“Fine.” Marietta mumbled under her breath in defeat.
“What did you just say?” Suzy couldn’t help but gloat. She had been telling Marietta to cast Tobias Harden ever since the movie idea came up.
“You can call him back in.” Marietta tried to put her vindictive hat aside and put on her creative one. She had to look at Tobias with different eyes. She had to see him as Grayson, rogue CIA agent, fighting to take illegal guns off the market and bring down the big fish. When Tobias Harden walked into the room, she did just that. Mentally slapping on an imaginary suit and shades and tusslinghis slicked black hair a bit, she could see him transform. And that, she promised herself, was how he was going to continue seeing him.
Marietta stood up from her chair, walked around the table and extended a welcome handshake to the man. “Congratulations, welcome to ‘Guns, Blood and Sex’,” she mumbled and then walked out.
“You are going to be glad you picked him,” Suzy chanted.
“Picked who?”
Marietta sighed knowing her frustration level was going to increase. Jessie was just another voice in her head telling her to give men a second chance. She couldn’t wait to hear what her assistant would say about her not wanting to give Tobias Harden the part. She quickened her pace and tried to run away from them as fast as she could, without running.
“She picked Tobias beautiful Harden.”
From a distance she could hear the two women squeal. Everyone was getting on the SS Tobias Harden dreamboat. Maybe it was time for her to get on board too. She smiled as she walked outside the studio to her car. The next four months were bound to be interesting for her.
* * * *
“Marietta Parks! Has anyone seen Ms. Parks?”
She heard her name being bellowed out of a bullhorn in the desert. Marietta was exhausted, they had been working for twelve hours straight and she had extended those twelve hours to twenty four. The script had to be changed to incorporate the director, cast and crew’s ideas. Marietta liked to soak in all the ideas thrown at her while filming. The studio gave her the liberty to make the adjustments that she wanted, as long as they didn’t distort the budget.
She could hear a pitch of desperation when the director called out for her. Something had to be changed or he had to be reassured that the vision worked. She had wanted McKenzie to direct the action drama, since he was the best in the genre. But she felt like she was holding his hand through this movie more than she was used to.
“Marietta Parks!”
“Keep your knickers on, I’m coming.” Marietta yelled back and the whole cast burst out laughing. She stuck her tongue out at the scowling man as she walked towards him. His silver head was covered by a turban, and a flask of water hung from his neck.
“I would quit if you weren’t so damn cute,” he teased. “Why did you have to set a scene of your movie in the desert? Next time try the Caribbean or Iceland.”
“What’s up?” She expected him to hold out the script and point out where it wasn’t working but he didn’t. Instead he pointed out towards the two actors. She’d noticed it, too. There was something about the two leads that wasn’t gelling together.
“They don’t look romantic. Guns are my department, romance not so much.” McKenzie frowned as he stared at the two actors who looked like they had just swallowed an eel. “At this point picking sand from each other’s eyes would look more romantic.”
Marietta flipped through her master script and read out, “’they share a desperate romantic kiss as a sand storm rises behind them.’ Who wrote this crap?” She exhaled, lost at what to do. She had already done her part, given them the words and described the scenario. It was up to Tobias and his co-star to make it look real, to make it romantic. She stared at the actress—Sarah Foy was the best in her generation—and she couldn’t help but feel sorry. The girl looked like she was fishing in Tobias’ mouth and not kissing him. And Tobias looked like he was about to gag.
“What do you want me to do?” Marietta exchanged a confused glance with the director. “You are the director, so direct them.”
“You are the one who dreams up love scenes in the middle of the desert. Besides, I have been married six times. If I was romantic I would still have my first wife, or better yet, my sixth.” He put his hand on Marietta’s back and gently pushed her forward. “You are the girl, so how would you want him to kiss you?”
“I thought he was the great Tobias Harden, the best sex on both sides of the pond. He can’t do a simple kiss?” Marietta pouted as she stomped towards the two actors, looking back only once to stick her tongue out at the director. She looked around for Suzy and Jessie they were the ones who had vouched for the ‘dreamboat’.
