Alpha Temptation: Sanmere Shifters Romance Collection

by Lola Gabriel

  Now she just made all of the right noises while secretly having a debate with herself about whether or not to just quit her job and be done with it. She was a little worried, though. What if Mandy was right and her next boss was as bad as Valerie, only the new job came without any of the perks? Maybe I should just work for myself, start my own business, Brianne thought. She dismissed the idea. She had no idea what product or service she could offer that wasn’t already being offered.

  “Is it true?” Mandy asked suddenly, pulling Brianne back out of her head.

  “Is what true?” she asked.

  “Duh. That Callin McKenzie is in the movie,” Mandy said.

  “Yeah, it’s true,” Brianne said.

  “Oh my God, you’re so lucky. He’s so hot,” Mandy drawled.

  Brianne shrugged and Mandy frowned at her.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you don’t think he’s hot!” Mandy exclaimed.

  “Of course I think he’s hot. I’m not blind,” Brianne laughed. “I just don’t think I’ll exactly be getting up close and personal with him.”

  Even if the opportunity presented itself for Brianne to get to hang out with Callin, she had no intention of taking it. Because she knew something that Mandy, like most of the world, didn’t. Something big. Callin was a dragon shifter, just like Valerie was, and that likely meant he would be an egotistical asshole, just like Valerie was.

  It was another reason why she was reluctant to leave her job. She didn’t know if she would be able to just quit like in a normal job, or if Valerie would end her, making sure she didn’t reveal any of her secrets. Brianne’s mom had been Valerie’s assistant before her, her grandmother before that, and to her knowledge, her great-grandmother before that. It seemed the only way to get out of working for Valerie was to have a child and pawn it off on them. And that wasn’t a path Brianne wanted to go down, and even if she did, it would be a long time until her child could take over.

  She knew that she should just accept her duty and let go of the feeling that she wanted out, but despite everything she told herself, she still couldn’t shake the notion that if Valerie was still as bad as she had been on her last movie set, she was going to quit. This time could go either way. In Valerie’s last movie, she had been far from the star. Brianne hoped that now that she was getting a chance to shine, she would be happier and therefore less bitchy. In reality, though, she thought it more likely that being the star would only make Valerie more of a diva.

  “Imagine getting up close and personal with Callin McKenzie,” Mandy said dreamily. She nudged Brianne and grinned. “Hey, if you get a chance to do it and you don’t want him, you totally have my permission to slip him my number and tell him I’m willing and eager.”

  “What about Greg and his proposal?” Brianne said.

  “Greg? Greg who?” Mandy grinned. “You think I wouldn’t swap a proposal for even one night with Callin McKenzie?”

  “Noted,” Brianne laughed.

  3

  Brianne hurried between the trailers that stood around the outside of the main building that housed the set and all of the departments. She was heading for Valerie’s trailer, sure she would be in trouble for something when she reached it.

  Valerie’s trailer was huge, the second biggest on the set after Callin McKenzie’s. And still Valerie had moaned about it. Not to anyone who could tell her she was an ungrateful bitch and that she was fired, of course, but she had moaned incessantly about it to Brianne. And she had managed somehow to make it all sound like it was Brianne’s fault. Brianne had nodded meekly and agreed with Valerie’s sentiment that the trailer just wasn’t good enough for a star of her caliber, but deep down, Brianne had found it hard to bite her tongue and not say what she wanted to say.

  She wanted to ask Valerie what exactly she expected. The trailer was not only huge, it was well equipped and the inside of it was all sleek wood and cream leather, tasteful and expensive looking.

  For a moment, Brianne had been left to wonder if that was how Mandy had felt last night when she was moaning about her job. She didn’t particularly want to examine that line of thought too deeply in case it turned out to be true, and so she had gone back to bitching internally about Valerie.

