“But it’s not possible, because your lead wants to see you mingle in a really bad way.” Carly knelt next to Lauren, which showcased the dip of cleavage down the front of her aqua-blue ribbed tunic. Well, that was certainly…attention getting. She quickly glanced away out of respect, but her eyes apparently did what they wanted and slowly drifted back. She was going to hell for this. She’d never objectified an actor before. She had more control than that! What was happening? “So, what do you say?” Carly asked.

Lauren blinked and opened her mouth to try to answer. Didn’t go so well.

“What’s happening right now?” Carly furrowed her brow and followed Lauren’s gaze, glanced down at her shirt, then slowly back to Lauren with eyebrows raised and an intrigued look on her face. Nope, now it was amusement. “Okay. Okay,” she said quietly, like the cat who’d gleefully found the stash of catnip. “I see.”

“What?” Lauren asked, doing her best to play it off. “I don’t think there’s anything to see.”

“No?” Carly asked.

Lauren shook her head. Her face felt hot, and she reached for her water bottle, pretending to study the group in conversation across the room from her table. Yep, something important was clearly going on over there that needed her attention. She needed to make sure all was well. There could be a fist-fight at any moment. Inside, she berated herself for being highly unprofessional, and weak to boot. No wine gulping for her later. She was grounded from the gulp.

“Martinis, then?” Carly asked, standing again.

Lauren glanced back at Carly as if she was an afterthought. “Yeah, I guess I could stop by Pete’s.” What in the world had she just said? Damn it. Yet there had been no other choice but to give Carly what she wanted, or she’d never go away. In that moment, Lauren was so mortified by her own behavior that she desperately needed Carly to walk away and give her a moment to breathe and experience the unrelenting self-recrimination in peace. Luckily, she did just that.

Tops of tan breasts were hard to scrub from one’s brain, apparently. Lauren knew firsthand. The fact that Carly had likely come by them by sunbathing topless was an image she probably shouldn’t imagine. Yet she damn well did, to traitorous response from her body. She spent the rest of rehearsal trying to stop that image from infiltrating her brain. Failure struck. Her mouth was chronically dry, and her temperature remained warm. Lauren focused on her job as best she could, but one thing was clear. Carly affected her and not always for the good. She also hadn’t had sex in over seventeen months, so maybe that played in to things a bit. Not like she was counting or anything.