She stood up and started walking toward her office door, but he was right behind her and planted his hand on the door so she couldn’t open it. She turned, so close that he felt the brush of her body against his as she looked up at him with those wide blue-gray eyes of hers.
“Sean.”
“Paisley, you can’t say something like that and expect me to ignore it,” he said. “You always made your family seem—”
“Perfect. I know. I lied.”
“Why?” he asked softly.
“Hmm... I suppose I did it because my upbringing was rough and messy, and I didn’t want you to see that in me,” she said.
Same, he thought, but didn’t say that. “Fair enough. My mom beat me with a belt after I bragged. She told me I wasn’t special—I was just lucky. That I’d been cast as Ranger because he made me the boy that she wished I was.”
He dropped his arm, stepping back. He certainly hadn’t mean to say that.
“Oh, Sean,” Paisley said, coming forward and wrapping her arms around him.
For a minute he let himself enjoy her touch. He pulled her closer, breathing in the scent of Paisley. He’d missed her but he knew it was only her soft heart making her hug him now. That little boy he’d been had reached her, but the man standing next to her hadn’t.
“She was right. And you are too. We all are just trying to show the world our best sides, skimming over the bad stuff like it isn’t there.”
He opened the door for her but she stood there for too long. Finally, he looked up at her and saw something in her eyes that resonated deep inside of him. Some kind of mixture of caring, empathy and the kind of knowledge that he wished she didn’t have. She touched his hand, just a quick squeeze of his wrist.
“We can talk about us later,” she said.
Sean nodded, afraid to say anything else. He felt too raw at this moment. When he got like this, he had to keep a tight lid on himself. He didn’t want to lose control around her. So far she’d seen the best side of Sean—that’s what Jack had been. Him at his best.
He followed her down the hall, mulling over the fact that she wanted to know who he really was deep down inside. Unfortunately, that man was f-ed up and always had been. That one beating hadn’t shaped him into who he was today but it had definitely started his journey. What did it say about him that his best friend was his agent? That his live-in girlfriend thought he was another man? And that he wasn’t sure how to be himself and still be likable?
That had always been a big problem for him.
Was he stubbornly staying here in Chicago, trying to mend fences with Paisley, because she was special? Or was it just that he was still trying to prove that Sean O’Neill was as worthy of love as any character he played?
It was all too much for first-thing-in-the-morning thoughts. Those were the kind that he normally saved for late nights after a bottle of Jack Daniels. He welcomed the distraction when she led him into a conference room with a large video monitor at one end. He saw his agent’s logo on one of the four squares and then the film poster on another one.
“We’ll sit here so they can see us,” Paisley explained, gesturing to the two chairs she’d set up at a round table. “This remote will mute our audio so they can’t hear us. And this one pauses our video. Do you want a coffee or water, or something else?”
“Water would be good,” he said. “Is it just us and Thom Mulholland and the marketing team?”
“No, your leading lady, Desi Jones, is going to be on as well,” she told him. “I have our company logo up right now on their screens. If anyone comes on while I’m gone, you can activate the camera with this button. I’ll get your water and be right back.”
He watched her leave, thinking that she’d softened a bit toward him. Was it just that she felt sorry for him because of his childhood? He knew that was a turn-on for some woman and had exploited it in the past. But Paisley didn’t seem the type.
In fact, he was forced to consider it was the fact that he’d shared the truth with her. She seemed to be a truth warrior and as much as he hated his past, he might have to tap in to it if he was going to figure out why he wasn’t ready to move on from her.
Paisley realized as the meeting ended with the film company that the white-hot anger she’d felt toward Sean had sort of dampened as he followed her back into her office. Delaney gave him the stink eye when she walked past and muttered, “Asshole.”
“Nice to see you too, Delaney.”
She just gave him the finger and kept walking. Olive’s office door was closed, something that Paisley was thankful for. She loved that her friends had her back, but as her feelings for Sean were starting to morph into something different, she wasn’t too sure what to do next.
She was no longer furious with him. Which didn’t seem like a good thing to her.
But she had also realized that she still knew nothing of the real man. Jack had been down-to-earth, sort of a rough-and-tumble guy who acted on his impulses. Sean, on the other hand, was urbane and witty. Smarter than Paisley had guessed and able to use his charm to get his way. As evidenced, she thought, by the very fact that she was working with him. No one told Sean O’Neillnoor if they did, he found a way to change it to ayes.
Sean’s charm was something that she didn’t trust, not just because she’d been falling for Jack, but because of their baby. She needed to be very sure of him before she told him about the child.
She should just keep it all business, she reminded herself. He was a client now, not a man whose body she’d seen naked and knew as well as her own. She needed remember that the man in front of her was a movie star. Someone whom she normally would have no chance with...