by Janice Sims
This was what was troubling T.K. right now. Malcolm had been dating a woman named Aisha Jackson before his death. After he’d died, Aisha claimed that she was three months pregnant with Malcolm’s child.
T.K. and his parents, Rose Kennedy McKenna and David McKenna, were not about to miss the opportunity to know Malcolm’s child if it were true, so from that point on, they took care of Aisha. She moved in with Rose and David, and it was agreed that after the baby was born a DNA test would be performed to confirm that Malcolm was the father.
T.K. had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that Aisha was lying, but until the baby was born, he had no way of confirming his suspicions. Some part of him hoped he would be proven wrong. He would like to be an uncle to Malcolm’s child. However, he’d encountered too many opportunists since fame had swept him up in its clutches to not be cynical.
His cell phone rang, and he looked at the display. It was his friend and business partner, producer Mark Greenberg. “Hey, Mark.”
“You will be able to make the meeting in the morning, won’t you? I’d like to see you two together to see if you jibe.”
T.K. smiled at Mark’s use of the word jibe. In lots of ways, Mark was old-fashioned. Although he lived and worked in L.A., his sensibilities were that of a small-town Jewish boy from Hoboken, New Jersey. T.K. liked that about him.
“We’ll only be working together, not getting married,” T.K. joked. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Did you get the chance to watch those movies I sent over?” Mark asked skeptically.
“I did,” T.K. answered, surprising Mark. “The camera definitely loves her, and she can actually act.”
Mark laughed. They often joked about the recent crop of actresses who were beautiful but vapid and couldn’t act their way out of a paper bag, as Mark had put it.
“Yes, yes,” he said now. “Patrice Sutton has it all—looks, talent and just a touch of fearlessness. I like her.”
“I can tell,” T.K. said, laughing softly. “What exactly do you mean by fearlessness?”
“Her agent phoned to confirm that Patrice would be at the meeting, and you’ll never guess what Ms. Sutton was doing today.”
T.K. hated it when someone wanted him to guess anything. He laughed. “Don’t keep me in suspense!”
After Mark told him, he laughed even harder. “A sistuh?”
“That’s what I said,” Mark told him. “It was as unbelievable as it would have been if it were one of my sisters or cousins. I can’t imagine one of those princesses in the dust and dirt chasing after a calf on horseback and jumping off said horse to throw the calf to the ground and tie its legs together. My nana would have a stroke.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” T.K. said sincerely.
Mark laughed. “It should be interesting.”
Chapter 2
The same driver who had picked Patrice up at the airport last night drove her to Mark Greenberg’s office in downtown L.A. Friday morning. The day was fairly clear, and the temperature was in the high seventies.
As she climbed from the backseat, the driver—a good-looking, tall, broad-shouldered brother with a nice ’fro and a goatee—offered her a hand out of the car. Patrice couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses as she accepted his help, but she saw his head tip downward when her skirt hitched up. He smiled. “Would you like me to wait, Ms. Sutton?”
Patrice straightened and looked up at the tall building. “No, I’ll call a cab when I’m ready to leave,” she told him. “Thank you.”
“It’s been my pleasure,” he said.
Patrice smoothed the skirt of her off-white sleeveless A-line dress. It’s hem fell about three inches above her shapely knees, and the bodice didn’t reveal a great deal of cleavage. Brown leather designer pumps and a shoulder bag completed her ensemble. She looked smart and sexy all at once. Tinted glass concealed the lobby from outside eyes, so she was pleasantly surprised by the understated elegance of Italian tile on the lobby’s floor, contemporary furnishings that looked welcoming instead of intimidating and gleaming black granite on the reception desk. The woman behind the desk was a brunette in her mid-thirties. People milled about the lobby, but there was no one presently at the desk. Patrice stepped up to it. “Good morning, I have an appointment to see Mark Greenberg.”
The woman looked her up and down, her light-colored brown eyes openly assessing her and appearing to find her wanting. She wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad. “What is your name, please?”
“Patrice Sutton,” said Patrice with a warm smile. Over the years she’d been dismissed by so many receptionists that the woman’s attitude didn’t faze her. Half the time, even if they knew exactly who you were, they would still make you wait—or at the very least, draw out the time you had to stand there while they verified your identity.
Patrice had run two miles that morning, though, and she was still feeling the endorphins coursing through her. They were a wonderful mood-enhancing drug. A receptionist wasn’t going to rain on her parade today.
The receptionist took her time putting on a stylish pair of reading glasses and perusing her computer screen. “Ah, yes, you’re to go right up.” She gave Patrice the office number and pointed in the direction of the bank of elevators. “Hurry, you’re going to be late in five minutes.”
“Thank you,” said Patrice, rolling her eyes when her back was to the woman.
Power trips were so ugly.
A few minutes later, she walked into the reception area of Mark Greenberg’s office and had to face another receptionist. This one was male, African-American and perfectly turned out in a dark blue suit and tie. There was no one else in the office. He rose when he saw her and grinned broadly. “Wow, Ms. Sutton, it’s really you, in the flesh!” His outburst must have been unintentional because he suddenly looked stricken. “Sorry,” he said, chagrined.
