by April Zyon
The guys put her with her back to the building and sandwiched her in. This, of course, involved moving her as they took issue with leaving her back exposed to the crowds. Thomas and Lincoln sat across from them, and once they all did a look about, the food was passed out so they could all dive in.
Eating with these men surrounding her was awesome. Well, it was awesome until the women who were also on lunch break realized that there were four new seriously drop-dead hunky men on set. More than once an actress approached the men, and Brooklyn actually had to hide a giggle at the number of phone numbers that Thomas got from women.
“So, tell me about where you guys come from? Where is it that I’m going to more than likely be moving to?”
“Texas,” they all said in almost perfect unison. She sat staring at them, more than a little stunned.
“If we want to get down to the brass tacks of technicality, we’re about ten miles from where you live,” Stefan told her. She blinked in his direction. “We did your security system there, honey. Of course, we know where you live.”
“Seriously?” Wow, now that was something she wasn’t aware of. “So, if we wanted to we could date?” she asked hopefully. “Because it’d be good to be able to continue this thing that’s barely starting between us later.”
Antonio bumped his shoulder to hers gently and nodded. “Of course we can, sweetheart. We are taking this, all of it, at whatever pace you are comfortable with. For now, finish up your food. It appears the director is about to bless us all with his presence, so we need to get a move on otherwise you might miss something you shouldn’t.”
She didn’t eat like the other actresses; she ate real food and real portions. Some called her weird for eating as much as she did, but she honestly didn’t care because she loved food and wasn’t about to start to kill herself in not eating just because of a movie role.
The men quickly finished off their meals and began to gather up the trash while she ate. Not once did they rush her to finish, not that they needed to. Michael seemed incapable of moving in a straight line. The man had come off one of the sound stages with purpose only to veer off to speak to one of the cameramen and then ended up chatting up an actress before starting to move again. He was stopped, or stopped himself quickly, another half dozen times, allowing her plenty of time to finish her meal, tidy up, and still let them stroll to where the meeting was to be held.
When they were finally stopped and Michael came over to them, Brooklyn was friendly to the man.
“The gown fitting went well. Purdy assures me that it’s going to be ready in plenty of time. Now, are we on schedule for my scene today?” She hoped he was over his pissed-off-ness at her so that they could do some work. Sadly, Michael had been dicking around with the schedule because this was her last film and he was doing everything in his power to make her life harder and harder. Typically, she had her schedule a week or days in advance, but not on this movie.
“We’re not shooting until the day after tomorrow. I have meetings with the studio after we go through the revised schedule, and then we’re all taking a day to get our heads on straight before hitting it hard. We have a lot of ground to cover and very little time. We need to redo a whole scene because of one of the idiot lighting guys.” Shaking his head, Michael looked at the men and then headed for the door. “Inside, more things to do, little time to accomplish it all.”
Brooklyn took the lines and instructions from the table and began to flip through them. “Wait.” Oh, hell no. “You have written in that I will have full frontal and back nudity. You know that I don’t do that.” There were always ways to look naked on film but not on the set. “I absolutely refuse, and you know that it’s written into my contract as well. So, no. You need to rewrite this quickly because it’s so not happening.”
Michael just kept on walking. One of his assistants ran back to hand her a card. “He’ll be available to speak to you in regards to your concerns at this number, at this time. Please don’t be late in calling or he will be moving on to his next meeting.” Giving Brooklyn a smirk, the woman ran off to catch up to the director.
“If you want me to shoot him I will,” Antonio offered. “I’ll even make sure the body’s never found. There are ways to ensure such things if you have the right contacts.”
“What’s the problem, babe?” Kent, her leading man and co-star of the movie, said with a grin. “It’s not like anyone will be in there with us but a couple camera guys, and Michael. It’ll be fun, and snug for the two of us to do our lines.”
