Reel: A Forbidden Hollywood Romance
Reel: Chapter 25

The Disney dude is good.

But I did give him someone amazing to work with.

God, Neevah is even better than I’d thought she would be. Her performance so far is a whole-ass I told you so to Law Stone and every Galaxy Studio exec who doubted me when I cast her. She and Trey do have great chemistry, so I’m sure they’ll take credit for casting him. I really don’t give a damn who gets credit. I just want this movie to fulfill and exceed its potential. And so far, it seems like it will.

Looking at the dailies on my laptop, I scrub back a little in the scene when Dessi and Cal first meet at the Savoy and she’s teaching him to dance. I freeze the frame of Neevah’s face lifted to the light, her smile coy and teasing. She smiled just like this at me on the balcony at the Halloween party. I’ve thrown up road blocks in my head so I don’t think about that night too much—so I don’t think about her too much.

“Whatcha doin’?”

I slam my laptop closed and swing my chair around to face Jill. “Sneaking up on me?”

“It only feels like sneaking up if you’re doing something you don’t want me to know about.” She sits down. “Watching dailies? Lemme see.”

I hesitate because when I open the laptop, she’ll know that I was looking at Neevah, and the last thing I want is Jill teasing me about having a damn crush on our lead actress. Reluctantly, I open the laptop.

“She really is fantastic, isn’t she?” Jill crosses an ankle over her knee. “Her skin. Her eyes. God, the woman says more with her eyes than most do all day talking. The camera loves her.”

I don’t bother answering, but scrub back in the footage. “You wanted to look at the Lafayette scene again?”

“Already did. They emailed me the dailies, too. I got what I needed to see.”

“Great.”

A tornado of blonde curls hurtles through the video village door toward us, touching down in Jill’s lap.

“Mommy, guess what?” Sienna, Jill’s four-year-old daughter, asks.

“What?” Jill pushes back the wild curls.

“I had a popsicle. Look!” She pokes out her tongue, showing off a bright shade of blue.

“Nice! Where’d you get it?”

“They had them for lunch, and Kimmy said I can have one.” She holds up a wilted popsicle. “I brought one for you, too.”

“Oh, thank you, baby,” Jill says, accepting the drippy offering. “And where’s Kimmy now?”

“Here I am. Sorry.” Kimmy, one of our PAs, walks in, her usual perky ponytail limp and barely hanging on. “I turned my head for one second, and she was gone.”

“She’s a handful, aren’t you, Sin?” Jill asks her daughter.

“I am.” She nods enthusiastically and climbs from Jill’s lap to mine. “Are you coming to Thanksgiving dinner, Uncle Canon?”

Technically I’m her godfather, but who could correct her when she looks at me like this?

“Not this year, Sin,” I tell her. “But thank you for thinking about me.”

“But will you be by yourself?” she asks, a frown dipping her blonde brows.

“I hope so.” I laugh. “Maybe I’ll come by on Friday after Thanksgiving. How’s that sound?”

“Come on, Sin. Mommy’s working.” Kimmy shoots Jill an apologetic look.

“It’s fine,” Jill assures her. “Okay, baby. Run on and I’ll see you in a little bit. I need to look at one thing with Uncle Canon.”

“Did Seth have anything to do with her?” I ask as they exit the tent. “She looks exactly like you in every way.”

“He got the other two, so it all evens out.” She laughs, running a hand through the disorderly hair flopping into her eyes. “Thank you again, on behalf of all the working moms, for the on-set daycare. I wish more directors did it. I mean, Sin’s just out of school today, but for the moms in the cast and crew with babies, it’s a lifesaver.”

“Not a big deal.”

“If it wasn’t, everyone would do it. Don’t get me started on the things that hold women back in this business. You adopting French hours for this film is huge, and I hope more directors follow suit.”

“Well, not perfectly. Some folks are still here fourteen hours a day, sometimes more, but I hope the ten-hour workday for most has helped.”

“So much. There are a lot of really talented women who give up on this business because they can’t disappear for literally sixteen or eighteen hours a day, and can’t afford care for their kids that long.”

“The adjustments haven’t actually been that hard. I’d do whatever it took to get you on set. You’re my secret weapon.”

I’m not exaggerating. She is, which is why I use her whenever I can. The only projects she’s missed were when she was having a baby.

“Well, the ladies say thanks.”

“Hey, my mom was a working photographer. A single mom at that. I know how hard it can be.”

“Are you spending Thanksgiving with her family? Sienna’s right,” Jill says, licking the forgotten popsicle, grimacing and tossing it into the trash can beside the table. “I don’t want to think of you alone.”

“Nah. I’ll do Christmas with them. I want to be alone. I want one meal that isn’t shoved down my throat between takes or in front of a laptop, and I’d like to eat it in peace.”

“You’ll swing by on Friday?” Her worried frown remains unmoved by my explanation.

“Sure.”

“But what will you eat on Thanksgiving?”

I shrug. “Takeout.”

“No. So I have this great place my agent told me about. I’ll give you the info.”

“Okay.”

“I’m just concerned.”

“I think you’re spelling smothering wrong.”

“And I think,” she says, turning back to my laptop and pinging a knowing smile between me and Neevah onscreen, “she’s fantastic.”

So much for keeping anything secret around here.

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