“What?”
“For closure!” she exclaims. “To get him out of your system, and to show him what he’s been missing all this time.”
I snort. “Yeah, somehow that only works in romance novels, and even then, it’s never closure, just a recipe for more shenanigans. Which are not happening for me,” I add, giving her a warning look. “Seriously, think of the most soul-destroying heartbreak you ever had, and imagine coming face-to-face with it again. Would you really want to hop aboard that train?”
Hazel winces. “Good point. Well, you should be able to keep your distance. He’s only interested in crunching the numbers, and no offense, but that’s way above your pay grade.”
I exhale in relief. “I’ve never been more pleased to be totally powerless and irrelevant,” I quip, and she laughs.
“Ooh, look, they just restocked the snack table. Go crazy.”
Hazel points me to the craft service tent, then gets called away by an eager PA. Luckily for me, the buffet table is a thing of beauty. I pile my plate with an oat scone, a slice of Welsh tea bread, and two flaky kinds of popovers. As first jobs go, having on-site food and regionally specific carbohydrates? Not bad.
I grab some sweet biscuits too, for good measure, and shove one in my mouth as I make my way to a picnic table set up nearby.
“Jolene?”
I startle, choking on the Jammy Dodger. Fraser is approaching, looking cool and collected, of course. And, perfect, he’s caught me at another least graceful moment. Crumbs lodge in my throat, and I cough, spraying biscuit crumbs everywhere as I struggle to breathe.
Fraser looks me up and down as I huff, then calmly plucks a bottle of mineral water from a nearby table, opens it, and silently offers it to me.
Chivalrous, and cool. Damn him.
I gulp the water, finally recovering. “Hi,” I say brightly, as if I don’t have streaming eyes and crumbs scattered down my shirt. “What’s up?”
Fraser clears his throat. “I wanted to apologize for earlier.”
Earlier. Are we talking back at the hotel, or, you know, the whole ‘devastating heartbreak’ affair back in college?
“I didn’t mean to walk in like that,” he clarifies, because of course, he wouldn’t acknowledge being a total asshole ten years ago. “Seeing you was… Unexpected.” He says it flatly, like he has prepared remarks on a crisp piece of paper. “I think we were both a wee bit thrown off.”
“A wee bit,” I repeat, with a snort. “Yes.”
He nods, still all business. “But of course, it won’t affect anything here. We both have jobs to do, and there’s no reason we can’t be professional with each other. What happened between us… Well, it’s a long time ago now. Ancient history.”
Is it?
I narrow my eyes at him. Then why do I remember that, beneath his pressed suit pants, there’s a scar on his knee from a fall at age seven? I’ve kissed that spot on his body. And every spot on his body. Why do I know that his accent gets thicker when he’s pissed off or turned on? Why can I recall the feeling of his lips tracing down my spine?
No—no.
“Yes, ancient history,” I snap, aching inside. “Practically a relic. To be honest, I’m flattered you even recognized me.”
Fraser narrows his eyes, like he wants to argue. But instead, he just gives a bland nod.
“Good. On that note, I wanted to circle back to something from rehearsal.”
I blink, surprised. That’s it? Our entire fraught history dismissed in just a couple of sentences?
Apparently so.
Fraser continues, his voice even. “While I’m sure the purses you mentioned are historically accurate, the studio doesn’t have the budget for custom work like that. So I’d prefer that you don’t distract the cast with those minor details, and keep them focused on the wardrobe and props we already have.”
I narrow my eyes. “Well, like you said, I’m here to do a job,” I reply, keeping my voice just the right side of scathing. “And if I’m asked a question, then I’ll answer it, in my professional capacity. Was there anything else?” I snap.
“No.” He scowls back at me, and for a moment, I almost think I see a flash of familiar heat in his eyes. The passion of the man I used to know.
Then it’s replaced with cool detachment again. “Enjoy your Jammy Dodger,” he says with a smirk, and walks off, leaving me with a plate of baked carbs, and a fire burning in my chest.
Looks like the fun-loving, creative man I used to love is gone, replaced with this stick-up-his-ass penny-pincher.
“Ugh!” I exclaim in frustration—and go find another biscuit to eat.
4
JJ
I wake the next morning groggy and disoriented. The alarm on my phone is chirping in its familiar, annoying way, but why is this room so small? Why am I so tired that my face hurts? Why can I hear creaky old pipes and the pat-pat of feet outside my room?
Oh. Right. Jolly old England. Lizzy and Darcy. A hotel with faulty plumbing. And a ghost from my past wandering in, solid as day….
Fraser.
Did I dream that? It’s hard to unstick my thoughts from the jet-lag quicksand, but slowly, it all comes back to me. The nakedness. The hand towel. The near-death by Jammy Dodger.
Nope, that was all real. Mortifyingly, horrifyingly real.
I groan as I pull myself upright. My time in England was supposed to be bigger and better than ever, especially now I’m a grown woman who knows her limits when it comes to alcohol and emotional attachment to men. The last thing I need is Fraser striding about, all tall and broad and handsome, reminding me of everything we had.
Scratch that. Everything I thought we had. That’s the mortifying part. For me, Fraser changed everything. Our connection made the whole world seem bigger and more alive to me—the colors brighter, the possibilities endless. It felt like I’d finally discovered the kind of love I’d only ever read about in my novels or seen illuminated on the movie screen; that soul-deep connection that was equal parts friendship and passion; adventure and steady, solid ground.
Until he yanked that solid ground right out from under me.
I sigh, climbing out of bed, and stretching with a yawn. Fraser’s clearly put the past behind him, so I need to as well. And if he wants professional? I’ll damn well give him professional, I decide with a surge of determination. In fact, I’m going to act like we met for the first time yesterday. Because, as far as I can tell, we did. Fraser is a stranger now. I’d always thought of him as the one who got away. But that stuffed suit, with his too-neat beard and recitation of budget considerations? He’s clearly a bullet I dodged.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to show up to set in jeans and a ratty sweatshirt. I tear through my suitcase, looking for the perfect ‘Bet you wish you hadn’t dumped me’ outfit. Leather pants? Too much. Ultra-high cutoffs? Way too little….
After discarding pretty much everything I brought, and turning my hotel room into a hurricane site, I finally land on a cute sundress with poppies printed on it, with a vintage-style halter strap. I put on my lucky purple silk lingerie, and style my hair into the perfect polished-but-tousled look. Hopefully he’ll think of my hair in the morning, after he’d had his hands in it through the night. The things he could do with his hands… And mouth… And tongue…