Noah scowled. “You should’ve told the assholes to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
“Giant mortgage, remember?” She shrugged. “It’s almost like another acting gig for me, and to be honest, the cosmetics people treat me nicer than most directors.”
“You’re fielding movie offers left and right.” Noah angled the plane east in the crystalline blue sky. “You don’t have to do anything that makes you unhappy.”
He was so protective of her, always had been. He’d come to her town house in the middle of the night when she’d freaked out after catching a photographer peering through the window; he’d also made the police take the stalking seriously from the very start. That protectiveness was part of the reason why his betrayal had hurt her so badly. It was as if he’d become a different person that night, a person who didn’t care about her at all.
“That’s just it.” Chest hurting, she looked out the window. “The cosmetics deal will give me the freedom to sign more movies like Last Flight. Not that I didn’t have fun doing the superhero movie, but my heart tends to sway toward script-driven dramas.”
“You’re an amazing actress.” Noah loved watching her on-screen. “Whatever you choose, you make it better.”
“Some scripts can’t be saved, Noah.” An unexpected laugh.
His lungs began to work again. He’d caught Kit hesitating and choosing her words several times during the flight, and her body language… there was distance there. Distance he’d created, so he couldn’t fucking cry about it now.
“Harper got this one offer for a movie about erotic insect-women who wanted to sex men to death.” She was no longer staring out the window, her smile like sunshine. “I was meant to be the insect empress, and oh, I got to wear the ‘diamond’ string bikini.”
Noah tried very hard not to imagine Kit in a string bikini; the last thing he needed was a hard-on. Kit was flat out the sexiest woman he knew. “Tell me you still have the script,” he said, managing to pull off a light response.
“I might have saved it.”
He smiled. “Was that the worst one?” Talking to her this way, it felt like having his Kit back again. “No wait, I want to know something else more.”
“What?”
“Did Hugh make an offer yet?” he said, referring to the owner of the most well-known adult magazine in the world.
“Yep. Hundred grand.”
“Pfft. Total lowball. Hold out for at least nine figures.”
Open laughter. “I don’t think they paid that much even for Abigail Rutledge, and she’s the reigning queen of the A-list.”
Noah was suddenly sorry he’d brought up the topic. The idea of random men jacking off to Kit’s naked body made him want to punch out the lights of every other male in the fucking world. “Would you do it?” he forced himself to ask. “Pose nude for the right money or the right photographer?”
“Nope. And I won’t do nude scenes either—it’s in all my contracts. If the director wants a flash of breasts or whatever, they bring in a body double. No exceptions, and I don’t care if the stance loses me roles.”
Noah unclenched his jaw. “You feel strongly about it.” Good. So did he.
She took a long time to reply, her face pensive when he glanced over. “I love my mom, and I think she has the right to showcase her body any way she chooses.” The last words were soft and fierce both. “But… when I was in junior high, boys in my grade were ogling the nude spread she did at forty-five. It was the ‘Mrs. Robinson’ issue, and it spread through the male population of the school like wildfire.”
Noah suddenly realized he’d seen that spread; every man of a certain age probably had. He was fairly certain one of the boys in his class had tacked it up on the back of the door to the gym locker room.
Feeling a little ill, he shook his head. “Hell, Katie.” The affectionate term just slipped out, but lost in her memories, Kit didn’t seem to notice.
“It wasn’t the first time—she’d done spreads when she was younger, but I wasn’t old enough to be bothered by it then.” She reached up to fix her headphones. “I wasn’t ashamed of her. I think she’s the most astonishingly gorgeous woman I know, and I admire her confidence.” Love and pride entwined. “It was just weird and uncomfortable to know that the boy I sat next to in math class, or the boy who was my crush, would probably go home to jerk off to pictures of my mom.”
“They use it against you?” Noah asked, furious at the thought of her being bullied.