Page 69 of He's The Reason Why

“True.” She waved that part away. “But you only did that because you saw I was nervous. You wouldn’t have needed to warm up if it wasn’t for me, so it’s my fault.”

A shadow of a smile lifted his lips. “It’s nobody’s fault. It was agreat take. The movie will be stronger for it. Can’t really fault them for doing something I’d do myself.”

“But it’s going to put the movie behind. A lot. We’ll have to re-record the one song we thought was finished.”

He shrugged. “Yep.”

She didn’t believe this cavalier attitude he was portraying for a hot second, and it didn’t make her feel any better to have him blow off what she knew was a very big deal. He was getting screwed because they’d stumbled onto something they never would have found if he hadn’t gone out of his way to help her on the very first day and every day after that.

“How bad will this mess up the schedule forConned?”

“Hopefully, it won’t. It’s too soon to tell, really. To be honest, it could be a good thing. It gives me a few days at least to focus on other issues.”

They crossed the open expanse of lawn and into the shade of the garage. The way he’d said other issues was ominous.

“What happened this morning? When I got here, you were pacing back and forth like you were trying to escape.”

“Oh. That was nothing.” Blake pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Just one more thing to deal with, on top of the fifty thousand other things. But hey, that’s the life of a director, right? Where’d you park?”

She pointed at the back row. “Over there, near the end.”

“I’ll walk with you.” Blake waited for her to lead the way, then fell into step beside her.

They bypassed what looked like a tourist group by ducking behind a row of SUVs.

“Did something else burn down?” She deliberately slowed her pace so they had more time to talk.

It was midday, and there were people everywhere, but there was nobody close enough to hear their conversation and no cameras recording everything they said.

It was nice.

She liked walking with him, chatting like they were old friends.

“Someone we’d tapped for a role has backed out. It happens.”

She let out an audible gasp of fake shock and put her hand on her chest. “Someone dissed Blake Ryan and Marshall Weston? Who on God’s green earth would do that? They must be out of their minds.”

His lips twitched. “You sounded very Southern just then.”

“I’m always Southern,” she said in her best drawl. “It’s just usually on the inside.”

She dropped the accent. “Seriously, though, if I were cast in a movie with the two of you, no way I’d turn it down. Who was it?”

“Jessica Bullock. We’d tapped her to play the girl next door, as it happens.”

Her jaw dropped in real surprise this time. “You got America’s Sweetheart to play the lead girl? Wow.”

He sighed. “Well, not anymore, but yes. We’ve all been friends since we didJake’s Day Offwhen we were teenagers. She was willing to doConnedon points alone, which helped a ton with the budget. Guess we’ll have to rethink that.”

“She must really have believed in the project, to take profits over a set payday. What changed her mind?”

“She still believes in it. She wants to invest, but she doesn’t want to do the shoot anymore. At least we found out now and not two months from now. Gives us a little time, I guess.”

Piper was surprised someone Blake knew would do that to him. It sounded like such an asshole move to promise to work on a project and then back out that.

Then again, she’d noticed over the past two years of trying to getScorchedoff the ground that a lot of Hollywood types might say one thing but do another. The first three men tapped for Jesse had all backed out, the last one only two weeks before they weresupposed to kick off. She’d never seen Tamar look so angry, and even Paul had been so down he’d worn a plain blue shirt for three days straight.

“Why’d she pull out?” A thought struck her that took a little of her breath away. “Oh God, it’s not because you moved the kiss, is it?”

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