Sadly, she didn’t think so. Not after the previous few minutes in the makeup room.
Or had Ren been deliberately trying to unnerve her for some reason? It didn’t make sense, but the man was as inscrutable as a cat, sometimes. She never knew what he was going to do, or not do. One minute, he was being kind and solicitous. The next, he was ignoring her. It was enough to make her a little crazy.
How in the world was she going to kiss him on screen? Or anywhere, for that matter? The situation felt absurd. A movie star she’d had a crush on for years had to kiss her, and she was freaking out about it. Not necessarily in a good way.
Ren had been making movies for the past decade and had been at the top of the A list of celebrities for the past four to five years. He’d kissed all the biggest leading ladies of the day and had been pictured with supermodels and other women who were his social equals or up-and-comers in Hollywood.
Katrina was a nobody. A nobody who had crushed hard on the young Ren the first time she’d seen him in a movie. She’d followed his career to some extent, seeing each of his new movies and enjoying his performances and those mesmerizing green eyes that were, she had discovered, even more potent in person.
He had barely aged since his debut a decade or more ago. He was still fit and trim and handsome as sin. He really lived up to that promotional logo that had been used on one of his early movies. She could see no real difference in the Ren of ten years ago and the Ren of today. She would’ve thought he’d at least look a little more weathered, but no.
Ren was still as handsome as he’d been back in his first film, with no visible signs that he’d changed much at all in the intervening years. Men had it easy. They grew more mature and handsome while women just got old. At least, that’s the way it still was in Hollywood. Katrina had known, when she’d first tried to make a living at acting, that her shelf life was limited. There was a narrow band of years when a woman could play leading roles like the one she’d been given here.
Katrina had sometimes fantasized about acting again when she got older. She could play supporting characters. Mothers, aunts, crazy old cat ladies…but Sonia’s offer had come at a time when she’d given up on being the lead. Well, as the Bard said, there are stranger things in heaven and earth.
Katrina caught her breath and tried to calm herself. Within moments, she’d have to face Ren again. Franny would be with him, and the past few days had taught her that Franny was a keen observer of human nature. Katrina wanted to project a professional competence. A nonchalance that was diametrically opposed to how she was really feeling inside just thinking about what she was going to do today.
For today, she was going to kiss Rendall Smith. Glory hallelujah!
“What is it with you today, Ren?” Franny asked once the door had closed behind Kat. “You were scaring her.” Franny gestured to the door where Kat had beat a rather hasty retreat. “Your cat is in your eyes.”
“He’s always there, Fran. You know that,” he told her as he flopped down into the makeup chair and spun to face her. “He’s part of what made me so disgustingly famous.”
“I know that,” she told him, “and you know that, but little Miss Kat has no clue. Yet, she still ran from the predator.”
“Maybe she just has good instincts,” Ren said offhandedly, but he knew he wasn’t fooling Francesca.
“Maybe you should be a little more careful around the human,” Franny countered. “Now, don’t fight me on this. You may be a handsome devil, but you shine. Your natural glow needs to be toned down for film, and you know it.” She grabbed the arm of the chair and swiveled him around to face the mirror. Then, without giving him the opportunity to object, she set to work, evening out his skin tone and taking the shine off his face.
She’d have to touch him and Kat up—along with anyone else who was going to be on camera today—as needed, but Ren knew that Francesca liked getting the foundational work done here, under controlled conditions, with all her tools, lotions and potions around her, and a steady light source. She probably could, maybe even should, have created a space like this on set, but Franny always said she liked to be mobile during filming, staying where she was needed, ready to fix things on the fly.
She worked fast, and within a few moments, he was ready. He hadn’t objected, which he knew was abnormal. They usually went through a little routine of banter while she fixed him up, but today, for some reason, he just didn’t have the energy. No, all his focus was elsewhere. On the human, as Franny had called Kat.
He was going to kiss her today. He’d kissed hundreds of women in his years in film. Maybe even thousands, though he certainly wasn’t counting. That would just be tacky. Still, something about the idea of kissing Kat made him pause.
And, for the first time ever, his inner cat was interested, too. The jaguar had been watching Kat out of Ren’s eyes. He’d been sizing her up. For what purpose, Ren wasn’t really sure. His inner cat wasn’t quite as at peace with his human half as he probably should have been by this age. There was something still very wild, very restless, about his furry side.
It showed in his eyes. The famous green of Ren’s gaze was sharpened and crystalized by the cat’s energy, showing through. In any other profession, that would have been a detriment, but in Hollywood, people just assumed it was some kind of cosmetic affectation. Maybe a bit of photographic enhancement, even.
Ren couldn’t figure out why the cat was so interested in the human woman. If Ren were more in-tune with his wild side, he might understand better, but as it was, he and his inner cat had always had a somewhat tense relationship. Mark Pepard, the jaguar Alpha, claimed Ren’s inner beast might settle down more if he found his mate. Ren wasn’t so sure.
He’d looked. He really had. He’d dated many different women, from all sorts of backgrounds. Shifters of every species. Humans. Even a white witch or two. He hadn’t really been looking for forever, but if it happened to find him, he believed he had been open to it. Like anyone, he didn’t fancy being alone for the rest of his life. He wanted a mate. He just didn’t know how he was going to find one when no woman he’d met since attaining adulthood had ever stirred the mating instinct.
Hell, before now, no woman had even roused the interested of his jaguar. So, then. Why now? What was it about Kat that made the jaguar take notice? Was the beast assessing her as some kind of threat? Or was there something more…potentially life-changing…going on?
He wished he knew, but he and his cat had never really been in complete sync. The cat seemed like an observer, just along for the ride in Ren’s body, when he was in human form. When he was in jaguar form, the human side looked out from the cat’s eyes in the same way, but somehow, it worked.
Ren knew it wasn’t ideal. He knew most shifters had much more symmetry with their beasts, but it’s just how it always had been for Ren and his inner fur ball. He didn’t know any other way.
Would a mate change that? Would a mate change him? He wouldn’t know, for sure, until it happened, and he was almost at a point where he’d given up on it ever happening. There had been so many women in his life that he thought might’ve been perfect mate material, but none of them had ever stirred the cat’s interest.