Page 78 of Cast to be Mine

They reset to their marks. The scene was straightforward on paper—Elena and Jack’s character racing away from the cyberterrorists, reaching a dead end at the cliff’s edge, forced to make a desperate choice. The stunt doubles would handle the actual jump and the water landing. All Grace and Jack had to do was run, react, and look terrified.

Simple.

Except nothing felt simple when the woman I was falling for was standing thirty feet from a sheer drop.

“Action!”

Grace sprinted across the rocky terrain, Jack close behind her. They hit their marks perfectly. Jack grabbed her arm, spinning her around. Grace’s eyes went wide with panic—real, raw fear that would read beautifully on camera.

And then she stumbled.

Just a small misstep, her ankle rolling slightly on a loose stone. She caught herself immediately, didn’t even come close to losing her balance, but my heart stopped anyway.

“Cut!” The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

Everyone froze. Grace looked at me with confusion. Jack threw his hands up.

“What was wrong with that?” Jack demanded. “That was perfect. She was fine.”

“I saw a wobble,” I said, which was technically true even if it was a massive overreaction. “Let’s reset and go again.”

The crew exchanged glances but complied. We ran the scene again. And again. Each time, I found something to call cut on. The lighting shifted. A cloud passed over the sun. Jack’s shadow fell wrong. Grace’s hair blew across her face.

All bullshit reasons, and everyone knew it.

By the fifth take, Jack was visibly fuming.

“This is ridiculous,” he snapped, stalking toward the monitors. “We nailed it on take two. What the hell is going on?”

I opened my mouth to deflect with another lame excuse, but the words died in my throat. Because he was right. Take two had been perfect. Take three had been even better. I was sabotaging my own shoot because I couldn’t handle watching Grace anywhere near that cliff edge.

“Let’s break for lunch,” I said instead of answering. “Everyone back in ninety minutes.”

Jack muttered something under his breath that I chose not to hear. He always bitched, so it was nothing new. The crew dispersed with obvious relief, probably grateful to escape the tension that had been building all morning.

I headed straight for the stunt coordinator’s tent, my mind racing. Maybe there was a way to restructure the sequence. Put Grace further from the edge. Use more coverage shots so she didn’t have to be in frame for the dangerous moments. I could rework the scene.

Rick, the head of the stunt team, looked up from his tablet as I ducked inside. “Micah. What can I do for you?”

“The cliff sequence. I want to talk about repositioning Grace. Getting her further from the drop.”

Rick frowned, then rubbed his temple. “Further from the drop? She’s already fifteen feet back from the actual edge. The camera angle makes it look closer than it is.”

“I know, but⁠—”

“And she’s clipped into a safety line rated for three thousand pounds. Even if she somehow managed to fall, which she won’t, she’d swing into the padding we’ve got set up below the sight line.”

“I understand that, but⁠—”

“Micah.” Rick set down his tablet and fixed me with a look that said he’d been doing this for thirty years and had seen it all. “She’s not in any danger. We’ve been over this. Multiple times. This is why you hired us—to make sure no one gets hurt. The insurance rep cleared it. They wouldn’t have if they thought there was a hint of danger.”

“What if we adjusted the blocking? Had her stop a few feet earlier, used a tighter lens to give the illusion she’s on the edge.”

“Stop.”

I turned at the sound of Grace’s voice.

She stood at the entrance to the tent, hands on her hips and anger flashing in her eyes.