by Sarina Bowen
And she didn’t want him to anyway, of course.
Not at all.
The elevator bank sat in a mini lobby area that was covered with floor-to-ceiling mirrors in ornate gilt frames. Very dramatic. She looked at herself. With a stocking mask and a black duffel bag, she’d look more like an international jewel thief than a paramilitary operative. She’d invented an entire backstory to go with the look by the time the elevator doors slid open on the penthouse floor.
There were very few doors off of this hallway, which meant each of the penthouse suites had to be enormous.
She found room 1137 and knocked on the door.
A voice called for her to come in, but when she tried to turn the knob, the door wouldn’t budge.
“No can do, boss!”
She was pretty sure a goddamn it and a Jesus fucking Christ both made their way through the surprisingly thick wood of the door.
Fabulous. So he was in a lovely mood already. He would need her to walk him through all the details of the show with soothing explanations.
Not her number-one skill. She was more of a whip-cracking, show-you-just-what-you-did-wrong kind of girl.
The door flew open with enough force that it bounced off the rubber doorstop, which was the only thing that kept the handle from punching a hole in the drywall. Nick, tie loosened and shoes kicked off, was pacing the room in his stockinged feet, yelling about something or someone named Temporal into his cell phone. He was disastrously appealing.
She dropped her notebooks and tablet and stage kit on the bed. Looked around for somewhere less, um, bed to set up, but there really wasn’t anywhere. Just a plain dark wood desk under a funky print of a blue dog, but that had already been commandeered by the captain of industry who was currently cursing someone out for missing a deadline.
After much barking of orders and issuing of threats, all of which she was quite sure were sincerely meant and not the sort of threats she used on Ruben and Marcus—like “Find me a short-haired terrier that doesn’t crap indoors stat, or I’ll tell your mother you’ve been stealing her favorite pumps for your new gig as a go-go dancer”—Nick turned off his phone and slid it across the slick varnish of the desk until it bumped into his laptop and stopped. He ran his fingers through his almost-too-long hair and sighed.
“I’m working with a brilliant group of kids who need capital to take their concept to the next level. Temporal. Great company name. Can’t turn in a business plan on time. Ironic.” He shook off his anger as he shook out his hands. Then he turned to her.
His attention felt like a spotlight.
Or one of those lights they shine on captives during an interrogation, right before breaking out the pliers and getting to work on the fingernails.
“Okay. Tell me everything.”
She laughed and waited for him to be more specific.
Nick sat in the desk chair and propped his feet up on the end of the bed, ankles crossed. He looked at her. Waited.
Oh, crap. He was serious.
“You can’t just say ‘Tell me everything’ and stop there,” she sputtered, having a hard time vocalizing the words because her brain had begun an immediate information dump of all the details she’d stored away about the production.
“On the contrary.” He braced his elbows on the arms of the chair and laced his fingers together in front of his chin. “Since that’s what I need to know to figure out just how much of a disaster my mother has gotten herself into this time, everything is exactly what I need to know. So spill.”
“Drake! I don’t even know what you know about production. How am I supposed to know where to start?”
She threw her hands out, waving them over her pile of stuff, which she hadn’t technically needed to bring with her, but you never knew when a sewing kit or multi-purpose knife might come in handy.
“Assume I know nothing.” She had barely opened her mouth to respond when he spoke over her. “Now, I can tell by the look on your face that you’re about to say something that you will regret the moment you remember that I was the one who okayed you for this gig, so why don’t you just take a second to quietly collect your thoughts before telling me everything.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, clicked her teeth together with a hard snap of her jaw and refrained from insulting the money. It was possible that at this very moment she hated him just the tiniest bit. Of course, it was also possible that Nick wasn’t in love with the way she’d been ducking him, so maybe they were even after all.
“Why don’t you ask the director about all this?”
“Heitman? I did. He told me to piss off and leave him alone.”
“And what makes you think I’m not going to do the same?”
“He’s a lion in the industry. You’re still a kitten.” Eyes blazing. “Pull your claws, puss. You care what people say about your role in this production. He doesn’t give a shit.”
The hell of it was, he was right. She needed this show to go smoothly. Needed it desperately. Especially after the Broadway disappointment. The dozen or more storefront-theater shows she’d worked on in the past few years had been nice, but this show was something different. It was the big time. A real budget. A big cast. Definite press and hopefully a shot at a Jeff Award or two.
Her reputation as a go-to stage manager and Carving Bananas, Inc.’s reputation as a company that could staff and stock a full production could be cemented with this one show.
Or it could all come crashing down in a heap of bricks and rubble and disastrous gossip.
No pressure.
Always good to know when you’re beat.
