Page 16 of Enemies Off Camera
I whip my head toward him, glare sharp as glass.
“I felt like nothing more than a sex object,” I say coolly, paraphrasing one of the women fromHunks of Junk Jocks.“After he got off, he said ‘thank you,’ threw on his clothes, and dropped a hundred dollars on the floor like I was a common prostitute. Is that true?”
His expression doesn’t flicker. He’s not smirking like usual.
Just staring—blank, unreadable.
“No,” he finally says. “That’s not true.” His tone is low. Steady. Almost… earnest.
I lean back against the elevator wall, taking in thisnewversion of Jaxon Wilde.
“This,” I say, gesturing to his face. “What isthis?”
“What’s what?”
“This,” I repeat, flicking my fingers toward his infuriatingly handsome face. Especiallytoday.Why does he look even better outside of filming? Life isn’t fair.
“What do you mean by ‘this’?” he asks, genuinely confused.
His gaze stays fixed on me, unwavering, like he’s trying to see something in me. I think he’s trying to make me fill the silence, tell him what he wants to know.
“You know what?” I finally say. “We’re not friends. Or lovers. So you don’t get an answer to questions like that.”
The elevator dings.
Just like earlier, Jaxon steps to the threshold and presses a hand to the door, holding it open for me. He does it casually. Almost thoughtlessly.
Is this chivalry?Seriously?
“Questions like what?” he asks as I pass.
I almost stop. Almost answer.
But I don’t want to talk about it. Not to him. Not to anyone.
I haven’t even told Anne why I did it.
Hell, I don’t even know why I do it. That wasn’t the first time.
Icanexplain the rush, though.
Will they let me get away with it? Is anyone even watching?
I hadn’t done it again after that girl in the drugstore caught me. She made ahugedeal about it. I offered to pay, made up some BS excuse.
She looked me dead in the eye and said:
“Bullshit!”
So angry, that one.
So smug. Sorighteous.
She’d caught a once-rising actress on her little hook, and she wasn’t about to throw me back into the ocean. Not a chance.
But that’s a lot to explain. Especially to a guy I can’t stand.
A guy who’s also… one huge, maddening enigma.
