Sharp, professional, and ballsy was the way I preferred to come across and it had worked well for me—much to Becks’ dismay.
With my proverbial game face in place and a quick glance at my Tiffany’s watch, I strode from the restroom without another glance at the mirror.
“Gentlemen!” I said with a smile as I entered the brightly lit conference room, “Let’s get this party started, shall we? Can I have my assistant get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Water?”
Both men politely declined my offer and gestured for me to sit.
“We’ll try to make this as painless as possible,” the larger of the two men, Tyler Gainsworth, a man I’d worked with a handful of times before, said, “I know how much you love being told how to do your job.”
“I appreciate that, Ty.”
“I have to assume that you’ve read the script at this point,” Nathan, the squirrely little red head Ty had introduced via email, interjected.
“Of course,” I replied coolly, “I assume we’ll focus mostly on Ashley and John then touch on the seven supporting characters, three female, four male, and then you’ll propose a final headcount for extras, am I correct?”
Nathan was clearly new to the business and hadn’t quite figured out that these meetings almost always followed the same format. He recovered from his surprise quickly enough and nodded curtly with a tight smile.
“Great,” I said, just as tightly, “Let’s get on with it. For Ashley, I see someone who appears to be in their early twenties with mid-length blonde hair; wavy, not curly. She needs to have big, green, innocent eyes and pouty lips. Very ‘girl next door’. I see Taylor Swift without the twang.”
Ty’s eyes had lit up as I described his girl. I’d seen it a hundred times before. Whenever a producer finds someone else who can see his vision as clearly as he does, there’s a fire that kindles inside them. It’s a very dangerous fire that can burn out of control in a flash and completely derail a meeting for hours.
The idea of letting him detain me in an attempt to get out of dinner that night was a tempting one.
Sadly, I’d rather hang myself than be trapped in a room with a producer for any longer than absolutely necessary, so I pressed forward.
“John is a little more the bad boy type with a gentleman’s charm. He’s got the good looks and he knows it, but doesn’t really rely on them to get him where he’s going. We need tall. Six foot. Maybe six two. Short black hair and brown eyes. Tan and muscular, but lean as opposed to bulky. Oh, and he needs good hands.”
I pulled myself up short at that point before I rambled on to the point of losing them. Tyler was already starry eyed and in love with both assessments and, by the surprised look Nathan hadn’t been able to conceal, he was too.
With the big ones out of the way, I gave a quick run down of the minor characters and got an estimate for the extras head count before rising from my chair and ushering the two of them out the door before they could remember that they think they know what’s best.
That was how my entire week went. Meeting after meeting with too many cocky, pompous, sexist dimwits who marched into my office to tell me how to do my job and got shut down at every turn.
Friday had finally arrived and as I all but shoved the last team of morons out of my conference room, the entrance at the opposite end of the room burst open to allow Mitch, Becks, and The Kit into the conference room.
“Sit,” she commanded.
I briefly considered bolting out the door I had just ushered Ty through and begging him to hit the emergency button on the elevator between floors. I quickly abandoned the idea when I remembered that Becks is a ninja and would have caught me before I even made it halfway down the hall.
I begrudgingly shuffled my way across the room and unceremoniously dumped myself in the leather chair between them.
Before I could even groan about it, there were twenty fingers in my hair and I swear to God, Becks was unpacking The Kit with her toes.
“We have just shy of thirty minutes to get her out the door and on her way to The Hills. I’ve done more with less, but we’ll be cutting it close none-the-less.”
“Oh honey,” Mitch crooned, “I can get a drag queen in full makeup and dress in less than fifteen. I bet we can have her done in twenty-five.”
“I hate you both,” I grumbled.
There was a queasy feeling in my stomach and the only way I could make it stop was to imagine Porter going through a similar form of torture.
“Christ Almighty, Lorraine!” I screamed at my stylist, “Don’t you usually count down before you do that? Fuck!”
She just shrugged her shoulders before dropping the white strip of paper covered with wax and what used to be the hair on my balls.
“You want emergency appointment, I give you emergency service. No time for counting.”
I had been going to Lorraine for all of my grooming needs since I was eighteen, but still had a hard time deciphering her thick Korean accent most days. It might’ve been the blinding pain that kept me from deciphering the words that came out of her mouth.
My ears were still ringing from her last tug when she dropped the ice pack on my groin with simple instructions even her accent couldn’t muddle, “You keep there.”
“Yes ma’am.” Was my voice an octave or two higher than normal, or was it just me?
I pressed the freezing cold bag to my traumatized scrotum and laid on the table breathing as if I were in labor. There had to be a way I could get them to give me laughing gas before my next appointment.
“It’s a good thing my junk is insured, Lorraine. I’m convinced you’re going to tear the thing off one of these days.”
“No,” she said with a knowing grin, “I like your movies too much! Beaber Feber is my favorite!” She waggled her eyebrows at me and threw her head back with a laugh that made my skin crawl.