  Brianne remembered how she had also had to fight the urge to remind Valerie that she didn’t really have any caliber as a star. This was her first really big role, and although Valerie would never admit to as much, Brianne was almost certain she only got the role because she had Callin pull some strings. Valerie was the dragon pack alpha and Callin was a pack member—she likely commanded him to speak to the director of the movie to have her be cast in her role. And Callin was a big enough star that the production company would want to keep him happy, even if that meant hiring Valerie. They probably didn’t mind that much, really. Valerie wasn’t a bad actress, and she likely wasn’t as rude to the higher ups as she was to everyone she deemed to be below her on the set.

  Brianne shook her thoughts away as she tapped on the trailer door. She didn’t want to go in looking sullen and set Valerie off immediately.

  “What?” Valerie demanded.

  “It’s Brianne. I’ve got your coffee,” Brianne said.

  “Well, don’t just stand there like an idiot. Get in here,” Valerie snapped.

  Brianne pushed the trailer door open, telling herself Valerie hadn’t called her an idiot; she had just told her not to act like one. She knew she was clutching at straws, very flimsy ones, but she had to do something to stop herself from throwing the coffee over Valerie and telling her to go to hell.

  Valerie stood in the center of the lounge area of her trailer, fiddling with the white dress she was wearing. She looked up as Brianne came in. Brianne held the coffee cup out to her and Valerie made a tutting sound. She rolled her eyes and pointed to the table. Brianne set the cup down.

  “Does this make me look washed out?” Valerie demanded, gesturing at the white dress.

  Brianne studied her for a second. She had once made the mistake of answering with an instant no when Valerie had asked her if a certain dress made her ass look chunky, and Valerie had hit the roof, telling her she couldn’t possibly know that because she hadn’t even looked.

  Valerie was tall—way taller than Brianne, who was barely five feet four—and she had the sort of voluptuous figure most women would kill for. She was thin, but not painfully so, and her hips and breasts gave her curves in all of the right places. Sometimes, Brianne couldn’t help but compare her wiry frame and small breasts to Valerie’s figure and find herself lacking.

  The dress Valerie wore certainly accentuated her body’s features and she looked good in it, but did it wash her out? As a natural redhead, Valerie had pale skin, piercing green eyes, and bright red lips. In truth, the dress should wash her out, but somehow, it didn’t. The pink blush on her cheeks made her look anything but pale and the dress made her look both sensuous and vulnerable, sexual and innocent, all at once. In short, she looked great in the dress. Just like she looked great in everything.

  Brianne shook her head slowly and paused so she could time her answer just right.

  “No,” Brianne said when she judged the right amount of time had passed for Valerie to accept she had really looked. “In theory, it should, but it doesn’t.”

  Valerie reached up and fluffed up her loose curls.

  “I’m not convinced. We’ll see how it looks under the studio lighting,” she said.

  She picked up her coffee cup, opened the lid, and took a sip. She grimaced as she swallowed and slammed the cup back down. Liquid sloshed over the sides of the cup and began to form a pool around the cup on the table.

  “God, Brianne, that’s freezing cold. What the hell have you done with it?” Valerie demanded.

  “It’s a twenty-minute drive to the coffee shop because you don’t like the coffee on the set or the coffee from the place down the road,” Brianne said. “I came straight here after purchasing it, but it’s too far to drive for it to stay warm
.”

  “It’s not good enough,” Valerie said. “I have standards, Brianne, and I expect you to know and respect them.”

  “What…?” Brianne started.

  “For goodness’ sake,” Valerie snapped. “Next time, take a thermos and have them put the coffee in there. God, Brianne, do I have to think of everything for you? Would you like me to make some calls for you, just in case you actually have to think during one of them?”

  Valerie fixed Brianne with a look that made her feel cold inside. Brianne felt tears coming to her eyes and she blinked them back quickly.

  “A thermos. Of course. I’m sorry,” she said.

  Valerie rolled her eyes again.

