Page 7 of Secret Daddies

“You really forgot what I do for a living?” she snapped back, crossing her arms over her chest. There was something about the icy tone to her voice that didn’t seem right, coming from her—I had always known her as this warm, sweet girl, but here she was, a grown woman, glaring me down like she wanted to take a chunk out of me.

“No, it’s not that,” I replied, taking a few steps toward her, measuring them slowly so I didn’t spook her. I felt like she might make a run for it at any moment, just to put some distancebetween us—though, I figured if she was working, she likely wasn’t going anywhere.

“I just…I thought I would have seen you working on one of these projects before,” I continued, keeping my voice as casual as I could. I didn’t want her to know how thrown I was at her presence, not by a long shot. If we were going to be working together, then I needed to keep whatever was going on between us professional.

“Yeah, I got called in last-minute to cover for someone who’s on maternity leave,” she explained, sounding exasperated. “Can you sit down now, please?”

I did as I was told, sinking into the seat before her and staring at her in the mirror as she started to gather everything she would need to work on me. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’tfuckingbelieve it. How had we never run into each other before?

I had hoped, when I had to move on so quickly, that we would be able to reconnect again through work, but it never happened. I’d figured she dropped out of the industry like so many people did to go and do something different with her life, but here she was, standing before me, the makeup brush in her hand as she looked me over with narrowed eyes.

“It’s really good to see you again, Maya,” I murmured to her before I could stop myself. Her mouth pressed into a hard line.

“You did a pretty good impression of pretending you never wanted to see me again, before.”

I winced. She had every reason to be pissed. I had gotten an offer at a major studio just as filming for the indie project I’d met her on had wrapped up—it was a last-minute thing, and they wanted to fly me out that week to meet with them. I hadn’t thoughtanything would come of it, so, being a twenty-year-old jerk-off, I’d rushed off without bothering to tell her or anyone where I was going. I figured I’d be back by the end of the week, licking my wounds and telling myself that it was all good practice for when I actually managed to get somewhere in the business…

Instead, I’d gotten the job, and I started work right away. The studio had me sign all kinds of NDAs and contracts, and I had been freaked about so much as telling anyone what I was working on. When I got a new phone via my contract, I lost her number, so I couldn’t have told her even if I wanted to. Yes, it was a jerk move, but I had been young, and I wouldn’t be anywhere close to where I was in my career right now if I had passed up the chance.

Besides, what we’d had…it was just a fling. Or at least that’s what I’d told myself after I left. I had never gotten involved in the cliché of an on-set affair before Maya, but the moment I’d laid eyes on her, something ravenous woke up inside of me that demanded I have her all to myself. I couldn’t get enough of her—we would sneak off for quickies in between scenes and then spend all night at my tiny rented studio, fooling around and watching movies and chatting about our dreams for the future. I could still remember wrapping a strand of her beautiful hair around my finger as she told me everything about what she had planned, all the goals she’d worked so hard to set into motion.

And when I left, I figured we’d find a way to each other again. That we’d work on the same project or something, and pick up where we left off. But now, seven years had passed, and I hadn’t laid eyes on her—until I found her glaring at me in the mirror of the makeup trailer on my biggest movie yet.

“Look, Maya, I’m sorry?—”

“Don’t bother,” Maya shot back, cutting me off before I could get out anything else. “It doesn’t matter. I’m over it.”

She grabbed a brush and started applying something to my face—with a little more force than I thought she technically had to. As she pulled back to inspect her work, my gaze flicked down to her hand—no wedding ring. Which didn’t mean that she was single, but she wasn’t married either. Same as me—probably focused on the work over finding anyone to settle down with.

“You’re not acting like you’re over it,” I pointed out. She let out a sharp sigh, cocked her hip to the side, and rested her elbow against her waist.

“Listen to me, Devon,” she told me firmly. “I don’t care about what happened between us in the past. I’m here to do a job, and so are you. I want to keep this professional. No mention of what happened between us before, you understand?”

“Sure,” I replied, but I couldn’t help a slight smile quirking up the corner of my lips. “You know, there are plenty of girls who’d want everyone to know about?—”

“Don’t get cocky,” she warned me, and she grabbed a different brush and started working on my face once more.

“I can’t promise anything,” I replied, grinning at her. She didn’t quite make eye contact with me, but as I watched her in the mirror, I could have sworn that I saw the hint of a smile cross her lips.

And that smile—I knew in that instant that I would do anything to see a little more of it.

And that whatever chemistry we’d had back in the day, it was just as real now as it was then. Over the next few months, it wasgoing to be tough to keep my thoughts to myself—but who was to say she wouldn’t start to soften on me in the process…?

5

MAYA

“Hey, Maya,”Paula called out to me as I headed down to the food station to get some lunch. “Have you got a minute?”

“I was just about to take my lunch, actually, I?—”

“Oh good, so you’re not busy,” she panted, finally catching up with me. “I need someone to head down to stage four to do some touch-ups on Lee. Can you handle that for me? Thanks!”

She swept off before I could say another word in protest—my stomach was grumbling, and I knew it was going to be sincerely displeased when it found out we weren’t heading to the craft table. Turning on my heel, I checked the signs laid out around the main quad of the set to figure out where I was going, and headed down to take care of these touch-ups that Lee needed so badly it was going to cost me most of my lunchtime.

Honestly, it was a good sign that Paula was asking me to handle this stuff for her—it showed that she actually thought I was capable of it, which was a relief. I’d only been here a couple of days so far, but it had been full-blown chaos, and my mindsethadn’t exactly been helped by seeing Devon first thing on my debut morning.

And God, he was still an asshole. No real apology. Just trying to flirt with me, like we could pick up where we left off. Did he really think that was how this was going to work? That I would fall, simpering, into his arms like one of his on-screen love interests? He had been spending too much time shooting blockbusters. He needed to come back down to the real world. Given the chance, I would be all too happy to bring him down with a bump.

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