Patrice liked him immediately.
She offered him her hand in greeting. He took it and held it in both of his as he smiled at her. “I loved you in Amsterdam Avenue.”
Patrice smiled at the mention of her now-canceled sitcom. She had portrayed—what else—an out-of-work actress, in the well-received situation comedy. The show had been called Amsterdam Avenue because of the prevalence of creative people like actors, dancers and singers living in that part of Manhattan.
“You’re a Kym fan, huh?” she said. “Thanks, I had a lot of fun on that show.”
“I couldn’t wait to see what kind of trouble Kym would get into from week to week,” he said. “Oh, I’ve seen your movies, too.”
“That was you?” Patrice joked. “I hear they sold about two tickets. You must have taken a date with you.”
He laughed uproariously. He laughed so loudly that Mark Greenberg came out of his office to see what all the fuss was about.
“Patrice, you’re here,” he exclaimed upon seeing her. “T.K. and I have been waiting for you.” He laughed shortly when he saw that his assistant still had a grip on Patrice’s hand. “Calvin, if you’ll let go of Ms. Sutton, we’ll get the meeting started.”
Calvin looked embarrassed and abruptly let go of her. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sutton.”
Patrice smiled at him. “It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, Calvin.”
He followed them to the door of Mark’s office. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, bottled water, a muffin? I can go out and get you something if we don’t have it.”
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” said Patrice as Mark grabbed her by the arm and gently pulled her inside his office, whereupon he firmly, if not rudely, shut the door in Calvin’s face.
“I apologize for that,” he said softly as they walked into his spacious office. “Calvin is usually not as effusive when he meets celebrities. I suppose he’s a really big fan of yours. I should have known something was up when he arrived at work this morning looking like a GQ model. We’re usually more casual around here.”
He was wearing jeans and a button-dow
n shirt with a pair of expensive athletic shoes—the same sort of clothing he’d been wearing when Patrice had first met him a few weeks ago at her audition. At that meeting, the casting director had been the primary interviewer. Mark had simply observed.
“No need,” Patrice graciously said, discreetly looking around for T.K. “He’s sweet.”
A tall, well-built man in jeans, a polo shirt and athletic shoes stood at the panoramic picture window, his back to them. Mark cleared his throat. “T.K., I’d like you to meet Patrice Sutton.”
T.K. turned around. He and Patrice walked toward one another, meeting in the center of the room. They shook hands. His big hand swallowed hers. His palm was warm and dry and his skin was kind of rough. Strangely, the roughness of his hand impressed her. Usually, actors’ hands were as soft as hers. It wasn’t as if they worked as laborers or ranchers, the job she traditionally associated with “real” men.
“Good to meet you, Patrice,” T.K. said, smiling down at her. He was six-four to her five-seven.
Patrice smiled back at him. Her throat suddenly felt dry. She cleared it. “Good to meet you, too, T.K.,” she softly said. All she was thinking at that moment was Blanca was wrong. Oh, God, I’m holding T. K. McKenna’s hand!
She released his hand. After releasing his hand, she didn’t seem to know what to do with hers. She tugged her shoulder bag closer to her side and looked around for Mark, who had become her safe harbor in a stormy sea. She didn’t know why being in T. K. McKenna’s presence made her nervous. She’d met some of the most successful actors in the business, luminaries who were considered legends, and she had managed to maintain her dignity.
She had known he was magnificent to behold. She had seen practically all of his 30 films. However, the physical impact of seeing him in person magnified his sex appeal tenfold. For one thing, he smelled wonderful. She just wanted to go to him, bury her nose in his muscular chest and stay there awhile. Also, his burnished honey skin was beautiful; that was the only word for it. Usually she preferred men with rich dark-chocolate skin, but even though his wasn’t very dark, it was very appealing. She itched to touch him, rub his bald head.
T.K., who was used to making people nervous, immediately recognized that Patrice was a bit flustered. He casually put a bit of distance between them, going again to stand near the window, talking the whole time. “Mark tells me you ride.”
Mark came and took Patrice by the elbow and directed her to one of the plush leather armchairs in front of his desk. “Make yourself comfortable.”
He went and sat behind his desk. T.K. remained standing. From across the room, his magnetic gaze held hers.
“I grew up on a ranch in New Mexico,” Patrice said, her voice stronger now.
He looked impressed. His brown eyes held an amused glint. “No kidding, a working ranch?”
“Yes, with cattle and horses and everything,” Patrice told him with a shy smile.
He couldn’t help noticing that some of the tension had gone out of her expression. She apparently loved talking about the ranch.
“Your folks still run it?” he asked.
“Suttons have been running it since the late 1800s,” Patrice said proudly.
T.K. went and pulled another of the leather chairs close to hers and sat down. He leaned toward her. “That’s fascinating. Have you read the script yet?” He wasn’t sure whether or not she’d been provided with a script. Sometimes the casting director gave the actor only part of it to read during the audition.
