by Grey, Parker
“—cannot be in here, he’s not on— I mean, I fired him— Who fucking let him—” Marwin is shouting, as if he’s trying to spit out three sentences at the same time from the same mouth.
“He’s here as my guest,” Thorne Beckett says, standing up from his seat at the table. “So let’s please be kind to him. But in the meantime, I think Ms. Essen was going over old business.”
“That’s right, I was. Please take a seat, Mr. Maddox, so we can continue.” Ms. Essen looks me over analytically, peering over her glasses. She’s a bean-counter, a money person, someone who has made my days miserable many times in the past.
She’s also a sharp, fierce investor, and not someone to cross. She’s been old for fifty years, I think.
And most important to the people in this room, she’s incredibly, stupefyingly wealthy.
“As I was saying, by shifting from low-yield accounts to high-interest non-fungible holdings for our in-progress picture budgets, we were able to effectuate an increase of 0.75% on a six-month budget.”
“That’s truly fantastic,” Thorne says with enthusiasm, putting all of his acting skills to great use.
“Now,” Ms. Essen says, looking over the agenda. “On to new business. I understand that you wanted us to hear from Mr. Maddox, to discuss the events of his departure from the company, and his formation of a new film studio?”
I stand up, looking Marwin in the eye while I do. He’s been slumping in his chair, glaring at me with a mixture of hatred and fear.
This is my shot, my one chance to strike back at him. He knows it, and I know it. I take a deep breath, calm my nerves, and open my mouth to speak.
Before I can, Thorne speaks instead.
“Before we do that,” he interjects, “I want to bring in one more guest.”
What is he doing?
I whip around to face Thorne. He’s got his movie star face on, though. He won’t acknowledge the anger in my eyes, just beaming back at me, all relaxed handsome features.
Why? I wonder. What’s he up to?
Then I hear the click of the door, and I see white. A white dress, to be exact, filled out with incredible curves and bare arms, and with it all, a face. A nervous, confused face.
A very, very familiar face.
“This is my other guest,” Thorne says. “Emma Frankel.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Emma
The room is bright and crowded, full of faces that turn to stare at me from the conference table. I glance across them all quickly, landing on Marwin at the end of the table, his face apoplectic and red.
“She cannot be here!” Marwin rages.
Thorne smiles. “Can someone calm him down?” he asks.
While Marwin is hissing to the people around him, and the whole table rumbles in disarray, I find Nolan at last. He looks astonished to see me.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” I tell him.
I’ve been wondering about the answer to that question ever since Thorne pulled me into this scheme last night. I was at a bar with Jen and some of her friends. They had taken me out for the evening, trying to cheer me up, even though I didn’t feel much like drinking. Their efforts weren’t working, anyway. I could hear the pity in their voices, the way they walked on eggshells when they mentioned their own boyfriends and husbands.
It was an aging spot downtown, somewhere with cracked naugahyde booths and ugly hanging lights. Somehow the room was unpleasantly dark, and the lights were glaringly bright at the same time. But they had a Tuesday night special on sangria pitchers, so that’s where we were.
“Just forget about him,” one of Jen’s friends was telling me. “You don’t want to see him again anyway. Don’t text him, don’t talk to him, just move on.”
I didn’t tell her that I actually had seen Nolan again, that I met him up in the hills, but not to talk. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I wasn’t going to spread any of Nolan’s secrets. So I just sipped my sangria and answered, “Thanks for the advice.”
None of them heard me, though, because one of them, the one with a Pinterest haircut that didn’t quite fit her face, slapped Jen on the arm and loudly whispered, “Look! Over by the door. That’s Thorne Beckett.”
I just caught a glimpse of his salt-and-pepper hair and turned away. I doubted he would recognize me, but I didn’t want to take the chance. This outing was painful enough, I didn’t want to make small talk about Nolan with him too.
Jen and her friends weren’t so circumspect, though. They stared shamelessly at him, and their eyes grew wide as the sound of footsteps behind me grew louder. Then I felt hands land on my shoulders, and I heard Thorne’s deep theatrical voice.
“Emma my dear,” he began, as jaws dropped around the table. “I’m so glad I found you.”
“Hello, Thorne,” I said, glancing up at him.
Please just leave without making me talk about Nolan.
“I can tell you don’t want me to interrupt you. But give me just a minute to talk to you. Just a minute, then I won’t bother you again,” he said, one hand theatrically on his heart, sorrow in his voice. He really hammed it up.
Made me look good in front of my friends, who couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
Frankly, neither could I. I had no idea what was going on.
So I played along with him.
“One minute,” I said. “No more.”
We left the table of stunned women behind and stepped out onto the sidewalk, where Thorne dropped the play acting, and spoke in his genuine voice.
“Emma, I owe you an apology. A big one, I’m afraid.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“Because Nolan came to me for advice, and I realize now that I advised him very badly.”
Thorne recounted everything to me, how Marwin gave Nolan an ultimatum, and how Nolan wanted to protect me at all costs, even at the cost of his own happiness and our own future together.
