Proud Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 2) (6 page)

“I mean I didn’t get it on film. How stupid is that?”

“Unlucky,” Dee said. “Not stupid.”

“So what now?” Reena asked.

“Unlike the rest of us,” I said, “You’re going home.”

“I can’t!”

“Gary’s going to get you a flight out in a few days. The studio picks up all the bills, you go rest up on workman’s comp, and Dee finishes the filming.”

“I haven’t agreed—”

“After she finds out from you how much more Hollywood tends to pay.”

Reena frowned. “She’s not union.”

Damn. “There’s bound to be some emergency contingency loophole thing. Tell her what you’re pulling in.”

Reena motioned Dee close and whispered in her ear. Dee’s beautiful green eyes widened, and she did a double-take Reena’s way. Reena nodded. “Remember, that’s union. But something to baseline with.”

“So, you’re okay with her taking it from here?” I asked.

“She could use more experience with my equipment and the fancier creative stuff, but she’s got a good eye. Under the circumstances, you could do a lot worse.”

“You
are
still talking about working the camera, right?” I winked.

Reena rolled her eyes.

Taking her hand, I confessed, “I’m glad you’re not dying.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you’re not really a jerk.”

“That’s not to ever leave this room, understand?”

Except for those magnificent eyes of hers, there was nothing outwardly attractive about Reena right now, puffy and sweating like she was, and dressed in one of those ubiquitous, shapeless blue hospital gowns. So why was there a tug at my heart when I looked at her and realized she’d be leaving? I’d watched any number of women walk out of my life and couldn’t even remember most of them.

Why was Reena different?

Or was it that I was different?

Was it possible what I felt toward Reena had nothing to do with sex and all to do with simple, uncomplicated friendship? That I responded to her the same way I responded to Gary?

If I’d meant what I confessed to Dee about moving past my playboy stage, that meant developing friendships with women not based on the degree of probability I could get into their pants.

I could look to Reena as my first success.

With a satisfied smile, I dropped a chaste kiss on Reena’s forehead.

Through her pain, she smiled back.

On the long drive back to camp, I had a lot to think about. Now that I had accepted Reena as a friend, where did that leave Dee?

Because when I faced up to it, I wasn’t pushing Dee so hard to take over Reena’s job simply because I wanted to get this episode in the can.

It was because I wanted a reason to stay here in Africa.

A reason to be near her.

Already I missed Reena, driving back to camp with Chris and Gary. Not just for the balance of estrogen she provided, even emotionally distant as she mostly was, but because I’d looked forward to picking up more tips from her about videography.

“You’re worried?” Chris asked.

“Shouldn’t I be? Even if your producers give me the go-ahead, the types of work Reena and I do don’t compare. I’m filming for subtleties of behavior, how the pride interacts with one another and with their environment. I get excited seeing Caesar assert his independence by sleeping a few feet out of sight of his mom and sister. Your show is about, well, you, and danger, faked or otherwise. Framing that kind of film is very different from framing my kind. How to insert you seamlessly is a challenge.”

“Depends where and how you want me inserted.”

Really?
“I doubt that’s as big a challenge as you might think.”

“I’m up for proving it any time.”

Like a jealous puppy, Gary pushed his head and shoulders between the front seats. “Oh, it is an impressive challenge,” he assured me. “Ask me how I know.”

Two could play at his smug game. “I
would
like to know—about the
second
time.”

“Bitch.”

His head and shoulders disappeared into a hurt huddle in the backseat.

Not that I wasn’t curious about that first time or about the size of Chris’ challenge. In fact, if Gary didn’t think of me as a rival, it would have been fun dishing with him about Chris. Not that I’d done much dishing in college or in the handful of years after, but having a friend to open up with was the one thing I did miss at times out here.

And Gary likely had a lot of dishable stories to share.

No doubt Chris had even more, but I was sure stories from his perspective wouldn’t be nearly as fun, much less ones I would want to hear.

Still, I was going to be stuck alone with Chris for a few days, as Gary driving away from the camp in the rental packed with his things and Reena’s so concretely attested.

By then, all I had energy left for was to retrieve the cameras abandoned near the escarpment, fire up the generator, and review what footage had already been shot. We also had a few minutes of satellite time to communicate since there were no cell towers out here for phone or internet. With Chris’ help, I composed a letter of amendment for my contract and sent it off to the production team in California. We both knew it was a formality only. I had cameras to play with, and no matter what the studio agreed to or not regarding compensation, I was going to play.

Thank god for our tablets and the generator to keep our batteries charged; otherwise, Chris and I would have to talk to one another once the sun set. As it was, we did sit by the camp stove to have dinner together.

