Perfectly Fine

by LJ Evans

Genres: Romance; Billionaires Romance; Contemporary Romance; Workplace Romance; Second Chance Romance

Synopsis

He’s a charming, A-list actor at the top of his game.

She’s a small-town screenwriter hoping for a big break.

They form an unexpected connection until secrets ruin their future.

 

Rex Carter has Hollywood at his feet with an Oscar nod in the works and directors scrambling to sign him. The last thing he wants is a stunning assistant seeing past his mask and claiming his soul.

 

Gemma Hatley has dreamed about optioning her screenplay since she was old enough to write, so she jumps at the chance to work for a famous director in hopes of making it come true. Being swept off her feet by L.A.’s favorite player was never part of the plan.

 

The love they find is sudden and rare until secrets tear them apart.

 

Can a bit of movie magic piece them back together?

 

Previously published in eBook form in the Seeds of Love Anthology and as a current newsletter subscriber novella.

Release date: March 27, 2024

Publisher: LJ Evans Books

Print pages: 72

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

Gemma

 

SUPERSTAR

Performed by Taylor Swift

 

The red carpet was bare as Etta and I left the theater, but I was still giddy from the dream-like experience of attending my very first movie premiere—a movie I’d had a teeny-tiny hand in making. I made Etta stop in front of the poster to take a picture. We hadn’t dared do it earlier when the place had been teeming with the press, fans, and celebrities.

I stared at the selfie for a minute, overcome with strong emotions. It was almost impossible to believe that the woman with her blonde hair piled on top of her head, hazel eyes gracefully layered in makeup, and slim body clad in a black satin slip-dress was actually me. The dress, with its hemline ending barely below my butt cheeks, wasn’t one I would have ever bought, but I was grateful to Etta for loaning it to me. 

“I can’t believe this is me,” I said, looking at her with a cheesy grin before hugging her. “I never expected Wilson to invite me to the premiere. I’m just some low-life assistant, scuttling to get him coffee.”

“An assistant who pulled a rabbit out of a hat with the yellow-stoned tiara you found in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee!” she said as her tightly laced braids danced around her.

While I looked nothing like my normal self tonight, Etta was as gorgeous as always in purple satin that accentuated her deep-brown shoulders. She looked like a movie star, even if she had no desire to be one. Instead, her head was full of numbers and marketing schemes.

“The original tiara getting lost in transit was the best thing to ever happen to me,” I said, gratitude filling my heart. “Look at me now! Living in Hollywood with you! Working at the studio with the Wilson Devney! I think Great-Granny Mc would have gotten a kick out of her hoarding ways bringing me a step closer to my dreams.”

“You’re talented, Gemma. Your screenplay is absolutely going to find a home soon,” Etta said.

I held my breath for a moment, thinking of all the queries I’d sent out. Rejection after rejection. But it only took one, and I wouldn’t give up. Not ever. So what if right now I was barely scraping by? So what if I was living on a pull-out couch in Ella’s one-room apartment? I was in Los Angeles. I had a fabulous new friend and a job where I got to see movie magic happen every day.

As Etta and I reached the curb, a black limousine pulled over in front of us. The window rolled down to reveal Wilson. His dark eyes were concerned, heavy eyebrows scrunching together in an ageless brown face.

“Etta! Gemma! What are you doing standing on the curb like you’re waiting for a john to pick you up?” he groused, his booming voice carrying down the street.

My face flushed bright red, but Etta laughed.

“We’re just waiting for the car we ordered. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Etta smiled.

The limo door opened, and Wilson waved us in. “Cancel it. There’s plenty of room with us. Get in!”

Etta and I exchanged a look before crawling over Wilson’s long legs into the back. It wasn’t until we were seated that I realized it wasn’t just Wilson and his husband in the car. My heart skipped about twenty beats before restarting at a wild pace. I inhaled sharply as my eyes met vivid, blue ones.

Rex Carter, A-lister and lead actor in Wild River, was in the flipping limousine with us! He looked magnificent in a black tuxedo cut and carved to fit every single chiseled muscle. The buttons on his jacket were open to reveal a black vest lined with silver threads that matched his silk tie. The neutral palette blended in with his black hair and tan skin, making the royal blue of his eyes stand out even more.