“This isn’t working,” Tobias said to her as Marietta walked towards them.
“No kidding.” Her hands akimbo, she tried to think of someway a hero in one of her romance novels would make this work. “Sarah, you look like a fish drowning in a fish bowl and Toby, you look like someone is forcing you to swallow an eel. You are actors. I don’t care if you don’t find each other desirable. Pretend. We pay you to pretend. You make your living pretending.”
“I find him to be very sexy,” Sarah said as she winked in Tobias’ direction.
Marietta frowned and turned to face Tobias just in time to see the same frustrated expression on his face. “What about you? Do you find her sexy?”
“Just run this scene by me again,” Tobias grunted.
“You two are in love. There are people with huge guns coming to kill you, plus there is a sand storm behind you. You feel like this is it, so you want this one kiss. The kiss has to be passionate. Everyone has to shiver at how intensely passionate it is.”
“I’m not a magician,” Sarah whined.
“You’re telling me.” Marietta huffed in frustration and stepped in between them. “I think you are both trying to lead the kiss. Kiss me like you would a girl you are desperately in love with.”
“I’ve never been in love.” His eyebrow rose in a dismissive glare.
“Join the club.” She looked him over once then decided to use his reputation to get the scene. “Kiss me like you are trying to convince me that I am your moon and stars. That is before you ditch me the next morning. You lead, I’ll follow.”
Marietta stood staring at his kiss me lips. They were beautiful, well molded. But she knew that they had been in traffic for a while. Her mind was running, thinking about how many women he had kissed and how many of those women he had taken to bed, and how many of those he had called the next day, and how many of them were on this very set. She was so distracted that she didn’t notice him coming in for the kill.
Startled, she felt his arm circle her waist. He gently jerked her closer so that her body crashed against his rock solid form of muscles. Marietta forced herself to get into character she wasn’t going to be one of those ladies left numb and swooning from a Tobias Harden kiss. She put her hand on his biceps while the other arm rested on his shoulder, as her fingers played with the little hairs at the back of his neck. Her eyes instinctively closed as he brushed his lips against hers. Marietta felt something inside her leap from the bottom of her womb into her throat, as his tongue snaked into her mouth searching. And once it had found what it had been looking for, it claimed it. Their lips moved in the rhythm set by the beating of their hearts. Her body shivered as his hands caressed her back. Then he shivered and that startled her so much she had to break the kiss.
Marietta stepped back and stared at him dazzled. There was a look in his eyes that she had never seen before. Tobias looked into her eyes as if searching for an answer to a question. Marietta knew the question and the answer made her shiver. Their gaze broke when a sound of applause erupted around them. She had to go back to work mode and quick. Marietta heard a loud whistle pierce the air she didn’t need to look at where it came from to know who made the sound.
“So do it like that.” She took Sarah’s hand and urged her closer to Tobias.
“Let him lead.”
Marietta felt like she would melt under Tobias’ intense gaze. His eyes were dreamy and filled with a lustful need and something else she couldn’t pinpoint. Her fingers touched her lips that had just been assaulted with pleasure she never knew existed. Chris was a good kisser but he never left her feeling like every single bone in her body had melted. Marietta spun around and half ran, half walked back behind the cameras.
“I thought you said you knew nothing about romance.” McKenzie chuckled.
“That was you.”
“So I guess that’s how you would want to be kissed,” he teased. “It’s a good thing I have it all on tape. It will serve as a practice manual, just in case I want to make you wife number seven.”
McKenzie’s teasing was making Marietta nervous, and it didn’t help that Jessie was now beside her, giggling in her ear.
“What do you want, Jessie?” Marietta felt like she was shrinking under Tobias’ intense stare, McKenzie’s teasing, Jessie’s giggles and everyone else staring with slack-jaws. She had to get out of there. She spun around and marched towards her jeep. Marietta was looking forward to the long ride to civilization. It was a good thing she decided to leave Jessie behind,with her gone they would need someone to reach her if they had any other questions or problems.
