Chapter 1

1: Day 17, NightPrologue: Auditions

“I cannot work with Colby Kent,” Jason hissed into his phone. “I will seriously end up punching someone in the face. Probably Colby Kent.”

“I’ve only ever heard good things.” From the sound, Susan had set down her tea; the old-fashioned porcelain clink echoed across the line from her office, clear and sharp as her reputation. Jason knew both he and his acting career had been lucky to have her as an agent; sometimes, like now, he wished she didn’t know him quite so well.

She threw in, on top of the previous statement, “Everyone adores him. Cast, crew, directors, producers. Audiences. Box offices. What did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“Did he sayhe doesn’t like you?”

“No!”

“Then what happened?”

“He apologized for running late! And gave me his coffee!” This was true. Jason had been precisely on time, knocking at the door of the twelfth-floor Raven Studios production offices where he’d been told to come in for a screen test and chemistry read with the man in question.

Colby Kent had opened the door, a flustered column of that everywhere-and-nowhere faded accent and stylishly disheveled shadow-brown hair, and had said, “Oh, no, I’m so sorry, we’re just finishing up some discussion about James—er, that is, the previous person we—would you mind waiting a minute or two? And would you like coffee? Oh, wait, are we out of coffee? Here, have mine, I’ve actually forgotten to drink out of it, so it’s perfectly untouched, I promise.”

Jason, standing bewildered in the wake of this blue-eyed hurricane of niceness, had attempted to process an offered coffee-cup. Had hunted for words.

That niceness couldn’t be real. That apology couldn’t be true.

Colby Kent was an international phenomenon, a superstar, someone who’d built the skyrocket of his career out of romantic comedies and period dramas and critical acclaim. Someone who’d gone from playing the heroine’s gay best friend, to playing the glamorous bisexual hero of that provocative aristocratic television miniseries—even Jason had seen it, and had stared at that cool flippant elegance and that shower scene for far too long—to becoming a film-star romantic lead in his own right, and someone who’d somehow made everyone fall in love with him along the way. He was a producer on this particular film, which was a passion project of his, or so said the general industry commentary.

Colby Kent was, at this moment in time, someone who had all the power. Someone who did not need to apologize and give up his own coffee to an aging action hero whose last film had been kindly referred to as “good for a forgettable popcorn afternoon.”

For most people thirty-eight wasn’t even that old. Getting up there, though. Jason tried to imagine his future for a second or two. Jason Mirelli, starring in Revenge: Aftermath: Aftermath. Jason Mirelli in John Kill Part Ten: John Kills From A Wheelchair. In Heart Attack IV, only this time it’d be a documentary.

He knew that was exaggerating. But he also knew the industry. And he wasn’t thatyoung, and he wasn’t thatattractive. Not terrible, or he thought not, but nothing to rely on, either. Brown eyes, square jaw, lots of weight and height, dark ominous eyebrows, craggy nose. It’d be a matter of time before the parts dried up or became self-parody, unless he was unbelievably fortunate, and he’d never been that. And his back had begun to creak alarmingly some mornings.

And…

…he’d been getting bored.

He’d watched Colby Kent command the screen and everyone’s sympathies as the clumsily adorable single father stealing the heart of a cynical journalist in Local News, and as the quick-witted and tragic updated version of Mercutio in that modern-dress Romeo & Jules, and he’d thought: not this, not exactly, but something likethis. Something that’s significant, that can also make people smile. Something that’s bigger, brighter, telling stories that scoop up hearts and souls.

He was more or less out and public, as far as sexuality and liking both women and men—these days it wasn’t a huge deal, or mostly not, and he’d not made any real public statement or any kind of a big reveal out of it, and that seemed to be that. Quiet. Under the radar. Unremarked.

Susan had advised him on that, too; you might see some reaction, she’d said, as far as outdated ideas of masculinity, if you’re massively indiscreet about it. But mostly people won’t care. And they hadn’t, though he hadn’t been dating anyone lately, and latelymeant for the last three years. Occasional hookups, yeah. Fleeting connections at a bar, at a party. Nothing more. No time. No sense of connection. Nothing that seemed to click.

This project, though…that’d clicked.

It’d been a script he’d not been able to put down. Glorious, gorgeous period details. Taffeta and silk, satin sheets and brandy, and the slow unbuttoning of waistcoats and the shapes of two men’s bodies entwined. Lavish sweeping scope. Intimacy and epic proportions. Traded gazes across a Regency ballroom, and the thunder of guns at sea, during the battle of Trafalgar.