Sparked (city2city: Hollywood) Read Online Free PDF Page A

she tugged her hand free with a scowl. “Any reason why you decided now was the proper time to talk?”
    God, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Being this close to her after steering clear for so long made the perpetual ache in his chest—the ache that had blazed to life when he had seen her again for the first time last April, on the set of Vendetta —morph from a bruise to an open, oozing wound.  
    He had messed this up, so badly he was fairly certain he stood no chance of fixing what he’d broken between them.  
    If he were honest with himself, he still didn’t know whether attempting to fix that break was the right thing to do. Their one and only chance may have been Christmas Day, ten years ago, and they both knew how that had turned out. “Because we might never see each other again after tonight.”
    It was true. After the premiere, there would be no reason to see Sadie again. Sure, they might wind up at the same social events from time to time, particularly if she stayed friendly with some of the Vendetta crew, but it was easy enough to imagine another decade passing before their paths crossed again. He’d done a darn good job avoiding her this long.  
    Her lips, painted a vixenish red, pursed as she watched him, dark gaze wary—and hurt. Yes, he could recognize the hurt lurking within her, her natural glow diminished with every minute she spent in his company. He knew what he did to her; more, he had a pretty good idea of what he’d done to her when they parted ways all those years ago.  
    The break he needed to fix was the one he feared he’d to her heart. He just didn’t know if he was the man for the job. He stuck his fisted hands in his trouser pockets and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
    “You said that already.”
    It was almost a relief to be presented with proof of her anger. The months they’d spent working together on the film had been months spent watching her shift from the initial surprise and excitement of seeing him again after ten years apart, to confusion and frustration and, finally, to pained resignation. Her vibrancy had dimmed with every passing day, poking painfully at his conscience like a cattle prod until he stopped talking to her, looking at her, thinking about her. Ryan had spent the past four months, since reshoots had wrapped in September, trying to convince himself that he’d never met Sadie Bower.
    He had absolutely never kissed her, wild and breathless, on the platform at King’s Cross. Or made love to her, back when he’d barely known that making love was exactly what they had been doing.  
    Glancing around, he took in the projection booth’s sound boards, noting the masking tape marking various switches with instructions for board operators, optimal levels preset to reduce any confusion, should a new employee have to run the equipment. A couple of old-school projectors sat in the far corner collecting dust, the newer machines required for screening digital film taking up a majority of the booth’s space. Carefully labeled reels were stacked in a quasi-organized fashion along the utility shelves lining the longest wall of the room.  
    He almost smiled when he saw the case for Inglourious Basterds resting next to Reservoir Dogs , instead of alphabetized where it should be. Someone at the theater was a Tarantino fan; no doubt there were a few after-hours shenanigans involving buttered popcorn and a double feature, not unlike what Ryan himself had done when he moved to Los Angeles after nearly five years working out of Harper International’s “green tech” division in Boston. His first few months on the West Coast had been spent working weekends at a movie theater. He’d been grossly overqualified, of course, but he had also been finding his feet after realizing that corporate life, even on the R&D side of things, wasn’t for him.  
    Jon probably still thought he was an idiot for leaving Harper, but Ryan couldn’t regret his