“Horrible. Very, very horrible.”

“Hold on, before you start, let me . . .” I reached over and messed up his perfectly styled hair. He was cute—big brown eyes, nice lips, defined jaw. “There. Better. Oh wait. Can I just?” I pointed to his shirt.

“What?”

“Just the top button. Isn’t this choking you?” I unbuttoned the top one, then assessed the new look. Just those two changes made him look more relaxed, which was more him, I was learning. As much of a taskmaster as he was, he actually did have a pretty mellow personality. One that radiated calm. “This is what you choose to wear on a Wednesday?”

“I came straight from work.”

I cleared my throat. “Isn’t this work?”

“I am also a waiter.”

“Really?” I leaned over and smelled him. “You don’t even smell like food.”

“You are so weird.”

“Where do you work?”

“It’s this little family-owned restaurant by my house called Bella’s.”

“So wait, you’re a waiter and a tutor and you write reviews? When do you find the time to do your own homework?”

“I’m not really a tutor.”

I squinted my eyes. “Um . . . what do you call what we’re doing, then?”

“Well, I mean, I tutor you. But you’re the only one.”

“Oh.” I was even more confused now. “That’s why Taylor in the front office at your school had no idea what I was talking about when I said you tutored.”

“Probably.”

“Then how did you . . . ?”

“Your dad seemed really desperate.”

I nodded. “He often does.” Knowing my dad, he’d probably had the school give him the names of the three students who had the highest GPAs and he personally called them.

Donavan patted the packet in my hand. “Are we going to do this or what?”

“Yes, method acting. Let’s hear it. We are now in eighteenth-century England.”

He gave me the world’s biggest sigh. “Here is you always getting what you want.”

“You’re right. I do always get what I want. My father owns this mansion, this town, and you in it,” I said as Scarlett.

He gestured for me to hand him the packet, and I did. He began reading the first page of instructions in what I assumed was his attempt at a British accent. “Don’t look at me like that. This was your idea.”

I laughed. He was being a good sport. “Please, carry on.”

“Are you going to stay in your makeup again today?” he asked.

I’d forgotten I had it on. “Makeup? What makeup?”

“Okay, you weren’t kidding,” he said. “I guess we’re doing this.”

“While I’m reading these word problems, you read this chapter.” I handed him Dancing Graves and turned to a Benjamin-heavy chapter.

“Why?”

“It’ll help you.”

“You mean it will help you.”

“In this room, that is the same thing.”

He took the book from me and handed me my homework.

He was a focused reader. He concentrated on each page—his eyebrows drawn together, the tip of his right thumb clamped lightly between his teeth, fully immersed.

I skimmed the first word problem and then skimmed it again. Easy enough. But of course doing this immediately took me out of character. How would Scarlett have completed this?

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if he heard me, because he didn’t look up.

I left my trailer and walked with purpose to the mansion. It wasn’t a real mansion, obviously. They had shot some B-roll film of a real mansion somewhere in a forested countryside. But here in the studio each of the three rooms they’d built only had three walls. In the room that represented the library, I remembered seeing a quill and inkpot. I wasn’t sure if it actually worked. So many things were fake. But so many things weren’t. Amanda had to write something at some point, so I hoped this was one of those set pieces that actually functioned. I riffled through the items on the desktop. When I didn’t see it, I opened a side drawer. I started to shut it again when something caught my eye—my flesh-colored kneepads. I pulled them out, confused. How did these end up here? Maybe I’d left them on set one day and they got shoved in the drawer when things were getting packed away.

“What are you doing?” a voice from behind me asked.

I whirled around, tense, then immediately relaxed. “Oh, it’s just you.”

Grant stood there between two stacks of coiled extension cords, holding an apple.

I tucked the kneepads under my arm and said in a British accent, “I’m after a writing apparatus.” He was the one who told me to be Scarlett; I was going to be Scarlett.

“Oh, are you now?” he said, easily slipping into a perfect British accent. Much better than Donavan’s.

I smiled at him. “My father has sent a tutor to help me in my studies.”

He hopped up into the mansion library with me. “You and your tutors. A woman shouldn’t take on more than she can handle,” he said. It’s what Benjamin would’ve said, and he knew that.

“But alas, I do what I’m told.”

“I have a sneaking suspicion that assertion couldn’t be further from the truth.” He plucked the quill and ink I hadn’t seen off the corner of the desk and handed them to me, then took another bite of his apple, his blue eyes sparkling with humor.

“Thank you, kind sir.”

“My pleasure.” He took my hand in his and kissed my knuckles.

I started to walk toward the exit, our hands still linked. He didn’t move, and eventually our hands pulled apart. We maintained eye contact while I took several more steps, then I turned, flipped my greasy hair, and walked away. This method acting could actually work. That was more chemistry than I’d had with him since auditioning.

I smiled as I walked down the hall, my kneepads still tucked under my arm, quill and ink in my hand. I came to the corner and was about to turn it when I heard voices. One I recognized immediately as Remy’s. The other I couldn’t place because it was a bit muffled, but it was low and intense. I didn’t want to interrupt them, so I stopped a moment, trying to figure out if I should turn back or wait it out. That’s when I heard, “She’s too new, and not very good. Nobody knows who she is. And those who do, don’t even like her. You should read the posts on social media about her.”

I couldn’t even tell if it was a guy or a girl, because the voice was spoken in a loud whisper.

“It would cost the studio a lot of money if we replaced her now.”

“It might cost them a lot of money if you don’t.”

I backed up slowly, careful not to scuff my feet on the floor. When I got far enough away, I turned and took another exit, for the long way around to my trailer. I got inside and leaned against the door, out of breath.

Sixteen

Donavan hadn’t moved from his position on the couch; he was reading my book. But when I continued to stand there, he looked up. “What’s wrong?”

I put the ink and quill on the table and tossed my kneepads into the corner. “I heard someone talking in the hall to my director about how they think I suck. I kind of do right now.”