1 Chapter 1

1

It felt like a walk of shame.

I’d never actually done the guilty-sneaking-out-of-bed-and-out-of-the-house thing, but if I had, I imagined it would feel like this. Every step was a heavy clomping of boots because I was so reluctant to make this walk. I was certain all eyes were on me. I stared at the floor in front of me as I made the journey, not wanting to catch anyone’s eye. I was in the worst kind of trouble, everyone knew it, and I didn’t want to see the sympathetic and pitying looks.

I hadn’t been given a chance to change. In fact, the steel in Vincent’s voice as he shut down the set and told me to report to the conference room in the production wing had given me chills. As much as I didn’t want to face the man, I was also determined to do it with my dignity intact. I’d fucked up, and there was no getting around that.

It took me a minute, once I finally reached the door, to get up the nerve to knock. But I did, then pushed open the door. Vincent Stevens stood on the far side of the room, bent slightly at the waist with his hands braced on the table, and his deep, dark eyes fastened on me. His brown hair was stylish, straight and just long enough to be called floppy, though he kept it swept back from his high forehead. The cut somehow accentuated his Roman nose, high cheekbones, and rounded chin. He was, to put it bluntly, absolutely gorgeous.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have noticed. No, that wasn’t right. I would have noticed, but I would have stuffed the thoughts down so far and hard that they would cease to exist. I’d been doing it so long it was second nature to me. But since last season, since that kiss with Aaron Zeller that caused an uproar heard ‘round the world, things were different. Now, when I noticed, I acknowledged it. At least to myself.

And Vincent was definitely worth noticing.

Everything about him screamed power and control. There was something about him, something no one could quite define, that made us all want to please him. And that worked out in everyone’s favor when he came in to direct. Only when Vincent was at the helm did we work with utter efficiency, always getting out on time, if not wrapping up early. I loved my job playing one of the leads on the popular prime-time crime drama Rourke and Geary, but I loved it even more when Vincent was directing. And it wasn’t because he was a beautiful man who rarely graced us with his gorgeous smile, making those times we saw it all the more satisfying. He made the work enjoyable in a way that didn’t happen often. I was riddled with guilt for having screwed it up badly enough that he felt the need to talk to me in private.

“Daniel,” he said, that gaze never wavering from mine. He didn’t say anything else, just my name, but I felt the heavy weight of disapproval in his tone.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, losing all my usual calm in the face of his censure. “I’m sorry, Vincent.”

He squinted, then straightened slowly. “I don’t want an apology. I want an explanation. You couldn’t get a single line correct and you didn’t listen to direction. What in the fuck is the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. There was no way I could tell him about the way I’d been struggling, the internal battle raging constantly and making my concentration absolute shit. And I certainly couldn’t tell him that, in the last nine months or so, I looked at him differently than I ever had before. None of that could be said out loud. It wasn’t something I was ready to talk about. Especially not with him. Vincent and I were friendly, but we weren’t exactly friends.

I saw the anger fill his features for a quick moment before his face was once again a neutral mask. But his voice dropped even lower, the tenor becoming a bass rumble, and I could tell just now pissed off he was. “Nothing?” He was incredulous. “That’s going to be your answer to me?”

I stiffened up my backbone. I would not be intimidated by him. “Yes, sir,” I said firmly, but politely.

Vincent crossed his arms over his lean chest. “You better come up with something better than that, Jacobs. You fucked up badly enough to put us behind schedule. That does nothappen on my soundstage.”

I shrugged, going for carefree and unaffected, even as I started to sweat. “It happens.”

Vincent growled as he stalked around the table and headed straight for me. He was a good six inches shorter than I was, maybe five-ten to my six-four, but somehow I felt like he towered over me. He kept going until we were toe to toe, and he was right up in my personal space.