Page 81 of The Unfinished Line

Scene 29

Elliott slammed me into the moss-covered stone so hard it made my teeth rattle.

“I knew you’d put up a good fight,” he hissed against my ear, his breath reeking of something sour. I clawed at him, digging my nails into the forearm he’d shoved against my neck, desperate to escape the pressure of his body. I found everything about him repugnant. His laugh. His lips. The way he so easily overpowered me. No matter what way I twisted, I couldn’t escape his hands tearing at my clothing. He pressed me harder into the wall. “Stop pretending you don’t like it.”

Beginning to panic, I tried to tell him to fuck himself, but he cut off my protest as he crushed his mouth against mine. It enraged me. The sudden, unwelcome intrusion—the bitter taste of his tongue, his cold fingers forcing their way beneath the winter layers of fabric. Finding strength I didn’t know I had, I managed to shake loose an arm, and without thinking, hauled back and struck him. Hard.

“Cut!”

Oh. My. God.

Struggling to recover my breath, I stumbled back a step, horrified. That hadn’t been in the script. But then, none of it had. Elliott and L.R. had decided it would be best to leave the scene improvised. Something, I discovered, Aaron hadn’t protectedme from in my contract.

“What do you mean there’s no intimacy coordinator?” Sophie had ranted when I called her a few days earlier after landing in Scotland. “This all should have been stipulated in your nudity rider.”

The provisions written into my intimacy scenes covered a lot of things. Angles—as in, nipples or no nipples. I’d insisted on the latter. It was one thing for the movie to open with an ultrawide shot of a stark naked Addison Riley stumbling through the snow of a nuclear winter, but it was another entirely to have the whole world become acquainted with the color of my areolae. Aaron had spelled out the length of time my unclad body could be shown in a continuous shot—four seconds—and even specified the types of modesty garments to be provided. Who knew a Hibue could make Grady Dunn look like a Barbie doll?

When signing the contract, I’d felt like we covered all the bases. But that was before discovering Elliott Fleming was a complete asshole.

In Greenland, my more sensitive scenes had gone off without a hitch. I’d been nervous—the most skin I’d ever shown on camera was my calf in theGillettecommercial—but between the crew and Grady, I’d felt very protected. But then, part of that reason was because Elliott hadn’t been there.

We’d shot all of his scenes in Nuuk in the first ten days. His schedule was the priority—that had been made abundantly clear—and before the second week was out, he’d boarded his private plane and jetted off to Africa, where he was starring in an adventure film.

His departure had come as an immense relief to me. I’d have rather shot a hundred simulated sex scenes with Grady in the arctic blast of winter than filmed a single frame with Elliott in the comforts of a studio.

I loathed everything about him. Shooting with him these last three days had only reenforced the validity of my hatred.

Our present scene together wasn’t a love scene—it was an assault. One I was grateful L.R. had kept in tune with the book. The novels were adult-themed, but they hadn’t been explicit. But it was no surprise the script had placed more on-screen emphasis on the tumultuous love triangle. I got it, sex and violence sold—this was Hollywood, after all.

Swords and dragons may have lured viewers toGame of Thrones, but it was the titty shots and gory fight scenes that kept them returning for more.

So, I was relieved when I read the script and found they’d left the majority of Oliver’s assault off-screen, implied the way Margaret Gilles had written it. But I still hadn’t realized just how violating it would feel to film the lead-up to the insinuation.

A fact indicated by the trickle of blood dripping from Elliott Fleming’s lower lip.

Holy shit. I was about to get fired.

“I’m—” I started, with no real sense of what I was going to say, but was saved by L.R., who had burst to my side, his face barely visible beneath the cinched hood of his rain jacket.

“Brilliant!” He pounded my shoulder with a gloved hand. “We’re going to roll with that. Beautiful, Kameryn.” He looked to where Elliott was dabbing blood off his chin. “You going to live?”

Elliott worked his jaw, his eyes fixed on me. “Glad my contract included dental insurance.”

L.R. was unperturbed, calling for makeup. “Get him cleaned up, will you?” he clapped his hands. “Last looks! Let’s go, people! Moving on!”

“You know,” Elliott whispered as we set up for the continuation of the scene, “you even hit like a pussy.”

I dug my dirty fingernails into my palm. I may have gotten away with it once, but I doubted I’d get away with slugging him asecond time. I was just grateful L.R. was satisfied with the take. We’d filmed it at least a dozen times.

For the next two hours, I crawled through the mud-covered grass of the dilapidated castle courtyard, feeling the weight of Elliott’s boot pressing me into the saturated ground. It was the last shot scheduled on the call sheet, the end to the nightmare of this scene, and there’d been more than one time where I’d wondered who was crying—me or Addison Riley?

“Cut! Let’s call that a wrap!” L.R. finally hollered through the north Scotland drizzle, drawing cheers ofThank God, I’m freezing, andWho’s up for a pint?from various crew members.

I pushed myself upright, making sure the drenched tatters of my threadbare shirt were still covering what they were supposed to, and was surprised by Elliott’s outstretched hand. I ignored it, forcing my shaky legs beneath me, not wanting to linger on my knees too long for fear of whatever comment he would fling at me.

“Solid work.”

I thanked the costume standby for the warm jacket handed to me and scrubbed fifteen-hundred-year-old soil from my face, ignoring Elliott. Not once had he offered me so much as a word of encouragement. I wasn’t about to let him compliment me now.

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