A Midsummer Night's Fling (Stage Kiss Series Book 1)

by Beth Matthews

  Silence prevailed on the other end of the phone. When Rita did finally speak her voice was slow and low, which made the hair on Max's neck prickle in warning. He recognized a pre-rant voice when he heard it. "Let me get this straight," Rita said. "You go to talk to your ex, a woman you dated off and on – "

  "More on than off."

  " – off and on for eight years. A woman you proposed marriage to. After five years of not seeing her, you try to make nice to her with, 'Mi belleza, you want a job?'"

  "Pretty much."

  "Ay dios mio."

  "Rita, she was being impossible. Slamming the door in my face. Screaming."

  "Maxim, I need her. I trusted you with this because I thought you were ready for more responsibility. How can you be my assistant, how can I teach you anything, if you can't even talk to an actress?"

  He swallowed, sourness in the back of his throat. Rita was the first person to trust him with a good opportunity since he'd been blacklisted by the studios all those years ago, and now he was blowing it. "I am ready, Rita. I won't let you down. I won't let the company down. I'll . . . " He trailed off, abruptly aware of the intense quiet on the other side of the door. He wasn't yelling, but he was an actor. His voice was deep. Sound carried.

  Rita had started another rant about social niceties, empathy, putting yourself in the other person's shoes, but Max rode over her Atticus impression. He pitched his voice louder than before, angling his head toward the door and making sure the juicy tidbits of his offer were emphasized, "Yeah, Rita, Nicola wouldn't let me tell her anything about the project. She wouldn't listen when I tried to tell her she'd be playing Titania. At the Rosalind Shakespeare Festival. For you, Rita Payan de Nunez."

  The apartment door swung open behind him and he fell backwards, pretty much ass over elbows. Lying on his back on the apartment's hard floor, he stared up into his ex-girlfriend's face.

  "You win," Nicola ground out. "Tell me more, Fiesengerke." She paused. "And say 'hi' to Rita for me."

  "Hi, Rita," he said into the phone, watching Nicola.

  "Bye, Max." Rita clicked off, her satisfied smirk practically beaming through the phone to him.

  He sat up, draping one arm over his knee, and grinned at his ex-girlfriend. "Hello again, Nic."

  ***

  The Rosalind Shakespeare Festival. Wow. Just wow. Nicola could barely process anything Max said after that. The RSF was one of the best renowned theater companies in California, on the West Coast period. It was a performance of Romeo & Juliet at the RSF – watching Isabella Elton perform Juliet – which had made Nicola realize she wanted to be an actress. Basically, here was Max offering Nicola her dream job on a silver platter.

  But what was the catch?

  Nicola allowed Max to pass over her threshold, wondering as she did so if, like inviting a vampire into your home, she had compromised the integrity of her apartment.

  As he stepped inside she became aware Max was bigger, more ripped than he'd ever been in high school. He'd always towered over everyone, but now he seemed built on an entirely different scale than the rest of humanity. In his jeans and fitted dark blue shirt it felt as if Hercules were trying to run around masquerading as a mortal man, costumed in faded Levi's.

  Oblivious to her discomfort, he pushed aside of stack of papers she'd been sorting and sank onto the foot of her bed – the only guest seating her miniscule studio apartment had to offer. Besides the toilet.

  He explained that the actress who'd been cast as Titania had had to drop out when she landed a small but prestigious film role that required her to leave the country.

  Cassie went to lean against the bathroom door, hovering near Max and listening. But mostly ogling Max.

  Ignoring her friend, Nicola frowned at Max as he stared guilelessly back at her. "All right, Max. Why me? There must be actresses already in the company who want this part."

  He shrugged, his massive shoulders rising and falling like some kind of geological event. "This is the tent pole production of the company's summer season. We need A-level talent, and none of the girls already in the company are up to snuff. Rita knows you, she's had you in a lead role before, and you've played Titania – "

  "In grad school."

  As Nicola said it, Cassie shot her a shocked look from the bathroom door which was basically, Why are you sabotaging yourself?

