AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When they stopped in front of the rehearsal space, a couple of bored paparazzi were congregated near the door, smoking. They putout their cigarettes with obvious annoyance, as if Cole and Tasha had arrived too early.
Cole hopped onto the sidewalk and held the car door open for Tasha. In keeping with their usual shtick, she kept close and Cole let his hand linger on her lower back while the paps dutifully snapped a few pictures. In ten minutes, those images would be doing the rounds on social media, making a dozen hashtags trend around the world.
It was a little game they played together. It had started by accident, but Tasha had insisted they keep it up because it kept Cole’s name in the press—in a good way. Every few years, they’d go through another intense cycle ofCole and Tasha are getting serious this timebefore the story becameTasha’s broken Cole’s heart—again!
Honestly, it wasn’t fair. One of these times, Cole ought to be the one to breakherheart, but the fans preferred to think of Tasha as a cold ice queen, with him as the golden retriever panting behind her.
Cole didn’t enjoy lying, but he and Tasha never said anything about it at all. They just arranged a scene every once in a while, and fans supplied the rest, seeing things that weren’t there in Cole’s and Tasha’s body language and facial expressions. It was kind of amazing, actually, the level of detail some people would pull out of the pics and the theories they’d come up with.
And it wasn’t like there was anyone in Cole’s life for this to bother. It sounded like a dodge, but Cole had been so focused on his career, he hadn’t had time to date the last few years. Besides, when he’d been a little less focused and he had met women, they hadn’t seen the real man who was under Cody Rhodes or whatever G.I. Joe he’d been playing that day. His friendship with Tasha was about as good as it got, and he was okay with that. He had to focus on his career. That was what mattered.
Zoya Delgado met them at the door of the rehearsal space. “Cole, Tasha, it’s good to see you again.”
The auditions had gone on for several months, and Cole had gotten to know Zoya fairly well. The show was her baby. She’d adapted it, andshe even wrote and directed some of the episodes. Zoya was deeply invested inWaverleybeing good, being right. After making so many projects that no one seemed to truly care about, Cole appreciated that this one was different.
“I’m glad you two could get here before the table read. It’s going to be such a long shoot, I know.” They’d rehearse in London before moving to Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands for the exterior shots and finally to a Glasgow studio for the interiors. Altogether, it was going to take almost four months to shoot the season’s nine episodes. “But I wanted to touch base, and I thought it would be good for you two to meet Maggie Niven.”
“Maggie?” Tasha said. “Who’s that?”
Zoya signaled, and a woman approached them with a tentative smile. Honey-brown hair fell almost to her elbows, curling a bit at the ends, and framed her pale heart-shaped face. She had light eyes, though she wasn’t close enough for Cole to make out if they were green, blue, or gray.
Her gaze slid over Cole, and she focused on Tasha. “Hey, it’s great to meet you. I’m your intimacy coordinator.”
Cole’s heart tripped into his ribs.
Dammit.This was not the moment for his libido to jerk awake after a long hibernation. It was the time for him to kick ass at his job.
“What?” Tasha demanded.
Zoya wasn’t bothered by his friend’s tone. “Didn’t Greta”—Tasha’s agent—“tell you? We decided to add an intimacy coordinator this season. Maggie will help you, Cole, and the rest of the cast block and rehearse the scenes with nudity and simulated sex, but she’s also going to be a liaison between the actors and the production.”
Maggie nodded. “It’s my job to make sure there’s no friction.”
“You could’ve just bought a can of WD-40.” Tasha directed that right at Zoya, as if Maggie didn’t exist.
That was a little rude. What was Tasha’s problem?
Although maybe Cole should also be pretending Maggie didn’t exist, because he kept noticing the way her sweater fell over her curves or the freckle crowning her lip, and he didn’t like it. Dating someone on set was something he’d done back when he was young and stupid. It was a bad idea, much like embezzlement or participating in celebrity group videos singing “Imagine.”
Cole dragged himself back to what was safe: being easy to work with and kind to all crew members. “I think this is great.” He said it partially to defend Maggie—who he’d met ten entire seconds before—but also because he honestly thought having an intimacy coordinator for the show was an excellent idea.
Cole’s bodywashis career. It had always been that way, and he’d never been confused about why he got hired for jobs, what was expected of him, or how he was going to be filmed. But having someone on set whose entire job was to advocate for him? Cole was down with that.
“Maybe for amateurs,” Tasha shot back. “You an amateur, James?”
“No, but—”
“Because I’ve been making movies since I was seventeen. I don’t get why we need this.”
Cole was confused. This didn’t feel like a diva thing, which would be par for the course for Tasha. It smelled more ... anxious than that.
“Rhiannon Simmons is a relative newbie,” Zoya said of the twenty-two-year-old who was going to play Madge Wildfire. Geordie was going to seduce her too. That guy got around. “She and Cole have love scenes. And Owen Roy has some concerns that we discussed during his audition.”
“Isn’t he part of the chaste, boring B-couple?”
Zoya swallowed a laugh. “Yes, but I still don’t want to be the subject of his tell-all memoir in a few years. I don’t want him towritea tell-all memoir in a few years.Waverleyis a strictly no-trauma zone.”
Tasha muttered something under her breath. Cole couldn’t make out every word, but her tone was skeptical and profane.
