“Max Dalton’s office. Can I help you?”
“I bloody hope so!” cries a voice, but I can’t identify the caller at first. The static on the line is horrendous. It sounds like a swarm of hornets are on the rampage in there. “Can you hear me, babe?” The voice perks up through the buzzing again, and my heart leaps. I’d recognize those shrill, raspy tones anywhere.
“Lucy!”
In that moment I love my best friend more than life itself. Somehow, she always knows when to call. My misery transcends entire continents for her.
“You’re in big shit, lady. You haven’t called in ages. What’s happening out there? Have you gone and fallen for some spicy Bedouin chief?”
Not exactly. Hearing her voice again, so familiar and oh so pragmatic, makes me realize how much I’ve missed her. I need her no-nonsense approach to emotional stuff right now.
“Oh fuck, I was only joking. Who’s the lucky man?”
“Lucy, how did you—?”
“Your silence gave you away.”
What, the two-second one? “Look, I really can’t talk about this right now.”
“Why? Is he there? Who is it? Shit, I bet it’s Max Dalton. He’s such a slut.”
“Erm, no.” This is painful. Rachel has started paying an inordinate amount of attention to the ancient office photocopier behind me.
“Then tell me and I’ll shut up about it.” Lucy’s tone is brusque and intrusive. There’s no doubting her interviewing credentials at a time like this.
“I can’t really—”
“God, it’s not Max, is it? Oh, fuckity fuck, it’s the other one. Oh, Charlie. Has he broken your heart yet? Is his dick as big as his ego?”
Her questions are coming at me from all angles. I’m under siege.
“Lucy, please!”
The phone on the other side of the office starts ringing and Rachel is forced to abandon her eavesdropping to answer it.
“Yes or no?”
“Um—”
“Charlie!” Lucy howls again. “I knew this would happen. You were looking for trouble as soon as you got that call. I warned you not to go. You’re so vulnerable. You didn’t stand a chance.”
She’s right. Jake has ripped through every single one of my defenses like a bullet through paper.
“It’s not all my fault,” I say crossly. “We were in L.A. and it just sort of—”
“L.A.? Wait, I’m lost. I thought the film shoot was in Morocco?”
“It is, but then he wanted me to go back to America with him for a few days. Work stuff.”
“Racking up the air miles, I see. This job is intense.”
I tip my head back and groan. “Lucy, you have no idea—”
“Where the fuck is my call sheet?”
Jake’s angry voice pierces my misery as he stalks into the office looking tired and irritable. After weeks of chilly indifference, the heat finally seems to have gotten to him. There are damp patches under the arms of his blue linen shirt, and his Levi’s are streaked with dirt. His forearms are glistening with sweat and his hair has been shoved under a Red Sox baseball cap all day. It’s left a faint line around his forehead. Despite all this, he can still make my stomach drop.
“It’s here, Jake,” cries Rachel, rushing over with a copy.
Muttering his thanks, he comes straight over to my desk and glares down at me, signaling for me to end the call. Up-close, his dark eyes are bloodshot from the dust but they’re no less sexy for it.
I hate him.
I want him.
“Charlie, babe, are you still there?” Lucy’s voice cuts through my Jake-induced stupor.
“Sort of. Actually, I’ve got to go.”
“You sound odd. Are you— Oh. Has Dalton rocked up?”
Has he ever.
Jake’s expression is blistering. I’m finding it very hard to concentrate.
“This conversation’s not over,” she warns me.
“I understand. I’ll make sure we return to it at our earliest convenience. I’d appreciate your, umm, discretion, as well.”
“Goes without saying. I may write for a tabloid, but I still have a handful of principals left, especially when it comes to my best friend. Look after yourself. I’m worried about you.”
“No need, but thanks.”
“You took you time,” snarls Jake, as soon as I replace the receiver. “Max wants you back on set. He needs his shoelaces tied together. Prepare yourself for disappointment—he’s wearing more clothes than he was yesterday morning.”
Cheap jibe, Jake.
His gaze shifts back to Rachel. “I’m flying out to Marrakech in the next hour. The costume department’s sourced someone who can make the alterations our delightful lead actress is insisting on. Cassie’s adamant, and I can’t be fucked to fight about it anymore.” He adjusts his baseball cap in a fury. She’s clearly pissed him off.
Good.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to drive?” I offer up tentatively.
“Charlie’s right,” says Rachel. “There are no internal flights out of Erizo today.”
“Stop questioning me, the both of you.”
I bristle at his tone, but he pretends not to notice.
“There’s a private landing strip just north of town past the main airport. My jet’s been flown in overnight. I’m not taking any more chances with future cancellations and shitty, unscheduled airport terminal layovers.”
I feel the heat bloom in my cheeks. Jibe two. Is he going for a record?
“Get my first AD on the line as soon as you can,” he says to Rachel. “Patch him through to my cell. I’ll speak to him on my way back to set. He needs to shuffle the schedule around. We can’t spare any of the costume team. We’re too far behind. Max will have to shoot second unit until Cassie and I get back. We’ll leave this afternoon and return tomorrow.”