“Not going to happen, Kent.” She barely tolerated the man. Sure, before she started to work with him she was like every other woman out there who thought that he was all that and a bag of chips, but now that she had been working with him she knew the truth. “I’m not doing a nude scene with you, and you know it.” She looked at Antonio and then stepped back closer to Stefan as well. “I’m ready to get out of here. I have a call to make, I think.”
Both men nodded, and Antonio took the lead out of the room with her on his heels. No one spoke as they moved through the lot toward where they’d parked. Dion was oddly absent as they got into the vehicles and left. Stefan drove while Antonio sat in the back with her holding her hand.
“Why would he try to put something in the film that is against your contract?” Antonio asked softly. “He has to know that you’ll get it tossed out. And for the record, your co-star is a dick.”
“Yes, he is. A massive one who thinks that because everyone else in the world is slobbering over him I should as well. As for Michael, I don’t know. It could be that this is his passive-aggressive way of getting back at me and showing me that I’m not in control, but he’s so fucking wrong it’s not even funny. Asshat.”
Squeezing her hand, Antonio lifted it to press a kiss to her fingers. “I’m sorry he’s doing this. Whatever you need to do, do it. We’re here to support you through this time. You let us know what you need from us, and we’ll get it done.”
“Just be close to me? He won’t be happy that I will want to keep at least one of you around me at all times, but he’ll just have to get over himself. I’m not going to let him back me into a corner.” That was one thing that could be said about her, she never did full or partial nudity in a movie. All the scenes were with flesh-colored underwear or breast coverings. She had made a promise to herself never to go nude. She hadn’t yet and wouldn’t in her swan song movie either.
“That goes without saying,” he told her. “We wouldn’t leave you alone even if there wasn’t a potential threat out there, sweetheart. We’re kind of partial to you.” Grinning, he leaned over to press a kiss to her lips.
“One of us will be near you at all times, Brooklyn,” Stefan said, backing up Antonio. “Michael seems to be up to something, even if it is just him being a prick and fucking with your schedule. He appears to be the sort to go about being sneaky to get even. And he’s definitely not of a mind to let you out of Hollywood anytime soon.”
“All of this is very true. Wow, it's crazy how well you had worked out Michael when it took me a year to figure him out. You are, however, spot on. He has something planned, I just know it. That and Kent is way too happy about all of this. It feels like the two of them have cooked something up.”
Stefan gave a nod and sighed. “Well, you’ll figure it out, honey. If not, the offer Antonio made to get rid of the body stands.” He shot her a grin in the rearview and fell silent as they drove through the city back to her house.
“Thanks, guys, seriously,” Brooklyn said and leaned her head back for the ride home.
Chapter Six
After passing off one of the last digital cameras to Thomas, who was perched at the top of the ladder, Antonio turned to look to where Brooklyn was sitting in the shade. She’d had some rough days, five to be exact, since their meeting on the set with Michael. She’d managed to get the nude scene removed from the movie. Not with any help from Michael, of course. No, she’d gone over his head to the executiv
es of the studio. They’d hauled Michael into their offices and set him straight. He had not been a very happy camper but had gone along.
Then she’d gotten the latest set of scenes for her to memorize lines for. The dick was still pushing her buttons, and hard. Antonio still shook his head at the antics of only the day before. Stefan and Thomas had to grab her before she’d wrapped her hands around his smug little throat. It had put a serious scare into Michael, but she still had to go over his head to get the crap he continued to throw at her out of the movie.
“I think we’re done here,” Thomas said from up on the ladder. “I’ll go check on the others to see where they are, and then we can get Owen online with us to see if it’s all working as it’s supposed to.”
Nodding, Antonio took the tools the other man passed down and tucked them away in the toolkit while Thomas descended the ladder. “I’m going to go check on her.”
Thomas wiped a hand across his forehead. “She’s feeling the pressure from Michael on all this crap he keeps throwing at her. I feel for her, who wouldn’t, when dealing with that prick or his little minion assistants. Don’t forget we’re doing the barbecue for dinner tonight.”