  Nicola pretty much felt the same way: furious with herself for being so childish. But as juicy as this opportunity was, Nicola didn't want anything to do with anything that had to do with Max.

  Max was a trap, a dungeon, a freaking oubliette. She'd barely managed to survive leaving him five years ago. She didn't know how to process this, how to deal with him. She was swimming in cognitive dissonance. Part of her was glad to see him. Part of her was squealing with joy at the opportunity he was offering her.

  And part of her wanted to punch him in the head and throw him out of her apartment.

  "Which one is A Midsummer Night's Dream?" Cassie asked, turning toward Max with a polite smile.

  Traitor. Nicola glowered.

  "It's the play with the fairies," Max explained. "Puck. The two couples run into the forest, and the fairies meddle so people keep falling in and out of love with each other. Nicola would be playing the fairy queen – "

  "I didn't say I'd do it!"

  "Whose estranged husband, the fairy king, casts a spell on her so she falls in love with a man who's got the head of a donkey. And much wackiness ensues."

  Cassie frowned, thinking. "Wasn't Christian Bale in that movie? He took his shirt off."

  Max gaped at Cassie in horror.

  Nicola bit back a grin. "Cassie isn't much for Shakespeare. You didn't used to be either, Max."

  "I'm a reformed character," he said, his voice going warm and low.

  Nicola shifted, feeling her cheeks heat. Liar.

  "You love this play, Nicola," he said. "You know Titania's lines."

  She folded her arms, annoyed by his calm certainty that he still knew anything about her. "It's been years. I've forgotten the lines."

  He cleared his throat then said, "'But if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.'"

  The answering line from Midsummer leapt into Nicola's head. She fisted her hands against her sides. After a brief struggle with herself, she murmured Titania's responding line, "'Out of this wood do not desire to go: Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.'"

  Cassie gaped at her easy recital, but Max nodded, gloating because he had won the point. "We have three weeks of rehearsal left then it's Dress and Tech," he said. "We need someone who can hit the ground running."

  "Three weeks? How many weeks of rehearsal does the RSF do?"

  "Seven."

  "That's pretty nice." Every moment they spent talking Nicola's adrenaline spiraled higher and higher, leaving her light-headed with excitement.

  Titania. With Rita. With the RSF. Seven weeks of rehearsal? Sometimes you only got three, which left barely enough time for everyone to get the lines memorized, never mind perfect their performances. Oh, she wanted this job. Bad.

  Clawing for sanity, she stared at Max, her mind clicking over options, ripple effects. Rita wouldn't have sent Max if he wasn't in the show himself. He was in the thick of this plot. No doubt.

  Nicola wanted, longed really, to jump headlong into this opportunity, ignoring any potential consequences. But after five years of striving to be wiser and not just older, she had learned to look down and think hard before she leapt. "Who's playing Bottom?" she asked Max, suspicious. Titania had most of her scenes with Bottom, the character who gets turned into a donkey. Max was the wrong type for Bottom, who was usually performed by a character actor, but Rita often played around with expectations in her casting choices.

  "Gilbert Dodgson is playing Bottom," Max said promptly. Too promptly. "He hasn't done much theater but he's a stand-up comic. Really funny guy."

  Nicola stepped closer to Max, staring him d
own. The other character who had several scenes with Titania, including what could be termed a "love scene" depending how the director staged it, was Oberon, king of the fairies. "If I did this, who would be my Oberon?" Nicola pitched her voice high and sweet, smiling at Max even while her eyes glared.

  An expression of almost bovine innocence covered his face. "Oh. Well. That would be me."

  ***

  Max watched her reaction to the news he would be Oberon. Even as the words left his mouth, he second-guessed himself. Did she need that bit of info, after all? But she'd probably already guessed and anyway he'd confirmed it, and now she was pale, tight-lipped as if restraining anger. He braced himself, squaring his feet in preparation for the storm of her antagonism. Just like the good old days.

  Instead, her face fell and her brown eyes pinched with worry. "Is that a good idea, Max? Really?"