“Cassie’s going with you?” I can’t hide my look of horror.
“What fucking planet are you on, Charlie? How else can they make the alterations?”
He’s punishing me now, I can tell. I had a drink with Max, so he’s going to screw his ex all over Marrakech.
“Can’t someone else accompany her?” I ask, determined not to show him how angry I am. “You said yourself that Max can’t be left unsupervised. We’re already over budget.”
“I’m very well aware of how over budget we are,” Jake says coldly.
“Give me the details,” says Rachel, rushing over and shooting me a look. As far as she’s concerned, I’m riling up the beast for no reason.
“Here.” He hands her a piece of paper.
“Will anyone else be accompanying you?” I ask, tilting my chin in his direction.
“Not this time,” he says, looking shifty suddenly.
Shit. He never does that. I really have set that boomerang in motion.
“I’ll be on my cell for the next hour if De Niro calls. We’ve been missing each other all day. I’m going back to set. I’ll travel straight from there. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” With that, he turns and stalks back out of the office.
Rachel whistles in relief to the tune of a slamming door. “That man is a whirling dervish. I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up.”
“What hotel is he staying at?” I ask, shuffling a pile of scripts around my desk to make myself look busy.
Rachel studies the piece of paper that Jake gave her. “Hotel Yasmina. Very nice. Very nice, indeed.”
“Never heard of it.” I drop the scripts and gaze unseeingly at my laptop screen.
“I’m not surprised. Regular folks like you and me don’t get to stay at places like Hotel Yasmina. It’s the height of six-star luxury. Thousands of dollars a night. The stuff only celebs and billionaires can afford.”
“Has he stayed there before?” I’m trying hard to k
eep my burgeoning panic in check, but my heart isn’t listening. It keeps crashing painfully against my rib cage.
“Not for a while, and only when—” Rachel stops and starts chuckling. “I knew it! Gosh, they’re so predictable. I wonder if the press has gotten wind of it yet?”
“Gotten wind of what?” But I already know what she’s going to say. The answer is written all over her face. As further proof, she holds out Jake’s hotel reservation details for me to see. There, in black and white, is confirmation that I should always take Lucy’s advice when jobs involving Jake Dalton in any capacity come my way.
Number of guests: two.
Number of hotel suites required: one.
Double shit.
There’s no coming back from this.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Charlie, are you okay?” asks Rachel anxiously. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Can I get you a glass of water?”
“I’m fine,” I croak, collapsing backward into my chair. “It’s just the heat.”
Or lack of it. Jake just chucked a bucket of cold water over ours.
I can’t fall apart. Not here. Not now. Somehow, I pack away all the pieces of my broken heart for painful dissection later.
“How can anyone find Cassie Lee attractive?” I explode suddenly, my inner monologue going on the rampage again. “She’s such a first class cow.”
“Only the entire male population,” says Rachel, raising her eyebrows at me. “But they’re mostly a bunch of morons, anyway.”
“But she’s so…vacant.”
“Jake likes his women that way. With so much going on in his life right now, he’s not craving intellectual conversation.”
That’s bullshit. Jake likes brains. He likes conflict. He likes really, really hot sex against the sideboard in his L.A. mansion.
“I need to grab some air,” I tell her, stumbling to my feet.
Outside, the stray dogs seem to sense my despair. They nudge me gently, circling and whining and begging for attention. I scratch their ears absentmindedly. I don’t care what Max requested—there’s no way I’m going down to set to see Jake and Cassie leave together.
Am I?
Temptation, I hate you. There’s a spare jeep in the car park and the driver is lounging against the side of the vehicle, smoking a cigarette and looking bored out of his mind.
My cell phone beeps.
Jake: We need to talk. I’ll call you.
Me: Will that be before or after you’ve screwed Cassie’s brains out all over some Marrakech shag palace?
Angrily, I chuck my phone into my bag. I hear it beeping again but I can’t be bothered to read his excuse.
Dammit.
“Can you take me to set?” I say, walking straight up to the driver before I have a chance to talk myself out it. He nods and chucks away his cigarette.
We arrive as Jake and Cassie are making their way across the unit base to his car. He’s changed into a fresh shirt—something dark, tight-fitted, and expensive-looking—and he’s holding his baseball cap lightly in one hand. His black hair is slick with sweat, but it suits him. He could shave it into a Mohawk and he’d still look incredible.
Cassie is wearing a strapless coral silk jumpsuit that highlights her slender frame. I watch from the window as he opens the door for her. She pauses to say something to him, her long blond hair swirling all around her face like she’s in some sappy shampoo advert, and he smirks to himself as she glides gracefully into the backseat.
“On second thought, I’ve changed my mind,” I mutter to the driver. “Can you take me back to the studio?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I spend the rest of the afternoon staring into space, imagining a world where Cassie loses her looks in a freak Botox incident, stars in a succession of flops, and disappears into obscurity forever. But there’s no chance of that with Jake championing her every career move. Everything he touches turns to gold. Well, everything except me. I’ve been left to rust in the elements.
