Jo thought she might be sick. “So you’re telling me I have no contract, no advance, and nothing to go on but promises?”
“Didn’t you get the Pollards’ contract?” At last, Diane sounded uncertain. “Jett made it pretty clear that they gave it to Benjamin Paul when they were up there a few days ago.”
The sick feeling in Jo’s stomach exploded into daggers of fire. “Ben doesn’t have any contract.” But he could. He could have something that he hadn’t shown her, something that he was keeping from her. Why?
“O-oh,” Diane stammered. “They were sure that he gave it to you.”
Jo shook her head. One problem at a time. “You severed my relationship with Frost Square without consulting me first?”
There was a long pause before Diane said, “Yes.”
Jo clenched her jaw. She rubbed her forehead. Her lungs didn’t seem to want to take in air. “I can’t talk to you about this right now. I have other problems to sort.”
She ended the call, and it was all she could do not to smash her phone against the wall.
“Everything okay in there, honey?” Yvonne’s hushed voice floated in from the kitchen.
Jo’s heart pounded. For years, she’d known she wasn’t Diane’s top priority, but she’d never mustered the courage to look for an agent who would better serve her interests. Now she was so close to hyperventilating that it scared her. Her hands shook. She couldn’t bear to stand still, so she marched back into the kitchen.
“The Pollards spoke to my agent,” she said, ignoring how loud her voice was. “On their say so, she severed my relationship with my publisher.”
“Can she do that?” Jenny asked, still quiet.
“You need to fire her ass right now,” Yvonne said, the flash of someone who knew in her eyes.
Jo nodded, but said, “Except this means that now my problem isn’t that I have a pitiful advance for an optioned book, I have no advance because there won’t be an optioned book.”
“If you can’t keep the fucking volume down in the kitchen, then you can all fucking leave,” Ben bellowed from the other room.
In her current state of mind, he might as well have marched into the kitchen, slapped her, and told her that romance novels were cheap escapism not worth the paper they were written on. Jo’s eyes flared wide. She turned on her heel and stormed into the living room, blowing past the harried assistant.
“Honey, don’t,” Yvonne called after her.
Jo ignored her, ignored the scrapes of the kitchen chairs as Yvonne and Jenny jumped up.
“Who the hell do you think you are to go yelling at me in my own home?” she shouted at Ben as she marched into the room, venting every last bit of frustration from him, Diane, her writing, everything.
Spence, Simon, and Theresa were in their places, lights bright, boom mics suspended above them, camera rolling. All three broke character and flinched at her shout.
“Cut,” Ben roared. He spun on his heel to face her. “This is a live set, not your home. You’ll be quiet if I say you’ll be quiet.”
The room sizzled with pent up frustration. At the far side, near the edge of the hall leading back to the library, Moira looked like she was about ready to chew her way out through the walls. Devon sat in a chair to the side, hunched over, shaking his head. As soon as they saw the shot wasn’t going to go on, Spence, Simon, and Theresa gave up and stalked off to their own corners. Jo had never seen a set when everyone was having a terrible day, but she was pretty sure that’s what the scene in front of her was.
So the hell what?
“You want to stand there and talk to me like that?” She stomped around the edge of a wingback chair and marched up to Ben, kicking wires and equipment aside.
“I’m calling security.” Moira stood and started toward the front hall.
“No you’re not,” Ben barked, freezing her in her tracks. A second later, Moira marched on in a temper, but Yvonne scurried out of the kitchen to stop her and have a word. Ben rounded on Jo. “If you interfere with me doing my job, yes, I will talk to you like that.” He met her fury for fury, jaw set, misery radiating from him.
“Oh, me interfere with your job?” Her temper just got hotter and hotter. “You’re the one who snookered his way into my life, robbing me of the ability to get a single word written when I need a bestseller to keep this house.”
“So it’s my fault that you aren’t writing?” he shouted. “When you have this entire gigantic house to go work in?” He took a step closer to her.