“Do you mean Beaver Fever?” The mispronunciation was a train wreck I didn’t even want to think about.
“That’s what I say! Beaber Feber! Don’t you speak English?”
She went on a tirade in Korean that I could only imagine had something to do with stupid Americans and their inability to understand their own language.
I bit my tongue and let her do her thing while my balls finally came out from their hiding place just beneath my tonsils.
“You have hot date tonight?”
“Sort of,” I sat up from the table and reached for the jeans around my ankles, “I mean, she’s hot, I just don’t know where it’s gonna lead. Clearly, I hope to take her to bed, but she’s not like other women. She’s a bit hot headed and a lot guarded. It wasn’t such a good combination for our first encounter. She’s almost kind of scary.”
“Ooh,” she said with a solemn nod, “You really like her. I see.”
“No!” I defended, “It’s not like that at all!”
“No no no,” the three words came out as one, “I see your eyes change when you talk about her. Is okay. You need to be careful though. Don’t let her break my favorite client!”
She scampered through the door before I had a chance to convince her that I was only trying to get in with her casting firm.
I had already banged my way into one industry; I wasn’t above doing it again.
I jerked my jeans up around my hips and fastened my belt before walking out into the lobby to pay the bill for my torture session.
“Always a pleasure, Lorraine,” I said as I signed the credit card receipt.
“The pleasure is always for me,” she replied with a wink.
My smile faltered and I waved awkwardly as she once again began to laugh at her own joke. She had an insane talent for making a run-of-the-mill appointment to wax my balls an intense exercise in awkwardness.
Unfortunately, she was the best, and I only used the best. Especially when my dick was on the line.
I slid my aviators back into place as I stepped onto the sidewalk and into the late-afternoon sun. I’d made it out of the appointment wi
th time to spare and headed for my Land Rover.
As I drove, I tried to piece together how the impending conversation would go.
She’d still be frosty for sure, but even her ice queen act couldn’t hold up against my charm for too long. I would just have to pour on the boy-next-door appeal and come off as harmless. If she knew my angle, she’d shut down in a heartbeat.
Holly Nash would definitely not fall for the bad boy porn star act that got me between most thighs. No, Miss Nash was going to take some work. Work that I fully intended on turning into a game.
With any luck, we’d both enjoy it in the end.
I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant ten minutes before seven and parked in a stall at the back of the building. The mirror in the driver’s side visor helped me soften my appearance a bit. I pressed my hair forward and the bangs up and to the side so that I almost had a pompadour. There wasn’t much I could do about the scruff on my jaw, but the aviators had to go.
Those few simple changes made me less predatory and a little more innocent looking than I’d ever been in my life.
A clean shave would’ve been the perfect touch, but there was only so much I could do in the front seat of my SUV with only five minutes before we were supposed to meet.
After a final once-over, I locked up and headed for the front door.
“Can I help you?”
“I have a reservation for seven-thirty under Hale.”
The gentleman glanced down at the podium he stood behind before nodding his head curtly, “Of course, Mr. Hale. Right this way.”
I followed him to an intimate booth in the back corner of the main dining room.
“Shall I bring your guest straight back?”
“That’d be great. Her name is Holly Nash. She’ll probably ask for me by name.”
“Of course, sir. Your waiter will be right with you.”
“Thanks, Jeeves.”
I could see the change in his eyes the moment I said it and had to exercise every ounce of my self-control to not laugh in his face at my own joke.
The poor guy probably heard it all day long every day.
I made a mental note to tip well in hopes that he’d get a cut of it at the end of the night.
“Good evening, sir,” a twenty-something gentleman in a crisp white button up and cheap black slacks gave me an award-winning customer service smile, “Can I start you off with something to drink while you wait for your dinner guest?”
“Water would be great for both of us and I’d also like a bottle of the best Merlot you have.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll have your water out right away and deliver the bottle when your guest arrives.”
“Thanks.”
He had recognized me. I could tell by the way he kept glancing down at my crotch. The only reason I chose fine dining over fast food was the fact that the staff were all so used to waiting on celebrities that they didn’t get all fangirl crazy on you in public.
Usually.
I spotted Jeeves heading toward my booth with Holly in tow and my palms began to sweat.
What the fuck?
I never get nervous around women.
I wiped my hands on my jeans as I rose to greet her. Instead of the more intimate kiss kiss on the cheek that women tended to try with me, she went in for the kill with a very formal, very firm handshake. Her grip provided a sharp contrast to the sensation of her painfully soft skin beneath my fingertips.
The sensation shot a jolt of pure desire up my arm and straight to my groin.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
Such a lame fuck.
“It’s no trouble.”
Harsh.
She released my hand and sat down across from the table as the waiter returned with two glasses of ice water.
“Thank you,” she nodded politely to the waiter, causing her hair to swing forward from where it had been neatly tucked behind her ear. Something inside of me wanted to reach out and smooth it back into place.
I was thankful I had refrained when she returned her gaze to me. I could practically see her walls slide into place as the ice replaced the warmth that had been bestowed upon our server.
