by Jodi Jolan
I explained the situation to everyone – that apparently, when some art aficionado saw their stocks fall, that art suddenly became less of a main focus in their life – and despite my best efforts to quell everyone’s fears, I could hear the nervous mutterings and murmurings as everyone made their way out of the theatre. I grimaced as I watched them go. I knew how they felt. I had this churning feeling deep in the pit of my stomach, something that told me that this wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped.
Luke approached me, and my heart leapt but my brain told it to calm the hell down and act like a professional for once. I drew myself up to my full height and looked him in the eye, doing my best not to think about how that mouth had felt between my legs, how easily he had teased me to orgasm. Damn. It was already in my head.
“Tell me honestly,” he looked me dead in the eye. “How much trouble is the production in?”
“I don’t know right now,” I admitted. “But I’m getting the theatre manager to send me a list of people she thinks could step in and pick up the slack. I’m hoping one of them might be enough to keep things rolling for now.”
“What, you’re going to schmooze them or something? Get them to open their wallets?” He cocked an eyebrow, as though incredulous, and I planted a hand on my hip defensively.
“What, are you telling me you don’t think I can do that?” I protested. He shrugged.
“Honestly? Yeah, pretty much,” he replied, a grin flickering over his face as he spoke. “Look, I’ve done a million of these kinds of meetings before. And I’m guessing…”
“Yeah, I haven’t done many,” I admitted. “But I can manage it myself, trust me.”
“Let me come with you,” he implored. “I promise I won’t get under your feet. People like to see a big name attached to whatever they’re putting their money into.”
“Oh, you’re saying I’m not a big name?” I joked weakly, but then my shoulders sank and I had to concede the point. “Okay. I’ll bring you along. But you’ve got to be professional about it.”
“Just as professional as we were that night we stayed behind to rehearse?” He remarked, lowering his voice, his eyes flashing darkly and playfully with something I had seen too many times before from him. My lips parted, ready to rebut him, but I knew I had to keep myself in line. I closed my mouth and looked away, breaking the het between us.
“Yeah, right,” I waved my hand, shooing him away from me, because I could feel a couple of people looking in our direction and knew that we weren’t going to get away with this much longer. “I’ll call you when I need you to clear an evening and help me out, okay?”
“Okay,” He nodded, and his eyes trailed down to my lips for a moment before he finished up. “I look forward to it.”
I turned away, and realized that my pulse was racing, faster than it had been a few moments before. I could put it down to the stress of the financier pulling out of the production all I wanted, but I knew what it was truly about.
In some ways, taking a few days away from the production was a good thing, because it let me get my head a little straighter about Luke without having to be around him all day every day. Being away from him for so long allowed me to talk some damn sense into myself, allowed me to remind myself that there was nothing about being him that was a good idea. Hell, he had likely already moved on to the next chick by now and was just continuing his pursuit of me because he wanted to keep his options open. When this play was done with and he was out of town again, I doubted my name would so much as cross his mind ever again, let alone what the two of us had done together. No. That wasn’t who he was. He was a player, a permanent bachelor with that glint in his eye directed at whoever he thought would react best to it. And from this day forth, I swore on the spot, it wasn’t going to be me.
I called around and got turned down more than I would care to recount. It was pretty soul-crushing, at first, knowing that so few people actually cared about the production of this play. I thought it was such an important piece, so powerful and decent and deeply rooted in so much that was going on in the world right now, but it was clear that I was about the only person who did. I even threw in Luke’s name, and Ardew’s, in the hopes that that might draw some attention, but nothing. A big, fat, flat-out nothing. As I lay awake, staring at the ceiling and crunching the numbers, I wondered if I wasn’t directing if a few of these people might have taken up the offer. Maybe if someone with a little more status, a little more experience had been running this show, we wouldn’t be struggling the way we were right now.
Finally, and to my great relief, I managed to arrange a meeting with Daya Milano, an art collector and heiress who had shown an interest in supporting the theatre at one of their big gatherings a year before.
“Oh, that sounds perfect!” She sighed down the phone, a gust of static accompanying her words. I fought the urge to punch the air; to her this was just some dinner with some fancy creative types, but to me it was the last thing that was keeping my job even remotely afloat. If she didn’t pan out, I had no idea what we would do to keep the production alive.
I called Luke, as soon as I was off the phone with her, and he picked up after two rings. He sounded pleased to hear for me.
“Hey,” he greeted me, voice bubbling with something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “How’s it going?”
“Yeah, it’s going well,” I replied, closing my eyes and thanking the Gods that I could make this phone call now that we had someone on lock. “I have someone. A potential investor. Some art collector who likes the theatre, I don’t know really – but we have a dinner booked for tomorrow night. You said you wanted to be there?”
“Damn straight I do,” He replied at once. There was a buzz of noise in the background of his call, but it quietened as he spoke, as though he was turning away from the crowd of people behind him to talk to me. “I’ll pick you up at your place, okay? What time?”
“Seven,” I replied. “I’ll text you the address. Get your game face ready.”
