“That was mine.” Right. That’s what I was going with. The whipped cream he’d just tasted off my face was mine. At least I was semi owning the situation, right?
Reid smirked, biting down on his lower lip. What was with him and his plump lips! “Oh, sorry, I can always give it back.” He leaned forward.
My body rejoiced while my mind went on complete lockdown.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” I pushed against his chest. “This relationship is professional. No seduction allowed. Besides, it doesn’t work on me.”
He shrugged. “Really? Are you saying you’re immune to my charms?”
“Yup.” Was he flexing? The “Hallelujah” chorus really needed to stop chiming in my ears.
“I always love a good challenge.”
“I’m not waving a red flag in front of you, Reid. I’m just being honest. Now get back to set before you get fired.”
“See ya later.” He stepped back and winked.
I didn’t react.
I stayed immune to his charms while I watched him walk all the way down the hall and out of sight.
And when I was positive he was gone . . .
I sank into my chair and let out a little whimper.
CHAPTER FIVE
REID
Theater camp had been forced on me at a young age. Both my brother and I had no choice but to spend the entire summer spouting Shakespeare while normal kids got to go to actual camps where things like s’mores and campfires were allowed. Theater camp was all about the competition, about being better than everyone else. Agents attended our summer finale, and that’s how I ended up on Broadway.
It was fun.
Until the schedule started stressing me out.
And then the movie offers very slowly started rolling in. I rejected most of them until this one caught my eye. I was always a sucker for contemporary Shakespeare remakes.
And this one was a personal favorite.
The Taming of the Shrew.
Mona, the actress who starred opposite me, was anything but a shrew. In fact, she was probably one of the nicest women I’d ever met. Too bad she was happily married with three kids.
I grabbed my script for the day and hurried down to set. My meeting with the PR firm had gone longer than I thought, thanks to my insane obsession with trying to make my new publicist blush or yell—really either worked for me. She wasn’t one of those women that immediately caught your eye, but she had a silent beauty with her big full lips and perfect hourglass shape specifically designed to drive men wild, compliments of those damn pencil skirts she kept wearing.
Muttering a curse, I continued walking toward Central Park, where part of the filming was taking place. I could have sworn I passed at least a dozen women all wearing pencil skirts. Maybe that’s what Max meant when he said the universe was plotting against me.
The only woman I had hit on in the past two months—and she just so happened to be off-limits.
Maybe she was one of those girls who had a hard-shelled M&M exterior, and I just needed to crack it. Or find another nut completely.
Wait, somehow she’d changed from a blue M&M to a nut. I really needed to get more sleep.
And stop fixating on her rejection.
My phone buzzed in my pocket just as the set came into view.
“What?” I barked into the phone.
Max sighed. “So, how’d the meeting go?”
“Are you really playing the concerned brother right now or are you just bored?”
He yawned. “Actually I’m in the bathroom and I thought, hey, what do I do when I want to cheer myself up? Call Reid.”
“I cheer you up?”
“Absolutely.” A toilet flushed in the background. “You always cheer me up. Wanna know why?”
“Because I’m awesome?”
“No, no, that’s not it.” Water turned on in the bathroom. “It’s because your love life is so depressing. It makes any sort of bad day that I have seem like a tiny blip on the radar. Tell me, how was that cold bed last evening? Did you cry yourself to sleep?”
I rolled my eyes. “I just got back to set, I don’t have time for this.”
He sighed heavily into the phone. “Look, I have an idea.”
“Your idea got me rejected last night.”
“No, this one’s better.”
“I highly doubt that.”
One of the PAs waved me over. I held up my hand.
“You’ve always wanted that house in the Florida Keys, right?”
“Wait, what?” It was hard to keep up with him sometimes. “What does that have to do with your idea or my rejection or cold bed?”
“Everything!” Max shouted. “Do you not listen? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Max, tell me the truth, are you drunk at work?” Max had recently taken over the Emory hotel empire and was literally bored to tears because it ran so efficiently that he said he needed to find a hobby lest he hang himself from the ceiling of his multi-million-dollar office. I had a sinking feeling I was the new hobby.
“Listen well, young grasshopper.” His voice had taken on a thick indistinguishable accent. There was a reason only one of us was currently acting for a living. “The house was given to me. You got the one in Seattle. Our parents, bless their hearts, had no idea I hate Florida and you hate the rain. They would if they ever listened or read any letters I sent them, or even just, you know, attended family dinners on Easter, Hanukkah, Presidents’ Day—”
“Max!” I yelled. “Get there faster!”
“Oh.” He coughed. “Right.” More coughing. “Well, we’ll trade. I’ll give you the deed to the Keys home, you give me the deed to Seattle . . .”
“What’s the catch?”
“You.”
“Huh?”
“One relationship that lasts longer than one month. I think that a secure, solid relationship might do you some good. Ever since Grandma—”
“We promised never to utter her name again,” I said in a hoarse voice. “You promised!”
Max cursed. “Sorry, man, ever since the incident.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he said in a soothing voice. “You’ve been as jumpy as a goldfish in a tanning bed.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and made my way toward the PA. Max was famous for taking ten years to explain things.