  He blinked, mentally stumbling over the fact that she wasn't yelling at him. "Sure!" he chirped out at last, maybe a bit too loud. "We always had good chemistry onstage." And off.

  Her mouth twisted ruefully. "Offstage too."

  She not's gonna do the play. His chest constricted, and he stepped toward her, brushing her arm. He couldn't pinpoint why, didn't even want to guess at why, but he wanted Nicola to play Titania with him. And it had nothing to do with Rita ordering him to. "Nic, the only thing on the table here – the only thing anyone expects from you – is a great performance as Titania. No strings." He lifted his arms out to the side and waved them in the air, pantomiming a puppet. "See? No strings."

  He held his breath as she paused for a long, long moment. When his lungs were ready to burst, she sighed. "I'll do it."

  He puffed his breath out. "Good – "

  "On one condition."

  Not good. "Yes?"

  "You and I. We . . . " She broke off with a small, violent headshake, as if trying to rattle the words out of her mouth. "This isn't like the good ol'days. If I do this, our relationship will remain, at all times, strictly professional." She didn't appear quite satisfied as she finished, as if half of what she'd wanted to say remained percolating unformed in her brain.

  He stuck his hand out to shake. "Total professionals."

  "Forgive me if I remain dubious about the man who mooned me backstage right before my death scene."

  He drew himself straight and tall, projecting an air of outraged dignity. But inwardly he remembered the adorable expression of shock on her face every time he used to prank her right before her big scene. Or kiss her. He hesitated. The kissing is probably what she's worried about here, genius. "I've changed a lot over the years."

  "So have I."

  Yup, worried about the kissing. But no good or tactful way existed to tell his ex-girlfriend that kissing her was the last thing on his mind, and the very last thing he wanted to do. His gaze darted to her lips as she wet them nervously. Especially because that would be a lie.

  They shook. Her palm was small and cool as it was swallowed by his larger one. A tingling burn started along his arms when he touched her. Unbidden, Shakespeare lines began running through his head. 'Palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.'

  She grinned as they shook, joy breaking over her face. "Max, you've got yourself a Titania."

  'Dear saint, let lips do what hands do . . . '

  He dropped her hand, shoving a friendly smile onto his face while his pulse hammered with panic. Max, you're in trouble.

  Chapter Three

  After mastering the suicidal urge to kiss his ex-girlfriend, Max bolted from Nicola's apartment, barely shy of outright rudeness. On his way down to the street, he called Rita. "We're in business. You can tell the big boss lady we have a Titania." He tried to sound chipper and excited instead of sick with panic.

  "Oh no, mijo," Rita said. "I am booked absolutely solid today. You call Isabelle for me. I don't have time for it myself."

  "Rita, it's your job."

  "Yes, but you see it is impossible." Something metallic rattled on the other end of the line; Rita playing with the mess of silver bracelets she perpetually wore on her wrist. She was fidgeting, nervous.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  Rita sighed, her breath shushing over the speaker into his ear. "I did not exactly tell Isabelle what our plan was."

  Max winced, and a vision of himself stabbed and stuffed away in the prop closet danced in his head. His artistic director, the big boss lady Isabelle, was going to kill him, and he didn't think she'd waste a good dead body when it might be a useful prop for some future show. "You went behind Isabelle's back? Are you crazy?"

  "She was going to foist one of the little fairy girls on me. At least she's given up on playing Titania herself."

  Max grimaced. Isabelle had been playing Titania at the RSF for the last fifteen years. She hadn't taken the rejection gracefully when Rita had suggested using a younger actress this season. Yet another reason re-casting Titania was a huge pain in his ass.

  "You charm her, Maxim," Rita cooed. "Isabelle never gets mad at you."

  "What are you going to do if Isabelle says no? I put my nuts on the chopping block to get Nicola, and you're telling me there might not be a part for her at all?"

  "No such thing. You talk to Isabelle, use your pretty face for some good, and there won't be a problem."

  Rita hung up.

