As far as I was concerned, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ogle one of the hottest up-and-coming stars of our time and I was going to ogle my brains out. Silently. Covertly.

I knew I was justifying my unprofessional thoughts, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure I could help it. He was just so handsome and my pulse was racing like I was being chased.

“Wow,” he said, almost under his breath. “Your eyes.”

I blinked.

“They’re very big,” he said.

It was the last thing I expected him to say.

And he said it as if he’d never seen eyes before. As if he might take my face in his hands and try to examine them close up, like an archeologist would with a fossil. I tilted my chin upward, my eyes—my very big eyes—meeting his straight on.

My heart felt a little like a live wire, jerking around in my chest, throwing off electrical currents. Could these currents be mutual? Did he believe the stereotype about female reporters? Did he think I was going to try to sleep with him? Did he want me to try to sleep with him?

“Can I ask you something?” he asked.

Anything, I thought.

“Mmhmumph,” I said.

He tilted his head, his hair sliding across his forehead. I wanted to brush it to the side. Wanted to run my fingertips down the side of his face and trace the line of his jaw. Wanted to lick—

“Has anyone ever told you that you kind of look like one of those cat-clock things?” he asked.

When I didn’t answer, Gabe put his hands on either side of his face, opening his own eyes wide.

“You know—tick tock, tick tock?” He looked from side to side.

I knew what he was talking about—it was a decent impression—and felt a weird sort of relief at being compared to a plastic, kitschy clock. It made more sense than Gabe Parker, movie star, complimenting me. Or wanting to sleep with me.

It threw some much-needed cold water on my rampaging libido.

“How do you pronounce your name?” he asked, not waiting for a response.

I’d barely said one fully formed word since I’d arrived, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“My manager said Han-ni, but I wanted to make sure.”

My name was confusing for a lot of people. During my last interview—with a breezy starlet—she’d spent the entire time alternating between “Hannah” and “Tawney.” It made a weird sort of sense as my name was basically a combination of the two, and I hadn’t bothered correcting her.

“That’s fine,” I said.

Gabe frowned at me. “But I’m saying it wrong, aren’t I?”

“It doesn’t bother me,” I said.

“It bothers me,” he said. “It’s your name. I want to be able to say it correctly.”

Well.