Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,237

my firstborn was ugly or something. I swore I’d never make that mistake again.

But since I gave Leo grief about his ending, I decided to lead by example and tell him.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” I said, hoping to soften the blow in case he did laugh or roll his eyes at me.

“Easy,” Leo said without an ounce of shame. “Apocalypse Now.”

I groaned. “Should have known. Big, bloody, manly war movie. You really are in the right business.”

“‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning,’” he quoted. “Best line in cinema history.”

“Gah,” I said.

“Come on, Sophie. You should know me well enough by now to know that I am deeper than that,” he said. “Apocalypse Now explores the darkness in all of us. The darkness of war, the insatiable appetite for destruction. It’s human nature on celluloid. It’s brilliant.”

“More like human nature on steroids,” I grumbled.

“Okay, then,” he said. “I told you mine. Now tell me yours. What’s your favorite movie?”

I paused, not for dramatic affect but out of uncertainty. Flashbacks of Paul’s diss washed over me, but I pushed past. “Fine. It’s Dead Poets Society.”

“Never saw it,” he said, scooping up a bite of rice.

That was it? No reaction? I couldn't decide if I was relieved or annoyed.

“How is that possible?” I asked. “You’re in the movie business. That is one of the classics.”

He waved away my comment. “Do you know how many classics there are? It’s an ever-shifting list of films that are randomly deemed amazing for one reason or another. I don’t want to see them all, and I don’t need to see them all.”

“But…Dead Poets Society! It’s…amazing!”

“Remind me never to have you write film reviews,” he said.

I playfully slapped his arm. “Robin Williams is…”

“Annoying,” Leo said.

“Not in this movie. You would like it. It’s about young men finding their place in the world, fighting against what’s expected of them.”

“Through poetry? No thanks,” he said.

“You’re seriously impossible,” I said. I picked up my fork and pushed my food around my plate. “I’m going to make you see it one day,” I said, that one day still lingering on my tongue, that possibility of more. “You’re gonna like it.”

“Doubtful,” he said.

“You’ll see,” I said, all false confidence and bravado. “And then you’ll have to say you were wrong and I was right.”

“That’s it,” he said, tossing his fork down on his plate with a startling clank. “Out you go.”

Before I could gauge what he meant and what was happening, Leo had me thrown over his shoulder and carried me down the steps of the deck and out across the beach. “In the water you go for thinking I’d ever say I was wrong about anything.”

I squealed with laughter, begging him not to throw me in the water. People walking by looked at us and smiled, a playful couple at sunset.

Leo set me down, the water up to my ankles and gently pushing past us. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he pulled me close, his hands resting on my lower back. He leaned close and said, “I’ll get you one way or the other.”

“You better,” I said. As he kissed me, I pulled myself up his strong, solid body until my legs were wrapped around his waist. He easily held me, despite my weight and the fighting of the waves. “Take me inside and teach me a lesson.”

“Sophie, you will be the end of me,” he said.

You and me both, I thought as he carried me inside.

Chapter 14

We just couldn't stop ourselves. If I wasn’t touching Leo or within two feet of him, I felt myself deflating. He was the oxygen I needed to be alive. But once we got into a work rhythm, we were unstoppable. By the end of the weekend, we had eliminated everything from the screenplay that was unnecessary, sketched out what needed to be rewritten, and had a game plan of how to attack those rewrites. It was exhausting and totally fulfilling.

And in that same timespan, I’d somehow managed to convince myself that the lies were truth—I really was Sophie Adams, struggling screenplay writer who’d moved to LA and tried her hand at acting on a lark.

“Are you going to send me off with Steve,” I asked Leo, pressing myself to his chest as we prepared to leave Malibu and head back down to our apartments. “Or will you be a gentleman and drive me yourself?” I rose up on the balls of my feet and