Page 73 of The Boss I Can't Stand

“We’re going up there,” I insisted. “Even if I have to buy out the whole damn wheel to get us on it before this date ends.”

The corner of her mouth quirked as she shook her head. “No need to do anything crazy.”

“I just want you to be happy,” I said, noting the way her cheeks flooded with color. “Just because we’re putting on a show for the cameras doesn’t mean we can’t have a littlerealfun.”

“That’s very sweet of you.” She stepped closer, threading her arms around my neck as she looked up at me.

“Sometimes I’m a sweet guy.” I kissed her temple. “But keep that to yourself.”

“Who would believe me?”

I gave a husky laugh. “Exactly.” It was crazy to think how far we’d come since that first fake date where she could hardly stand for me to put my hand on her knee.

“But tell me more about this real fun,” she said, her eyebrows lifting.

I wrapped my arms around her waist, bunching her shirt between my fingers. “Well, it involves gettingveryhorizontal.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. “And then?”

“Getting a little naked,” I whispered in her ear.

“I see. And after that?”

“Then I’m going to take my hand and—” My phone rang. “Hold that thought.” Her lips twisted as I pulled my phone from my pocket, frowning as it displayed the name of one of the assistant editors. “Hello?”I said. I had a meeting to review some of the film tomorrow, so I hadn’t expected to hear from them today.

“Finn, glad I caught you. There’s a problem and we need to see you back at the studio.”

I frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“It would be better to explain it to you face to face.” I could hear the panic in his voice and I was getting annoyed at his evasiveness.

The team was working on the edits for the final fight sequences and worry shot up my spine. I suspected I knew the answer but I wanted to hear it from him.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on,” I snarled.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sierra asked. She couldn’t hear Anthony, but my rising anger wasn’t hard to miss.

I turned the phone away from my mouth to speak with her. “He won’t say, but they’re working on the big fight sequences and there’s a problem or he wouldn’t be calling.”

“The shootout?” she asked, her eyes widening. “Where Tommy dies?” I could see the worry in her eyes. There’d been so much detailed costume work that went into that sequence—and thanks to the fake blood, none of those costumes were wearable anymore.

Fuck. “Just say it, Anthony. Is anything usable?”

“X is here now,” Anthony replied. “He said you need to come in and see it for yourself.”

“Just tell me if we’re gonna need to do reshoots,” I snapped.Double fuck. This was my worst nightmare as a producer. Anthony’s silence said it all. “I’ll be right over,” I growled. I hung up, glancing at Sierra. “We need to go back to the studio right now.”

“Are they sure it’s unusable?” Sierra asked, jogging along beside me as I stalked back down the boardwalk toward the parking lot.

“He wouldn’t say. We should plan for that, anyway. I need you to figure out how to handle costuming if we redo the sequence,” I said.

She groaned. “We usedsomuch fake blood, Finn. We couldn’t get it all out even after running some of the garments through the wash multiple times.”

“Figure out what you need from me and how long it’s going to take to have the costumes ready.”

She whipped her phone out, pulling up Paisley’s number.

Meanwhile, I got on the phone with Brenna. “Have you heard yet?”