I’d never understood the phrase “so handsome it hurt” until I’d come face to face with Rex in real life. But every time I was within a twenty-foot radius of the man, my chest exploded into a thousand pieces. It was ridiculous. The awareness tingling through my veins threatened to turn me into the drooling fan I’d promised myself I’d never be.

Rex’s left eyebrow raised, the perfectly arched black curve going even higher as I continued to stare. He had indecently kissable lips that were quirked upward at the moment, smoothing out the tiny scar at the corner. His eyes strolled down from my face to my body clad in Etta’s tiny dress before landing at the juncture between my legs and staying there for a beat. My face flared again as I realized that between climbing over Wilson and sliding down the seat to make room for Etta, the dress had scrunched even higher up my thighs. Rex Carter was probably getting a clear shot of my neon-pink underwear.

“So, what do you think, ladies?” Wilson asked. “Are we going to win an Oscar?”

Wilson rubbed his hands together in excitement. His blond-haired husband―also in a tux but looking nowhere near as devastating as the actor sitting next to him―put a large hand on Wilson’s leg. “You know you are. Stop fishing for more compliments.”

Wilson's laugh thundered through the car, and Rex’s grin turned into a full smile that made my frozen heart squeeze tight.

“I’m not sure Gemma agrees,” Rex teased, and I lost feeling in half my body not only because of the way he said my name, deep and guttural, but because he actually knew it. Sure, I’d worked on set for eight weeks while they’d been filming on location in my hometown, but we’d never had a single conversation.

Etta elbowed me, the sharp edge digging into my ribcage, and the pain finally broke my gaze from Rex’s. When I turned to her, Etta was frowning.

“Gemma totally agrees. Don’t you? Not only is Wilson going to win Best Director, but Rex is going to win Best Actor. There are no doubts. Believe me, I’ve nailed the winners with an eighty-percent success rate for five years,” Etta said.

I cleared my throat, forcing my heart to beat again before finally speaking. My voice came out breathy and soft in a way that made me want to cringe. “Wilson has Best Director in the bag, but Rex has competition with Ben Winters.”

Wilson chuckled, and Etta shot me a glare. I shrugged at her but refused to meet Rex’s eyes as they bored into me. I wasn’t going to lie just to stroke his ego. He didn’t need it stroked…certainly not by me. Pink hit my cheeks again because stroking and Rex were definitely not words I should combine, even in my head.

“What?” I said, looking at Etta instead of the man making my pulse spike. “It’s the truth. Ben’s performance in Deadly Escape was riveting.”

“Ouch,” Rex said. The humor in that one word drew my gaze back to his face where his delectable lips quirked even more. I was saved from responding as the limousine came to a stop in front of Wilson’s mansion in the Hollywood hills.

Wilson clambered out, reaching in to help Greg and then Etta out of the vehicle. Rex stepped out on the other side and put his hand back in the car to assist me. When I hesitated before accepting it, a rumbling chuckle broke from deep inside his chest that did all sorts of things to my core.

“I promise, holding my hand for two seconds isn’t going to kill you,” he teased.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

The moment my palm slid into his, shock waves rippled through me, zapping along my veins and making me falter. His other hand went to my waist to steady me, and the gentle touch lit me up like a roadside flare. I needed help. I needed to send an S.O.S. and hope someone would save me before I made a fool out of myself.

When I looked up into his face, towering above me even in my four-inch heels, his sexy smile had disappeared, and his eyes had turned stormy. His dark pupils were dilated, pushing his blue irises into tiny slivers.

Nerves had me biting the corner of my lip, and his gaze tracked the movement. His fingers on my waist flexed ever so slightly, easily digging into my skin through the barely-there dress.

Rex Carter was very, very wrong.

His touch could easily destroy me.

