Sparked (city2city: Hollywood) Read Online Free PDF

decision to join the film industry. Not when it had given him the opportunity to figure out what he really wanted in life. Not when it led him to Sadie. “I can’t apologize enough.”
    Bare, slender arms crossed beneath her breasts, one hand holding her clutch purse in a death grip. “Perhaps you could explain what, precisely, you’re apologizing for.”
    “Ah.” That was a bit trickier, because he was still debating, internally, whether or not he’d done the right thing with his decision to freeze her out once Vendetta had gone into postproduction. He wasn’t sure he could even bring himself to think about Christmas ten years ago, and what sort of apologies he owed her for that particular incident. It would likely involving serious time spent on his knees in front of her—and not in the fun way. “I should’ve talked to you before now, instead of leaving you hanging about where we stood.”
    “Where we stood,” she repeated, her accented voice stripped of its inherent sultriness. “You’re behaving as though I was some…some one-night stand.”
    He struggled against a wave of sadness unlike any he’d felt since the months shortly after his parents had died. “That’s what we were, Sadie. When it comes right down to it, a one-night stand is exactly what we were.” The words tasted like a lie, not only on his tongue but in his heart. Who was he trying to fool here? Hers wasn’t the only heart that had broken on Christmas Day. The only difference was, he had been responsible for both injuries. Sadie, beautiful, bright Sadie, was now and had always been the victim of his decision.  
    He never should have approached her tonight.  
    She paled at his statement. “I can’t believe you’ve reduced us to something so tawdry.”
    The short bark of laughter escaped him, though he wasn’t amused. Not at all. “I don’t think I’ve heard anyone under the age of eighty use the word ‘tawdry’ in conversation before.”
    “It’s appropriate.”
    “It’s ridiculous.”
    Color began to return to her cheeks. “No, Ryan. Ridiculous is what I have been, chasing after you the past few months, and I regret every last second I spent wishing things were different.” She blinked as if fighting tears, and something in his chest clenched at the sight. “I should regret it, shouldn’t I? This is where I’m supposed to say you’re not worth it, or that you don’t deserve me.”
    Agreeing with her on both counts, he decided to keep quiet.
    “I find I don’t have the capacity for it.”
    “For regret?”
    A shaky sigh escaped her as she caught his eye, luscious mouth twisting wryly. “For regretting you .”  
    Footsteps sounded outside the door, followed by voices. Two theater employees chattering excitedly about the Who’s Who of Hollywood they had seen loitering downstairs. Without pausing to think, Ryan snatched her upper arm and dragged her toward the far side of the booth. “You can’t be found here.” He wheeled the unused projectors out of the way of the closed door he’d noticed earlier, murmuring a quick prayer of thanks when the knob turned easily in his hand. Before she could argue, he shoved her into the pitch-black space and swiftly closed the door behind them—just as the door to the projection booth opened, and the two employees brought their gossip inside.  
    “—see Bianca James interviewing Declan Murphy down there? He’s so fucking hot.”
    “His accent is, like, panty-dropping. Seriously. Omigod.”  
    “Most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in. My. Life.”
    “I dunno about the beard, though. He’s hotter without it.”
    “Are you high? The beard is the best fucking part. He’s like all lumberjack-y and shit.”
    “You’re such a weirdo. If you ever saw a real lumberjack, you’d be like, ‘Ahhh, save me, Janey, he has an axe and doesn’t believe in soap! Ahhh!’”
    Much giggling ensued as the two young women went about checking the status of the equipment for the