“Anyway.” Was he whistling? “One month. You stay committed to one girl for one month and the house is yours.”
“One month?” I repeated.
“Thirty days, give or take a day,” he explained. “Unless it’s a leap year or February. Wait, is it February?”
I let out a groan. “September.”
“Whatever.” The phone line cracked. “I’m losing you. My office is like a freaking dungeon. I’ll start sending the girls—”
“The girls?” What? He was sending who? “Max? Max, are you there?”
“Ha . . . fun!”
“Max!” I had a really bad feeling, the kind you get after getting hit on in prison by a bearded lady.
“Reid!” John, one of the many PAs on set, flagged me down again. “It’s time for the wedding scene!”
“Shit.” I shoved my phone into my pocket.
“Head over to wardrobe.” He gave me another script. “And note the changes in the vow section.”
“Got it.” I quickly scanned the pages. “Oh, John, before I forget, my new publicist is going to be stopping by. Go ahead and just send her to my trailer when she gets here.”
He gave me a thumbs-up and trotted off.
CHAPTER SIX
JORDAN
I brought his coffee. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because in my mind it meant a fresh start. One that had nothing to do with him hitting on me or me being responsive to his charm. It was a coincidence we met at a bar first, but now it was all business. Maybe the fresh start was more for me than him. I needed some sort of symbol that what was between us was business and that I was completely capable of playi
ng nice.
Coffee. It was a peace offering, as if I’d just walked into the UN building wearing a MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR T-shirt. I bring him coffee, offer a smile and a pat on the cheek, and suddenly we’re best friends. Laughing at each other’s jokes. I scratch his back, he scratches mine.
It made sense.
After all, he was a man.
Men are easy.
Taking care of a male actor? Even easier. It was like selling cake to a cake shop. As long as I stroked his ego, kept him well fed, and made sure he was in bed at the proper times, I really never had any issues.
My job was kind of like being a nanny to the wealthy.
Did you take your pills?
Did you eat breakfast?
Remember, you have a peanut allergy! And yes, there are peanuts in peanut butter.
Oh, I’m sorry, you’re on a diet. No, cheese isn’t a vegetable.
Nap times are encouraged, yes.
No, you can’t stay up to watch yourself on Jimmy Fallon. Of course, I’d love to tape it for you!
See what I mean? Easy.
And Reid. Well, with his good looks, I could only imagine his brain, or lack thereof, was about as small as the rest of the men I worked with. How hard could it be? He was my meal ticket, my gold-crapping goose, my yellow brick road.
“Miss.” Some geeky-looking techie charged toward me, alternating between giving me the stink-eye and talking into his giant walkie-talkie. “You can’t be here.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m here to see Reid Emory. I’m his—”
“Oh!” The man held up his hands. “No need to explain.” He blushed a bright red. “I’ll just show you to the, er, rest of them, and he can, um, take it from there, I guess?”
“Sure?” Clearly the poor soul was overworked, but I wasn’t one to judge considering the morning I’d had. I followed him wordlessly through the band of vehicles and trailers.
“Must say . . .” Nerdy guy coughed into his hand. “I’ve heard of actors really taking on roles in a serious way, but I never thought it would be this . . . intense, you know? Everyone’s talking about it. On set, I mean.”
“Talking about it?” The hairs on my arm prickled. “His devotion, you mean?”
“Oh, yes.” Could the stars in Geek Man’s eyes get any bigger? Reid was an actor. He hadn’t discovered a new planet! “I mean, ever since this morning.” He shook his head as his eyes welled with tears. “He’s a legend, a legend in the making. Everyone thinks so.”
“Right.” I was starting to get a little uncomfortable with the hero worship. I’d had a few people on set stalk my actors, and it wasn’t a laughing matter. Terrifying was more like it.
“And the women.” Geek Guy’s eyes went wide. “Well, they’re crazy! I mean, no offense.”
“On behalf of women everywhere, I accept your apology.” I licked my lips and decided to take a sip of my coffee. I needed something to do, something to distract me from shaking the small man and asking him to walk faster and stop talking.
“Well.” He held up his hands. “Here’s the trailer. You’ll have to fill out a form like the rest of them. Reid’s cautious like that.” He elbowed me in the side. “And I’ve been told by Max, Mr. Emory’s personal assistant, that if you’re in the running we’ll get back to you in four to seven days.”
“In the running?” My eyes narrowed in on the ten or so girls standing around the small trailer. “The running for what?”
“The shrew, of course.” Geek Guy shrugged. “You know, for the taming.”
“The—” I choked. “Taming?”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s why you’re here, right? To try out for the real-life part of Shrew in Mr. Emory’s dating calendar? It’s already hit all the big news stations. To think, he’s taken it this far so that he can know the true emotion that goes into taming a woman.”
“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth. “Because that’s what all women want, to be tamed.”
Geek Guy nodded sympathetically. “It’s not your fault you’re mean.”
