Action: A Hollywood Romance Read online

  “A billion dollars, I mean.”

  Close enough.

  “And the people I’ve discovered?”

  “I know they’re also rich.”

  “Right. Kitty, I’m here because the head of my studio heard your name and heard how many followers you have online and thought I should come take a look at you. What do you think my impression of you is right now?”

  She looks away from me, her pout quivering slightly.

  Shit, too far. Didn’t mean to make her cry.

  Can’t say I feel too bad, though. I’ve seen this a lot. Best thing to do now isn’t to try to backtrack, but just give her an opening. I relax my tone a little.

  “So here’s an idea. Let’s head back to the house, and take a fresh start, and we’ll all forget this happened.”

  “Okay, but that girl has to apologize to me, for being late, and wasting my time.”

  That girl.

  I know just the girl Kitty means.

  My mind flashes back to that girl, standing up erect from her car, brushing her hair back, the worry on her face unable to mask her beauty.

  I don’t think that girl realized how thin the fabric in her shorts were, or how her camera strap pulled her shirt tight between her breasts. Unlike everyone else — unlike Kitty herself — she was dressed like she was going to work, not a high-fashion garden party.

  “Okay?” Kitty asks.

  That snaps me out of my memory.

  I ignore the question and level a glare at Kitty. It’s the answer she deserves.

  Then I peel off, leaving her at the gate.

  Back at the house, it’s a sad scene. Everyone has spread out across the lawn, grabbing a spot of shade, scrolling through their phones.

  Everyone except the girl in the shorts. I don’t see her anywhere.

  A bright red SUV bounds up the street and to the house. Kitty comes out, sunglasses down, unsmiling.

  “All right let’s get to work,” she says, and even though I can’t see her eyes, I can practically feel them rolling. “Are we missing someone?”

  Someone on the lawn speaks up.

  “Emma, the camera tech. She ran after you to apologize. You must have missed her.”

  Great. I step in.

  “Kitty, you stay here. I’ll go chase her down.”

  She huffs, but I ignore her, hop in the car and start driving. This is the last thing I need.

  I have three meetings, four phone calls, a location scouting session, and a lunch reservation. Now here I am wrangling a photo shoot, of all things. Playing courier, passing messages back and forth.

  The smart thing would be to drive away without a thought. This isn’t worth another second of my time.

  But then I see the person I’m looking for — Emma, the camera tech — and all thought of business and efficiency leaves my mind.

  She’s walking down the road in her thin shorts and carefree t-shirt, hands jammed in her pockets, her hair caressing her neck softly as she moves. I idle behind her for a long moment, lost in the way her hips move as she walks, the way the muscles in her legs flex with every luscious step.

  My mouth goes dry, and I wonder what it would be like to have those legs wrapped around me. Instead of taking her back to the photo shoot we could just move to the back seat of my car, my mouth on her warm skin as I find her wetness with my fingers –

  “Going somewhere?” I ask as I pull up to her, knocking myself out of my reverie.

  She jumps, startled. She didn’t expect the passing traffic to start talking to her.

  She whips towards me, glaring through the window of my Tesla. She has red in her cheeks and suspicion in her eyes.

  It looks good on her, though I’ve got a suspicion that most things look good on her.

  “Nolan Maddox,” I say by way of introduction.

  She stands ramrod-straight, not moving.

  “Do I know you?” she asks, squinting.

  Not a question I hear very often. I force myself not to laugh.

  “Not yet, but you should fix that if you’re trying to get work in this town,” I answer, smirking and raising one eyebrow. “I’ll give you a ride back to the shoot.”

  Emma leans forward, shielding her eyes from the sun, and peers into the dark car from three feet away.

  She makes that look good, too.

  “Oh,” she says, getting a good look at me for the first time. She puts away the daggers behind her eyes. “You were there this morning.”

  She looks at me, suddenly nervous for a different reason as she looks away for a moment.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. Kitty left because of me. I have to go find her so I can fix this,” she says, her voice softer now.

  I nod.

  “She’s already back at the house,” I say, leaning over and popping open the passenger door. “Come on, get in.”

  She pauses for a moment, then hops into my car without speaking. I can’t help but notice the way her shorts ride up her thighs, the way her shirt’s pulled taut as she buckles her seatbelt on.

  You’re not here for this. You’re here for work, and that’s all.

  No matter how much you’d rather be doing something else.

  “Hold on,” I say, and swing the car around as fast as I can.

  Chapter Three

  Emma

  I’m half-blind from the low morning sun, and it’s not until I slide into the shade of the car that I can see again. Once my eyes adjust, I look over at the man behind the wheel, and I’m struck all over again by him.

  Unsmiling and angular, impossibly handsome, more like an idea than a person. And, of course, the transparent gray eyes, which once again are trained straight at me.

  On a better day, I’d have been thrilled to see a face like that watching me so intently.

  Today, with my last best chance at a career falling apart in front of me, I’d rather not have the hottest man in Los Angeles watch it happen.

  Come on Emma, I think to myself. You can’t cry now.

  Thankfully, I don’t.