“Why am I here, Porter?”
Her question caught me off guard and I could do nothing but stare at her in response.
“We both know you didn’t agree to one of the most expensive restaurants south of San Francisco just to apologize for breaking my martini glass. I might not be as worldly as you are in some aspects, but I am far from stupid.”
I had the good sense to at least pretend I was offended.
“Holly, believe it or not, there are good people in the world who do things for others just for the sake of doing the right thing. Not all of us have to find a motive to justify spending time with another person.”
A glimmer of fire lit behind the glaciers in her pupils.
“I don’t doubt that for an instant, Porter. What I do doubt is the fact that you are one of those people.”
I didn’t have to act offended after that jab.
“You don’t know me at all, Holly. Who the hell are you to decide what kind of person I am?”
I could feel the steel of my own walls slide into place as I met her frigid gaze and furrowed my brow. People who do know me had said far worse things about me without it getting under my skin. And she wasn’t entirely wrong, either, but for some reason the idea of her thinking so little of me without reason made me want to prove her wrong.
“This was a bad idea,” she grabbed her purse off the bench at her side and stood, “I’m gonna go. Sorry for wasting your time.”
“Sit down, Holly.” The words came out as a command instead of a request, as I had meant them. She fell back into the booth and stared at me as if I had just pulled a gun on her.
“Stay,” I forcibly softened my voice, “Have dinner with me. We’re both adults here and I’d like to think we’re both capable of making it through a single meal without maiming one another.”
A cool mask of professionalism quickly replaced the look of surprise on her face. She calmly set her purse beside her and reached for her water cup, “Of course.”
There was something about the way she held eye contact as she drank from the glass that unnerved me. She didn’t even blink as her hazel eyes bore into mine; assessing, devouring, almost predatory.
Maybe I underestimated you, Holly Nash.
I returned the stare, feigning ignorance and doing my best to plaster a patient, unassuming look on my face. I wanted her to think I was just waiting for her to finish. I didn’t want her to know that I was watching her swallow down the water and imagining that it was my dick sliding down her throat.
I could feel myself stiffen with each gulp she took and nearly cheered when she finally put the half-empty glass back on the table. I probably would have if her tongue hadn’t darted out to clear her lips of any remaining fluid as she gasped for air. That quick flash of pink between her teeth sealed the deal she had no idea she had entered into with my libido.
“So you’re just a nice person, trying to do the right thing. Righting a wrong and fighting social injustice one dinner date at a time. Who knew?”
I was ready for it that time and kept my guard up. I put on my best smile and shrugged my shoulders, trying for nonchalant, “I don’t see why not.”
She practically snorted in my face as she scoffed at the idea.
“I’ll tell you why not, Porter. Guys like you,” she pointed an accusing finger across the table at me, “you don’t see others as people. You see them as objects. Just a tool to use as you see fit. Your entire career is a practicum in demeaning women and telling the public that it’s perfectly acceptable to objectify us.”
Okay, that one caught me off guard.
“I didn’t have you pegged as a feminist, Holly Nash. You didn’t really strike me as the women-aren’t-smart-enough-to-make-their-own-choices-and-the-only-reason-they-make-porn-is-because-men-make-them type
. I will have you know that a lot of the women—not all of them, but many of them—do it because they enjoy it. Believe it or not, I do actually get to know my coworkers off set,” Sometimes I added to myself, “If you think we bring these girls in at gun point and force them to do things they don’t want to do, you’ve got another thing coming.”
I lifted my own glass of water and took a swig as I waited for the tempest in her eyes to erupt.
“I didn’t say you force them into doing anything, but let’s be honest: The porn industry wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for men who would rather objectify women than actually get to know one as a person.”
It was my turn to scoff in her face.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of her mouth, “You don’t think I get objectified? Are you high? Do you have any idea how many women pretend to be interested in Porter Hale only to be able to tell their friends that they fucked Ryder Ruff? You’re really so blinded by your sex’s struggle for equality that you don’t think objectification happens on both sides of the fence? I knew there were some sheltered people in this world, Holly, but that is flirting dangerously with outright ignorance.”
Her mask of professionalism had fallen away and there was something new, something careful and calculating, glinting deep in her eyes. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it wasn’t sitting well with me.
“Let’s get out your phone, Holly. I want you to go through your contacts list and find me one single woman between the ages of, let’s say twenty and forty, who’s never enjoyed porn or been to a strip club or ogled some shirtless fitness model on Facebook. Just one. If you can do that, I will acquiesce and admit that I stand corrected. One woman, Holly. Prove me wrong.”
She seemed to be considering my offer as she stared at me. I could tell by the way she pressed her mouth into a fine line. She may as well have been chewing on her bottom lip. She finally tore her eyes away from mine and looked down at the table, quietly fidgeting with her fingernails.
“You’re right,” she practically whispered, “I apologize.”
Porter (Dick Dynasty #1) Page 6