“Oh, it’s always ready,” he shot back, and I could hear the grin in his voice. I knew that Luke liked a challenge, and this one, keeping the play alive, might be one of the biggest he’d taken on yet.
“See you tomorrow,” I finished up the call, even though I wanted nothing more than to linger on the end of the line with him for a moment, ask what he’d been up to, where he was.
“See you,” he replied, and hung up, leaving me with the buzz of his voice in my ears and the nerves already settling in for what tomorrow night would bring.
I had to roll my eyes when, the next day, I was checking up my social media and saw pictures of Luke landing at an airport – it looked as though he’d gone abroad for the few days that I’d been stuck back here in a panic, and a little part of me was kind of resentful that he got to go off and half fun while I was stuck back here trying to get my house in order. But all that mattered was that he was back in the country for now, and I could get my hands on him and use that charm for good instead of evil for once.
I got ready in front of the mirror, spending an hour playing with my hair and make-up, praying that my one fancy dress – black and tight around the bodice, flaring out to a fuller skirt around the knees – would be enough for me to sneak into this expensive-as-shit restaurant without getting called out as an obvious commoner. Luke had promised to cover the cost of the meal and I was fully planning to go to town as soon as I got there. I hadn’t been able to eat properly in days, stomach churning at the thought of the play being closed off, and had subsisted on coffee and leftover takeout in between desperate phone calls to whoever would hear my sob story out.
I stood up when I heard the buzzer to my tiny little apartment go, and checked myself out in the mirror once more; I had lacquered my lips with a matte purple liquid lipstick, and had carefully made up my eyes with a smoky shadow so they looked bigger and more dramatic than normal. And I had
even gone as far as to slip on a pair of heels, which I hated but knew made me look better and walk taller than anything else in my wardrobe. I wasn’t sure I looked much like me, but I knew I looked a lot closer to the part I would be playing tonight dressed like this.
I grabbed my bag and hurried downstairs, where Luke was waiting in a towncar; I hadn’t even considered how much this felt like a date until I laid eyes on him down there waiting for me, all dressed up in a fancy suit with a pale blue shirt that might his eyes shine in the streetlight.
“Hey,” I greeted him, not looking him directly in the eyes as though I knew that it would distract me too much. “Thanks for flying back in for this.”
“Oh, you saw the pictures, then,”he grinned that cocky-ass grin that I didn’t realize until that moment that I’d been missing. “I saw them trying to catch photos of me when I was getting off the plane. Didn’t think that they would make it online that quickly.”
“You’re big news,” I reminded him, and he shrugged and pulled the car door open for me, letting me slide inside. The interior was all plush seating and low lights, something seductive about the scent of leather in the air.
“Come on, let’s get going,” Luke leaned forward to the driver and delivered the name of the restaurant we would be headed to. He leant back against the seat when he was done, letting out a long breath and closing his eyes.
“You alright?” I asked. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a little jetlagged, given that he’d flown all the way across the country earlier that day.
“Nope,” he shook his head. “Just trying to get myself into the right mindset for this.”
“And what is that mindset?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” He replied, a dry smile on his face.
We arrived at the restaurant a few minutes later, and he helped me out of the car, taking my hand and pulling me upright. I wasn’t sure where this suddenly-gentlemanly side of him had sprung from, but I had to say I was kind of into it.
“I shouldn’t get used to this kind of treatment, right?” I teased as he gave the host our names. The way he moved through this place, it was like he belonged here – a reminder, as if I needed one, that I firmly and totally didn’t.
“Well, depends how many fancy dinners you’re going to get me out on,” he shot back playfully. Then, he caught sight of our date for the evening, and lifted his hand to greet her.
“Okay, game faces,” he murmured to me out of the side of his mouth, and then marched over there and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“You must be Daya,” he greeted her. “Great to meet you. I’m Luke, and this is Holly.”
The woman shook my hand and glanced up at look again, clearly a little starstruck by their interaction.
“Good to meet you,” I nodded to her, reminding her gently that I was still there too. She turned her gaze to me, as though she’d half-forgotten that I was there at all.
“Ah, yes, Holly, lovely to meet you,” she smiled broadly, suddenly and easily slipping back into charming heiress mode. “So, on the phone you told me that you were having some trouble financing your play?”
If there was a better performance that I put on than that night, I couldn’t imagine what it would look like. The way Luke and I bounced off each other, the way we worked so easily alongside one another, made the evening flow by seamlessly. I had never had a night as purely fun as that one, the thrill of knowing we were slowly coaxing Daya over to our side all I needed to keep me on my toes. Luke would flirt a little, charm her, and I would jump in with the details of what we were doing, and her eyes would slide back and forth between the two of us and it was obvious to everyone at the table how this night was going to end.
“You know what,” She held her hands up at the end of the cheese plate, shaking her head as though she just couldn’t take it any longer. “I’ll do it.”
“Really?” I exclaimed, a couple of glasses of wine in and perhaps a little more expressive than I might have been otherwise. She nodded.
“I don’t see why not,” she shrugged. “The way you guys have been talking about it, it sounds like it’s a solid investment.”