Actually, Antonio had forgotten that in his worry for Brooklyn. “Right. Hopefully, Dion remembers to grab some of Gareth’s sauce before getting his ass over here.”
“If not, we ship him out. Not like he can’t get there and back again in a couple of minutes,” Thomas said with a grin. After patting Antonio on the back, the other man grabbed the ladder and headed off around the house to where Stefan and Lincoln were working.
Antonio blew out a breath and made his way over to Brooklyn. Easing into the chair at her side, he didn’t say anything. He knew better than to interrupt her when she was reading lines. She would eventually pull herself up and out of the scene to notice he was there. For him being close to her was enough right then.
He felt her hand touch his and wasn’t surprised that she was still concentrating on her script. It seemed she just needed to feel him to reassure herself he was here. Finally, however, she did speak.
“Did you guys finish all that you needed to?” She looked up at him. “I swear he’s making this more and more complicated because he’s angry with me. These lines are in Latin, idiot.” She huffed out a breath and shook her head. “It will make no sense to the overall story, but whatever.” He heard her unspoken words—at least she wasn’t naked. She was still furious over that attempt, and if he was honest so were he and Stefan.
“Once Stefan and Lincoln finish up with their part, we are officially done. We’ll get our tech guy on the line to make sure everything is functioning correctly, and make adjustments as he requires. After that, he’ll walk us all through the tech side of things at this end, and we’ll go live. We got only the very best equipment out there, so the house and grounds are fully secure. No more wondering who the crackling garble at the front gate might be. We have video and amazing quality audio out there. Plus, all the cameras on the property are day- and night-vision equipped with a few in strategic places also being infrared. The house is wired to the max, and with all the yard work we’ve done the last few days nothing is sneaking on this property larger than an ant without us knowing about it when it’s up and running.”
“You guys have done some amazing work. Thank you, by the way. I do hope that you are billing me, right? For everything that you guys have done. Well, charging Dion at least.” There was a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke. “Because he can so afford it. Raid his coffers, charge him double, and he’ll still pay it. Give the money to charity if you feel like it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. Shaking his head Antonio squeezed her fingers lightly. “We’ll figure out the billing later, and we will send it to him. He paid for your place to be done, and rather well, I have to say. He even tipped us.” Dionysus might be a flake from time to time, but the guy really did love Brooklyn and went out of his way to try to make her life as easy as he could without breaking the rule of no interference.
“I’m glad. He really is great,” she told him with that half-smile she had. “I hope that he doesn’t disappear from my life once I’m where you guys live. I’ve become very attached to him, and I’m afraid that I would be sad if he walked out of my life and never came back into it.”
“He won’t,” he assured her. They couldn’t seem to keep the gods from popping in and out of their lives as it was. “While they aren’t always around on a day to day basis, the gods do show up for meals on occasion, or to just be pests. We have a relatively open-door policy with them. They aren’t permitted to pop in anywhere but the main floor of the house. Everything else is completely off limits unless they get there by using their own two feet.”
“Well, good. I’m glad that I won’t have to get rid of him. It really would have bothered me a great deal not to be able to do little silly things with him like go shopping or to the spa. Now we get to be a foursome when we go to those places. I get the two of you, and he gets to watch over all of us. The man has fabulous taste in clothing.”
For a moment, he figured she was joking, and then quickly realized she wasn’t. She actually wanted them to go shopping with her, and Dionysus. Ah, hell. Not that he said anything of that nature. “Sounds like something we could do from time to time,” he settled on instead. Stefan was going to kill him. The other man hated shopping, and Antonio knew it. Stefan only ever went for items for his baking, and even then it was a chore. On the other hand, maybe he’d stand back and watch Stefan try to squirm out of something Brooklyn wanted to do. Now that sounded like some mighty fun entertainment.
