“You eaten?” Ben asked.
“No.” He should have eaten on the flight. Scarfed down one of the three options that the leggy blonde waitress had proposed. She’d wanted him. All but fucked him with her eyes. But he’d felt DeLuca’s eyes on him, definitely heard the warning that the man had voiced as soon as the blonde had waltzed into the back, her hand trailing across his shoulder. “Don’t even think about,” DeLuca had barked. “Three months,” he’d said. “Give me three months, then you can screw porn stars into oblivion.”
Three months. Crazy to think that this might all be over by then. A lifetime together so easily torn apart and broken down into line items and billable hours. He had nodded at DeLuca like it was nothing.
“There’s a restaurant right next door to the bed and breakfast. We can grab something to eat there.”
“A bed and breakfast? That’s where I’m staying?” He glanced over at Ben.
“Just temporarily,” Ben hurried. “It’s the nicest place in town. The Kirk—the home we have reserved for you will be available at the end of the week. We just weren’t expecting you this early.”
“Yeah,” Cole said shortly. “Me either.” He slowed, turning down the street Ben pointed out. Before them, Quincy stretched out, in all her beauty, the lights of Main Street twinkling at them through the dusk.
A thousand miles west and three thousand miles above Oklahoma, Don Waschoniz sipped a Crown and Coke and shifted in his seat, his overactive bladder making its presence known. He reclined his seat a little and closed his eyes, determined to get a little sleep before landing.
CHAPTER 35
A quarter past eleven o’clock that night, my phone rang. I muted the television, and picked up my cell. “It’s late,” I whispered at Ben.
“I know, but I know how anal you are about calling before I come.”
“Before you—” I yanked back the covers. “When? Why? I swear to—” I stopped talking, catching a glimpse of myself in the dresser mirror. My face was pink, my eyes alive, body tense with anticipation. I stopped my death threat. “Talk,” I finally spit out, and my voice sounded the way it should: irritated and in control.
The background of the call changed, and there was suddenly static and road noise. “Summer,” Cole Masten’s voice spoke, arrogance and order in every syllable. “I’m picking up Don Waschoniz, The Fortune Bottle’s director, in twenty minutes from this pisshole you call an airport. Then we’re headed to you. Meet us outside in thirty. If you can sell him on your sweet demeanor, then you can have the role and name your damn price. If not, then tell me now, and we’ll set up auditions on every corner of Quincy, and you can watch the excitement from your front porch. It’s up to you, babe.”
“Five hundred thousand.” Any posturing had left my voice, and it was just him and me, with only the road noise between us, as I waited for his response. “That’s what I want, and I’ll do it.”
The engine noise faded, the roll of tires still keeping me informed of their progress. “Fine,” Cole said, his voice sharp. “Five hundred thousand.”
Ben was suddenly back, his voice hushed. “Bye, Summer.”
I hung up the phone and stared across the bedroom at my reflection. Then I lay back against the bed and silently screamed my excitement to a quiet and empty room.
Five. Hundred. Thousand. I was terrified to say the giant sum aloud, my earlier bluff called in his quiet steps off my porch. But I had won. He had taken it, and I was in. Assuming the director liked me. I sat up with a jerk. This fight still hadn’t been won. Not yet.
I pushed off the bed and stood.
CHAPTER 36
By the time they picked up Don Waschoniz (ten minutes late), gauged his mood (irritable), got him convenience store coffee because this town didn’t have a Starbucks (big mistake), Cole’s stress was at an all-time high, centered mostly on the enigma that was Summer Jenkins. She had accepted the role, but would Don like her? And would her attitude scare off the director?
He glanced away from the road, at his cell. He had insisted on driving, had informed Ben that he’d be, from that point on, the one to drive. He was sick of being ferried around like a delicate star. And here, in the country, real sweat actually damp against his shirt, he was beginning to remember what it felt like to be an actual man, not just Hollywood’s version of one.
They rounded a curve, and the headlights picked up deer eyes—ten or more sets of them. He cursed and applied the brakes. The car skidded to a stop, and Ben’s hand braced against the dash in an unnecessary, dramatic fashion.
Cole looked out the window, at the dark stretch of nothing before him. He realized, as a baby deer bounded over the ditch and across the field, that he hadn’t thought of Nadia in hours. Refreshing.
He looked back at the road. Waited for one last slowpoke, and then gunned the car into drive, their turn just up ahead.
When she opened the door, the scent of apples wafted out. Apples and cinnamon and sugar. Cole stood before her, blocking the doorway from the other men, and inhaled. “Is that...?”
“Apple cobbler,” she said with a smile. A smile. A second knock to the unstable foundation on which he stood. “I didn’t have time to make pie. I hope it’s all right.” She moved to the side, and he stepped in, turning to see her greet Ben with a hug and shake Don Waschoniz’s hand. A smile. First time he’d seen a natural one of those cross her face. It was a beautiful look on her, her cheeks flushed, hair down. She had on jean shorts with a flannel long-sleeve shirt, the sleeves rolled up, the shirt’s first three buttons undone, showing a hint of cleavage. Her feet were bare on the sparkling linoleum floor, and he glanced around the house. It was perfect—every couch cushion in perfect place, a lit candle on the dining room table, the countertops wiped clean, one dish atop the oven, covered in a white embroidered cloth. His stomach growled, and he stepped closer, lifting the edge of the cloth. A wisp of heat floated over his face, and his stomach growled in response. He felt a pang of something, deep inside, a hole he hadn’t known existed, and he dropped the cloth, stepping away, turning back to the small living space. A home, that was what this was. Had he ever had one? The nineteen thousand square foot mansion in Malibu, the New York apartment where he and Nadia had fucked like rabbits, the house in Hawaii… all shells. Empty shells of sex and ambition. He felt her move toward him, felt a soft touch of her hand. “I invited the boys to the porch,” she said. “Would you like to join them? I’ll cut some cobbler and serve it out there.”