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

Rex

 

NERVOUS

Performed by Maren Morris

 

My hand and gaze were stuck on frozen on Gemma’s soft skin. I caught a hint of pink tongue as she licked her lips before she sank her teeth into the bottom one. I had the overwhelming desire to pull both into my mouth. To devour them. To devour her. The severity of my reaction was a puzzle I hadn’t figured out, even after eight weeks of filming with her on set in Tennessee. I’d had a hard time tearing my eyes from her when she’d been wearing jeans, T-shirts, and Keds, and now that she was in a tiny black dress barely covering anything, it was damn near impossible.

It took a wild amount of control to drag my hands from her, and I instantly longed to put them back, to bask in the warmth of our bodies joined. She shivered in the unusually cool November air, and I wished she was quivering from my mouth and hands on her instead of the temperature.

She was nothing like the women I normally dated, slept with, or had my arm around at events like this. I usually went for full-bodied, dark-haired women, and Gemma was the complete opposite. She had blonde hair naturally streaked with bronze, hazel eyes flecked with browns and greens, and small curves she’d hid well in T-shirts but were now on display.

As I turned away and headed toward the mansion, she whispered to herself softly. Words she didn’t think I could hear but returned the grin to my face. “Idiot. You’re an idiot, Gemma Hatley.”

I was unspeakably pleased to find her fighting her attraction to me because she’d never once shown it during filming. She’d hardly acknowledged my existence, just like at the theater tonight. I was curious to know if it was a defense mechanism, or if there were other reasons she was resisting. Like my reputation as a Hollywood player who burned through women as fast as he changed roles. It was a mix of truth and fabrication because, for a long time, there’d only been one woman in my life. Thoughts of Mariah didn’t bring me to my knees anymore, but the remnants of the pain remained even though it was more wounded ego than actual hurt.

As we entered the house, Gemma and Etta split off, winding their way deeper into Wilson’s mansion packed with people in sparkling apparel and painted-on smiles. I ignored the crowd and the twinkling views from the mammoth windows set in a sea of marble and glass as I quickly found my way to the bar. I needed something to fill the ache left behind by Gemma’s touch and the memories she’d unburied.

Once I had my brandy in hand, I turned to find myself surrounded by a slew of industry people―actors, actresses, directors, producers. They clamored to congratulate me, asking what I was working on even though anyone who was anyone already knew. The entire time, my eyes kept straying to Gemma. Her slinky black dress made me want to remove the thin straps with my teeth, push aside the hem, and explore with fingers and tongue what lay beyond the neon-pink panties I’d got a peek of in the car.

She made her way out the French doors to the terrace, and I yearned to go after her but forced my attention back to the auburn-haired, blue-eyed woman in front of me. Felicity Bradshaw was my costar in Breakfast and Other Things, and even though filming hadn’t started yet, I was already tired of her. Maybe because I knew what she wanted, which was my name tied to hers not only for the benefit of the movie but because it would elevate her from the B-list she resided on. It made that dull ache of my past twist uncomfortably in my chest. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s fucking stepping stone again.

As gracefully as I could, I disengaged from Felicity and let my feet find their way outside. Gemma was leaning on the rail drenched in moonlight and staring out at the city lights sparkling below her. The breeze had picked up, and it sent tendrils of hair that had escaped her updo flying around her.

My body reacted to the stunning image she made, and it took almost a full minute for me to control myself enough to ease over to her. I propped my arms on the rail, and our elbows touched, sending an unexpected wave of heat spiraling through me.

“Ben Winters isn’t going to win Best Actor,” I said, breaking the quiet.

She looked up at me, eyes flashing, before she scooted her arm a little farther away. Her thick lashes blinked slowly, eyes darting to my lips and back. Then, her eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled softly. “I didn’t expect you to be so thin-skinned.”

“I’m not,” I told her. “Just stating a fact.”

She laughed, and the soft sound flew through my veins.

“God, you really do have an enormous ego,” she said, smile growing.

“It isn’t the only thing that’s enormous.” I winked at her.

She rolled her eyes, ignoring the innuendo and launching into a whole string of reasons why Ben was a contender. It wasn’t just his acting, she claimed. It was the script and the timing of the movie in the industry. Every comment she made was surprisingly insightful―smart and well thought out. We bantered back and forth a bit, me adding a few things I liked about Ben’s movie but also sharing what I thought the film lacked.

