Page 16 of Total Creative Control

Mason ignored Aaron’s not-so-subtle hint and dropped into the visitors’ chair like a Victorian maiden collapsing onto a fainting couch, long legs sprawling. “You’re my last hope, Aaron. Say you’ll help me?”

“Er....” Warily, Aaron perched on the edge of his desk. “Help you how?”

“You have to intercede.”

“Intercede? With Lewis, you mean?”

Mason leaned forward, hands pressed together like a prayer or a namaste. There were elegant grey circles beneath his startling green eyes that gave him the look of a suffering poet. Aaron felt oddly sorry for him. Well, as sorry as any normal man could feel for an impossibly beautiful and pampered male model with an ego the size of Chiswick. “I really need to speak to him.”

“Mason—”

“Please? I just need to know why he ended it. He just.... One moment we were shagging like randy tomcats, and the next… Boom. Dumped.”

Aaron grimaced, trying not to dwell on the tomcat image. “Look, I’m sorry, but that’s kind of what he does.”

“Butwhy? I mean…” He gestured to himself and added without so much as a blush, “I doubt he got a better offer.”

Jason made an odd sort of noise behind his laptop, half cough and half snort. “Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “Allergies.”

Mason narrowed his eyes in Jason’s direction for a few moments before letting his gaze slide back to Aaron. “I’ve tried to talk to him, but he’s been avoiding me ever since he dumped me last week. And now he’s blocked my bloody phone. I just want to understand why. I deserve that, don’t I?”

“You do. He’s been an absolute shit,” Aaron said soothingly. “But I don’t see what I can do—”

“Talk to him for me. Make him see me. Or at least take my calls.”

“I can’tmakehim take your calls, Mason.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” He gave a helpless shrug. “He won’t listen to me.”

“Are you joking?” Mason slumped back in the chair. “You’re the only one heeverlistens to.”

Aaron laughed at that idea, a rueful huff. “Maybe about which end of the charger goes into his phone. Not personal stuff. We’re not—We don’t have that kind of relationship.”

Not that they weren’t friendly, because they were. They bantered easily, thanks to a shared sense of humour and a ton of inside jokes, but they were both careful to steer around anything too intimate.

Mason regarded Aaron sceptically, saying nothing. After a long look, he turned his head to gaze out of the window and sighed. “God, this is fucking humiliating.”

Aaron winced because, yeah, it must be. Lewis had this effect on people. He drew them in, magnetised them.Enthralled them, he thought.Beguiled them. And then dropped them like a stone when something—someone—new caught his eye.

“If it’s any consolation,” Aaron said gently, “it’s not you. He does this to everyone. He’s just...a bit of a bastard, sometimes. I don’t think he actually realises it though. Like, he doesn’tmeanto be a shit.”

Mason blew out a long breath. “I know I’m probably better off without him...”

On cue, Lewis’s muffled voice rose in anger from his office.

“Of course you are,” Aaron said, glancing warily at the door. “Definitely. One hundred percent better off without him.”

“It’s just…” Mason sighed again. “He’s somuch. And when he’s gone, well, he leaves quite a gap.”

Aaron could imagine that. If he was honest, it was one of the reasons he wasn’t interested in the script development role. He just couldn’t imagine not working with Lewis every day. Not having that fizzing, dangerous energy in his life. It would feel like dousing the sun.

He’d miss it, even when the sun was threatening to combust.

Through the strip of glass in the door, he could see Lewis on his feet now, gesticulating, his voice getting louder and louder. Combustion was imminent.

“Tell you what, Mason, why don’t I buy you a coffee and a cake? I’m due a break, and you look like you could use some comfort food.”