Page 131 of One Time in Paris
Another narrator cut in, one that Boyd had mentioned had been hired to make the episodes more seamless. “But as the crew settled into explore this historic Texas town, they were off to a bumpy start?—”
Then came footage Isla hadn’t expected: Aiden. Her brother.
The argument outside the trailer when Tomas showed up.
She gasped, gripping Kyle’s sleeve.
What. The. Hell.
She blinked hard, dizziness cresting over her as she thought back to that day. Shehadbeen wearing a camera—Tim had started fitting her for it when she’d first gotten in...butthey were filming?
Shit.
Aiden’s face filled the screen. Unfiltered. Unscripted. And the sound of his voice—angry, protective, real—hit her straight in the chest. God, she missed him. Missed the way he looked at her like she was impossible and brilliant all at once. Missed the way his arms felt around her in the dark.
She hadn’t been ready to see him. Not when her heart still twisted at the memory of him walking away from her at Callum and Liddy’s party—without a backward glance to see howshewas doing. When she’d asked for space...and he’d given it to her a little too well. What if that was it? What if he’d taken her silence as his answer?
And now, this would do nothing to help the frayed relationship between them.
A glance at Tomas’s and Kyle’s faces revealed their surprise, too. “Did you know?” Kyle asked.
“I had no idea. I?—”
How was this even legal? Callum and Aiden would have had to agree to this footage of them being used, wouldn’t they have? They would have had to sign release forms and?—
“Boyd!” Isla nearly screeched, her voice so sharp that both Kyle and Tomas shrank away.
Isla broke away from them and stormed through the gardens toward where Boyd stood. A few feet away, Davy wrapped an extension cord into a coil. Her head jerked up, eyes meeting Isla’s for a split second before she looked away again.
“What the hell is going on?” Isla demanded.
Boyd’s demeanor was so unperturbed as he tapped on an iPad, not bothering to look up, that she wanted to punch him. “What is it now?”
“The first episode! Why are Aiden and Callum in the first episode?”
Boyd sighed and slid the cover over his iPad. “There was a romance blooming in this show. Drama. The sort of thing that viewers crave to see. We needed real tension, Isla. Not the G-rated fluff you and Tomas came up with.”
She felt the blood drain from her face. “I-I don’t understand. This is not what I agreed to. I did not give you permission to go rooting around my personal life for footage.”
As Tim passed by with a plastic storage box in hand, she jabbed a finger at him. “And you! How dare you not tell me you were recording me?—”
“You might want to take a second look at the contract you signed with us, Isla. It stated very clearly that we could use any and all footage from the entirety of this production for whatever creative purposes we saw fit.”
Kyle’s words echoed hauntingly,“I can’t remember the last time I read anything I signed.”
Even Aiden, whom Isla was certain was usually more discriminating before putting his signature on a piece of paper, had signed the release form without looking at it in detail.
Because of Davy.
Acid rose up Isla’s throat as she looked at the woman who was supposed to be her friend.
Her hands trembled as she crossed the path toward her. Davy’s back was to a grove of trees, giving her little space to escape—unless she backed into the trees and shrubs. Which, from the look on Davy’s face, it appeared she might be considering doing. “Davy?” Isla’s voice was hard.
“I—”
“Did you know they were filming all the time? Even when we weren’t aware?” Isla asked, hurt and betrayal pressing deeply against her heart.
But her eyes confirmed it. And if that wasn’t enough, the memory of Davy crying outside that coffee shop in Arkansas, then reaching over and switching off Isla’s camera, came back with sickening force.