As soon as Marietta was in her hotel room she strippedoff her sandy clothes and tossed them in the laundry basket. When she turned towards the bathroom she caught a reflection of herself in the mirror. Her braids were a strange brown color. She was slender, but curvier than slim. Her fingers lifted to her lips and immediately she could taste Tobias kiss and that made her shiver. She didn’t understand how they could have had such a connection. In the three months they had been working on the movie they had stayed out of each other’s way. They only talked when it came to the script and nothing else. Marietta wasn’t interested in being a notch on his bedpost and Tobias sensed that. He seduced every other female on the crew except her.
At first Marietta thought it was a good thing, but after that kiss she felt insulted. What was wrong with her? Why hadn’t Tobias tried to approach her? She shrugged her shoulders and headed for the bathroom. Marietta let the warm water wrap around her as she tried to push any and every thought of Tobias Harden and their unfortunate kiss out of her mind.
****
What the hell?was all Tobias could think the rest of the day on set. He had kissed a lot of women, plenty of them, but he had never felt such a connection. At the risk of sounding cliché, it was like a lightning bolt that hit him right in the heart and his nether region. The gentle brush of his lips against hers was enthralling, lighting nerves everywhere in his body. He could feel her light up too, and the exchange of electric desire between them had been too incredible for him to pull away from.
He wanted her, he wasn’t sure in which capacity, but he knew he needed to be around her, to soak in her energy and whatever else there was between them. During the break he looked around for Marietta but he couldn’t find her. Tobias never fraternized with his bosses. On this movie, Marietta was his boss. He gave her the respect her position demanded. But now he wondered if he had given her too much distance.
“Hey, you are Marietta’s assistant?” he asked the young Latina girl he often saw hanging around Marietta.
“Yes I am.” The young lady beamed a cheeky smile at him that told him she was trouble.
He wondered why he hadn’t approached her yet. Tobias had managed to bed every single woman involved in the movie, Sarah Foy included. This assistant didn’t seem to have landed on his radar—or bed—and he promised himself to correct that. But now all he wanted to know was where her boss was.
“Where is Ms. Parks?” Referring to her formally, he tried to sound distant and respectful. He didn’t need anyone knowing what that kiss had done to him, “I needed to ask her about something in the script.”
“She went back to the hotel. I can call her if you want.” Jessie speed dialed Marietta and put her phone to her ear, “What scene is it?”
“Um... It’s a... the part just before I detonate the bomb. I feel like the words are not natural.” He winced as he spoke. Judging a writer’s choice of words wasn’t the best thing to do, especially if that writer was the executive producer of the movie.
“I will let her know.” Jessie flipped through her script and the schedule, “But we don’t shoot that scene until the day after tomorrow. She’s not picking up. Maybe you could ask her when you see her next.”
“Okay.” Tobias thought about asking for her hotel room number, but he didn’t want to sound too eager. He decided he would ask the coordinator instead. Marietta’s room number was bound to be written down somewhere. “Thanks.”
Tobias walked towards the director hoping that they were done for the day. There was a chance that there would be some reshoots needed and he was praying the kissing scene wasn’t one of them.
Tobias Harden had grown up under his father’s limelight and he needed desperately to be liberated from it. It didn’t happen until he changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name. His father understood and his mother just wanted him to be happy. When the movie roles rolled in he tried to keep away from anything that identified him with his father. But he soon noticed that to make it in this business he had to take whatever was thrown at him, but with great scrutiny. Action movies were his father’s pride and glory, so when the script to ‘Guns, Blood and Sex’ was put before him, he didn’t want it.