“You do realize how many women fantasize about being marooned with me, right?” Chris winked over his ready meal that claimed it was Swedish meatballs.

“I realize how many of those women are likely underage jailbait.” While that was true, I was simply teasing him right back. As to what he’d said, there was truth to it as well. Chris Corsair, the Hollywood star, really was the stuff of dreams—and not just to hyper-hormonal teens peer-pressured into squealing over that rugged face with its startle of blue eyes and tousle of brown-blond hair so reminiscent of a Robert Redford or Paul Newman type from an earlier era.

The YouTube videos I’d seen testified as to how much the camera could love him. Yet even someone as skilled as Reena couldn’t capture the true beauty of the man. And a natural beauty too. No makeup, no hair gels, no padding or taping or catching him from his good side only needed. Just a raw and organic look where genes had conspired to create a Jungian icon that met our cultural ideal of virility. It was impossible
not
to respond to him. At least on that primal, visceral level that craved mating with the most perfect specimen possible for the betterment of future generations.

Chris was that specimen—the peacock with the widest, brightest tail; the stag with the broadest, tallest antlers; the lion with the biggest, thickest mane. Of course women gravitated toward him. On that level, I was no exception. I entertained fantasies about him myself. But while my body might crave him, my heart was wired for something else. I needed to see something in him beyond arrogance and talk. I needed to see vulnerability and humanity and strength of character that was genuine, not an act for my benefit and as a way to seduce me. Like the way he’d reacted with Reena earlier. More of that sincere compassion sustained on a daily basis.

Only then would I feel comfortable in my head and heart with this man. And without the cooperation of head and heart, my body would just have to go without.

No matter what kind of fuss it kicked up over that.

I turned the conversation to distract myself from that whole line of thought and the dichotomous feelings it produced.

“Have there been other accidents like Reena’s on your sets?”

“One of the guys we were filming the shark episode with got stung by a jellyfish.” Chris transitioned smoothly to the new topic. “We did
not
urinate on him, although in hindsight that would have made for better television. It was a moon jelly, so not all that poisonous, and he was back in the water with us the next day.”

“In the water?”

“In a shark cage when we were swimming with bull sharks and hammerheads. We did free swim with some nurse and leopard sharks, but even then our hosts were off-camera doling out the chum to keep them from getting too interested in me. The studio apparently thinks I’m too valuable to risk, so by contract I can’t engage in any overtly dangerous or close-contact activities. Of course, the interpretation of what that means is rather fluid. How close is too close? Is being in the same vicinity as a potentially dangerous animal an overt danger?”

“How do you know when it’s safe to push the boundaries?”

“I don’t always. A lot depends on how much trust I have in the people around me—like you—who are with the animals daily. If I feel confident in them, when they tell me it’s okay to, say, let a wolf come up and sniff me, then I’ll agree. Otherwise, I point to my contract as an out.” He chuckled. “It’s easy to use the studio as the bad guy. Makes me look affable and like I trust everyone and would be willing to walk into any situation if only my life wasn’t dictated by the studio.”

I studied the man in front of me as he poured two fingers of brandy into his tea and leaned back in his camp chair. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before now that his trust in the lions came from his trust in me first?

“So how much do you trust me?” I asked.

He studied me in turn, then shrugged easily, the muscles under his shirt moving it across his broad shoulders in a quite hypnotic way. “Enough to tell you what I just did.”

“Why?” I pressed.

“Why do I trust you or why am I telling you?”

There was no reason for me to answer as I continued to hold that sapphire-blue stare. His own answer was going to be the same either way. He was just buying heart time—that moment needed before confessing something of true importance.

“Because I want to. Because you—” he exhaled whatever flippant thing he might have said in favor of the truth “—you inspire me to. Because there’s nothing fake about you. Every other woman, except for Reena, wants something from me, you know. They tell me what they think I want to hear, not what they really feel. And sure, I sometimes reward their lies, so I keep getting all these sycophants fluttering around me. But I’m pretty sure
you’d
hit me if I called you a sycophant, so I trust you to be straight with me. And since Brandy and I here are being especially honest right now, I think you being straight with me and not trying to get into my pants, despite their open invitation, makes you, I dunno, more desirable. Sexier. Not at the wow level of that gorgeous body of yours, but underneath, in a place most women never let me see.”

He was right—what lay mostly hidden in that place, stripped of the outer trappings beyond the passion of social genetic engineering, was seduction itself.

I felt the draw, deny it though I tried.

That night, when I put aside my work, I fell asleep to the memory of the revelation that I was gorgeous in his eyes. And when I dreamed, it was of he and me marooned together on a wild and desert isle.