First Comes Like (Modern Love #3) - Alisha Rai Page 0,37
he’d learned, though, one could never predict where a photographer was hiding or who on set may have seen the photo and gossip floating around today. “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes, please.”
He backed up so she could come inside. Dev quickly checked himself out in the mirror hanging behind the door. Yes, tie straight, jacket lint-free, glasses clear.
She glanced around the trailer curiously, but it was a standard set trailer. He’d put nothing of himself in it. “Have a seat.” He gestured at the table, since the couch had his script spread out all over it. “Would you like a drink?”
She sat down. “I don’t want to put you through any trouble—”
“Not trouble. I was about to have some iced tea.” He wasn’t, but it was hot out and there was a tiny trickle of sweat at her temple.
“I’d like some as well, then.”
He grabbed two bottles of iced tea from the stocked fridge he barely touched and brought them to the table, sitting across from her. This felt oddly intimate, but it shouldn’t. People took business meetings in their trailers all the time. It’s not like this was his bedroom or anything.
She took a long sip and set the bottle down. “I’m sorry to bother you here.”
It wasn’t only her makeup. There was something more subdued about her today, like her anger and indignation had been calmed, though he wasn’t sure by what. “How did you get on the set?”
“Eh. It’s easy enough to know somebody who knows somebody in this city.”
“I . . . assume you saw the photo of us.”
“I did.”
“And you saw what they implied?” He tried to keep his tone matter-of-fact, but wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
She nodded.
He winced. “I apologize. I truly was trying to shield us from a photographer. I didn’t think there would be someone else.”
“Who would?” She gave a halfhearted smile. “Everyone’s paparazzi these days.”
“Indeed.”
She placed her purse on the table. “My family saw it.”
He grimaced. “They recognized you? I’m sorry, I told myself the only good thing was that your face was obscured.” By my body. He took a sip of his iced tea to get the word out of his head. No need to go thinking about bodies around this woman. “Are they particularly conservative?”
“Not terribly conservative, but they worry.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I am usually careful about paparazzi. I became too relaxed here.”
She nodded. “What’s the reaction been like for you?”
“My agent is delighted. I have never been the one the media gossips about in my family.”
“How do you feel about it?”
He lifted his shoulder. “I suppose I’m mostly worried about how it may affect you.”
Her eyes softened. “That’s kind of you.”
“It’s not kind. I owe you, as it is.”
Her lip curled up in the corner. “Please don’t offer me money again.”
“I wouldn’t, now that I know how you feel about it.” He’d had to scrape his account to put that check together, so a part of him was glad she hadn’t taken it. He still didn’t see anything wrong with compensating her and soothing his guilty conscience, but he could see how it could be misconstrued as hush money.
She traced the water ring the iced tea bottle had left. “I don’t need money.”
“Understood.”
“But there’s something else you could do for me.”
He leaned forward. “Anything.”
She looked up, and he was so captured by her pretty light eyes and the long lashes she’d artfully curled, that he almost missed her next words.
“I’d like you to date me.”
JIA WONDERED IF she’d shocked proper Dev into silence. He’d gone still and stared at her like she’d grown two heads.
He finally adjusted his glasses, as if to see her two heads better. “You want to date me?”
“Oh no.” She didn’t want him to get some foolish idea that she was still pining for him, because she was not. This was a business arrangement that would benefit them both. “I want to pretend to date you.”
Dev leaned back in his seat and tapped his fingers on the table. It was hard to breathe in this little trailer, and that was most definitely because he was taking up far too much space. She’d seen him only in suits before, but this one was more relaxed, the tie pulled loose and slightly askew. She was going to assume that was for the role he was playing, and not of his own volition. His hair was ruffled up, and there was a trace of eyeliner on his eyes, which told her hair and makeup had