  Instead, I do what comes naturally to me. I slouch and look at the floor and mumble, “Sorry.”

  Way to make a good first impression.

  Does he even hear me? I can’t tell. We’re already racing through the curvy streets, the big houses and carefully shaped hedges blurring by, as wind from the open windows whips my hair around me.

  I look at the car. It looks like it was washed this morning. It looks like someone washes it every morning.

  “Are you that producer?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer, he just laughs. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile.

  Turns out he has dimples.

  Suddenly the name comes back to me. Nolan Maddox, he said. I realize I know that name. I’ve seen it on a thousand billboards, on the opening credits of a thousand movies.

  Who knew he looked like he belonged in front of the camera instead of behind it?

  Okay, Emma. You might get fired today. You might get evicted today.

  But one thing cannot happen.

  Nolan Maddox cannot see you cry.

  We pull up back in front of the house. Jen and the rest of the crew are slumped against trees and fences.

  “Okay,” I say, trying to fake confidence. “Let’s get this shoot back on track.”

  She’s already there, waiting on the lawn, phone in hand, taking a selfie.

  “Kitty,” I call out to her as I get out of the car.

  The model doesn’t answer, or turn towards me, or even turn her eyes away from her phone. I only know that Kitty heard me because, one, I know she can hear and, two, the corners of her mouth pursed ever so slightly at the sound of her name.

  I look over at Jen, who shrugs.

  “Kitty,” I say again. “I know I didn’t make the best first impression this morning.”

  She puts down her phone at least, but still doesn’t look at me.

  “Can someone tell her to just apologize already so we can get to work?” s
he says, acting like I’m not even there.

  I stop short, furious. I want to shout it was two minutes, take a chill pill, but I don’t.

  I really don’t want to cry now, because Kitty would take the credit.

  I put on my best neutral blank face, give myself a quick pep talk about making my rent this month, and open my mouth to speak.

  But before I can, Nolan’s voice crosses the lawn.

  “She’s not going to apologize.”

  He’s leaning against his car, speaking at conversational volume, but his words cut across the open air.

  “She was two minutes late. You, on the other hand, just wasted about twenty with your dramatics, so once you apologize to her and everyone else here for wasting our time, we can get started.”

  He pauses, letting the words sink in.

  “Or we can all just go home now.”

  I’m shocked, but nowhere near as shocked as Kitty. The good news is that she’s forgotten all about me for the moment.

  She’s pointing her angry face at Nolan as hard as she can.

  “Fine,” Kitty says.

  “Fine?” Nolan asks, his voice laconic as he leans against the car.

  “Fine, I’m sorry.”

  She doesn’t look contrite, or even embarrassed.

  She looks furious.

  As for me, I can’t keep the emotion off my face now. I was ready for anything except a bit of kindness.

  I can’t believe he did that.

  I hazard a glance and a half-smile in his direction.

  Beep beep.

  Nolan hits the remote lock on his car and strolls onto the lawn.

  “Great. Let’s get going, I don’t have much time.”

  He flashes me his dimples as he walks past, and if he sees the tears in my eyes, he doesn’t say a word.

  Chapter Four

  Nolan

  I should be mad at Marwin right now. He’s the studio head, the one who asked me to come out here to see this photo shoot.

  And I said yes, because I need to find a woman to be in this movie, but I mainly said yes because that’s his family name over the gates of Marwin Studios. There’s money and there’s money.

  I’ve got the first kind. They’ve got the second.

  So it’s because of him I’m out here, watching this crew wander across this hilly lawn, setting up, posing, checking, resetting, posing.

  The strangest thing is that the model has decided that she’s the photographer too. Kitty’s snapping selfies, holding the camera out in front of her, arching her back, bending over.

  Maybe it looks good in the camera lens, but from here it looks ridiculous.

  “Why can’t I just use my cell phone?” Kitty asks.

  She’s not used to the weight and heft of a real camera, not to mention all the buttons and knobs.

  Emma makes an adjustment on the camera. She’s not saying much, perfectly professional, but I can tell she thinks it’s ridiculous, too.

  “You want these pictures to be on a billboard, right? Blow up a cell phone picture that big and it will be blurry and blocky, and you won’t look good. Besides,” and here Emma flashes a friendly smile, which only makes Kitty look sourer by comparison, “I saw your phone, and the lens is scratched.”

  That’s why I can’t be mad at Marwin. Emma, the camera tech. I get to watch her.

  Her face is like something straight out of a black and white movie, the old Hollywood, the real Hollywood. Natural beauty, with dark eyes and soft lips. Her clothes are loose and comfortable looking, but she doesn’t seem to realize that with every step, hop, and stretch, her body is sending waves out into the air around her. And when she adjusts the settings on her camera, she bites her lip.

  But I can’t help but notice that she never aims those dark eyes on me. Every time I look her way her gaze seems to slide away. The first time I think nothing of it. But as a minute turns into five turns into fifteen, I know. She’s avoiding me.

  That’s when I decide I’m going to have her.

  When I look back up, I see those deep eyes. Emma is looking at me at last. She’s got an inscrutable look on her face, like she’s feeling nothing, or maybe like she’s feeling everything at once.