“And who’s the one who came up with the idea of adapting my book to a play? You know, the idea that caused my agent to sever my ties with my publisher?”
He flinched like she’d hit him. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“Like it wasn’t your idea to bring all these people into my house, turning my world upside down?”
He still hadn’t recovered from her last blow, but he mustered enough indignation to snap, “What’s paying your bills right now?”
She wanted to slap him, kick him, and tear his eyes out, and as much as his bellowing hurt, it felt so good to have an excuse to lay into him. “You want to talk about bills? How about all those bills of yours that you can’t afford to pay now because you screwed up your life beyond repair? You wanna talk about those?”
“It’s under control.” His voice held a new, icy edge.
“You couldn’t just screw up your own life, could you? You had to come along and screw up mine too.”
“Maybe we should take a fifteen minute break,” Moira interrupted from across the room, Yvonne nodding beside her.
Ben whipped to face them. “Yes, maybe we should—”
“No,” Jo snapped. “You do not get to call the shots in my house, no matter who the hell you think you are. This is my house,” she glanced around, everyone watching her, even if they were trying not to look like they were, “and I want all of you out.”
No one moved. “You can’t,” Moira started. “The contract says—”
“Out!” she yelled. “Now. All of you. Get the hell out of here.”
Moira took a hesitant step forward. “We can’t afford to drop the shoot on the deadline we’ve—”
“You heard her,” Yvonne burst in. “Everyone, pack it up for the day. There will be plenty of sunlight tomorrow.”
Moira looked as though she was about to explode. She whipped to Yvonne, who stared at her in silent communication, then let out a breath. She nodded. With a sudden rumble of movement, everyone in the room left what they were doing and headed for the front hall and the foyer. Jenny gave Jo a wary look, half support, half a hope that she knew what she was getting into, and met Simon as he crossed to leave the room with everyone else.
Within three minutes, everyone was gone, fled outside and on to who knew what. Only Ben, Jo, and Yvonne remained.
“Have it out,” Yvonne said, nodding to the two of them.
Jo didn’t need to be told twice. “What the hell is wrong with you? One minute you act like your life is over, the next you’re purring like a cat, and the next you’ve turned into a modern-day creative dictator.”
“It’s none of your business,” Ben boomed, the intensity of his anger unrelenting. He tore the headset off his head, threw it at the camera—which hadn’t been switched off—and stomped out of the living room and down the hall.
Jo rushed after him. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not going to walk away from me that easily.”
Ben pushed on, turning the corner into the library. As soon as Jo marched in to join him, he barked, “I didn’t plan for any of this to happen.”
“Neither did I,” she threw right back at him. “Do you think I set out to land in bed with a ridiculously sexy walking wrecking ball? To fall in love with that guy?”
He whipped away from her, striding to the far end of the room. “I shouldn’t have texted you after you left that day,” he said, facing away from her. “I shouldn’t have picked up your books either.”
“
And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” She stopped in the middle of the room and crossed her arms.
He banged a fist against the far bookshelf, then turned to her. “You said you wanted to know what was wrong with me. Well, there it is.”
“That tells me nothing.” She shifted her weight to one side, pinned him with a stare to let him know he wasn’t getting out of any of this easily.
Ben flinched where he stood, as if he would run, but his body thought better of it. He swayed, rubbing his forehead and digging his hand into his hair, eyes not focusing. At last, he glanced up to her. “My whole life is about being in control of the situation, calling the shots. I’m a director. It’s all I know.”
“And someone took that away from you by spreading rumors that you didn’t deserve the award you won.” She filled in the things he left unsaid.
He shook his head, grimacing, and let his arms drop. “I don’t even know if I care about that,” he admitted, ten times quieter. “That scares me as much as anything else.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his jaw snapped tight and he turned away, pacing.
