The fact that I’d used a condom during our night together.
But . . . had I used one in the kitchen?
I had to have. I’d never not used one. I always took extra precautions and—
“Was the dress always this tight?” I blurted.
Say yes, say yes—
“Um . . .” She frowned, eyes drifting to the side as she considered my question. “No? I guess it wasn’t quite this tight during fittings. I mean, it was definitely restrictive, it has this built-in corset thing that squeezes and lifts . . . well, anyway Pizza Night is catching up with me. I’ll just have to cut back.”
“Are you—” I broke off, not sure how to phrase it. “I—”
Shit.
I shouldn’t do this now. If she wasn’t worried about possibly being pregnant because my dumb ass hadn’t used a condom that morning, then the best time to give her that bit of information wasn’t right before she had to go and film the most pivotal scene in the movie.
“Damon?”
She’d been pacing back and forth, bare feet padding almost silently across the floor. Now, she’d stopped and looked at me.
Because I was being really fucking weird.
Really weird.
Shit. I needed to not panic. I needed to not panic her. Not when I didn’t know for sure and when she was working.
I forced a smile, popped to my feet. “Sorry, I’m . . . uh . . . I just had the best idea for the shoot. I’m going to take off, so I have time to try it before the sun fully sets. I’ll leave the pizza—”
“Dam—”
“Can I bring you breakfast tomorrow?”
“I—”
I reached for the door handle, pausing to look back. “French toast?”
She froze, face freezing.
Shit. Not French toast. I needed to suggest something else. Omelets? Burritos? Fuck. Who gave a shit about breakfast? All I could think was that she’d had her big break, her career was just taking off, and I’d impregnated her—
A shake of her head, her frozen expression clearing away. “French toast sounds perfect. Ten?”
“Ten,” I agreed.
Then I pushed open the door and I got the fuck out of there before I said something that might ruin her night, her scene, her life . . .
Something else that was.
Ten
Eden
I’d slept a solid eight hours, but I was still exhausted when I crawled out of bed at a quarter of ten the next morning.
Shooting had run until well after midnight, but my driver had gotten me home immediately after we’d wrapped. Which meant I’d been tucked into bed by just after one. Not the latest I’d been up, not by a long shot, but paired with all the long days of filming, and probably more likely, dealing with the emotional exhaustion that was Grant, and I was more tired this morning than any other time I could remember in recent memory.
But breakfast was being delivered by the wonderful Damon, and I had two whole days off from shooting.
We’d pick up on Sunday, push through the final weeks of filming in New Mexico, and I’d be done with Grant.
Until promotion.
Joy of joys.
But that wasn’t scheduled until next year, and so I had a full three-hundred and sixty-five days to recover.
Sometimes I had to focus on the simple things in life.
Snorting, I turned on the shower and spent the next ten minutes washing off the fatigue—though not my hair. Not only did I not have forty-five minutes to dry it, but throughout filming, my locks had been washed, dried, curled, and teased too many times over—not to mention slathered with products and also food from the dinner-gone-wrong scene. They’d also had slime in them along with artificial paint.
Basically, my hair had been put through the wringer and it needed a break.
So I tied it up, dry shampooed it, and then tugged on leggings and a cozy sweater.
I’d give it some quality attention later. A conditioning mask would go a long way toward rehabbing my working girl hair.
No makeup, because clearly, my face had undergone as much on the makeup front as my hair had on the styling front.
Luckily, Damon wanted to be just friends.
I sniffed. So, he didn’t need to see me dolled up.
Of course, I was also deliberately ignoring the fact that I’d been the one who wanted to stay just friends, that he’d wanted to continue on that day, that he’d stuck around since then.
I’d just thought—
“What?” I said, glaring at myself in the mirror. “I’d say he got in under the armor, nearly have a heart attack from admitting it, and then he’d tug me into his arms and declare his unending love? And I would just be magically okay with that?”
First, I didn’t think I wanted that. Okay, that was a lie. A part of me did want it, but the rest of me couldn’t fathom a world where I just put the past behind, jumped on the HEA bandwagon, and galloped down the aisle.
Even if that person was Damon.
Because, second, I couldn’t let someone in. I physically didn’t think I could do it.
Although . . . and this was the third point, Damon was already in.
My heart skipped a beat at the thought, throat tightening, fear shivering down my spine.
“Stupid,” I muttered.
I met my gaze in the mirror again and saw the truth within them. I’d stood in front of a mirror like this many times before. Sometimes, like now, my green eyes filled with fear, sometimes they were ringed in black eyes, sometimes they were judging or assessing as I did my makeup or prepared to do a photoshoot or walk the runway. But many more times I stood like this, emerald depths empty, my emotions shoved down and locked away.
Not anymore.
The edge of the Band-Aid had been peeled up slowly, millimeter by agonizing millimeter. First, by the photoshoot six years ago followed by the weekly calls, then by Artie and Pierce and filming Carrot,
