Prompt:

> Romance: Love in the Limelight. Write one scene within a larger story set in Wales. A famous (fictional) actor ducks into a small-town bookstore to escape paparazzi. The scene takes us through the characters meeting in this odd circumstance. Over the course of the scene, the actor and the bookstore owner have a conversation charged by an undercurrent of unspoken chemistry. Write the actor as somewhat of a rogue with a fragile ego, which needs to be fed by having everyone like him. He is thoroughly charming, but the bookstore owner seems (at least superficially) immune to this; which paradoxically provokes a genuine attraction and derails the charm offensive. The bookstore owner, despite the superficial rebuffs of the actor's charm, is inwardly more than a little charmed and flustered despite themselves. Write primarily in dialogue, in the distinct voices of each character.  1000 words.

Kimi K2 Thinking:

The bell gave a mirthless jingle as Rhys Maddox burst into *Awen Books*, rain sheeting from his leather jacket onto the slate floor. He shouldered the door shut and turned, already smiling—a smile that had launched three action franchises and one cologne line.

“Darling,” he announced to the empty shop, “you’ve just saved my life.”

A woman emerged from behind a stack of battered Dylan Thomas paperbacks, wiping her hands on a faded canvas apron. She looked at him the way one might regard a dead jellyfish on a beach.

“We don’t buy unsolicited stock, and we close at five,” she said, glancing at the clock. “It’s five now.”

The smile flickered, then recovered. He discarded the jacket to reveal a shirt that cost more than her weekly takings. “I’m not selling. I’m—”

“Hiding.” Her eyes flicked to the window, where silhouettes with cameras pooled like oil. “I saw the gulls from the back. Figured it was either an actor or an escaped convict.”

“Gulls?”

“Tourists, paparazzi. Same thing in Cei Newydd.” She pulled off her apron. “If it’s sanctuary you’re wanting, there’s a church up the hill. Father Gethin enjoys a bit of drama.”

“You’re Welsh.” He said it like he’d discovered radium.

“And you’re stating the obvious. That’s a rare talent.”

He advanced, charm dialled to its usual blinding wattage. “Let me guess. Bronwyn. You look like a Bronwyn. Literary, unimpressed. Beautiful.”

“I look like a woman who wants to lock up.” She vanished behind the counter. “But you’ve missed the trick, see? Now I know you’re hiding, and you’ve no idea whether I’ll phone the *Echo* for a quick fifty quid.”

His face—so famously expressive in close-up—registered actual shock. “You wouldn’t.”

“Might.” She began counting the till with methodical clicks. “Depends on the actor.”

“Rhys Maddox.” He waited for the flicker of recognition. Nothing. “The summer scandal? The racehorse? The Italian countess?”

“Don’t have a telly.”

“Everyone has a telly.”

“Not everyone.” She slammed the till drawer. “Some of us have books.”

He seized the nearest—a dog-eared *Under Milk Wood*—and held it like a trophy. “Then let me buy this. And your silence. And, if I’m very lucky, your Christian name.”

“Bron Thomas. The book’s eight pounds. Your silence costs nothing—it’s yours to keep.”

He produced a fifty-pound note with a magician’s flourish. “Keep the change. Call it a donation to the ‘I Don’t Watch Telly’ fund.”

She looked at the note like it might bite. “I can give you change.”

“I don’t want change.”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it?” The words landed like a slap. She took the note, rang it up, and gave him the £42 change in small coins, counting each one onto the counter. “There. Proper transaction. Now we’re not owing each other anything.”

He stared at the heap of copper and silver. For the first time in years, he didn’t know the next line. The script had vanished. “You really don’t know who I am.”

“Should I curtsy?”

He laughed, a short, surprised bark. “Christ. You’re serious.”

“Deadly.” She took the book and bagged it. “Or perhaps I’m just good at pretending. You’d recognise that, mind. Being in the pretending business.”

That hit bone. He leaned against the counter, close enough that she caught the scent of rain and expensive cologne. “Tell me, Bron Thomas, what does a man have to do to impress you? I’ve got an Oscar nomination, a villa in Como, and I’ve read *Ulysses*.”

“Cover to cover?”

“Well. The important bits.”

“There you are, then.” She pushed the bag across the counter, her fingers brushing his. She withdrew hers faster than was natural. “Try reading all of it. In Welsh.”

He glanced down at the Welsh translation in the bag. “Challenge accepted.”

“That wasn’t an invitation.”

“Everything’s an invitation if you phrase it right.” The smile returned, but thinner, more real. “You’re not immune. You’re just aiming your face one way while your hands shake.”

“My hands don’t—” She looked down. They were trembling, slightly. From anger, she told herself. Not from how he was watching her, as if she’d just delivered a monologue worth a standing ovation. “That’s you dripping on my floor.”

“Liar.” He said it softly, almost reverently. “You’re perfect.”

“I’m closing.”

“I’ll leave when the gulls do.”

She followed his gaze. The paparazzi were thinning, bored of waiting. Through the window, a seagull landed on the opposite gutter, eyeing them with contempt.

“They’re going,” she said. “You can make your grand exit.”

“What if I don’t want to?” He picked up the book again, not as a prop now, but like it mattered. “What if I want to stay here, in this shop that smells of mould and genius, and talk to the only person in the British Isles who hasn’t seen my arse in *The King’s Gambit*?”

“That film was about chess.”

“Director’s cut.”

She almost smiled. Caught it just in time. “Persistent, aren’t you?”

“Starved.” The word hung between them, raw and honest. He seemed surprised he’d said it. “Of… conversation. Proper conversation. Not scripted.”

Bron adjusted her spectacles, a nervous tell. “You’re paying for each minute over closing. Ten pence. I’m not a charity.”

He pulled out his wallet, extracted a ten-pence piece, and placed it on the counter with a click. “There. I’ve bought sixty seconds. Tell me what you’re reading.”

She looked at the coin, then at him. The armour was cracking, and beneath it something earnest and terrified peered out. It was the same look she’d seen in stray dogs who’d been kicked but still wagged.

She sighed, a long-suffering sound that covered the flutter in her chest. “Caryl Lewis. In Welsh.”

“Will you translate it for me?”

“No.”

“Will you let me try to read it myself?”

“You’ll fail.”

“Probably.” The last of the paparazzi dispersed. He didn’t move. “But I could come back tomorrow. With better coins.”

She picked up the ten pence, examined it, and slipped it into the charity box. “We open at nine.”

“I’ll be here at ten.”

“Of course you will.” She flicked off the main lights, leaving only the amber glow of a reading lamp. In the half-dark, his famous face was just a man’s—tired, hopeful, and utterly doomed. “Now get out, Rhys Maddox, before I remember I don’t like actors.”

He went, but left the book on the counter. “Keep it. I prefer the live performance.”

The bell jingled. She watched him disappear up the rain-slicked street, the gulls of his entourage finally giving up. Then she looked down at the book in its paper bag, at the tremor in her hands that had nothing to do with the damp.

“Bugger,” she whispered to the empty shop.

The ten-pence piece stared back from the charity box, glinting like a dare.