Page 96 of Cast to be Mine

Maybe she didn’t have proof. But that woman had built an empire out of leveraging gossip and innuendo. She didn’t need proof. She needed a story, and I had just handed her one on a platter.

I pressed my forehead against the tile.

I’d just survived one fake on-set romance. Weeks of being America’s homewrecker, death threats in my mentions, strangers analyzing my body language. And that had been over something that never even happened. Now here I was, sprinting directly into a real scandal.

Actress sleeps with director. It was the oldest story in Hollywood and the ugliest. Nobody would believe he’d cast me for my talent. Nobody would believe I’d fallen for him after the casting, not during. Every performance I gave in this movie would get retroactively re-graded through the lens of our sexual relationship.

Micah had already blown up the studio’s PR strategy once to protect me. One whisper of he’s sleeping with his lead and Breathless stopped being his breakout and became his scandal. That video would also be taken apart and people would decide he did it to protect me. Yes, he did, but they’d make it ugly.

I shut off the water and stood there dripping, glaring at myself in the fogged mirror.

“Get. It. Together,” I told my reflection.

One more day of shooting in Hawaii after today. One more day. Then we wrapped, flew home, and whatever this was between Micah and me could exist in a world that wasn’t a pressure cooker full of cameras and gossip. I just had to hold it together for two more days.

How hard could that be?

By the third hour on set, I had my answer. It was extremely hard. I was jumping at shadows. Convinced everyone was talking about me. Us. I’d only seen Chantilly once, but she was around. What did she tell Jack? Did she already record a video? Were we going to be a blind item?

We were back on the beach for a sequence of quiet scenes—Elena walking the shoreline, a phone call, a confrontation with Buzz’s character setting up the final act. Easy stuff. Talking stuff. The kind of day I should have been able to do in my sleep.

Instead, I read into every word and look.

Every time Chantilly appeared on set, my entire body tightened. She lounged near the monitors in a floppy hat, phone in hand with her fingers flying across the keyboard. Who was she texting? TMZ? Page Six?

Every time she laughed at something on her screen, my stomach dropped. Every time she pulled Jack aside to whisper, I was certain she was talking about us. Telling him all about her evil plans to expose Micah and me.

At one point, two grips passed behind my chair murmuring to each other, and one of them giggled. I whipped around so fast I nearly took out the script supervisor.

They were looking at a video of a dog on a skateboard.

I turned back around and told myself to stop. I was freaking out and it was going to affect my work.

“You’re in your head,” Micah said quietly during a reset. He kept it professional, didn’t crouch down or touch me. He stood where the camera required him to stand and spoke to his actress. But his eyes were searching my face. “Stay on the beach. Elena’s in the moment.”

“I’m trying,” I said through my smile.

“Try harder. Chantilly isn’t going to say anything.”

I nodded, reset, and got through the take.

Over and over we repeated the scene. When Micah called cut, he didn’t say anything for a long moment, just watched the monitor with that stillness he got when something had actually worked.

“That’s the one,” he said finally. “Moving on.”

The crew moved. I stayed rooted, wrung out.

Patty materialized beside me with water and a protein bar.

“You’re off today,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I forced a smile. “Tired. Ready to be done.”

The afternoon dragged on. Every setup felt like an eternity. Every take felt like I was swimming through molasses, trying to find Elena underneath all the noise in my head.

Micah called for another take of the phone call scene. I reset to my mark, the sand warm beneath my bare feet, and tried to remember why Elena was scared. Why she was desperate. Why any of this mattered.

“Action!”