  He furiously redialed, but her number went straight to voicemail. Swallowing a vile oath, he bounded the rest of the way to his car. He had to reach Isabelle before some big-mouthed idiot in the company blabbed Rita's plan. If he talked to Isabelle first, if he was able to sooth her ego and massage her business side then there wouldn't be a problem.

  But if Isabelle heard of Nicola's casting through the creeping grapevine of theater gossip then Max was well and thoroughly fucked.

  And not in the good way either, he thought, Nicola's image hovering on the edge of his mind.

  Snap out of it, Fiesengerke. Your career is on the line. The career he'd smashed to pieces five years ago. The career he was only now putting back together with any kind of success. Don't screw up again. With that sobering thought, he threw himself into his car, burning rubber toward the theater.

  ***

  Despite having made the drive countless times before, Max was continually surprised just how schizophrenic an area Pasadena was. Every block he passed seemed to have a different aesthetic. One minute he was cruising through a charmingly upscale shopping district, the next he was in a poor urban area. One minute small family homes and apartment buildings filled the street, then the next block had million dollar mansions like Max's brother's house. One street had the quintessential line of California palm trees but, when he turned another corner, the yards were more classic American suburb with pines and ivy on every corner.

  This confusion of neighborhoods seemed, alarmingly, to mirror Max's inner turmoil.

  Not Nicola. Not again. The end of their relationship had nearly killed him last time. He hesitated, fingering the hands free CALL button in his car, wondering if he should dial Peter. His brother was an ass, but he was good at talking Max out of doing insane things.

  Like falling for Nicola again.

  You're overreacting. Nothing existed between him and Nicola anymore. And so there was nothing to worry about. Right.

  Normally, Max liked to admire the scenic grounds surrounding the theater complex. Today, he barreled over the dirt roads and passed the theater sign fast enough to leave the metal sheet trembling in his wake. He parked and hurled himself out of the car, trotting the back way around the theater and taking the winding staircase to the artistic director's office two stairs at a time.

  The door was half open so he flung himself inside without knocking. Isabelle Elton, a stylish woman in her mid-forties – who always tried very much to appear as a stylish woman in her mid-thirties – glanced up from the stack of costume sketches fanned across her desk. Her wild cascade of reddish brown curls sat piled atop her head in a messy bun. "Max. Hello."

  He gl
anced about the room to make sure it was empty of other supplicants. Isabelle had two bookshelves with plays and reference materials occupying one corner. Several different set design maquettes sprawled on top of the bookshelves, like a train of conquered cities in miniature.

  He gulped in a deep breath then turned his grin on, the one he'd been told could transform any woman's knees to water. "Isabelle – "

  "Ah, Max, I'm so glad you came," she said, drawling the words.

  Her voice was her great claim to fame – a child-like rasp yet still lyrical, perfect vibrato, beautiful technique, and utterly distinctive. Isabelle always made sure to use her voice to best advantage however she could. In this moment, she slapped her hands on the desk and scowled, making him feel like a cornered rat. "You cast Titania without me." Her rich voice picked out every consonant in the sentence, like small sword-stabs of articulation.

  He sighed. "Which loud mouth in the company told you about the Titania thing?"

  "Rita was being shifty with me so I tortured the truth out of her five minutes ago."

  Figures. So much for the smooth strategy he'd laid out to woo Isabelle.

  She studied him, steepling her hands against her mouth. Then she smiled, but her dark eyes were cold as she motioned him to a chair.

  He sat.

  "Why should I let you and Rita foist this girl on the company without an audition?" she said. "I've never even heard of Nicola Charles, and her resume is mostly musicals and TV commercials."

  Dredging up a load of confidence from somewhere deep in his gut, Max sprawled himself out in her guest chair, looking casual, unconcerned. "She’s has her MFA, and Nicola did Antigone with Rita, so she does have experience with classical theater. Isabelle, bottom line: what will it take to get you on board with this?"

  Someone knocked on the door behind them. "Isabelle?"

  Max turned. The speaker was a refined woman, maybe a few years older than Isabelle, with white-blonde hair and a great hour-glass figure.

  "Oh, hey, Jude," Isabelle said, a laugh in her voice.