The debate made her come alive, and soon, she was waving her hands and speaking with a passion that enthralled me, drawing me nearer until our faces were mere millimeters apart. Her eyes were alight, and her lips were curved upward as if the discussion was making her happy, and that simple idea rocked me to the core—the thought of her being happy with me.

I lifted a finger and touched the corner of her mouth. Her smile disappeared behind a tiny gasp as my thumb skated along her bottom lip. Lust and something deeper, a primal urge to make her mine, roared through me.

“These have been tantalizing me for weeks,” I said as my finger came to rest in the middle of her mouth.

Her breath came faster, and her eyes returned my heated gaze, but instead of giving in to the feelings, she pushed my hand away. She turned back to the view of the valley spread below us, and a shiver went through her like it had when she’d stepped out of the limo.

“You’re cold,” I said, shrugging out of my tuxedo jacket and placing it around her shoulders.

She froze, looking at me from under lusciously long lashes. “What are you doing?”

“Being a gentleman,” I told her, but the truth was, I didn’t want to be a gentleman. I wanted to lead her into the guesthouse at the back of Wilson’s estate, where I was staying, and devour her while the party raged around us.

She shook her head slightly. “No…what are you doing out here with me? Flirting. Making a play. I’m hardly your type, and I’m definitely not one to have a one-night fling with a celebrity just to say I did it.”

The thought of having just one night with her twisted the same ridiculous primal feeling inside me. As if I knew, with an unheard-of certainty, that a few hours with her wasn’t ever going to be enough.

I tucked her hair gently behind her ear.

“You don’t seem like a one-night kind of woman, Gemma,” I replied.

“I’m serious…Rex,” she said, swallowing hard, as if saying my name was painful and beautiful all at the same time. “You need to go find someone else to hunt down. I don’t want to be your prey.”

I heard her no, and it filled me with regret. I wasn’t like any of the assholes in my industry who’d force themselves. No meant no, regardless of the words used to express it, and she’d just told me to take a hike. Normally, I would have swiveled on my foot and taken off, but the sorrow her words brought me was so severe I couldn’t leave. Not yet.

“I’m not hunting, Gemma. I’ve been drawn to you for weeks as if there’s an invisible string tied around me, yanking me toward you. I think you’re the huntress.”

She closed her eyes briefly before opening them back up. “Don’t throw lines like that at me.”

I gave a small shrug, and my lips curled upward. “In the short time I’ve known you, you seem like someone who always speaks the truth. You did it with Wilson back in Tennessee. You did it tonight when it would have been easier to just agree that I’d win an Oscar. I appreciate that honesty. I like it. I like you. I’m not throwing lines. I’m giving you the truth right back.”

She shook her head disbelievingly. “Is this payback, then? For me saying Ben was going to beat you? As if you have to prove to me you can act by convincing me you’re into me?”

“I’m not acting with you. I am into you,” I said and hated the stupidity of the words. Like I was thirteen and asking my first girlfriend out.

She still didn’t believe me, and I knew I’d have to convince her. I put one hand on her waist, the other turning her chin to face me. My skin tingled and zapped. “I’d like to kiss you. I want to know if the insatiable need I felt by merely holding your hand was an anomaly or if it’s everything I’ve been missing in my life.”

She bit her lip again, but she didn’t push me away. I risked pressing further, saying, “If after I kiss you, you want to throw my jacket at me and walk away, I’ll let you and never bring it up again.”

Our gazes locked, each of us searching the other for our inner truths. She seemed as wary as I was wounded. Maybe together we could find a place in the middle to actually be happy.

“One kiss,” I promised.

She didn’t protest, and I bent my head, gently placing our mouths together. A feathery touch that was not nearly enough, but I was determined to take it slow so I didn’t scare her away. Her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, and her hands circled my neck. When the soft tip of her tongue darted against my lips, it broke my tightly-held control, and I thrust into her mouth with a growl. She tasted like fucking heaven―sweet and mysterious. Her nails dug into my skin as I took command, licking, biting, taking what she gave and making it mine.

