Page 25 of He's The Reason Why

“I have it on good authority that while the morning might have been a little rough, you and Blake Ryan were seen having a cozy conversation all by yourselves in the corner during lunch.” His tone insinuated that there might have been something sexual going on.

“I wouldn’t call it cozy. Blake thought I was so bad that I needed an emergency acting lesson.” Piper glowered at the memory. “He was right, too. I wasthatbad. But that’s all it was. There was nothingcozygoing on. At all.”

“You know, I don’t think that pudding would pair well with the wine.” Neil took a sip. “It’d basically make a fruit salad in your mouth.”

“That wine pairs well with everything.” Piper proved her point by taking a sip. It was even better than she remembered, with hints of apple and spice, but the spice didn’t exactly set off the bananas and chocolate very well. “Okay you may be right.”

“Of course I’m right. I was raised in Napa Valley.” Neil sniffed the wine, then took another sip. “Anyway, don’t beat yourself upabout this morning. According to Tamar she saw a real connection between you and Blake that carried the afternoon. She said your performance improved so much it inspired the writer to change some of the dialogue to match. Apparently you two went off scriptseveraltimes.”

“Hewent off script,” she said, disgusted. “I just followed.”

“Tamar said it was ‘a vast improvement.’ Paul called it ‘inspired.’ He was downright gleeful at how much better you did after your little chat with Blake. I got the sense they were both relieved, actually.” Neil leaned back into the pillows and examined the wine in his glass like it was a diamond. “I must remember to tell your sister how spectacular this is.”

“Well, if they think I improved it’s all thanks tohim, which is just annoying. Nothing I did on my own worked.” She thought back through the afternoon read. “I’m still not sure exactly what happened. One minute we’re just saying the lines, the next he’s dragging me around the room, pretending like the tables are trees and the people are rocks or bushes or animals. Somehow we wound up dancing a disjointed sort of waltz which made everyone in the room laugh. Well, almost everyone.”

Neil tilted his head. “Was he supposed to do that? Was it in the script?”

“Noneof it was in the script. It was like having an out-of-body experience. He teased me and taunted me and flirted at me until I forgot there were a hundred other people in the room. I didn’t feel likemeanymore. It was like I washer. I was Princess Jewel, trying to save my sister while having to put up with this annoyingly obnoxious, ridiculously handsome man who kept insisting on getting in the way. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever done. But I have to admit it was fun, in a confrontational sort of way.”

“Interesting.” Neil’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “I see what they meant by chemistry.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “That wasn’t chemistry, it was irritation.”

“Mhmm.” Neil sipped his wine. “So, after all that, you didn’t think the afternoon was better than the morning?”

“It was definitely better,” she admitted. “The basic mood of the room shifted from worried to enthusiastic, so that was encouraging, but it wasn’t exactly what we were supposed to be doing, so I’m not sure it counts. Sooner or later we’ll have to say the real lines.”

She stopped short of telling him her real worry, that she might not be able to repeat what she’d done today. Not by herself. That thought made her nerves twinge. She took another sip of wine and ignored it.

Piper leaned back against the pillows. “The best part of the day was Rachel Morris. She went from rolling her eyes and making little huffs of annoyance to shooting me sullen, dirty looks. I’d say I must have done something right.”

Neil laughed. “Now that I would have paid good money to see. She’s so used to being in the spotlight she probably thinks she’s being punished.”

“Do you think she’s really trying to take my role? Blake said she was but I don’t know if he was serious.”

“She might try, but it won’t work. Trust me, after what I heard from Tamar and Paul, there’s nothing that would convince them to walk away from you and Blake. You two clicked, which is worth more than gold in this town.”

“We didn’t click.” She frowned at the very idea. “That’s not what we did.”

“I’ve seen clicking and that is what it sounds like you did.”

Piper drained the rest of her wine glass, then set it down on the coffee table with a slight thud. “Blake Ryan is a pain in the ass who spent all day putting me through an emotional roller coaster that somehow made me better at doing the lines, but I have noidea how he did it or why it worked. He didn’t explain anything, he just played me like I was some kind of instrument, which is justwrong.”

“On what planet is that wrong?”

“You’re saying you wouldn’t mind being manipulated?”

“Honey, that’s the kind of manipulation I can totally get behind. I love Rupert, don’t get me wrong, but I sure as hell wouldn’t mind Blake Ryan playingmelike an instrument.”

Neil poured more wine into her glass.

“Ugh, not like that. I’m not doing anything likethatwithhim.” Piper tried to chase that image out of her head.

Neil emptied the rest of the bottle with a look of regret. “You can argue all you want but from what I heard you two werehottogether today.”

“We werenothot.” She thought about everything Blake had done today. He’d leered at her ass, taunted her with the loss of her job, and teased her about how inexperienced she was. That wasn’t hot. “At best, we were antagonistic.”

“The look on your face does not match your words.”

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