“Maybe we should have.” Tommy sounded a little uneasy. For all his self-aggrandizing antics, he wasn’t a brute. Quite the opposite actually. Sophia had had to work hard not to overpower him in their previous scenes.

“Oh my god, are we seriously living in a world where we have to call an intimacy coordinator over a fucking camera angle?” Brian’s tone went from annoyed to something more bitter, and Sophia clearly wasn’t the only one who heard his disdain.

“What’s an intimacy coordinator?” Vic stepped out from behind the closest row of camera equipment. Sophia’s heart rate accelerated at the sight of her in a pencil skirt that showed off her legs and the pale blue silk shell that accentuated her eyes. The killer combination almost overcame her anger for a moment.

Almost.

They’d just spent their first night apart in weeks, and as much as Sophia hated to admit it, she’d missed her. The thought irked her as much now as it had every moment of their separation.

“Seriously?” Brian threw his hands up in the air. “Why are you still here?”

Talia held up a hand to him as she addressed Vic. “An intimacy coordinator is a person who helps plan scenes that might put our actors in sensitive positions. They keep everyone safe and comfortable as well as protect the production from even the appearance of impropriety.”

“And you think we need one here now?” Vic asked, her voice serious and her brows furrowed.

“I hadn’t thought so, not as the script read,” Talia said, “but if Brian insists on—”

“No,” Sophia said firmly. “We don’t need one because we’re not going to shoot up my skirt.”

“You don’t get to tell me how I’m going to shoot.” Brian pushed back into the conversation and into her personal space. “I’m the director here, and I’m sick of you acting like you are.”

“Fine,” she said, refusing to step back. “You call any shot you can justify.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. Tell me why you need this angle. What’s my motivation, oh great director? And more importantly, how would you like me to convey that emotion with my knees? Because he’s not going any higher than that.”

Brian frowned, but didn’t seem any more eager to give in. “First of all, we’re in cramped quarters, and I have to convey that. I need us to feel Tommy close the distance his character has respected until this moment.”

“Great,” Sophia said, mildly impressed he’d managed to articulate something at least close to awareness, but still not seeing any valid justification for shoving a camera between her legs. “Start farther back and close in until the camera’s on his shoulder, not up my skirt. Problem solved.”