She moaned, and her body fell completely against me. The flames that had been brewing in my veins burst into an inferno. I tangled my hand into her hair, tugging until her head fell back, exposing her neck and allowing me to trail wet kisses down the silky length, licking the small hollow at the base before continuing downward. When I hit the silk pooling between her breasts, I slid my tongue underneath, finding her bare, and my already stiff dick grew impossibly harder. I sucked her nipple before biting softly, and she whimpered.

Suddenly, she pushed me away, and I felt the loss like a knife to my gut. She was flushed and panting as she adjusted the dress’s neckline to ensure she was covered. Her eyes flashed to the French doors and the crowded room beyond them, but no one was paying us any attention. They were too busy mingling, networking, conniving to be the next big thing.

“Gemma,” I said softly, grabbing her hand and twining her fingers with mine. “Don’t run. Stay.”

She swallowed hard, eyes traveling down my body, widening at the way my pants tented and then journeying back up. She was fighting some internal war between wanting me and needing to flee. Her jaw was clenched tightly, but her eyes were full of desire.

“I’m probably going to regret this,” she said quietly.

My heart leaped, my dick rejoiced, and my arms pulled her back toward me, tasting her sweet lips again for a brief moment. Then, I turned and led her down the stairs at the side of the terrace, along the brick walk shrouded in shadows, and into the guesthouse.

As I closed the door and turned to take her in, hesitancy hit her eyes again. Caution that I needed to remove before I went further. The last thing I wanted was for her to regret this. I wanted her to ache for a repeat performance.

My hand slid along her collar bone, and her body quivered.

“Let me make love to you, Gemma.”

I trailed kisses along her chest before slowly drawing the thin strap of the dress down with my teeth just like I’d imagined. I pushed the silky material over the small slope of her breast, kissing the swell before lavishing the tip with my tongue.

“Holy hell…” she whimpered, hand going to my hair and tugging.

“Say it,” I growled. “Say I can make love to you. Say I can make you quiver until you scream my name.”

She nodded.

“Say the words, Gemma.”

“Yes, Rex. Make love to me.”

“Fuck.” Those simple words made me want to explode without ever having been inside her. I picked her up, strode toward the bedroom, kicked the door shut behind us, and set her down on my bed before falling to my knees in front of her. The hem of that damn dress had been teasing me for hours.

“If there’s anything I need to punish you for tonight, it’s your pink panties.”

Her eyes darkened, and I did exactly what I’d wanted to do since she slid inside the limo. I pulled the pink silk aside and put my mouth on her. She trembled at the simple touch, and it took only a few long, slow strokes of fingers and tongue before she was shaking, tightening, and crying out as her body shook.

She was so responsive. So perfectly glorious.

I removed the dress, her underwear, and her sexy sandals, touching, licking, and kissing every single spot I exposed. She pulled at the buttons on my vest, hands frantic, and I chuckled at her sudden impatience before stepping away to shed my layers and grab a condom from my bag. When I returned to her, she slid her fingers along my stomach, causing the muscles to flex under her touch. Gentle fingers traveled downward until she’d taken my length into her palm. I hissed at the touch, the control I prided myself on, slipping away.

I swept her into my arms, moving us further up the bed so I could explore her slowly. My lips and hands taunted and teased, savoring how her body responded to my touch, and when I finally entered her, we both gasped. Waves of unexpected emotions swam through me, an overwhelming sense of having found a rare treasure. Something I’d never want to lose.

Then, we were moving, bodies finding a rhythm that was beautiful and bold. Slow and fast, the pressure growing, the crest just beyond. I held on to my control by a hair, determined to feel her clench around me, and when she did, crying out my name in a beautiful whisper, I fell over the edge in wave upon glorious wave.

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

Gemma

 

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Performed by Taylor Swift

 

I had an unusually heavy weight on my waist and legs. Even when Etta’s twenty-pound cat sat on me, it never felt like this. My brain slowly came back to life. Rex. The balcony. His lips. His hands. His body.

Shit, shit, shit!

I’d slept with Rex Carter! My hand came to my forehead. What the hell had I been thinking? I obviously hadn’t been thinking. I’d stupidly given in to my body’s demands. He’d felt too good with his well-practiced fingers and tongue, moves that were nothing like my one and only boyfriend’s. I’d come apart multiple times last night under Rex’s expert touch. My face flushed, recalling the way I’d writhed and screamed his name.