“It’s even better with him because we typically get the stores all to ourselves. He arranges for us to go in at night or early morning to do our shopping.” Brooklyn grinned. He could tell how happy she was at the prospect of shopping with them. “For now, can you please help me with these lines? Will you read Kurt’s lines?”
“I can try. My Latin is pretty damn rusty, though.” Letting her hand go, he shuffled his chair in closer to hers so he could see the script she held. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pressed a kiss to her temple, and breathed her in. “Show me where we’re going from, sweetheart, and I shall do my best. But one comment about my reading abilities, and lack of emotion, and I’m tossing you in the pool. I always hated having to read out loud as a kid.” He’d had a horrible stutter when he was younger. It had taken a long time for him to get it under control enough that it very rarely made an appearance anymore. Extreme exhaustion or stress could bring it back, but it was pretty rare in recent months.
“Thank you for helping me. I won’t turn down any help at all.” She pointed to the place in the script where she needed to start and nodded. “Okay, ready?” She needed to get these lines down so that Michael couldn’t have a fit and find something new to delay the inevitable, her leaving.
Giving her another squeeze, he nodded, reading the section in his head quickly before he read it out loud. She gave her reply while he read his next few lines. They went back and forth for a time before she stopped to scribble in a note. When she finished, she had them start back a little way and continue on. Antonio had to hand it to her, the woman was good. Even in a reading she was smooth, natural-sounding, and had genuine emotion in her words to suit the scene. He was thankful his slightly rusty Latin skills weren’t holding her back.
Once they got to the end of the scene, Brooklyn grinned and looked at Antonio and bumped her shoulder to his. “I think I’ve got it. Thank you, so much. Your help was invaluable. I hate cold reading or reading the lines for the first time right before shooting, but there isn’t much I can do about it now, can I?”
“Unfortunately, you’re in a bit of a pickle with this jackass. I really hope he tries something that provides the perfect excuse to break his smug face. Why don’t we run through it once more, and then we can grab some drinks before we get the grill heating up?”
“That sounds perfect.” She turned
her pages back and took a breath. “Okay, from the start once more.” He could tell that she was ready to get this over and done with. She was as angry as he was with all of the changes that were made on the fly.
The second read-through was much faster, and she seemed more at ease with the words. Everything flowed off her tongue in a way that had Antonio fantasizing about other things. He nearly got caught twice despite his best efforts not to go there. He managed to cover it up, or so he hoped, enough she didn’t question it.
After shutting the script, she tossed it onto the table and leaned into him. “You are amazing,” he said. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he gave her a squeeze. “You’re going to nail this and make him realize that you are definitely the bigger person. Definitely more of a professional.”
Brooklyn smiled up at him and then leaned back once more against him. “Thank you. I hope that you’re right. I want that smug son of a biscuit to know what he’s lost in me. But you.” She once more pulled back to look up at Antonio. “You were fabulous. Seriously, you could have a career in a minute here in Hollywood.”
All he could do was pull a face at the thought. “Thank you, but hell no. I prefer having a little more reality in my life. Everything here is too fake. From the people to the personalities, to the shows they put on for the everyday folks on the street. It’s all one big lie in this town. I’m not saying there aren’t some good, honest folks here. I’m quite sure there are. But the fakes outweigh the real ones a little too heavily for my taste.”
“That’s why I’m ready to get out of this town. I know most people would kill for my career, but I’m ready to simply leave it behind. I want to be where I know who my friends are. I want to be where I am aware that if someone tells me that they love me it’s truth and not some act to try to get further in their careers or something. I want reality, not make-believe.”
“Well, you will definitely get the truth in high doses with us around. We occasionally can’t say everything about what we’re tasked to do, but we also won’t ever lie about it. It’s the same with everyone else at the Farm. Something you will discover yourself when you are ready.” He gave her one more kiss to her forehead, taking a moment to breathe in her heady scent before he drew back. “Now I’m going to go grab us some drinks. Then we better light the grill, and maybe check to see if the others have finished or require medical attention.”