But once he read it, he found himself falling in love with the words, the scenarios and the creative imagination behind the whole story. Movies about rogue CIA agents saving the world were a dime a dozen, but there was something different about how this movie was written. He felt like he could almost feel the writer’s heart on the pages as he read it. He wanted to play the lead role more than he had wanted anything in his life. But once he saw the writer’s name he was sure he wouldn’t get it.
He had met Marietta before and was rude and callous towards her. He was still behaving like a Hollywood brat, but that was five years ago. He never thought she would give him the part. So the day he auditioned, he was nervous especially when she shooed him out of the room. He stared at all the actors waiting in the waiting room. He wasn’t a famous actor there, he was just one of them part of the crowd nibbling at their fingernails to be Agent Grayson. While he waited he could hear the name of Hollywood heavy weights been thrown around, Marietta’s dream list of the known and her favorite group of the unknowns.
He looked at the description of Agent Grayson at the top of the script and he shivered. Six foot, sturdy muscles, sandy blond hair and honey brown eyes. Tobias did a check list, he had brown eyes but he didn’t think they were honey brown, his hair was jet black but that could be fixed with some dye, he had the muscles but one thing he wasn’t was six foot tall. Tobias had given up on getting the part. If it was a different movie he would have gone back home after the audition and waited for the phone call. And if he didn’t get it, he would move on to the next script in his agent’s hands. But he wanted this part. He felt like he identified with the character, but it was the heart poured into the script that made him want it even more.
Tobias’ heart froze when the older casting director called him back into the room. He thought they were going to let him down, give him some privacy to break down and cry. He was established and they didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the newbie’s.So when he walked back into the audition room, he had his heart on his sleeve ready to beg for the part if he had to.
He almost fell to his knees when Marietta stood up and shook his hand. He could see her mouth the words but he didn’t believe he heard them correctly. “Congratulations, welcome to ‘Guns, Blood and Sex.’” He hung onto those words until he got to his Los Angeles luxury apartment. He didn’t celebrate until the script and contract were sent to his agent and he signed them. When he reported to the set after two months of pre-production training he was nervous about s
eeing Marietta again. She was on the set of another one of her movies while he and the rest of the cast were training for their fight scenes.
During the table read he sat as far from her as possible. Tobias thought she hadn’t recognized him yet, and he didn’t plan to get close to her until he was on film. Two months had flown by with them being cordial to each other, never exchanging more than two words of courtesy before getting down to business. Now he was on the set of her movie, shared a kiss with her and had been left more confused by the mysterious woman than ever before.
“Tobias!” The director cut through his thoughts. “We are done for the day.”
“Thanks, McKay!” He turned towards his jeep not sure if he would go to see Marietta that night. But his first stop had to be wardrobe.
“Toby!” Sarah called out.
“Don’t call me that,” Tobias snapped back.
“But you let the writer call you Toby.” Sarah frowned.
Tobias was beginning to grow tired of her. He had slept with her a couple of times during the three months they were making the movie. But to his defense he always approached every sexual encounter with a disclaimer. He was just there for fun and nothing else. That fun had once gotten him in trouble, sex tapes and fake pregnancies. So he approached each encounter the same way one would approach a bomb, with extreme caution. He packed his own condoms and did a sweep of the room before, or changed the meeting point at the last minute. He had grown wiser, but that didn’t mean he was about to give up his favorite pastime.
“What do you want, Sarah?” He kicked up the desert sand wondering how much of it he would need to stuff into her mouth so that she would finally stop talking.
“I was hoping that we could spend the evening in my room tonight.” She hugged his arm.
“I have a date tonight.”
“With whom?” she whined.
Tobias looked up and pointed at the first female he saw. “With her.” And just as he said it he wondered if he indeed had a date for the night and whether or not it was with her. The woman smiled and winked at him, but he still couldn’t recall who she was or her name. He stared at her breasts but they didn’t spark a memory. But when she walked by him, he stared at her ass and immediately a light bulb came on in his head. I know that ass. Sandy…Candy or…yes Cindy! “I have a date with Cindy.”
Denouement Page 2