Page 22 of Bad Reputation

She was starstruck. That was it. She couldn’t believe that she was here. She couldn’t believe she was doingthis. She’d had a terrible year, and somehow, this magic dream had become real. No wonder she was dizzy.

The previous night, Maggie had almost let herself get carried away. It had been the fault of that once-in-a-lifetime meal and all the booze, but when Cole had made a chivalrous joke about how they should dance, Maggie had almost said yes.

Which would’ve been embarrassing because he hadn’t meant it. ThankGodshe’d figured that out at the last second.

No, she had to concentrate on her job. No more emotionally revealing conversations. No more entirely-too-romantic late-night walks.Work, work, work: that was the ticket. Once Maggie got her sea legs, this silly crush would go away, as surely as the nausea faded the second day of a cruise. It had to.

Luckily, Rhiannon had hopped up onto the exercise mats and was still teasing Maggie for her bad drawings. The wordsunintentionally Cubistwere getting thrown around a lot, and that was a blast of cold water over Maggie’s libido.

Bernard had been adamant that storyboarding was a necessary prerehearsal step, but Maggie knew when something was a lost cause. At least she felt confident about handling the blocking.

For the next bit, they walked through the dialogue and the kissing that preceded the love scene. It was like choreographing a dance, which Maggie had done for her productions because her high school didn’t have a dedicated dance teacher, but it was more complicated than on stage because of the different kinds of shots and camera positions.Are you comfortable with this movement?andHow does it look from this angle?Maggie was taking notes madly.

The truth was that sex scenes on TV and in the movies were broken down into so many tiny bits, rehearsing them didn’t feel sexy. The rough blocking had an establishing shot with kissing, a tracking shot of Cole’s hand tugging up Rhiannon’s skirt, a close-up of Rhiannon’s face in ecstasy, a medium over-the-shoulder shot from one point of view and then the other, a series of close-ups of various body parts touching and thrusting, and then a close-up of Cole gasping, before a high-angle shot looking down on the postcoital couple.

And each one would be scarcely longer than a GIF.

But when they were stitched together and processed and scored, they would be swoony. Or at least Maggie had to believe that this was going to, somehow, turn out swoony. Because right now, she couldn’t see it.

Cole and Rhiannon ran through the blocking again.

“I don’t think you can kiss her like that, Cole.” Maggie tapped her pen against her cheek, considering. “It’s too ... tender.”

Maggie couldn’t think about whether this was how Cole James would kiss a woman in real life. What she had to think about was this shot, and Geordie wouldn’t kiss Madge like that, as if she were precious. With that much sweetness and intensity. Even if Maggie was certain that every woman in the audience—herself included—would vaporize if he did, the feel of it wasn’t right, not for these characters.

Cole raised his brows in amusement at Maggie’s comment. “How should I do it, then?”

“Well, don’t cradle her neck. Maybe if you put one hand on the back of her head? You have to be more controlling.”

Cole rearranged, his fingers splayed across Rhiannon’s hair—and whoa, those were some thick, sculpted fingers.

Not the point.

“Like this?” he asked.

She cleared her throat. “Yup, that’s better. Rhiannon, you good?”

The actress gave a thumbs-up, and they ran through the sequence again. This time, Cole was more distanced, less affectionate. His movements were rougher, more demanding.

“That was good. Much more Geordie. I think we can call it a day.”

“Hold on.” Cole rolled back on his heels, and with the V of his old-fashioned shirt hanging open and his hair mussed and his lips flushed, he looked like a romance cover model come to life.

Maggie whimpered in her mind.

“Toss me a pen,” he deadpanned. “I gotta writeWhen in doubt, be a selfish assin my script.”

Which she could tell that he loathed because it was contrary to every reflex she’d seen him act on. Even when he was being a little too direct and told Rhiannon to put her own feelings ahead of the director’s, his impulse had had good intentions.

“That’s why they call it acting,” she reminded him as she began packing up.

He looked as if he wanted to disagree, but then he swallowed whatever self-deprecating response he’d wanted to make. Cole wasn’t asobviously or deeply wounded as Tasha, but somewhere along the way, someone had done a number on him too.

As long as Maggie managed to keep things aboveboard, she needed to try to help him as well. So when Cole returned the prop shirt, she told him, “I really appreciate everything you brought into the room today. I don’t think most people would be as willing to share those worries as you were, but it helped with—” She covertly pointed to Rhiannon. The actress was quite possibly the most Scottish-looking person ever, with pale-white skin, long red hair, and bright-green eyes. This rehearsal had driven home for Maggie how young she was, how vulnerable. “So thank you.”

Cole shrugged, as humble as ever. “It was no big deal. I honestly wasn’t even trying to break the ice or whatever. Those are real things I’m stressed about.”

“That’s what made it work. It wasn’t a put-on. You’re sincerely a nice guy.”

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