Still fuming, but with shoots of sympathy poking up through the sludge, Jo watched him. Fear was something she’d always been able to deal with, one way or another. This feeling of being taken for al fool was a whole other ballgame. She hated it.
“Don’t run out on me because it scares you,” she said.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” He snarled, still pacing.
True. She’d give him that. But for how much longer?
She held her ground, arms crossed, watching him pace with enough intensity to wear a trench in her floor. The silence went on, the tension in the air so thick it was hard to breathe.
“Okay, I can’t stand here waiting for the two of you to say something anymore,” Yvonne said, slipping around the corner from where she must have been listening in. She came to stand between the two of them.
“You’ve interfered enough for one lifetime, Yvonne,” Ben said, but there was no force behind it.
Jo raised an eyebrow. It might have been overstepping her bounds, but Yvonne had overstepped every boundary there was since the moment she walked into the house and handed Jo her coat. She, at least, was acting in character.
“Here’s how I see it,” Yvonne said, right on cue. “Jo, you’re in a pickle. You need to fire that agent of yours and sue her ass while you’re at it.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Jo grumbled.
“And hold off on signing anything having to do with the Pollards.”
Jo blinked and turned to Ben. “Diane is under the impression that the Pollards gave you a contract. Did they?”
Ben froze midway through pacing. The slowness with which he met her eyes was all the answer Jo needed.
Yvonne let out a whistle. “Okay, burn that contract. Nothing but Satan’s blood puts that kind of a look in your eyes, Ben.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me straight away?” Jo asked.
Ben rubbed the bottom half of his face, his body tense. “The terms aren’t good,” he admitted at last. “But the Pollards are determined.”
“Burn that contract and bury the ashes at sea,” Yvonne said.
“If I do, they’ll drag more garbage about me out into the open,” Ben admitted.
Horrible as it was, the admission was like a weight lifting from Jo’s shoulders. Ben was being blackmailed. Just as quickly, that weight slammed back into place. “How much more garbage do they have?”
“Hold that thought.” Yvonne held up a hand to her. It wasn’t reassuring. Neither was the seriousness in Ben’s eyes. “Ben, you need to focus on the job in front of you instead of giving good old Jett and Ashton more rope to hang you with.”
“I’ve worked my whole life to get where I was on Broadway,” Ben argued, but without energy.
“You were there, sweetheart. Did you like the view?”
Ben turned away, marched back to the bookshelf.
“To answer your question.” Yvonne pivoted to face Jo. “Do you really want to know how many more rumors a pair of determined snakes can dredge up about Ben?”
Jo signed. She wished her desk was still in the room, because right about then, all she wanted to do was sink into her chair and bang her head on it.
“No,” she answered. “Not particularly.”
“Good girl.” Yvonne took a breath. “Now, the two of you had better figure out what you really want and work out a way to be each other’s ally. Because from where I’m sitting, the two of you might be the only thing that the other one has right now.”
Her assessment stung. Although as far as Jo was concerned, even if she lost her career and her house, she still had Nick. Could Ben say the same? Who would be there to catch him if he fell?
“Now, I’m going to go back to my hotel, order a stiff drink at the bar, and hope that cute bellhop is up for earning an extra big tip,” Yvonne finished. “I suggest the two of you take the rest of the afternoon to talk it out and come up with a strategy to solve your problems together. Otherwise, Auntie Yvonne is going to come and solve them for you.”
Any other day, Jo would have laughed at the woman’s presumption and her certainty. All she could manage now was a sigh and a nod when Yvonne nodded at her.
“Bye, honey,” Yvonne called to Ben. “You think about what I said.”
She turned and left, her heels clicking on the floor all the way down the hall and to the foyer. There was a pause, probably as she got her coat, then more clicking, the door opening, then shutting. Then silence.
Jo chewed her lip and watched Ben. It took a long time for him to turn and face her.
“Do you think it might help if we went upstairs and had passionate make-up sex?” Not a flicker of teasing in his entire face.