She broke out her spreadsheets and her notes, both electronic and hard copy—because what if one set got mislaid? She needed that info at a moment’s notice, thank you. Might as well get settled in and comfy. They were going to be locked in this room for a while. She kicked off her own shoes, curled her feet under her on the zebra-striped bedspread, and pulled up her call list. But first…
“Dude, what’s up with this hotel? I love it.” She smoothed her hand over the glaring zebra fabric and lifted her chin to indicate the blue dog print hanging on the wall behind Nick’s head. She was almost certain that the lamp on the nightstand was made out of a bong and a gold brocade fainting couch graced the corner. Too bad Nick had made that couch the dumping ground for his suit coat and a set of dirty dishes on a tray, which indicated that he was at least well fed for this Intro to Theater 101 lecture she was about to deliver.
“I think they’re going for some kind of postmodern, urban-funk vibe.”
She laughed and he quirked a brow at her.
“It’s just funny. Hearing you say the word funk. Doesn’t flow naturally off your tongue, does it?”
He frowned and she got down to business.
“Okay,” she said, quickly organizing the vast info dump she was about to deliver to this man who really did not have the background to absorb it. “I’m going to start with the who, move on to the what, and finish with the why. I’ll give you a rundown on everyone who was hired to work on the production, as well as the physical needs of the show, including props, equipment, costumes, location and box office needs. Only after I have listed all of that, which I am warning you right now is going to take quite a long time, will we be able to have any kind of conversation about why all these things are necessary.”
She skewered him with a look and was aware that it would have been more effective if she weren’t issuing it from her seat on the poufy down comforter that was pillowed up around her knees and hips.
“Do NOT start grilling me about every detail as I am listing them for you or else we’ll be here until next Tuesday, understand? Until you have a complete picture, even the bare bones skeletal picture I’ll be drawing for you, there is no point in asking questions. All you need to do is sit still and listen. Okay?”
Nick pressed his lips together a little, and if he laughed at her, she was going to launch one of these no doubt really expensive pillows at hi
s head. But he just nodded and rolled one hand in a flourish in her direction.
After you, madam.
She took a deep breath and jumped in.
It was such a strange sensation to be the focus of so much intense attention and his gaze almost seemed to have a physical weight. She became hyperconscious of her body and caught herself shifting her arms and legs into a dozen different positions until she forced herself to sit still, legs crossed and forearms resting on her thighs so she could still talk with her hands a little. She imagined this was what a final dissertation defense might feel like for a grad student in some other more theoretical field, an in-depth explanation of everything you’ve ever learned about a topic. Her own stage-management degree had been judged based on her job performance. And by the time she graduated, she’d been TAing classes and training other stage managers. Her final show was really more of a celebration of her entrée into the professional world than a production on which she was being graded. The awarding of her degree with high honors had been an inevitability since early in her sophomore year.
She sped through the recitation of everyone on her personnel list—crew first, cast last. She started with his mother, technically not a part of the staff but the instigator of the entire production, moving from her to Smith, the playwright, then to Heitman and herself and on down through every grip, gaffer, makeup artist, costume crew, prop manager, light person, sound person—all of the dozens of people needed to keep a production of this size in order, listing each person’s title, salary and function. Nick’s eyes flashed from time to time, probably with questions he would ask her later, and he took the occasional note on his smartphone. Or maybe he was posting the whole thing on Facebook for all she knew. Not that he seemed the type. Regardless, he kept his mouth shut and listened to her every word.
Her mind raced, organizing all the information she needed to convey mere moments before she heard it spilling out of her mouth in a hopefully coherent fashion. The power dynamic in their one-sided conversation was strange. She’d laid down the rules and told him how it was going to go, yet he held all the power. Even though she was the one who owned all the knowledge and knew what she was talking about and he was the newcomer who knew nothing, it was her worth that was being weighed and measured by this silent, stern man. Her future that was hanging in the balance. And all this guardian-like protectiveness was for his mother, a woman whom she’d never met.
For the first time in years, more than a decade maybe, she felt like an actor on the stage, sweating a little under those hot lights, wanting her audience to love her, to lose their awareness of anything else in the world except for how brightly she burned for them.
Maxie had left the stage with little regret during her first year at Columbia, well aware that she would only ever be a mediocre actor, but fully confident that she could rule the theater scene from backstage. Her affection for treating her wardrobe like a costume shop and slipping into alternate personalities and accents was a remnant of her younger days and the only way she still played a role.
But she was playing one now for Nicholas Drake, investment angel and sometimes lover, and it startled her how badly she wanted him to love her.
In the metaphorical audience sense, girl. Rein it in. Don’t go throwing the L-word around, even in your head. This is a hot guy who flips all of your switches, except that he doesn’t like it much when you act like yourself, what with the whole, Maxie-you’re-a-bit-too-much vibe that radiates off him, no matter what he says. So settle down.
She hit her stride as she shifted from who to what, her particular area of expertise. Her voice steadied and she felt the hot flush in her face ease into the low-grade glow of pleasure she felt about Knowing. Her. Shit.
Because no one knew this stuff better than she did.
