Page 37 of Payback
THE VANITY LIGHTS ARE BRIGHTon my face as I sit in the hair and makeup area at the East London studio where we’re doing the commercial shoot. Mac is seated in the chair beside me, frowning nervously at his makeup artist, who is a handsome man with blue eyeliner on his bottom lids.
“Are you going to put eyeliner on me?” Mac asks with a wary look.
The guy shoots Mac a wink. “Only if you want me to, sugar.”
“Pass,” Mac replies.
Sloan and Freya bustle into the room a few minutes later. Freya points accusingly at Mac’s shirt. “Would you look at the state of him?”
Sloan’s brown eyes widen. “He’s had that shirt on for two minutes!”
“I know! He’s a complete mongrel!” Freya tuts and then hustles over to the clothing rack along the wall. “Just tell me which one of these you want to replace it, and I’ll get it fitted on him in a jiff.”
“What the hell did you do?” I ask as Mac looks back at me with wide, puppy-dog eyes.
“I might have snuck one of those jelly donuts they had sitting out when we came in. I was just going to have a wee bite. Our season is over, so I figured there wasn’t any harm in it.”
He turns to show me the enormous red stain smeared across his chest.
“Jesus Christ!” I bark out a laugh in shock. “It looks like you’ve been shot!”
Freya returns with a shirt in hand. “And I’m going to be the shooter if you don’t get up and let me fit this shirt on you.”
She grabs Mac by the arm and yanks him away from the hair and makeup team. He hurriedly fumbles with the top buttons on his shirt and pulls it off over his head.
This appears to exasperate Freya even more as she mumbles under her breath, “Can’t even take off a shirt properly.”
Mac just smiles down at her, not the least bit put off by her huffiness.
“Need me to run lines with you?” A familiar voice chimes in from behind me, and I look up to see Allie’s reflection in the mirror.
I take a deep breath because this is the first time I’ve seen her since I arrived on set and, fucking hell, she’s always so beautiful. It’s an effortless beauty, too. She’s the kind of pretty that doesn’t even need the makeup she puts on her face.
I shoot her a lascivious smirk. “Don’t I get a kiss hello?”
“What?” she snaps with a forced laugh as she looks over at Mac and Freya beside her. “Why would you get a kiss hello?”
“Because we’re dating now,” I reply with a shrug just to get a rise out of her.
“We are not dating!” she retorts, her voice high-pitched and overly defensive as she completely loses the crisp, professional façade she attempted to approach me with. She looks back at Sloan, who’s fussing with the clothes and pretending not to listen. Then she repeats, “We’re not dating.”
“I’m going to wear you down, Lis,” I reply casually as the makeup artist dabs the brush on my nose and tries not to smile. “Maybe I’ll bid a ton of money under your name for this Win A Date Campaign.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“That’s what she thinks,” I state to the man who’s currently coming at me with mascara.
Allie lets out a frustrated squeak and turns on her heel to walk away. Her obvious frustration isn’t what I was going for, so I leap out of my seat before the man can put that horrible makeup on my face. With a tug, I rip off the cape around my neck and toss it onto the chair, hurrying after her to try and right the wrong I’ve just done.
“Allie, I was joking!” I state, jogging to catch up to her as she strides down the hallway as fast as her thin black skirt will allow.
“It’s not funny. This is my job,” she retorts and gets that furrow in her brow that I hate so much.
“I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.” I kick myself for pushing too hard, too fast. “Where are you running off to right now? You are scary fast in that tiny skirt.”
“I’m going to check in with my boss,” she snaps and looks at me briefly, her eyes zeroing in on my lips.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
