Chapter 20: The First Scene Begins
The terrace was a stage dipped in liquid gold. Aidan stepped out into the last of the sun, the warmth a tangible weight on his shoulders. Thea was already there, a silhouette against the glare, one eye pressed to the viewfinder of a camera on a shoulder rig. She panned smoothly towards him as he approached.
“Perfect. Keep walking towards the sofa. Natural. Ignore me.”
Sloane was already seated on a deep, low-slung sofa the color of storm clouds. She wore a slip of emerald green silk that caught the light. She patted the cushion beside her. Not too close. Not too far. A calculated distance.
Aidan sat. The cushions sighed. He could smell her perfume—something expensive and clean, like frozen petals—cutting through the jasmine.
“Comfortable?” Sloane asked. Her voice was different now. Softer. Warmer. It was a tool, and she was using it.
“Getting there,” he said, offering a half-smile. He let his arm drape along the back of the sofa, not touching her, but claiming the space.
“We’ll start easy,” Thea said, her voice a detached murmur from behind the camera. “Just talk. Sloane, ask him about home. Aidan, forget I’m here. Talk to her.”
The red recording light glowed like a Cyclops eye.
Sloane shifted, drawing one knee up beneath her. The movement made the silk whisper. She looked at him, her green eyes searching. “So. Aiden. Tell me about your life. The real one. Not the one in the contract.”
He knew the script. He was supposed to be a single creator, open to collaborations. But Thea wanted “authentic.” He walked the line. “It’s pretty simple. I run a small gym. I like my routine. Good coffee, good people.”
“Good people,” Sloane echoed, leaning forward just an inch. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, then back to his eyes. “Anyone special?”
The question hung in the salty air. He could lie. The contract said lie. But the camera demanded truth, or the performance of it. He chose a sliver of truth, sanded smooth. “There’s… a couple of friends. They’re important. Catriona, she’s all fire and plans. Always has a new project. And Suki… she’s quieter. Observant. They keep things interesting.” He said their names like a secret, letting a genuine fondness color his tone.
“A couple?” Sloane prompted, a knowing smile playing on her lips.
“My closest friends,” he said, holding her look. He didn’t blink. He let the ambiguity sit, let the camera dissect it. He thought of Suki’s laugh, Catriona’s hand gripping his in the airport. The memory was a rock in his stomach.
“They must miss you,” Sloane said.
“I miss them.”
The silence stretched, filled only by the rhythmic crash of the waves below. The sun dipped further, painting everything in long, melancholy shadows.
“Alright,” Thea’s voice cut in, clinical. “Good. Now, I want thirty seconds of sustained eye contact. No talking. No smiling. Just look at each other. I’m moving in for a close-up. Don’t break.”
Aidan felt his pulse in his throat. This wasn’t intimacy; it was a dissection. Sloane’s face became a landscape. The faint lines at the corners of her eyes. The cool, unwavering focus of her gaze. She wasn’t seeing him; she was seeing his reaction, measuring his stamina for this bizarre vulnerability.
He held. Five seconds. Ten. His own face felt like a mask. He could hear the whisper of Thea’s socks on the tile as she circled, the faint whir of the lens adjusting. Fifteen seconds. Sloane’s eyes were a strange color—hazel with flecks of gray. Not like his. Nothing like Catriona’s stormy blue or Suki’s deep brown.
Twenty seconds. The air between their faces felt charged, thick. It was a contest. Who would blink? Who would show a crack?
Twenty-five.
Sloane’s hand moved. Not her eyes. Her eyes remained locked on his. Her fingers, cool and precise, brushed against the fabric of his trousers, just above his knee. It was the lightest possible contact. A whisper of a touch. Professional. A director’s note for the camera to catch.
It electrocuted him.
Every nerve ending fired. The touch was nothing, less than nothing, but in the vacuum of silence and forced connection, it was a lightning strike. He felt a heat spread from the point of contact, a flush that had nothing to do with the fading sun. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.
“And cut,” Thea said, her voice flat.
The sound released him. He let out a slow breath, finally blinking, the world rushing back in—the sound of the waves, the smell of the pool, the low hum of the villa’s air conditioning.
Sloane withdrew her hand as if nothing had happened, a faint, satisfied curve on her lips. She picked up her champagne flute from the table.
“Great,” Thea said, checking the camera’s playback screen. “That’s exactly the kind of unresolved tension we need. The audience will eat that up. They’ll be pausing it, zooming in, looking for a sign.”
Aidan’s leg tingled where she’d touched him. He picked up his own glass of water, his grip a little too tight. He took a long, cold swallow, trying to wash the taste of performed intimacy from his mouth. It lingered, metallic and sharp.
The first scene was in the can. And he already felt flayed open.