I was a moron. A cliché. I’d succumbed to a famous movie star and become another notch on his belt. At least I was a nobody, and it wouldn’t be spread all over the gossip rags as it would have been if he’d hooked up with Felicity Bradshaw last night.

Still, panic filled me. It wasn’t because I’d had my first one-night stand. There was nothing wrong with that. This panic was because it hadn’t felt like just sex. Rex had plowed me with as many sweet words as he had gentle touches. His eyes had whispered things to me that my shielded heart had found difficult to resist, silent words that spoke of adoration and belonging.

My chest tightened. I couldn’t breathe. I felt trapped underneath his weight. I pushed him off, rolled to the edge of the bed, and started to stand just as he snagged me around the waist with a muscled arm. He pulled me back against his naked chest.

“Where are you going?” he asked, face buried in my neck. The heat of his breath coasted over me, causing my nipples to harden and my core to clench. God, I’d just had sex with him mere hours ago, and my body was already greedy to repeat the experience.

This was why sleeping with him had been a mistake.

“I need to go home,” I told him, but my voice was breathless, choked on emotions.

In one smooth move, he flipped us so he was on top, pinning me with his legs and his gaze. His brows furrowed together as he asked, “Why?”

“Why do I need to go home? So I can shower. So Etta doesn’t think I died. So I can do the million things on my to-do list before Wilson fires me.”

His fingers trailed over me, and I panted. It was ridiculous. Every single time he touched me, it felt like he was leaving a brand. A mark I’d never be able to remove no matter how many showers I took.

“First, I have a shower here. Second, you texted Etta last night if I remember right, although I was drunk on you, so maybe that part is a bit hazy. And three, it’s Saturday, so you shouldn’t be working.”

His blue eyes were deadly serious.

“That’s not how things go with Wilson, and you know it. I work seven days a week most of the time,” I said. There was not an ounce of annoyance in my voice, because it didn’t bother me. I loved my job. I loved this industry. The hours were long, and sometimes when I came home too tired to work on my screenplay, I wished I had a few extra minutes in a day, but that was it.

“I’m not ready to let you walk out my door yet,” he grunted.

My hand brushed at his dark hair as I tried to calm the hammering in my chest.

“This isn’t your door. It’s Wilson’s,” I reminded him.

His lips twitched. “Technically, but I’m staying here while I’m filming Breakfast and Other Things.”

I sighed internally. Shit on toast. Now, every time I came by the house for Wilson, I’d see him and know he was thinking of how he’d seen me naked. And I could guarantee he wouldn’t be dwelling on how perfect we’d been for a handful of hours.

He watched as if he could read the way my brain was spiraling. Then, he lowered his lips and kissed me softly—almost tenderly, reverently.

“Gemma,” he said, and my entire being leaped at my name on his lips. “Last night. It wasn’t a one-time thing. I don’t want you to leave right now. I want to spend the day getting to know you. I want to kiss you goodbye only when we’re forced to go to our jobs on Monday, and then I want to find you in my bed again when I come home.”

“Wh-what?”

He chuckled, and the gorgeous smile that had mesmerized me and millions of other people took over his face.

“I’m not proposing—even though it sounded like it. I’m just saying, I want to see where this goes. Us. This fucking fire. The connectedness I feel to you. I don’t want you to walk out the door, thinking to yourself, That was a nice little check off my bucket list.”

It made my lips twitch. “Because having sex with Rex Carter was on my bucket list?”

He grinned. “Isn’t it on everyone’s?”

“Your ego is much, much bigger than your other body parts.”

His smile went away, eyes filling in with a heat that caused a matching flame to curl through me. “I think that was a challenge.”

“I’ve already seen it, so it’s too late to challenge me.”

“Then, I’ll have to remind you just how enormous it is.”

And he did. Making me forget everything and anything I was supposed to do that day. Making me think only of him, his hands, his body, and the way I felt like I’d found something I was missing when he was embedded inside me.