I wish I had the guts to fly home, but the invisible strings of all the what-ifs are binding me here. What if by some miracle Max is telling the truth and Jake and Cassie really are over? What if I’m jumping to all the wrong conclusions? What if this whole movie set world is some weird form of Stockholm syndrome that has me thinking I care more about Jake than I actually do?
With Jake not around to call the shots, we wrap early. Rachel and I decide to stay on in the office to catch up on paperwork. I achieve very little other than devouring great chunks of The End Of the Affair like the glutton for angsty punishment that I am, and musing on whether I’d be able to forgive Jake if my love rival was God, like in the book, and not some horrible actress with a God complex.
It’s nearly nine p.m. when Max strolls into the office. He’s had a haircut and he’s looking a little too similar to his brother for my liking. “How’s George?” he calls out to me.
“Clooney or Bush?”
“I’d love to answer that without the threat of a sexual harassment suit.” He stops and glances around the room. “Rachel about?”
“Nope.”
“Gone on a date, has she?”
“Yes, with some bronzed hunk called Sam Tropez.” Is it just my imagination or does he look put out by that idea? “She’s in the makeup department getting a spray tan.”
Rachel begged me to come with her, but I wasn’t in the mood to be turned luminous orange. She must have guessed that my current state is somehow Jake-related, but she’s cool enough to keep her mouth shut.
Max considers me for a moment. “You’re in a particularly vile mood tonight, Charlie.”
Ignoring him, I turn around to reload the photocopier’s paper tray. I’ve been coasting on a wave of inertia for the last twelve hours. I may as well pretend to do some work, at least while my boss is standing right in front of me.
“You do know that we wrapped hours ago, don’t you?” He’s smirking at me; I can hear it in his voice. I know he’s checking out my ass, as well.
“We’re working late,” I say, frowning at him over my shoulder. “You should try it sometime. Your movie might not be so much in the shit if you did.”
Max starts laughing, as I knew he would. He’s immune to all forms of criticism. “I never knew assistants could be so cruel. You and Jake must be rubbing off on one another, or, rather not…as the case may be. I’m guessing this has something to do with him sweeping that fashionably challenged moron off to Marrakech without you?”
“I couldn’t give a damn what your brother does. And you’re only saying Cassie’s a moron because she probably kicked you out of bed once.”
“Wrong. I wouldn’t touch her with my sound recordist’s boom pole.” A steely note has crept into his voice and, once again, I’m left wondering what Cassie did that was so bad.
“Can I help you with something, Max?” I’m done with this conversation. All I want to do is get lost in my book again. “I’ve fixed your daytimer and arranged your girlfriends’ bra sizes into alphabetical order. Don’t you have some love-struck runner to seduce?”
“Not tonight. Not right now, anyway. I’m on a mission.”
“What sort of mission?”
“To put a smile back on your face. Here.” He produces a crumpled white envelope from the back pocket of his shorts and hands it out to me.
“What’s that?”
“An invitation to our wedding. I hope you like the color scheme.”
“Be serious!”
“On second thought…” He moves it just out of reach with an infuriatingly smug look on his face. “If you’re not hung up on Jake, you wouldn’t be interested in this.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I can’t deal with his games tonight. My nerves are fifty shades of shredded already.
“It’s a letter Jake asked me
to give to you before he left.”
He what?
Without batting an eyelid, he circles my desk, lifts up the hem of my red T-shirt and tucks the envelope into the waistband of my shorts. “You’re good for him,” he says, his handsome face creasing into a frown. “You don’t take any of his shit.”
I’ve never seen this side of Max before. It’s really quite disarming.
“You should ask Rachel out sometime,” I mumble. “You might find she has the same effect.”
“Oh, I doubt it. She’s far too good for me.” He gives me a quick grin and turns to leave.
“What about Cassie? Does this mean he isn’t holed up in some Marrakech shag palace with her?”
“Read the letter and all will be revealed, or so I’m told. I’ll see you tomorrow. Much later tomorrow, if my brother plays his cards right. Your ass looks even more amazing in those shorts by the way.”
“Good-bye, Max.”
I turn the envelope over in my hands but I don’t make any move to open it.
“What’s that?” asks Rachel materializing next to me in a T-shirt five sizes too big for her and a waft of sweet-smelling chemicals.
“Sellotape for the brokenhearted,” I say cryptically, stuffing it into the front pocket of my laptop bag. “How did the spray tan go?”
“I’ll find out tomorrow. If you don’t see me for the rest of the week, you’ll know why.”
“Are you ready to leave?”
“Not yet, but you go on. Tell the driver to come back for me later.”
“Are you sure?”
Rachel blushes. “I just bumped into Max in the hallway. He’s hanging around for a bit, so I might do the same.”
Another car crash is slowly unfolding here, but who am I to judge?
I’m already upside down and burning over mine.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I cast my eye over the parking lot but there’s no sign of our driver. Twilight is waning, the shadows have multiplied, and a shroud of darkness is threatening the vast, empty space.
I stand on the studio steps, mentally rolling my eyes and balling my fists. I bet the guy’s getting tanked up in the hotel bar already. I hope he’s had the good foresight to order me a quadruple.
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