  “Don’t start with the water works. You need to toughen up, girl. Now, come on. I’m due on set in five minutes and I want to go back to make-up and make sure I won’t look washed out in this color.” She paused to give Brianne a disgusted look. “And I suppose now I’ll have to do that before I have my coffee.”

  With that, Valerie flounced out of the trailer. Considering she was wearing a fairly tight dress and skyscraper heels, she moved quickly and seemingly effortlessly. Brianne hurried after her, struggling to keep up with her even in her sneakers.

  “The door,” Valerie said, glancing back over her shoulder at Brianne. “You didn’t lock it.”

  “You told me not to lock your dressing room door on the last set. You said it was annoying having to unlock it every time you wanted to go back in,” Brianne pointed out.

  “Nonsense, Brianne,” Valerie said. “Why would I need to worry about unlocking it? That’s why I have you.”

  Brianne just stared at her for a moment, and Valerie rolled her eyes again. She made a shooing gesture with her hands.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? Go and lock the door. Quickly now,” she said in a tone that made Brianne feel like she was five again.

  She turned away quickly before she said something she knew she might end up regretting. She ran back to the trailer and grabbed the key from the hook beside the inner door. She locked the door and turned back. Valerie had already disappeared from her sight and she sighed as she began to run toward the set.

  She hurried through the winding corridor toward the hair and make-up department. She spotted Valerie sitting in front of a lighted mirror, a member of the make-up team touching up her blush. Valerie spotted her in the mirror and gave her a wry smile.

  “Ah. Nice of you to join us, Brianne. Did you bring me a bottle of water?” she said.

  “I… no. You didn’t ask me for any water,” Brianne pointed out.

  “I thought it would be obvious I would want it,” Valerie said. “You know, Brianne, a good assistant can anticipate their boss’ needs.”

  Brianne gave her a stiff smile and turned away, heading to the cafeteria. No one could anticipate Valerie’s needs unless they were psychic. Brianne still remembered the last time she had brought Valerie a bottle of water without being asked for one. Valerie had gone off on a rant, asking her if she thought she looked dehydrated and then giving her a lecture about how she wasn’t a child and if she wanted something, she was perfectly capable of telling Brianne what it was.

  I so need to quit this job and just take my chances that I’m allowed to do that, Brianne thought to herself as she opened the large fridge in the corner of the cafeteria and pulled out a bottle of water. Reconsidering, she grabbed another one so that Valerie had the choice between still and sparkling. If she chose for her, the choice was bound to be wrong. She hurried back to the make-up department to find Valerie gone.

  “Do you know where Valerie went?” Brianne asked the make-up artist.

  The woman gave her a sympathetic smile.

  “She said she was going to the set for her first scene,” she replied.

  Brianne thanked her, more for the sympathy than the answer to her question, and she hurried back the way she had come. She found Valerie on the set, arguing with a member of the camera crew. Unlike Brianne, he made no secret of the fact that he didn’t much like Valerie, and as Brianne got closer, she heard a little of their exchange.

  “Don’t you think the shot would have a better angle if you filmed from over there?” Valerie said, pointing.

  “Nope,” he replied. “If I thought that, then I’d be over there, wouldn’t I?”

  “But…” Valerie started.

  “Listen, I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, so don’t you try and tell me how to do mine, okay?” the camera man said. He winked at Valerie, who looked taken aback by his audacity. “The last person who tried that got a hell of a lot of footage of her bad side.”

  Valerie opened her mouth and closed it again. She spotted Brianne and stormed over to her. She snatched the bottle of sparkling water from her hand without so much as a thank you.

  “Did you hear how he spoke to me? This place needs to really rethink their hired help,” she snapped.

  “I think around here, lady, you’re the hired help. We can find a thousand pretty women to stand and recite lines. This job actually needs a bit of skill,” the camera man called out.

  Valerie made a humph sound and grabbed Brianne’s arm, pulling her away from the man. Brianne looked over her shoulder and smiled at the camera man, who gave her a thumbs-up.

