“It’s probably why you’re so good at what you do now,” she said. “You had some time and space to figure out what you really wanted to do.”

He raised his glass to her.

“Thanks for the compliment, Ms. Gardiner. Is that also why you’re so good at what you do?”

Oh, he was very smooth. Usually, men like that felt fake, but Ben had this crinkle in his eyes that said he didn’t take himself too seriously. She grinned at him.

“Funny, I never thought of that, but I think that’s part of it. I wanted to be an actress when I was a kid, of course—in that way all theater kids do when they get onstage and get a taste of an audience—but I forgot about that dream after a while. Probably because I saw how hard it was for people who looked like me to get anywhere.”

Ben sat back and smiled at the waitress as she put their wings in front of them. Everyone else at the table had clearly had the same idea, except for a few people who had gotten nachos.

“Why didn’t you tell me there were nachos?” she asked as she picked up a wing.

He shook his head.

“They’re terrible, that’s why. I was doing you a favor.”

She took a very tentative bite.

“Oh, this is actually good!”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“You didn’t trust me, I see. I promise you this: Ben Stephens never lies about chicken.”

She laughed out loud, more at the serious look on his face than his words.

“I’ll remember that.”

His smile peeked out from behind his unnatural frown.

“What happened to change things?” he asked. “I mean, about what you were saying—to change your mind about acting?”

Huh, he’d actually been listening to her. How refreshing.

“I suppose I saw how hard it was for people who looked like me—women who looked like me—anywhere, not just in Hollywood. I’d been working as an agent, so I saw how shitty Hollywood was, but my friends were all over corporate America, and it wasn’t any better there. So after a while, when I saw a role I wanted, I just said fuck it and decided to go for it.”

Why was she telling him all of this? Granted, it wasn’t much more than what she’d said when she told her origin story to reporters, but it was a much more honest version of it.

Maybe it was the beer on an empty stomach. No, that wasn’t it; she was too savvy these days for a little alcohol to give her loose lips. Was she just that starved for male attention that she’d open up to any handsome face with good listening eyes?

No, she got plenty of male attention. She just felt like she could relax around Ben. That in itself was strange; she hadn’t felt like relaxing around someone new in a long time.

Ben interrupted her thoughts.

“So was that all it took? You said fuck it and suddenly the roles came flying to you?”

Anna laughed. Wouldn’t that have been nice.

“My God, if only. No, it took years for me to break through, which was enough time for me to get demoralized and discouraged and give up about fifty times, but somehow I always went back out there. And then, somehow, things started going my way.”

She let herself have a rare moment of pride. At how hard she’d worked, how determined she’d been, at everything she’d fought through.

“Well,” he said, “I’m glad you kept trying; you do incredible work. You should have won that Oscar.”

She picked up another wing and grinned at him.

“Thanks, I think so, too.” Shit. She never said that out loud. She shook the wing at him. “If you ever quote me on that, you’re dead to me.”

He put his hand to his heart.

“I, Ben Stephens, swear on this chicken I will never tell.”

They both cracked up.

Four

Ben lectured himself all the way to the set the next day about how he would act toward Anna. They’d had a vibe going the night before, absolutely. And he’d driven her back to her hotel after everyone dispersed from the bar. If that had happened with any other woman, he would have ended up going back to her room.

But Anna wasn’t any other woman. For one, she was Anna Gardiner. And two, they were working together. He could be casual and jokey with her last night at the bar, but today at work he had to be uptight and professional. Theo. He should try to act like Theo.

Speaking of Theo, he was having drinks with him tonight. Should he tell him about Dawn? Or about that email he’d sent her late last night, where he’d said if this was a ploy to get him back in touch with his dad, he had no interest in that? He and Theo rarely talked about their dad, but maybe he should warn Theo that she was out there, just in case she tried to get in touch with him, too.

He’d think about that. But first, he had to channel Theo today.

He lasted approximately thirty seconds. Anna was already there when he arrived, getting her hair and makeup done in her tiny dressing room in the house where they were filming the party scene, in that day. When he’d walked by and saw her there, it would have been rude of him to not stop and at least say hi, right? Right.

“Hey, Anna, did anyone take your picture on the way into your hotel last night?”

She laughed and beckoned him in, even though her hair was in big rollers.

“Yes, I told you they would.” When he’d dropped her off at her hotel, she’d put lipstick on before walking inside; when he’d made gentle fun of her for it, she’d said it was because there were always people taking pictures of her in hotel lobbies, something that hadn’t occurred to him. “I looked good in the photos, though, so I can’t complain too much. Thanks for the ride. You know my hair and makeup team, right? Manuel and Jo?”

He waved at the people currently working on Anna.

“We met yesterday. Thanks for being here. FYI, most of this week is going to be jam-packed, but hopefully Friday should be more low-key. Just in case you wanted to make your room-service versus non-room-service plans in advance.”

She laughed again, and he grinned as he left the room. He wasn’t very good at channeling Theo, was he?

He spent most of the day standing with Gene, the director, watching the footage and strategizing on what more they needed to get since they had all of the extras around. He knew that the most important thing for him on this shoot was to make the client happy, and the best way to keep any client happy was to stay within, or even under, budget. The budget for this campaign was huge, yes, but between Anna and an almost two-week filming schedule—and all of the people who would need to be on set every day of those two weeks—that would account for a whole lot of it.