“But I didn’t realize the truth about him and you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Thorne shrugged.
“He needs you. And I suspect you need him.”
He spoke casually, like he was talking about the weather. “We’re having an important meeting at the studio tomorrow, about the future. I think Nolan would want you there.”
Of course, that’s what Thorne told me last night. Now that I’m actually here, in the meeting, I’m not at all sure that he was right. Nolan is looking at me with equal parts astonishment and confusion. He shoots a questioning glance over at Thorne, and Thorne nods yes.
“I wanted to tell you,” Nolan whispers to me.
“I know,” I say.
“You’re an amazing photographer. I don’t want them to take that away from you.”
“No one can make me stop taking photographs. But I’m not sure I would want to if I didn’t have you.”
A high wavering voice breaks in, and Nolan glares over his shoulder, angry at the interruption. An older woman, wrinkled under heavy make-up, with an angry intelligence in her eyes, has stood up.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t appreciate having my time wasted.”
“Well Ms. Essen, I prepared a presentation.” Nolan stands up. “But since you’re in a hurry, I think we can do without it. I came here today to tell you that I’m in love with Emma.” He wraps his hand around mine.
Mrs. Essen softens, touches her hand to her chest, her fierce demeanor falling away instantly.
“That’s wonderful,” she says.
The men around the table don’t seem to agree, though. They grumble impatiently, and Ms. Essen glances around before putting her stern face back on.
“But I don’t see what that has to do with today’s board meeting.”
“Well,” Nolan says. “Marwin didn’t take that well.”
“She was unprofessional in a—”
Ms. Essen shushes him, then looks back at Nolan.
“You probably know how it ended, when I packed up my office and left. What you might not know is that I then got on a plane to New York, where my banker and financier friends were quite excited to learn that I’m starting my own company. They gave me a fair amount to get started.”
Thorne chimes in, holding up a trade paper. “Fifty million, I read in the paper.”
“So that’s why I came to this meeting. I wanted to let you know that I intend to put Marwin Studios out of business. Oh! And I almost forgot. Thorne, would you like to star in the first picture from Maddox Films?”
Thorne glances up from the paper.
“Yeah, that sounds all right to me.”
“You have a contract with us!” Marwin erupts.
“You might want to read it a little closer.”
Nolan is having fun now.
“One last thing, and this will be interesting to you, Ms. Essen, and all of you other shareholders. I wanted to let you know that if you’d like to invest in Maddox Films, this is your one and only chance.”
Marwin pounds the table again. “You can’t fundraise in here! This is my meeting!”
This time the entire table shushes him.
“How much money are you looking for?” Mrs. Essen asks.
“I’m not looking for money,” Nolan answers. “I want shares. Your shares in Marwin Studios. All of them.”
“I’m the majority stakeholder,” Marwin rages. “And I’ll never trade you those shares.”
“Fine,” Nolan says. “All of them except Marwin’s.”
“But Mr. Maddox,” Ms. Essen says slowly. She’s got a little smile creeping onto her face. “If the rest of us trade you those shares, that would make you the majority shareholder, not Mr. Marwin. Which would put you in charge of this company, not Mr. Marwin.”
“Oh, would it?” Nolan smirks.
“That’s never going to happen,” Marwin says.
“Well,” Ms. Essen says, “we’ll discuss it.”
“Great,” Nolan says. “You have ten minutes.” Then he takes my hand and leads me out of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nolan
“That was amazing,” Emma tells me as soon as we leave the conference room. “I can’t believe you did that!”
I flip open the folder I’ve been carrying. “To tell you the truth, I can’t believe it either. I had a whole presentation planned. Charts, graphs. But once I saw you in there…”
Emma flips the folder closed. “I liked how angry you got.”
“Did you?”
“I like seeing you that way. As long as you’re not angry at me.”
“Never.”
I lean in for a kiss. Behind Emma, the elevator dings and I push her backwards through the open door. She shrieks, flinging an arm around my neck, as I guide her in, and our faces meet in a warm open kiss.
Until we realize that there’s someone else in the elevator.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to the woman with the cleaning cart.
“I’m so sorry,” Emma echoes, trying not to laugh, as she tugs her dress straight.
We ride down in silence, looking at each other, laughing silently, until we let out on the bottom. “Come on,” I say. “I know where we should go.”
I take her across the lot to the rows of soundstage buildings, and I count my way to building nine. There, I type a passcode into the panel, and the massive doors start to slide.
“What is this place?” Emma asks.
The doors suddenly screech and stop. “Hold on,” I say. “Help me get this open.”
It’s old and dusty, and apparently hasn’t been oiled in a while. We line up against the sliding door, which is really closer in size to a wall, and grab onto it together, pulling as hard as we can, but it doesn’t budge.
“On three,” I say. “One, two, —”
At last it gives way, and with a shudder and clang it lurches open a few more inches. Not much, but enough for us to squeeze into the dark space inside.
“Seriously, what is this place?” Emma asks.
