ve taken refuge in Megan’s office, because it at least has a door. Once I’ve told her everything about the night in gripping detail, the two of us huddled under her desk like it’s a bomb shelter, we sit for a moment and I try to catch my breath.

Adonis is Armin is Nikos fucking Ridge.

I’m screaming incoherently inside my head.

When I’m done with the story, having told it twice because Megan says her mind is so overloaded she can’t grasp all the details with just one run through, she crawls out from under the desk, leaves the office, and comes back with two enormous, steaming cups of tea. I take one from her gratefully, my hands shaking, and wonder how the actual fuck this happened.

‘So,’ Megan says, back to the calm, cool, collected editor-in-chief. ‘There’s one really obvious thing we have to talk about. And that’s that you absolutely cannot out him. You can never talk about this again.’

‘Oh my God.’ I nearly choke on the tea I’ve got in my mouth. ‘I would never.’

I’d told Megan because I hadn’t known who it was. Adonis was an anonymous fantasy. Never for a moment would I have disclosed all this if I’d know he was an actual public figure.

An actual Hollywood star, who had made a career on being the brooding, sexy, extremely heterosexual leading man. The one Hollywood hadn’t seen in years until he reappeared to film his big comeback.

The one who always got the girl. Except now I knew he’d just as likely want to get the boy.

‘It’s going to be our secret,’ Megan says. I’m grateful for how steady she’s being as I slowly panic. I gulp down another hot mouthful of tea, hoping it works its magic on me and washes away some of the adrenaline coursing through my limbs. ‘He clearly doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s into men, and that’s fine. He’s entitled to his privacy for whatever reason.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘I know. I mean, look, I have no idea why he’d want to have sex with me, but it’s going with me to the grave, I swear it. Not only would I never do that to another person, I’d also not do that to the cast and crew of the movie. It would send the entire premier into a total tailspin. The hunky action hero isn’t straight? He’s some variation of my-sexuality-includes-sticking-it-in-guys?’

‘Always the publicist, you,’ Megan says, blowing on her tea, smiling faintly again. ‘Well, this is a hell of a memory, Oli.’

‘Yeah,’ I breathe out, wondering just how I got so lucky. I got my one night with Armin Wolfe. With Nikos Ridge.

I was his first.

I just wish that it hadn’t also been our last.

10

NIKOS

It’s been thirty-six hours since I last saw Honey, and I can’t stop thinking about him. I don’t bother trying to, either. Because of this, it has also been thirty-six hours since I last had a drink.

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