He snorted. “Because I was such a gift to the industry.”

“Hey,” she said evenly, but there was a familiar protective bite to her words. Protective of him. He’d heard it sneak out before, whenever her brothers made good-natured jokes about his very face-and-biceps-oriented career. “You are talented, you know. I watched those Captain X films. You’re a master of camp comedy.”

He sighed. “Those films weren’t supposed to be a comedy, Abbie.”

“I know, but the writing is terrible, and I could probably write an essay on how your treatment of it elevated the text and made the first Captain X such a breakout hit.”

Will faltered. “Er,” he said, suddenly feeling a thousand times drunker. “Could you?”

“I could.” The words were light, so light as to seem thoughtless. She might have gotten away with that, if she hadn’t kept talking. “I know the last two films didn’t have amazing releases—they were kind of flogging a dead horse, at that point. But you still did a great job. You carried that franchise on your back, in my opinion. Maybe I should write an essay about it—” She broke off with a little huff of laughter that some might find wry, but Will heard embarrassment hidden there and knew she was simply self-conscious. “Well. Anyway. My point is, it’s a shame. But if this is what you want, I respect that. You know what you need.”

What I need is you. She really couldn’t help it, could she? Being divine, that is. Being sweet in the most unexpected ways, and smart, and unrelentingly sexy. He was doomed. He was absolutely doomed. He sighed into his gin.

Abbie bit her lip. “You seem … down, though.”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. Surely she knew why.

Or maybe not, because she told him, “It’ll be okay. You’ll find something else you love, and I assume you have enough money to keep you going while you figure it out.”

Will raised his eyebrows. “Do you? Because judging by the texts I’ve been getting from Jase, he’s worried I’ve been blowing my salary on yachts and motorbikes.”

“Jase is an idiot. If you were going to blow it on anything, it’d be gym equipment.” But he hadn’t blown it at all; he’d found someone smart and mathematical to invest it for him—specifically, Abbie and Jase’s brother Noah. The rest of the family didn’t know that, but Abs was looking at him now as if she’d guessed, as if she thought he was smart enough to do something like that. She’d always thought he was smart enough. She’d always expected the best of him.

And this really wasn’t helping the soul-deep crack in his solar plexus.