Page 149 of He's The Reason Why

“Yeah. Mom’s already got a project in mind.” Blake took a beer out of the fridge.

“She call back yet?”

“Piper? No.”

Marshall drained his own beer and set the bottle down. “Think she’ll show?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say she wouldn’t.”

He held on to that glimmer of hope like the lifeline it was.

If Piper pulled out of this movie, they were screwed.

If she pulled out of the movie, their relationship was over before it had even gotten a good chance to start.

He’d be able to tell his mother he’d been right about never dating a costar.

He’d never wanted to be wrong so badly.

Marshall grunted and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m grabbing a shower.”

After Marshall disappeared down the hall, Blake sat for a while, staring at nothing, until his email dinged the arrival of a revised studio budget forConned.

He might as well bury himself in hopeless numbers. It fit his mood.

He opened the spreadsheet and started comparing figures with his own while he finished his beer.

Several minutes later, one of the items caught his attention. He stared at it in disbelief. Double-checked both the names and the numbers beside them on the sheet marked “Producers and Investors,” then read them out loud to himself just to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

Executive Producers: Blake Ryan (30m), Marshall Weston (30m), Carlton Rogers (25m), Piper Bellamy (20m).

The spreadsheet was wrong. It had to be. There was no way it could be right.

“Marshall,” he shouted. The sound echoed off the tile floors. “Get in here.”

Marshall walked into the living room wearing nothing but boxer briefs and a towel over his wet hair. “What?”

“Look at this.” Blake put the laptop on the coffee table and spun it around for Marshall to see.

Marshall peered at it. “It’s the budget. So?”

“Further down.” Blake stood up and started to pace.

Irritation and something else a lot softer, like gratitude, mixed around in his chest and came out as nervous energy. He had to move, or he might lose his mind.

“You, me, the studio bastard, and…oh.” Marshall looked up. “Huh. You change your mind at some point and not tell me?”

“No.” He paced the length of the living room. “That can’t be right, can it? She couldn’t just go behind my back like that, could she?”

Marshall shrugged and started rubbing his hair with the towel. “Don’t see why not. The studio holds right of refusal for producers, not us.”

“I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want to take money from her. Not for this. Especially after the other night.” He picked up his phone and tapped out a quick text to John.

Piper Bellamy…Exec Prod?

The answer came immediately.Yes.

Blake swore. “She did. She went to the damn studio. I can’t believe this.”

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