Holy shit on a stick! I was going to fillet Reid Emory with a machete, then set him on fire! What? In the span of a few hours after signing his name on the dotted line, he’s already doing his own messed-up PR stunt? I stopped walking. Wait a second. With a groan I pulled out my phone. I’d forgotten to put a Google alert on the guy. I furiously typed in his name. Rage washed over me. Twitter alerts popped up all over the place, along with TMZ, Fox News, Kelly and Michael. I placed a hand against my chest and told myself not to freak out. It, whatever it was, would blow over.
I clicked on the first article just as the geek guy spoke in hushed tones into his headset. He led me a few more feet, then stopped.
“I gotta run back to set, but Mr. Emory should join you shortly. Try to keep it to a three-question minimum. After all, you’re technically trying out for the role of a lifetime. To think! Mr. Emory’s real-life girlfriend! And it’s all going to be documented on YouTube!”
“YouTube?” Reid was dead. So dead. Deader than dead. Pretty sure that meant the contract was now void, considering I no longer had a client and I couldn’t exactly work for someone who was no longer breathing. Strangulation. That’s what I was contemplating.
“See ya!”
I turned on my now stable heel—thanks to the shoes I kept in my desk for unlucky situations like this morning—and glared.
Ten women, all beautiful, all Botoxed within an inch of their lives.
“Get in line!” one of the girls spat. Ah, the shrew speaks.
Pretty sure I’d be grumpy too if I had someone poke my face with needles while I tried to stuff my curvy body into Spanx ten sizes too small for my body.
“Yeah.” A short, blonde-headed witch turned in my direction. “We were here first, and Max said that . . .”
I was seriously going to find whoever this Max was and beat him with a baseball bat.
Max, why did that sound familiar?
Max, Max, Max.
“Max!” I shouted. Then I stomped my foot.
“Shit, what did my brother do now?” Reid said from behind me.
I was about to answer when the girls all but lost their minds and dignity and started shouting, “Pick me, Pick me!”
“This isn’t kickball,” I muttered under my breath.
“If it was”—Reid winked—“you’d be the ball, you know because of your hair—oh, wait, that’s a frizz ball.”
“Funny.”
He grinned. “No, seriously, why are these women shouting?”
“For you.” I patted him on the back. “Something to do with the real-life taming of a shrew? Oh, and tryouts.” I looked down at the sheet the geek had given me. “And apparently we need to list our food allergies. I can’t eat shellfish. That gonna be a problem?”
“What the hell?” Reid jerked the sheet out of my hand and scanned it, his face paling by the second. “Who knows about this?”
“Everyone!” one of the girls squealed. “I was at the gym on the elliptical—”
“Of course you were,” I said under my breath.
Reid leveled me with a glare and cleared his throat.
“You were?” I said in a fake cheerful voice. “On the elliptical reading Cosmo, huh?”
“How’d you know?” She jutted out her bony hip, then pouted. “Anywaaaays . . .” She dragged out anyways like a pubescent teenager at a One Direction concert. “I was on the elliptical.”
“She said that already,” I whispered.
Reid elbowed me.
“When”—she clasped her hands in front of her—“I saw it on the noon news! ‘Up-and-coming actor Reid Emory takes Method acting to the extreme!’ I wasn’t the only girl either. Tons of us started screaming when they gave us the location and what you were looking for, and honestly, I may look sweet, but I can be a real bitch. I mean, that’s what a shrew is, right? And you’re going to tame me . . .” She full-on purred the last sentence as she blinked heavily in Reid’s direction.
“Something in your eye?” I asked sweetly.
Reid grabbed me by the elbow and led me away. “Just a sec, ladies.” He hauled me around the trailer and cursed. “Do something!”
“Wait, what?” I jerked away from him, spilling coffee onto the ground. “I should kill you for this!”
“Please, that’s what you do! You spill things!”
“How do you even know that?
“Chocolate stain, right corner of your shirt, near your ear.”
“Why!” I yelled into the universe.
Reid held his hands up. “Look, I know this has been somewhat of a bad morning for you, but if we don’t fix this . . .”
“We can’t just say it was a practical joke, now can we?” I tried desperately to keep my voice even.
Screaming erupted. We both peeked around the trailer to see hair pulling and one of the girls banging her fists against her own chest. Her boobs were immobile.
“Huh.” Reid frowned. “That’s not normal.”
“Nothing about this is normal,” I hissed as one of the boobs in question made an appearance. “How is it that we’ve been working together for less than three hours and you’re already a bigger pain in my ass than the clients I’ve had over the last five years?”
He smirked. “I guess I’m just that special.”
The crying got louder.
Reid looked like he was ready to cry himself.
“Okay, okay.” I handed him his coffee. “Drink this and I’ll figure it out.”
“If we don’t pick one, I have a feeling we’re going to be worse off.” Reid shook his head, then took a long sip. “Oh, wow, you actually remembered.”
“Best friends, you and me, until the six months of filming and postproduction are complete.”
He held up his hand for a high five.
I flicked it away.
He jutted out his lower lip.
“I’m ignoring the pout.” I closed my eyes so my treacherous body wouldn’t lean toward him.
“Holy shit,” Reid murmured. “They’re rocking my trailer.”