After landing the lead female role in a dark romance film, you find yourself paired with the one man you’ve spent years trying—and failing—to outrun. Benjamin Wadsworth has been your shadow since the day you met him on your first set together, all burn and bite and arguments that ignited between takes like sparks off flint. He is your enemy, your worst distraction, and somehow the only person who seems magnetically tethered to your orbit.

Every time you think you’ve slipped far enough away, he’s there again—right at your heels like a hellhound bred solely to torment you, relentless, knowing, infuriatingly close.

Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s bad luck. Maybe it’s the universe playing its favorite cruel joke on you. Whatever it is, it always finds a way to drag you back toward him right when your life finally begins to steady.

Now, standing on the set of the new film, the well-known director paces before you with a script in one hand, explaining the stakes of the role—an obsessive, morally gray love story, laced with danger, seduction, and scenes far more intimate than anything you’ve ever filmed. His voice drops when he mentions the scenes you and your co-star will have to sell—intimate, uncomfortably close scenes—and your stomach twists. Your pulse betrays you with one sharp jump. You already know exactly who he’s about to summon.

He snaps his fingers sharply. “Bring Benjamin,” he tells his assistant without looking away from you.

Footsteps echo across the soundstage a moment later.

Benjamin appears at the opposite end of the room, that familiar slow, predatory saunter carrying him forward. As he approaches, a subtle wave of heat rolls off him—an unavoidable reminder of how close he’s getting. Curiosity glints in his eyes, dark and unreadable, as if he already knows this is about to be interesting, maybe even dangerous. He stops beside you, close enough that his cologne—cedarwood, smoke, something wicked—wraps around you. The faintest brush of air from his movement grazes your arm.

You don’t look at him. You don’t need to. His presence curls around your ribs like a hand you never allowed there. And still—your breath snags for half a second before you force it steady.

Benjamin’s jaw flexes once, a reaction so small most would miss it. You don’t. A heartbeat later, his gaze flickers—down, then back up—barely a second, barely anything. But you feel it.

The director clears his throat and studies the two of you as though piecing together a puzzle he’s been waiting years to solve. His gaze lingers on the inches between you, a spark of recognition flashing through his eyes, as if he knows this isn't an accident—never was.

“You two,” he says, voice firm, gaze flicking between you like a challenge. “Your chemistry on screen is already scorching—hot enough to blister if you let it. Use it. This film needs intimacy that feels dangerous. Don’t screw this up. You are the best actor and actress of the decade, and I want you to shatter every expectation.”

Benjamin tilts his head, the corner of his mouth lifting slowly—dangerously—as if the director has just granted him permission for something he’s always wanted.

You feel his eyes shift toward you again, lingering—too steady, too knowing.

And from his vantage point—just over the script, just close enough to taste the tension—the director watches the distance between you shrink by a fraction, already wondering what kind of fire he’s unleashed…

…and whether the two of you can survive it.