* * *
Nick’s attention started to drift after Maxie’s detailed description of the theater that had been chosen for the show—not quite the biggest venue in Chicago, but in the top tier—but before she had finished walking him through the equipment that would be needed to supplement what she could provide in-house. Costumes; makeup; elements of the set design; props; PA and audio equipment; front-of-house materials; advertising and promos, even though that wasn’t technically in her purview—
“Ah, who am I kidding?” She grinned at him, the fire in her eyes burning bright. He was impressed by her command of the details. He knew some operators who worked on gut feelings and hunches, but Nick was a firm believer in the more information, the better. Clearly Maxie was on the same page. Still caught up in her recitation, she shrugged, her confidence in her own abilities rock solid. “I’m the stage manager. Every goddamn thing that touches this show falls within my purview.”
At one point, he’d had to interrupt her because the calls were flying to and from the board of Temporal and he needed to smack a few heads together before his entire deal blew up in a white-hot ball of fire and post-collegiate genius kids’ nerves.
When he ended what he sincerely hoped would be the last call he would have to take that night, Nick thrust his fingers through his hair and tugged, groaning his frustration. “How can they be so rational about technology and so irrational about money?”
“Trouble in paradise? I guess you’d call it heaven, Mr. Angel Man?”
He found himself oddly tempted to talk to her about the trouble he was having with this deal. She didn’t know anything about venture capital, he was sure, but after seeing her corral that herd of cats downstairs, it occurred to him that she might be uniquely qualified to understand the challenges of bringing everyone to the table in an investment deal.
“More like hell lately. It can be traumatic for entrepreneurs to give up some of the control over their company, even though they know it’s a necessary step if they want to secure the money they need to grow.”
Maxie was nodding before he finished. “I’m sure. Bet it’s just as bad as a playwright watching a director with a different vision take charge of his baby.”
Right. She got it. Funny, that he could so easily connect with the mercurial theater master chief. “Exactly. Temporal was one hundred percent on board, right up until we started nailing down details. Now every decision sparks hissy fits and temper tantrums. And these kids have been professional all the way. It’s as if they’re having a total meltdown.”
“Huh. You know, I like to treat my people like my mother treated her children.” A small smile danced on her mouth as she smiled at what must have been warm memories.
When Nick thought of his own mother, he didn’t smile so much as feel his blood pressure rising.
“She always offered us two choices and let us make our own decision between them. The trick was to offer two choices that both worked for her. Then we got to feel in control and she got one of several acceptable results.”
Parenting, theater, business. It was all the same apparently. Who knew? And he’d used a similar strategy before. But he’d let himself get sucked into the genius kids’ petty debates about Temporal this past week, losing his grip on them.
“Thanks for the reminder. I’m going put that into play immediately.”
“You’re welcome. Want me to continue?”
“Of course.” He sipped from one of the water bottles he’d had sent to the room earlier and settled in for the rest of her rundown.
Near the end, Maxie had started to relax, kicking her legs out in front of her and leaning back on her arms. Nick’s legs were still casually propped on the bed—and he’d unbuttoned his cuffs to roll them up at some point, eyes never leaving her.
“I’m actually impressed, Nicholas.” She tilted her head and smiled. “I’m the one who doesn’t mind holding business meetings outside a food truck. This entire bed-centric milieu has to be out of your comfort zone.”
“And yet I am completely at ease,” he replied and shifted in his chair, nodding at her to continue.
He knew she’d noticed his perusal of her body, how his eyes had traced the le
ngth of her legs before wending a leisurely route back up her torso, pausing in some interesting locations, and meandering back to her face. He imagined he was stripping her clothes off, unzipping her pants and easing them down her hips, pushing her shirt up to bare her waist—and then her breasts—until she stuttered and her breath caught in her throat.
“—about eighty-five percent of the prop needs will be supplied by my company. There are a few specialty items that we’ll track down and either acquire for Carving Bananas or rent or purchase directly for the production.”
Damn. Naked Maxie was way more interesting than lecturing Maxie, though that really wasn’t a fair competition. He tried to retain his focus, but he could see the creases in the thighs of her combat pants from where she’d sat cross-legged for so long and they all seemed to arrow toward her crotch. It was distracting. “How long?”
“How long until the prop list is done? Or how long will the list be?”
He huffed a laugh. “Yes.”
“Two weeks. Approximately seven hundred and thirty-five items.”
“Approximately?”
“Not everything can be anticipated. Plus, Smith is still proving to be less than final in his decisions.”
Wresting his attention away from her, Nick turned, picked up his phone and made more notes on an app, muttering to himself about Smith’s mental instability. He couldn’t think straight when Maxie was in the room, just lying there sprawled across his bed.
That bed had been giving him ideas for hours now.
* * *
Maxie felt the loss of his attention like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Maybe they were done for now. The light in the room seemed to dim and the temperature plummeted to something more reasonable that didn’t make her sweat. She flopped back on the bed and let the tension seep out of her muscles until she was approaching a mental state that could at least poke relaxed with a long stick. She grabbed her own phone and saw that she had a text from Clarissa that had come in a few minutes ago.