If I tell you how I really feel, what will you do? Can you work with me every day on this difficult project, knowing that the responses you get from me, the emotions you see play across my face - in my eyes - aren't just pretense, that they are as real as anything I've ever felt - knowing that, could you remain aloof?

We started out as strangers. We met across a table in a hotel, surrounded by casting director, producers and director. Sure, you smiled. I smiled in return. We shared a laugh or two, and read some scenes. Before you had even put away your script, shaken hands all around and gotten up to leave, my emotions were involved.

Of course, that's funny. I don't blame you if you laugh when I say it - hell, I laugh just admitting to myself. Mister Cool, Mister I've-yet-to-meet-the-right-person, Mister Burnt-once-not-gonna-do-that-again fell ass over teakettle for his co-star. Yes, it IS funny. Yes, we've been there before - well, I have, anyway. You'd think I'd have learnt my lesson, wouldn't you?

After all, I had a very public affair with a co-star once before. It seemed like a huge, wonderful, emotional explosion in my life. Maybe it was. I know it put things into perspective for me because I had to sort out what was important and what wasn't and do it in the glare of a media blitz unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. It was over before I was ready. It left me emotionally bruised, overly cautious and vulnerable to a past relationship's rekindling. That old relationship led to a marriage that started out optimistic and quickly turned into a wasteland.

So here I was, five years down the road from the first time I worked with you. We'd gotten along so well then, probably because we were both involved with other people. We were still friends, but the kind who see each other once every couple of years and wonder why they don't keep in closer touch. When it came time to cast my new film, "Dancers in Atlantis", your name was the first one that came to mind, your face the first one I saw in my minds eye speaking the lines back to me. There was no point, really, in talking to anyone else - my mind - and, I realized, my heart - were made up.

We're filming in the beautiful wildness of the south Pacific. We're on an island covered with mountain vistas, green trees, plants, flowers everywhere you turn. The scent of the flowers is on every breeze, the sound of the water is a constant, soothing white noise. Your eyes reflect the beauty of our surroundings, my heart longs for the connection that I realize now I put aside five years ago when we were so confident we could work and not allow ourselves more than that.

It's just after dawn. I'm standing on the lanai of my beautiful quarters, looking down over a sea of orchids, tropical plants and small waterfalls that spill into a pool of jewel-blue water. I can't resist the lure of that, so I step out onto the lanai, drop my clothes on the lava-stone deck and slide into the silky caress of the water. If I float just right, looking up into the heavenly blue, I can see your face reflected in the sky above me. I drift, barely moving, just enough to keep afloat, contemplating my daydream.

A tiny sound and I glance down. A single white orchid floats right by my hand. Dog paddle and look around for the source of it, and I see your face looking back at me, filled with mischief, eyes dancing as you laugh. "Good morning, Russell!" you call out.

I clear my throat and answer, "Good morning, luv - wanna swim?"

"Not if you're naked, I don't!" But you come to sit, feet dangling in the water, and I notice your eyes don't shy away from looking at me.

I beckon, crooking my fingers at you, flinging sparkling drops onto your smoothly pale skin. "I'm naked - but I promise to behave." But I can think what I like, I tell myself, because she can't read minds. Can she?

You smile and shake your head, but shortly exact a promise from me to turn my back and not look. I promise, wishing I hadn't, but I keep it and I don't look until I feel you touch my arm. Only then do I turn, only then see that you're as bare as I am, smiling as you begin to swim around me, splashing me now and then. "This is lovely," you say.

Yes, I think, lovely. Everything about you is lovely. It was then. It is now. It will be always, I think. Grace and intelligence, wit and humor, integrity and strength of purpose - there's nothing of dishonor that's ever touched you. There's the rub, you see. How could you respond to my confession of feelings with anything but dismay? Because much dishonor has been heaped on me, many accusations - most unfounded, but heaped anyway because I've been a public target for so long now. If I told you I loved you, would you run?

I realize you've stopped swimming and taken hold of my hand. "What, luv?" I ask, keeping the old insousiance intact. Masks can be good hiding places, can't they?

"I was just going to ask you that," you say. Your eyes search my face and, being the woman you are, you see through the facade in an instant. "You have something to tell me?"

I gaze at you, wondering how much of my mind is open for you to read like a book. I wonder if there's even a point to this "loving from afar" charade I've been engaged in for weeks now. It's taken a toll. I can't sleep at night, can't remember my lines without difficulty, can't look at you without aching to have you. I look at your mouth and remember screen kisses, wonder what real ones would feel like. I touch your hand and wish you were touching me with love and not just professional expertise, not just play-acting. I wish that you loved me.

"Well?" you say, clearly impatient with me.

A tone in your voice gives me pause and I look into your eyes - really look - for the first time since this all began. I haven't allowed myself to do that. "Oh, Jen," I whisper, "if I tell you, you'll run like a rabbit, and rightfully so."

You smile gently and squeeze my fingers in your much smaller, slimmer ones. "Russell," you say my name like a caress, "don't you think it's time you said it?"

God, you see right through me. How can I resist? Yet even with that encouragement, the words won't come. Flummoxed, I draw you closer to me, and put my lips against yours for the first real kiss we've shared that wasn't just for congratulations, for hello or for good bye, see ya some time. This is a kiss that I hope shows you all the emotions tumbling inside me. My heart is beating so fast I think I might die - but what a death, to be kissed by you and held close to your heart with true love.

And I sink into you, put everything into the kiss, and feel your arms come around me, your gentle hands sliding down my arms and back up, onto my shoulders and around my neck, and when we pause, when we step back a little and look into one another's eyes, I see something there I had only hoped for, only dreamed of. "Jen?"

You laugh softly, hands cupping my face as you kiss me much more teasingly. "Yes?"

"Could you love me?" I ask, wondering how stupid that sounds.

You shake your head and my heart plummets.

"Oh, well - I understand," I say, even though my heart is breaking inside - the cracking so painful I wonder you don't hear it.

I start to back away, but you won't let go. You're laughing and shaking your head again. "What?" I ask through lips gone numb with disappointment. Fool! I chide myself, you've ruined it.

"I already do," you say.

The words take awhile to penetrate the sick spiral of thoughts in my brain. How can anyone say I'm a quick study when it takes me so long to process what you've said? I think I must lose IQ points around you - is that possible? "Y-you do?"

"Mister Glib," you tease, and put your arms around me so we're locked together there in the water, among the scent of the flowers, with eyes only for one another. "I already love you, I've been waiting to hear you say it first - I do have my pride, you know."

I grin like an idiot, spinning you around in a circle, laughing into the brightening air. "I know you have pride, Jen - are you sure there's a place for me in your beautiful world?" You have so much honor and strength, so much that's lovely and kind and filled with grace. Can you make room for me, who is so at odds with all that?

Again, you read my mind and lean up to kiss me. "Silly, there already is a place for you in my world."

I close my eyes, overcome with joy. I'm so glad I told you.