“Don’t stand there, you’re blocking the light.” I grasp around the walls, which are covered in pulleys, ropes, and cables. I keep patting and squinting until I find the metal panel I’m looking for in the dim light. I throw it open and pull the switch. With loud clangs of systems coming online, lights flicker on in sequence along the ceiling.
“Welcome to soundstage nine,” I say dramatically.
Emma looks at the stacks of plywood and equipment skeptically.
“This is what you wanted to show me?”
“Isn’t it cool?” I say. “This movie ran into funding problems so they went dark for a few weeks. That was three years ago. But it’s always supposed to pick up filming again ’next month,’ so they never struck the set.”
“This is a movie set?” Emma asks. “It doesn’t look very impressive.”
“You’re looking at the back of it. Walk through that door over there.”
Emma steps up to the door, and the light coming through turns her form to a silhouette. Her dress blends into her, I can’t tell where her bare arms end and the fabric around her shoulders begin, but I see the way her right shoulder rises up with the motion of her hand, and the way her hips tilt with each step of her feet, and how her leg angles out like an arrow pointing the way.
That’s when my phone rings. Ms. Essen is calling.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Emma
At the sound of the ring I turn back. The memory of the board room floods back. I can’t believe it already feels like a dream. Nolan’s risking everything, and it’s all on the other end of that phone call.
“Well?” I say.
But Nolan doesn’t answer it. He looks down at it, his face unsmiling. Then he declines the call and puts the phone in his pocket.
“I’ll call her back soon,” he says. “I want you to see this first.”
I’m not sure about that. I can barely stand the suspense myself, and it’s not even me putting myself on the line. But Nolan takes my hand and leads me through the door, and all of a sudden, I’m standing in green grass under a blue sky.
It’s so disorienting that it takes me a minute to realize that the sky is painted onto the ceiling above me. Before me, the hillside slopes up to a tiny medieval city, full of spires, flags, and stone towers. I stomp up to a castle and rest my arm on the parapet.
“Look how tall I am,” I joke, stomping my feet around the tiny town.
Nolan laughs. “You’re a monster.”
“A total monster,” I agree. I make a claw and clutch at him in slow motion. He feigns pain and falls back, pulling me over with him, and we land rolling on the grass, which turns out to be fake.
Duh, I think.
We land at the center, next to a rack of costumes. I see something glittering, and I reach out. It’s a tiara, sparkling with big jewels. Also fake, but that’s not stopping me. I sit up, looking down at Nolan, and drop it on my head.
“Very classy, Your Highness,” Nolan says.
“You sound like you’re mocking me,” I say. “You should treat a queen more properly.”
“Believe me,” Nolan says, “there’s nothing proper about what I’m thinking.”
I laugh, but something is still gnawing at me. I drop my voice.
“Should you call back? They must have made their mind up by now.”
“Can I tell you something? To be completely honest, I don’t give a damn what they do. All I care about right now is that you’re mine, the way you should be.”
Nolan kisses me, long and slow, and my heart skips a beat. Then he takes out his phone and tosses it away.
“I’ll talk to them when I want to. Right now, the only thing I want to do is get that dress off of you.”
“Doesn’t it look good?” I stand up and shimmy to pull it straight over my hips.
“It looks amazing,” Nolan says, pulling at the hem. “Get rid of it.”
We pull it of
f together, then I go to work undoing his suit. It’s still not fair how much clothing he wears. He’s got me in my underwear in seconds, while I’m still struggling with his tie.
I’m straddling him, sitting on his lap, when I finally get his shirt open and run my hand down his muscular chest. My bra comes unhooked — how did he do that? — and Nolan slides my panties down.
“Wait,” I say as he kicks off the last of his clothes. I scramble up and look frantically.
“What’s wrong?” Nolan asks.
“Where is it? Aha!” I pull the shiny tiara up from the fake grass, and place it carefully on my head. Then we roll across the fake spiky grass, not caring that its pinching at my skin, until I’m laying on top of Nolan, my lips pressed onto his. I cross my arms across his chest, kicking my feet against his, feeling him move beneath me, feeling a rhythm beginning.
At last I sit up, lifting up my hips. He grabs his cock and guides it upward, I lower my hips onto him, and I push my hands against his chest and ride. We sway slowly together at first, just beginning, the sensation wonderful but just beginning.
My hair falls into my face and Nolan brushes it back as I lean over him. He’s moving faster now, raising his hips, raising me up with them.
Thank god for fake grass, I think, imagining the grass stains I’d have on my knees if it weren’t.
Nolan’s arching his back now, closing his eyes. I lean back and raise a hand to my breast, gripping my nipple between my fingers, breathing harder now. When Nolan opens his eyes and sees me, he grins. I know him well enough by now to know that that means that something is about to happen.
He raises his hips and rolls me over effortlessly, never coming apart from me, until I’m on my back, and he’s on top of me, pushing me back and forth. I move with him, purposefully bouncing with him so my boobs sway up and down on my chest, and he grins again at that. It feels incredible, not just between my legs, but inside, seeing the intensity on his face as he looks over my body, knowing him, really knowing him, knowing for the first time in my life another person’s heart.