“It really is,” I gushed before I could stop myself. “Allan Ardew, the playwright, he’s so amazing, and this has to be one of his best works-”
“And the director’s not too bad, either,” Luke nudged me with his foot beneath the table. The contact made something spark to life inside me. I had been trying to ignore it all night, how well we bounced off each other, how well we worked together, but it was getting harder and harder to pretend that there was really nothing between us. Every time he turned his attention to Daya, to flirt with her for a little bit, to shower her with the attention that she so clearly craved, I found a little twinge of jealousy distracting me from the task at hand. And maybe it was the couple of glasses of wine that I’d already enjoyed, but there was something about the sight of him in that shirt that just…
“I’ll call the theatre tomorrow, and we can figure something out,” she suggested. “Perhaps we could, uh, meet for another dinner? To celebrate the arrangement?”
She was looking squarely at Luke and I was certain that all of us knew who she was talking to, but I wasn’t going to let that slide. She thought she could have him all to herself? Well, she had another thing coming.
“That sounds great,” I swooped in, a big smile on my face. Her expression dropped a little bit but she covered it up well enough, waving the waiter over.
“The check?” She asked, but Luke quickly reached out and touched her hand.
“I’ve got this,” he smiled at her, and I could see that light behind her eyes pop back into being as soon he started paying attention to her once more.
“I’ve really had a wonderful evening tonight,” she batted her lashes at him. She couldn’t have been much older than him, and she was beautiful – long, dark, well-maintained her that fell over her shoulders, a dress that no doubt cost more than my entire apartment did. It was hard to ignore the flutter of jealousy in my chest, but it quelled as I felt his hand brush up against my arm beneath the table. He was letting me know that he felt it too, and letting me know that he wanted me more. I bit my lip to keep from grinning. I had to keep my head in the game.
We paid up and said our goodbyes to Daya; Luke planted a kiss on her cheek and I thought she might swoon into the sidewalk in delight right there and then, but she slipped into the back of a cab with promises to get in touch with us as soon as the weekend was over. Once her door was shut behind her, my shoulders sagged with relief and I let out a groan.
“Oh my God,” I shook my head. “We did it. Thank fucking Christ. Let me text everyone right now and tell them to come in to rehearsals tomorrow morning so we can pick up where we left off….”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and shot off a group text to everyone, and grinned when my phone let me know that it had sent. This was happening. I still had a job.
“Yeah, thank God,” he replied, and I turned to him and realized all at once that his hand was lingering on the small of my back. I wasn’t sure when it had gotten there, but it felt warm, even through my dress. All these little touches and caresses as the night had worn on, and I was starting to get a little overheated. My eyes traced down to his lips, and alarm bells were going off in my head. Don’t. Don’t even think it. This is exactly how it happened the last time…
But I didn’t care. I felt this rush of desire for him, a desire that I had been trying my best to ignore for the night so far, but I couldn’t keep pretending that it wasn’t there. I wanted him, so badly it made my chest tight. The alcohol was coursing through my system, a hot and heady reminder of just how much I wanted this to happen. I had let myself slip out of that carefully regimented place I’d put myself in, fighting to hold myself down, to keep myself in line. But for once, I just wanted to give in and indulge in the one t
hing I truly wanted. I wanted to indulge in him.
Chapter Six
I leaned up to kiss him on the mouth, and he didn’t fight it. I knew he’d been thinking about it all night as well – hell, maybe he’d been thinking about it all the time he was away, when he’d been travelling the country without me. The thought made the soles of my feet tingle and he slipped an arm around me, pulling me closer, right there in the street outside this restaurant. Anyone could have seen us.
The next thing I remembered was us falling into that cab together, heading back to my place since it was closer than his. His hands were on me in the back of the cab, pushing up my dress, groping at my bare skin where he could find it, making me giggle when I caught sight of the cab driver in the rearview mirror eyeing us with some disapproval on his face. We tipped out of the car on to the street and I fumbled for my keys in my bag as he kissed the back of my neck. His breath was warm in the cool air outside my apartment, and I couldn’t think of anything more than how badly I wanted to feel him inside of me. I had never craved it with that kind of depth or certainty before, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this had to happen. Maybe that would get it out of my mind for good. Maybe it wouldn’t. I didn’t care – I just needed him, badly, and now.
I pulled him upstairs to my apartment, and he pushed me up against the door, leaning down to kiss me, his hands on either side of my head as his tongue slid into my mouth. I moaned against his mouth, not caring if the neighbours heard, maybe some part of me hoping they did so I could be sure this was really happening. I ran my hands up his back, under that expensive blazer of his, and then unlocked the door. The two of us fell through and into my living room, and he guided me swiftly in the direction of the couch. Both of us tumbled on to the cushions, him on top of me, the weight of his body comforting and tempting all at once. I ran my hands over his ass, digging my fingers into him roughly, and wondering how in the name of holy hell I’d managed to keep my hands off him this long. He was just…the two of us seemed to fit together so obviously, like we were two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle just waiting all this time to find our other half.