Patrice glanced at Mark. Before she had left after auditioning for the casting director, he had given her the script. At the time, Patrice had thought it odd that one of the producers would discreetly give her a script, but now she understood that Mark had seen something in her that he had liked that day. That’s why he had given it to her.
She smiled at Mark. “Mark gave me a copy. It’s a wonderful story.”
“Did you know it’s loosely based on the life and times of a real black lawman?”
She did. She had researched Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves after reading the script.
“I found a couple of books online about him,” she told him. She smiled at T.K. “You look kind of like him. However, he was only six-two, and he had a handlebar mustache.”
T.K. looked over at Mark and grinned. “She’s done her homework.”
“What made you want to tell the story of Bass Reeves?” she asked both of them.
Mark deferred to T.K. T.K. leaned back in his chair before beginning, thinking he was crowding Patrice and she might get skittish again if he didn’t back off a little. He found himself naturally drawn to the attractive actress. She had the kind of rich brown skin with red undertones that he loved. Her sooty black hair was healthy-looking and shone like a raven’s wing. Her dark, wide-spaced eyes were beautiful. He tried not to look at those full red lips because he kept getting an image of them kissing whenever he did. He didn’t know if the fact that she had grown up on a ranch made him see her as a natural beauty or if it was simply that she appeared so fresh to him. She fairly glowed, and unlike some actresses who knew their effect on males, she appeared quite unaware of her sex appeal. If she were aware, she would be looking him straight in the eyes with a confident expression in her own. She found it difficult looking into his eyes for any length of time, and she was blushing like crazy. He decided that Patrice Sutton was a very sweet, unaffected girl. He hoped she stayed that way.
“It’s a piece of the American West that has been sorely neglected,” he said of wanting to tell Bass Reeves’s story. “We’ve had movies about Wyatt Earp, ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, but nothing about Reeves, who was just as big a legend as those men. He was good with a gun. He tracked down and arrested countless outlaws and killed fourteen of them in fair gunfights.”
“Where does the character I read for, Bella Donna, come in? Was she a real person, too?”
“I’m afraid not,” T.K. told her. “Not much was writ ten about his relationship with women.”
“The scriptwriter made her up at our request,” Mark told her. “We thought the lawman should have a noble love.”
“So the writer made her a prostitute?” said Patrice incredulously. She couldn’t help it. If Bella Donna was a fictional character, the writer could have made her a schoolteacher.
“Prostitutes were prevalent in those days,” T.K. said unapologetically. “Because women were so scarce in some areas, oftentimes those were the only kind of women a man saw for years. Think of the lack of opportunities women had back then. Bella Donna might be a prostitute, but she’s also loving and extremely tough. She’s a worthy mate for the marshal.”
“Aren’t you afraid of what the NAACP is going to say about your film? It’s wonderful to remind moviegoers of a great man in history, a great black man, but to pair him with a prostitute? Some people are going to be upset about that.”
T.K. smiled. “A film that doesn’t cause controversy doesn’t cause a stir in the minds of moviegoers. It’ll be good for box-office receipts.”
Patrice nodded in agreement. He was a shrewd businessman as well as a fine actor. “All right, I understand your reasoning.”
“Does that mean you want to work with us?” T.K. asked hopefully.
Patrice’s stomach muscles tightened in panic. Was he actually offering her the role of a lifetime? She looked into his eyes. T.K. smiled. “Sounds tempting,” she said, appearing perfectly calm when she was a quivering bowl of jelly inside. “Let me sleep on it and get back to you tomorrow.”
Blanca had instructed her to never accept a first offer. “You don’t want to appear desperate, chica,” was Blanca’s advice.
“Fair enough,” said T.K. He got to his feet. Mark rose, too. Patrice didn’t move for a moment. The shock of being offered the role had rendered her legs momentarily weak.
She took a deep breath and got to her feet. Offering T.K. her hand, she said, “My sister is going to scream in my ear when I tell her I met you. She adores you.”
> T.K. took her hand and covered it with his other one. “Tell her it was I who was impressed with her sister.”
Patrice’s heartbeat doubled when he said that even though she knew he was just being nice. She supposed a man like T. K. McKenna had had plenty of practice charming women. Of course, a star of his stature didn’t have to put forth much effort to entice women. They were probably throwing themselves at him on a daily basis.
“She’s family,” Patrice joked. “She’ll never believe it.”
T.K. laughed. Yes, he was well aware of how truly unimpressed family members could be about your success as an actor. To millions of people, you were an idol. But to your family, you were just the boy who slept with a teddy bear until you were nine.
Family knew where all your skeletons were buried. Heck, they’d helped you bury them.
The three of them walked to the door.
“Thanks for coming, Patrice,” Mark said, smiling warmly. “I hope you decide to sign on. We’re not that bad to work with. As one of the producers, you’ll rarely see me on the set, and T.K. is reportedly now a dream to work with since I convinced him to quit doing the Tarzan yell every time he got a scene right. That was very unsettling.”