"Take my hand, take my whole life, too. But I can't help falling in love with you." -Elvis Presley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first thing Jared noticed about Daphne Brando was the way she commanded the attention in any room she walked into. It wasn't something that was forced or faked. It was an automatic skill she seemed to have been born with. Maybe she'd inherited it from her grandfather. It was a commanding presence that many people found intimidating. She as sweet and kind, of course, but there was always this air of confidence about her that attracted him to her. They were filming a scene between the Joker and Harley Quinn that Ophelia 'sits in' on. It was the first time he'd really spent any time with anyone else from the cast. Granted, it was Margot Robbie, who was absolutely stunning.

That same calm, cool confidence that Daphne had, Margot lacked. And he picked up on it immediately. Daphne was upstaging Margot like nobody's business. It was so easy for her. Even when she wasn't doing a scene, she still drew your eye. They were filming on the same warehouse-type set from their first scene together and it was an altercation between the Joker and Harley Quinn. Ophelia was present of course, but she was invisible to Harley. She and the Joker had quite a bit of dialogue that Harley wasn't supposed to hear.

"Alright, let's see what we've got so far," David said, letting them run through the scene.

Harley was standing in a spotlighted area listening to the Joker give a really long monologue while Ophelia was watching from the shadows.

"My dear sweet Harley, don't you know by now that you can't put a crown on a clown and expect a king?" Ophelia said, emerging from the shadows and slinking toward Harley slowly.

Harley ignored the comment and kept listening to the Joker speak. The Joker watched Ophelia walk slowly towards Harley like a cat stalking its prey. She stopped inches from Harley's body, running her eyes over it slowly. Watching Daphne in this scene was making Jared's toes curl in his boots as he listened to her sexy purr and watched her graze her fingertips across Margot's body.

"Can we kill her?" Ophelia asked all doe eyed and innocent.

"No!" the Joker snapped, causing Harley to jump slightly.

Jared got up and walked over to Daphne, taking her hand and yanking her a few steps away from Margot. "Behave," he said softly, growling it into her ear. "Don't make me put you on a leash."

Ophelia gave him a sexy little moan and shot this seductive gaze at him that caused Jared's mind to go wild. "What if I want you to?" she purred.

The Joker growled and pushed Ophelia out of the way roughly before going back to Harley.

"Did you feel something?" Harley asked him in confusion as he passed in front of her.

Ophelia was back, standing behind Harley and looking at him with that seductive gaze again. She brought her mouth close to Harley's neck and smiled at him.

"That's ENOUGH!" the Joker shouted, causing Harley to jump and Ophelia to laugh maniacally.

"And CUT! Well done!" David called. "I don't think we need to shoot that again. You two are awesome!" he said to Jared and Daphne. "That's exactly what I meant when I said a little bit of BDSM in it. Good job."

Jared smiled and gave Daphne a wink. Daphne was so used to being next to Jared only that she didn't really notice that Margot was in the same room.

"You two are really great together," Margot said.

Daphne smiled. "Yeah, I guess. He's alright," she laughed.

"The rest of the cast all really want to see what you guys are doing, since we never actually film with you two," Margot laughed.

"It's been kind of boring, to be honest," Daphne said. "As much as I enjoy working with Jared, I'd like to have a girl to talk to."

Margot nodded in agreement. "I totally understand. Doesn't that whole thing bother you?"

"What whole thing?" Daphne asked in confusion.

"Well, he kind of throws you around a lot," Margot said. "Or is that planned out?"

Daphne shook her head. "Not really. He knows what he can and can't do with me."

Margot shook her head. "That's crazy. You two must be really close if you can trust him enough to let him do whatever he wants like that."

Daphne glanced over at Jared who was sipping tea and flirting with one of the young female production assistants. "It's more that I know he will deliver and he will only do what's necessary."

"You two do make a great pair, though. Onscreen and off," Margot replied. "He seems much happier with you than with other people. Of course what do I know, I don't really know him."

Jared glanced over at them and smiled, coming over and walking up behind Daphne. "I think we're done for the day. At least you and I are," he said, looking at her. "David said something about re-shooting a scene with you, Margot."

Margot nodded and smiled. "Right, see you round," she said before walking over to speak with David.

"So we're off the rest of the day," Jared said, taking her hand and leading her out of the studio.

Daphne pulled her hand away from his. "Shouldn't you be hanging out with Valery?" she asked.

Jared paused. "You're jealous," he said with a smile.

Daphne rolled her eyes. "Hardly. I just think your string bean might want a bit of attention, that's all."

Jared stifled a laugh. "Valery was more of a…temporary thing," he said.