  As they walked, Valerie took a sip of the water. She spat it out instantly and threw the open bottle on the ground, spilling water everywhere.

  “Sparkling? Are you kidding me?” she gasped.

  “I didn’t know which one you wanted so I brought both but you didn’t give me a chance to tell you,” Brianne said as Valerie turned to her and snatched the other bottle away from her.

  “Whatever,” Valerie said. She pointed over her shoulder at the spilled water. “Clean that up before someone slips in it.”

  Brianne could feel tears in her eyes again as she rushed off to find a mop. She was so angry at the way she was being treated and she knew the answer to her musings from yesterday now. Being one of the stars of the movie was definitely making Valerie worse. She was already at the point of being unbearable and she hadn’t even filmed her first scene yet. And no one could say Brianne was being paranoid. The make-up artist had seen it and the cameraman had seen it too.

  Having cleaned up after Valerie’s tantrum, Brianne had spent the rest of the morning running around grabbing her things (all of which brought a complaint in one form or another), making calls, and sending emails. The final insult had come half an hour before the session was due to wrap up. Valerie had commanded Brianne to go to her trailer, unlock it, and get the air temperature just right. Of course, she hadn’t specified what temperature the right temperature might be, opting instead to tell Brianne to use her brain when she questioned her on the subject. If Brianne did that, she would get in her car and drive off the set and never look back.

  After she had made an educated guess and set the temperature to the number she thought was about right, she had to go back out to the coffee shop and get the coffee in a thermos this time. Brianne had done everything that was asked of her, and now she sat in Valerie’s trailer, waiting for her to return. She was sure something would be wrong. The coffee wouldn’t taste right or the trailer would be too hot or too cold. Knowing Valerie, it could well be all three of those things, despite the fact that two of them contradicted each other.

  She heard Valerie’s heels clicking across the ground outside of the trailer and she braced herself for what she knew was about to come. The door opened and Valerie stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind her. She immediately rolled her eyes and moved to the thermostat.

  “Honestly, Brianne, can you do anything right?” Valerie said in a long-suffering voice as she turned the heat down a couple of degrees.

  “Yes,” Brianne said. “I can quit.”

  She surprised herself as the words came out of her mouth, but she felt glad that she had said them. Valerie just laughed at her.

  “No, you can’t,” she said. “And we both know
why.”

  She picked her coffee up and began reeling off a list of tasks that she needed to be completed like Brianne hadn’t even spoken. Brianne felt a shiver go through her at the implication behind Valerie’s words and almost subconsciously, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and began noting down everything Valerie was saying to her.

  Valerie took a sip of her coffee and wrinkled her nose.

  “This isn’t a skinny one, is it?” she said.

  In another of her whims, Valerie, who had once thrown a cup of coffee over Brianne because she was so sure she hadn’t used full fat milk in it, had now decided she only drank skinny lattes.

  “It most definitely is a skinny one,” Brianne said. “I watched the barista pour it myself to be sure it was right.”

  “So you think I’m fat?” Valerie said.

  “What? No,” Brianne replied. “I didn’t say that. I just know how you like your coffee. You can’t seriously be upset with me for that.”

  That seemed to push Valerie over the edge and she began to rant and rave at Brianne. Brianne just stood there, her mouth hanging open in shock, watching the vein in Valerie’s head pulse and her face redden with anger. She barely heard the words; they just washed over her. She definitely had to quit and as soon as she could get a word in, she was going to tell Valerie she was serious about quitting, and if that meant she lost her protection from the bad guys of the supernatural world, then so be it.

  She had to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling when she pictured herself telling Valerie she needed to calm down because the red shade of her face really didn’t suit her skin tone. She decided against actually saying it, but it sure would have been fun to watch Valerie wrestle with deciding between unleashing more of her temper or trying to make her face look normal again.