“No.” Jo crossed her arms.
“I thought so.” Ben sighed, his shoulders dropping, his arms flopping by his side. He moved to sit in one of the old, leather chairs the production team had brought in for filming.
Jo crossed to sit in the chair beside him. “Do you love me at all?” she asked, wondering where she got the courage.
He fixed her with a flat stare. “Why do you think I’m so terrified?”
Her expression stayed dark, but bright warmth spread slowly through her chest. She nodded, slumping against the back of the chair. “Sucks to be us.”
“Yep.”
They continued to sit there in silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, the longer they sat there, the more relaxed things were. Jo could practically see invisible particles of anger and frustration and fear sinking through the air and floating to the floor, like bits of glitter in a settling snow globe.
“We can make up for the time we lost here tomorrow,” Ben said at last, deep and grumbly, but no longer furious. “Which means we should wrap this episode in a couple of days.”
“That’s something.”
More silence. Jo peeked across at Ben. His face had gone slack, the lines around his eyes more tired than anything else. He must have felt her looking, because he turned his head to meet her eyes. Their chairs were close enough for him to reach across and take her hand.
“Will you come to New York with me when I go to pack up my surprisingly meager personal belongings and vacate my apartment?”
The ball of warmth in Jo’s chest spread to her hands and feet, flaring with compassion. “Sure, why not,” she teased as gently as she could. “I have an agent to fire down there. Might as well do it in person.”
He smiled. Such a small smile, but it thrust her right up to the brink of tears. Who in their right mind got involved with someone who was so damaged?
Someone who understood the mess, she answered herself.
“She’s right, you know,” Ben said after another long pause, running his thumb over her knuckles as continued to hold her hand.
“About what?”
He licked his lips. “About me not having anyone else but you
.”
Goddammit, Ben. Jo’s throat ached with the effort not to cry. “Nonsense,” she squeaked, then cleared her throat. He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve obviously got Yvonne too.”
He burst into a fond, tired smile. “Yeah. She’s all right.”
Jo wasn’t going to argue. When Ben turned and faced forward, staring into nothing, lost in thought, still holding her hand, she did the same. Would she have had enough of a level head to stop herself from throwing Ben out if Yvonne hadn’t intervened? Maybe. Maybe not. At least she had a second chance to prove that Ben really could depend on her. She’d just have to put her faith in the fact that she could depend on him.
Chapter Seventeen
A week later, with the episode of Second Chances wrapped and off to post-production, slightly less than a month after Jo had walked into his life as it fell apart, Ben was back where he’d started.
“Going back to Diane’s office now,” Jo texted him.
His phone rested on the bureau in his bedroom, beside the closet that he was cleaning out. The furniture came with the apartment, which made the whole chore simpler, but somehow more pathetic. He stuffed a handful of old scripts into the box he was packing, then picked up his phone.
“Good luck,” he texted, then, “Give her hell.”
“Believe me, I will.”
A faint smile flickered across Ben’s lips. She would, all right. As far as he was concerned, that agent should lose her license, if literary agents even had licenses. He’d offered to put packing on hold for a few hours to go with her to the agency in case she needed back-up, but Jo had insisted on handling things on her own.
And that was why she was a thousand times better than he was. She could take out her own trash, and she’d probably handle it a thousand times more gracefully than he ever could. The thought sent a smirk skittering across his face as he packed up the last of the old scripts and searched for tape to seal the box. That was it, the last box of personal belongings from his bedroom. Not his anymore.
He tucked his phone into his back pocket, then carried the box downstairs to the living room. It took a special kind of pathetic for a man in his forties to have his entire life fit into a couple dozen boxes. He settled the box of scripts on top of the pile of other boxes then stepped back, shaking his head. In a fit of maudlin humor, he’d fished out his shiny, gold award for best director from the box he’d originally sealed it in and set it on top of the pile.
Catch a Falling Star (Second Chances Book 3) Page 22