"Really? Because I could hear you two last night going at it like animals. And every night for the last week," she replied. "She has a very annoying scream."

Jared smiled, slightly embarrassed. "Hey, I like to deliver."

"I know. You delivered at least three times last night," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Anyways, she's off doing something else now. She left this morning. I'm all yours," he said, wrapping his arms around her.

He had a habit of acting very affectionate with her as well. It was giving her mixed signals and confusing the hell out of her. She smiled weakly at him as they continued their walk down the hallway to the door.

"Jared, what are we doing here?" she asked, stopping him in the hallway in front of the door.

He gave her a confused look. "Daph, as much as I'd like to have a philosophical discussion with you, I don't think I'd enjoy doing it here or now."

She shook her head. "Jared, you're flirting with me."

He stopped and turned to face her. "I flirt with everyone, Daphne. It's kinda my thing. I'm a bit of a man-whore."

She smiled slightly at his words. "You know what I mean, Jared." She fixed him with her gaze and he sighed heavily before facing her completely.

"You've made it perfectly clear that you don't want any type of relationship with me besides friendship," he said. He took a step closer to her and looked at her in the silence. "You're unlike any other woman I've ever met. And you scare the shit out of me."

Daphne chuckled softly and bit her lip. "Thank you?" she said apprehensively.

"It's a compliment, really," he said with a smile. He took her hands in his. "Daphne, I don't have relationships with people. I fuck them for a bit and we go our separate ways." She blinked rapidly at his frankness and felt a blush rising in her cheeks. He laughed at her reaction. "I'm too busy to put the effort into a relationship. And so are you for that matter," he added with a smirk and a slight nudge on her shoulder.

"So what? We're just going to keep flirting with each other and act like nothing's there?" she asked, tilting her head.

He looked her over in silence. There was definitely something there. But he could tell she wasn't the type of girl who you slept with and then dumped three weeks later when you got bored. Though he doubted that it had never happened to her before. "I like flirting with you. It's innocent and fun," he said.

"And what if it's not always innocent?" she asked him, her face hard to read.

Jared looked at her strangely and then he understood what she was saying. He watched as she sank down onto the metal staircase that was next to the door and looked up at him, her dark hair falling down her back. He walked over to her and stood in front of her. Her looking up at him at that angle made his cock twitch a tiny bit. She folded her hands on her knees as she looked up at him. He put his hand on her hair as she leaned her face against his stomach.

"Daphne," he started. She turned her eyes to face him, resting her chin against his stomach as she looked up at him. There was an innocence in her eyes that he hadn't seen before. He prayed she wouldn't feel the slight hard on that had could sense was growing. "We agreed to keep things simple between us. No complications. Nothing more than friendship while we were working together."

She nodded and sat back away from him. "What about after we're done working together?"

He sighed and sank down next to her on the stairs, holding onto the railing next to his head. "We still have at least a month of filming left. It would be foolish to promise anything that far in the future. Plus there's publicity to do and all of that shit." He felt her nod next to him as he avoided her gaze. Jared let out another long sigh and ran his hands over his face, smearing makeup on them and grimacing at the realization. "Why can't we just keep things as they are, Daph?"

"You don't feel anything there," she said. "Between us, I mean."

His head shot up so quickly he forgot about the railing behind it and winced as a loud metallic 'bang' resounded in the empty hallway. "Fucker," he mumbled to himself, rubbing the spot on his head as Daphne looked at him in amusement. He took a deep breath to steady himself before speaking again. "Daphne, it's there. Trust me, it's there."

She felt a small surge of pride swell up in her, but she bit her lip to try to hide the grin growing on her face. "So…"

Jared turned to face her as best he could in the cramped space. "I don't want to hurt you. You're my friend. And in this business I have very few of those. I don't…want to mess things up…between us."

She gave him a surprised look. "Wow. You're friend zoning me. That's a first. Usually it's the other way around."

He shook his head rapidly. "No, not at all. I just…" he sighed. "I'd just rather us be friends right now."

He stared at her next to him, both amazed by her and afraid of her at the same time. She looked back at him with a gaze that nearly brought him to his knees. She seemed to have that power over him recently. He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears, brushing her cheek with his fingertips softly. She closed her eyes at the contact and he sighed. In the beam of light that was filtering through the clouded warehouse windows, she looked beautiful-even wearing the ridiculous costume for the film. Suddenly there was movement on the stairs above them and they both got up to move out of the way as two large men moved a large piece of furniture down the stairs.

"We should probably get going," he said, walking toward the door.

She took his hand gently and smiled when she felt him lace his fingers through hers and pull her closer to his body. He planted a kiss on her forehead as they walked to their trailers to get changed and leave the set.