Page 17 of Falling Like Stars

I’m called over to take a few more pics on the off chance they need to go again. I approach Zach and move in front of him.

“How’d it look?” he asks.

I pause. “You’re asking me?”

He nods seriously. “They’ll all tell me it was perfect.”

“It wasn’t,” I say, meeting his eyes. For all my alarm bells and self-loathing, something in me wants to give him my honesty. “It was messy and violent and raw.”

His gaze locks on mine. “Thank you.”

“Yep,” I say, and we stay there for a moment—in a space where there’s no one else around and even my own pain feels far away.

But I come to my senses and stand on my tiptoes to take a few photos. “You’re so damn tall.”

Zach hunches lower, so we’re face to face. I’m level with his stunning hazel eyes that look about as deep as a canyon. I quickly put the phone up between him and me.

“Well?” he asks after a pause.

“Well, what?”

He stands at his full height and lowers my phone. He says nothing but arches a brow, his smile a question. I expect my defenses to scream in high alert but I’m strangely calm. I arch a brow right back.

“We drank all the wine last night.”

Zach’s smile could warm a small planet. “I’m on the job.”

Chapter Five

THE MOVIE STAR and the PA, take two.

“What the hell am I doing?” I mutter as I sink into the hot tub a few hours later. The shoot has wrapped for the night, the crew all gone home, and I’m about to be half-naked with one of the world’s biggest movie stars. Again. “This is nuts.”

It isn’t that he’s a movie star that bothers me. It’s the fact that nothing about Zachary Butler bothers me. Which is impossible. No one is that handsome, charming, and seemingly kind, while being ungodly rich and famous. I told the truth about not reading the tabloid fodder about his and Eva Dean’s disintegrating relationship, but I’ve heard plenty. She sounds like a toxic nightmare, but every story has two sides, right? Maybe tonight Zach will show his toxic side.

And then I’ll immediately want to sleep with him.

Sudden heat creeps up my face and it’s not the water. I’m on the verge of talking myself into leaving before whatever this is goes any further, when footsteps approach. Zachary rounds the corner, dressed in long shorts and a T-shirt. He’s got a towel tucked under one arm and a bottle of red wine in hand.

“An offering to the no-bullshit zone,” he says, holding up the wine with a grin.

Ugh, he’s too damn cute for his own good.

“What is it? An 1890 Chateau La Feet Something, from your personal cellar in France?”

He inspects the label. “More like, a 2023 Kendall Jackson from the nearest liquor store.”

Zach removes his T-shirt, and I pretend to become extremely involved in hunting in my bag for the wine-opener. I find it and let him do the honors.

“Shit,” he says, popping the cork. “I didn’t think to bring a second glass. Guess we’ll have to keep sharing.”

“Guess we will,” I say, wondering if he “forgot” the same way I “forgot” to swipe a plastic cup from catering on my way out here.

He pours a very full wine glass and offers it to me.

“Cheers,” I say and take a sip, then pass it over. He does the same and then nods his chin at the book I’d set beside my bag.

“What’s the book?”

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