  I need to know more about her.

  My meetings, my phone calls, my lunch reservation. I cancel them all.

  Around the back of the house sits the pool, and that’s where I go. They’ll be shooting poolside next, I predict. Sure enough, I don’t have to wait too long before Emma appears, scouting out the next spot to shoot.

  She’s alone. Of course she’d be the one to do it. She’s the only real photographer here.

  I’ve stared long enough at her, so I just look out at the view. I seem to be in her way, as she’s pacing behind me. I turn to look at her, but I don’t move out of her way, blocking her shot of the pool.

  “You’ve heard of Murphy’s Law?” I ask.

  “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

  She’s still got her head down, looking at her light meter.

  “What about Cole’s Law?”

  “Never heard of it.” She looks up at me from her camera. “I didn’t think you’d still be here. What about your meetings and phone calls and reservations and location scouting?”

  I walk to her and lean down, just close enough to smell the scent of her shampoo, spice and vanilla. That alone gets my cock to half-mast.

  “I’ve got something I’m more interested in,” I answer.

  She blinks at me one, then looks down quickly, blushing furiously. It looks good on her.

  “Nolan?” she says, her voice surprisingly soft. Turns out I love the sound of my name in her mouth, and I grin, cocking an eyebrow.

  “I’m at work,” she finally says, her eyes big and her face soft.

  “You won’t be at work forever.”

  She swallows hard, heat coming into her eyes as she rakes her gaze down my body, though that only makes her blush harder. Then she shakes her head.

  “I don’t – I can’t – is this a trap?” she sputters.

  Now I laugh.

  “Not a trap,” I say, moving even closer to her, able to feel the heat rolling off her body. Now she’s looking up at me, camera forgotten in her hand, lips slightly parted.

  I can’t help myself. I reach out, brush one thumb across those perfect plump lips. Her eyes drift briefly closed and a slight tremor rocks through her body and mine responds in kind.

  “Nolan…” she whispers, her voice filled with longing and desire as it trails off.

  “You can’t tell me you don’t want –“

  “How’s that setup going?” Kitty’s voice demands from behind me, high-pitched and obnoxious. I look behind me and she’s stomping across the yard, followed by a small army of people, so I straighten my back and act like nothing was happening.

  I can’t be seen with the crew, not like this.

  Then people start appearing everywhere, and Emma is back to work at the photo shoot. Nothing for me to do here but put my hands in my pockets and watch, enjoy the entertainment, ignore the phone buzzing in my pocket and the work piling up, because right now I truly don’t care.

  I watch them move through the mansion grounds like a slow caravan, in the pool, out of the pool, leaning on the roman columns, lying in the grass. And then they’re packing up.

  “How’d the pictures come out?” I ask Emma. She’s taken the camera back from Kitty and she’s flipping through the images on the screen.

  “I don’t want to color your opinion,” she says. “Take a look.”

  The bright midday sunlight glares on the screen, making it hard to make out. “Come over here.” I grab her arm and pull her into the dark tent nearby. I can feel her soft skin under my fingers, sending jolts of electricity down my spine.

  “Now show me.”

  She pauses, like she doesn’t want to break the moment, but then she takes out the camera and holds up the screen. She turns around, so I can look over her shoulde
r and look with her. I lean forward, until her shoulder presses against my chest.

  “What do you think of them?” she asks.

  I tell her the truth.

  “I think they’re common.”

  But I can see that they’re miles better than Kitty’s earlier photos, before she had Emma there.

  Emma shrugs. I feel her back rub against me when she does.

  We’re interrupted by an unwelcome rustling behind us, and suddenly bright light floods our eyes as the tent comes up around us.

  “Look out,” Jen says, walking past. “We’re tearing down now.”

  My phone dings. The location scouting trip, the one thing I couldn’t cancel today.

  “Just as well,” I say to Jen. “I need to get going.”

  But I wish I could have stayed in the dark.

  Not that I could make the most of my time with Emma at the moment. We’re not alone anymore. It seems that the entire group has converged on us.

  Kitty included. She’s walking toward us now, her eyes boring into mine as she sashays in her high heels. I get the feeling that she’s ready to purr and rub up against me. The thought turns my mouth down at the corners.

  “Did you see my pictures?” she asks me, fluttering huge fake eyelashes. “What do you think?”

  “Very attractive,” I say.

  “Right, but what about your next movie?”

  “What about it?” I ask her.

  “Do you have a part for me?”

  I keep my face neutral.

  “I’ll keep you in mind.”

  Kitty frowns. She knows what that means as well as I do.

  “You don’t have any openings?” she purrs.

  That reminds me.

  “I do have one opening, as a matter of fact. But it’s not your thing.”

  Kitty’s mouth falls open, her face crumpling into a frown.

  I turn to Emma.

  She looks briefly terrified, which makes me laugh.

  “I’m not—”

  “I’m not offering you a part in the movie either. But I’m going location scouting. I need to take a lot of photos, but I’m terrible photographer. Will you—”

  “Yes,” she says. “I’m ready to go right now.”

  Of course you are, I think with a smile.