“A suite all to ourselves? What ever will we do?” I said, meeting his eyes. Brent kissed me the way he always did now. Body and soul, so deeply, so passionately I didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. All I knew was that it was perfection. And it was mine.
His Secret Baby (Sample)
Enjoy a free sample of one of my other novels.
1
Gael
“Cut! Just—just cut the damn thing.”
I yanked my helmet off as the director waved his hand in the air. Fucking hell, was he really not pleased with that take either? Victor Voxx was the best in the business, one of the Hollywood directors everyone wanted to work with even stuntmen like myself.
But he was picky.
And I’ll be damned, if he wasn’t getting on my nerves.
“Take ten, and we can try this again. Maybe with a bit more bike action and less of you trying to look at the camera like you’re the main man in this movie?” Voxx asked.
I gritted my teeth and nodded. “Sure thing.”
I slid my leg from around the motorcycle and passed the bike off to the prop crew. They were going to set me back up so I could try the shot again. For the seventeenth time, I walked over to a darkened corner and leaned against the wall, ruffling my hair with my hand. As I tucked my helmet underneath my arm, I felt my phone buzzing against my thigh.
“And get that phone off my set when we’re filming!” Voxx exclaimed.
I slipped my phone out of my pocket and saw that I had an incoming video message from Elizabeth, my fiancée. As I looked at the phone, I sighed, already noticing her frowning face. I used to smile whenever she called. My heart used to skip beat after beat with every step of her heels. The clicking of them used to bring me comfort. Her smile used to bring me happiness.
But now, everything about her made me cringe.
“Hey there, babe. What’s up?” I asked.
“Can we meet? We really need to talk,” she said.
My stomach seized. “About?”
“When do you get off work?”
I furrowed my brow. “You sound out of breath. What’s wrong?”
“Please, Gael. This is important, and I don’t want to have this conversation over fucking FaceTime.”
My eyebrows rose. Elizabeth only cursed when something was really nagging at her.
“Well, I don’t get off set until ten tonight. And even then, Voxx is really riding my ass—”
She waved her hand in the air. “Fine, that’s fine. We’re technically face-to-face right now anyway.”
“I mean, not really, but—”
“I can’t go through with the wedding.”
I paused. “Can you try that again? I think my phone hiccupped.”
She groaned. “We can’t get married, Gael.”
I blinked. “Are you being serious right now?”
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you had hoped for us. But—”
“We can move the wedding to whenever you want it to be. I know the plans have been bogging you down lately. We could get back our deposits on some—”
“No, Gael. Just—damn it.”
I licked my lips. “Oh.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“You want to call off the engagement, not just the wedding.”
“Look, things aren’t going well at all on my side of the family. Daddy’s breathing down my neck about this. Mom keeps chattering on about how you’re not the right guy for me. Daddy just called and threatened to cut me off from everything if I went through with this marriage.”
I nodded slowly. “So, you’re breaking off everything because your father won’t give you money anymore if you don’t.”
“It’s not like that.”
“That’s literally what you just said.”
A whistle pierced my ear. “Gael! Set!”
Voxx’s voice made me want to punch the man in his throat.
“It sounds like you have to get back to work,” Elizabeth said.
“No, what I want is to talk this out, to work this out,” I said.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t felt the distance between us lately.”
“All couples go through with it. Once this movie is over—”
“Where the hell is my stuntman?” Voxx exclaimed.
“Family emergency, give me a second!” I roared.
I looked over at Voxx, and he held up his hand.
“Take your time. We’ve got other things we can shoot,” he said.
“You won’t need the time. I have to go soon anyway,” Elizabeth said.
“No, don’t go. Talk to me,” I said.
“Don’t make this any harder than it already is. I do care for you, but what we’ve had these past couple of months is hardly love. Everyone sees us drifting.”
“Which is why I planned a surprise getaway for us.”
She blinked. “You what?”
“Yeah, I booked us an entire week together in a cabin up north a bit. A nice little getaway, just you and me, to reconnect again.”
“You mean to tell me you had the money to book something like that, but we’ve been struggling to pay the bills for the wedding?”
I sighed. “Elizabeth, come on. That’s not even fair.”
“I can’t do this. I wish you the best of luck, but we’re over. Goodbye, Gael.”
And before I could get another word in edgewise, she hung up.
I tried calling her back, but she didn’t pick up. Eventually, the phone didn’t ring even once before it sent me straight to her voicemail. Rejecting my calls. How fucking quaint. I growled as I shoved my phone deep into the recesses of my pocket before striding back on set.
Then, I turned toward the director.
“Sorry about that. I’m ready,” I said.
“Sure you don’t need a few more minutes?” Voxx asked, suddenly more amiable.
I nodded. “I’m sure. What’s done is done.”
I slid the helmet over my head as Voxx nodded.
“Then, get the hell on that bike and let’s try this one more time, please? You came highly recommended. It shouldn’t take us more than three or four shots to nail this,” he said.
“Read you loud and clear, Director.”
As I made my way up to the bike, I felt fury rushing through my veins. Were Elizabeth and I in love? I didn’t know. Maybe. I liked the girl. Hell, I could’ve loved her, if given the chance. Not that she’d ever let go of her father’s wallet long enough to give me that chance. We had a deal. She married me; I got a green card so I could continue working, and she got to piss her absentee father off. Win-win, right?
Apparently not.
“And… action!”
I revved the engine of the bike as I stared down the ramp. With my eyes narrowed and my fury rushing all the way to the tips of my fingers, I readied myself for work. It was the only thing I had now. And if I couldn’t find some way to get my hands on a reason to renew my visa, I wouldn’t even have that. I’d be shipped back to Spain, where I’d have no shot at the kind of career I wanted. All my life, all I ever wanted to do was be a stuntman in Hollywood. And now that I finally had my shot with this damn television show, it was about to be ripped away from me.