Mansour considered it for a moment. “It depends where you are; in some countries, it’s considered improper for a woman to smoke hookah. In others, they have separate cafes where they go, and spend the afternoon.” Mansour took another bite of the lamb stew he’d served himself before continuing. “Anyway, enough about my culture; tell me, what’s your favorite movie?”
As they spoke about their passions, Riley was surprised to find that she had much more in common with Mansour than she would have expected; they both liked the same bands, and many of the same movies. Riley thought about the fact that Mansour was in a category of his own, in terms of wealth, and the fact that he boasted about camping out in front of a venue to make sure he was up front for a standing room only concert was entirely different from the image she had of how wealthy people operated. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why he didn’t just use some of his vast fortune to hire someone to camp out for him, or even pay his way backstage, but she realized that it was probably an impertinent question. It amazed Riley to realize that Mansour—who had easily ten times the money and power that Alex did—was sweeter, funnier, and a kinder person overall.
As dinner wore on, their conversation turned to their respective pasts.
“I went to Yale, partly to piss my parents off,” Mansour said, grinning.
“It pissed your parents off for you to go to Yale?” Riley shook her head at the idea of it; her parents would have been beyond thrilled if she had gotten into an Ivy League school.
“Yeah, they wanted me to stay in the country, or be educated in Europe—France or Switzerland, maybe Germany.” Mansour shrugged. “But I wanted to stretch my wings, get as far away from home as possible.” He sipped his tea. “Not because of any kind of problem with my parents, but I wanted to do my own thing.”
“I can understand that,” Riley said, considering. “My parents wanted me to go to college, study something I could make a career out of—business, or accounting, or something like that. It was always my dream to be in movies; I came here straight out of high school and haven’t looked back.” She paused for a moment and then grinned ruefully. “Of course, considering how well I’ve done with this acting career of mine…”
“It takes time,” Mansour said, his expression solemn. “I’ll admit, it helped a lot to have the kind of money it would take to make my own production company…” He shrugged. “But even then, it took time for me to get established. You’ve only been working at this for three years, Riley; you have plenty of time to become a major star.”
“Well, thankfully for me, I managed to serve expensive meals to the executive producer of a huge, blockbuster film,” Riley said, gesturing to Mansour with a flourish. “The first step on the way to a real career.”
“I think I would have wanted to cast you anyway,” Mansour said. “The lobster just made it more important.” He laughed. “The casting process was absolute torture—and there’s a possibility that we’ll have to do another casting run in a few weeks, since some of the scenes have been changed.”
“Oh really?”
Riley felt her cheeks warm slightly and hoped that the dim light of the restaurant covered the reaction. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, realizing that Mansour was giving her freely the exact kind of information that Alex wanted from her—information she’d told herself she would certainly not get on a first date.
“Yeah, some of the scenes as they were originally written are proving harder to film than we expected, so we have to make changes—and that means shifting around some of the cast.”
Riley sipped her tea and came to a quick decision. “I doubt you wanted to talk shop on a date,” she said, raising an eyebrow in playful challenge. “What’s the next show you want to go to?”
Mansour dropped the topic of the film readily, and Riley breathed easier, keeping the conversation on the personal instead of the professional and pushing any thought of Alex’s proposition out of her mind. They lingered over their dinner, and as full as she was, Riley couldn’t decline dessert. Fortunately the desserts Mansour ordered were light—refreshing, simple flavors that seemed to go down without straining her stomach.
Hours later, they left the restaurant hand in hand, and Riley settled into the seat of Mansour’s car in drowsy satisfaction. She was so happy, so content that she almost felt as though she’d been drinking—even though the restaurant didn’t serve alcohol. Anyone who can make me feel tipsy just from being funny and charming and filling me up with delicious food has to be a good person, she thought as Mansour navigated the downtown streets to find his way back to her building. Riley’s heart had started being faster as they got closer to her apartment, and she tingled all over; would they kiss? Would he want to come up to her apartment?
As Mansour pulled into the entrance to her building, Riley saw a man standing near the door. She frowned at the sight of him; he wasn’t familiar, although the features on his face in the brief glare of light from Mansour’s headlamps were so bland that Riley thought she would forget him five seconds after meeting him. He was dressed in black, his dark jeans faded and ratty-looking, and Riley wondered just who he was and what he was doing, loitering outside of the building.
Mansour pulled up and put the car in park where the entrance to the building met the parking structure. “I don’t like the look of him,” he said, and Riley realized he’d noticed the loiterer as well. Mansour turned to look at her. “Do you want me you walk you up to your apartment?” Riley’s face warmed slightly. The next moment Mansour’s eyes widened and to Riley’s astonishment she thought she saw him blushing as well. “I don’t mean to make it sound like I want to get you alone or anything…”
“It’s fine,” Riley said, suppressing the giggle that rose up inside of her. “Sleazy-looking guys hang out around the building pretty often, and I’m used to seeing them when I come home late at night—perils of being a waitress.” Mansour nodded slowly. “I did have an amazing time tonight, though. It wasn’t what I was expecting—in a good way,” she added quickly. “We should do something like that again soon.”
“How about next Friday? Assuming the shoot doesn’t run over, I mean.”
“I’d love that,” Riley replied.
She leaned in a little bit closer to him, wondering if Mansour was just being polite—and if he was going to make a move on her. Mansour tilted his head and his cheek brushed against Riley’s for a moment before his lips connected with her skin, warm and soft. Riley pressed her lips to his stubble-rough cheek, her face heating up with a mixture of excitement and anticipation at being close to him—even if it was only a kiss on the cheek.
“I’m going to stay in the car until you get in,” Mansour said. “I might be acting a little high-handed, but I would hate to drive away and find out after I get home that you were hurt.”
Riley stared at Mansour for a moment in surprise; it was such a simple, sweet gesture—something she wouldn’t have even thought of, and caring in a way she wasn’t used to. Acting on impulse, she leaned in again and instead of kissing his cheek, Riley brushed her lips against Mansour’s. For just an instant, he froze, and Riley had just enough time to dread that she’d overstepped a boundary before he began to kiss back.
In moments Riley forgot everything; the world around her ceased to exist as Mansour slowly, carefully deepened the kiss, his hands trailing softly over her body but stopping short of groping her. For what felt like an eternity, they explored each other’s lips and tongues, their hands tentative on each other’s bodies, as the heat rose between them. Riley felt herself starting to tremble and clung to Mansour even more tightly, nearly overbalancing over the console between their seats.
The sound of a horn blaring behind the car cut through the moment and Riley broke away from Mansour’s lips breathless. She looked over the back of the seats and saw the headlights of another car, blocked from entering the parking structure by the position of Mansour’s Jaguar.
Riley giggled irrepressibly, leaning against
Mansour’s shoulder and shaking in the aftermath of their passionate kiss. She heard Mansour chuckling too, felt his hand on her back, warm and friendly and reassuring, promising more.
“I should probably get out of his way,” Mansour said finally.
“Yeah,” Riley agreed. “He’s liable to get out and start something if you keep him much longer.”
Mansour hugged her quickly and brushed his lips against her cheek, sending a new thrill of sensation through Riley’s body.
“I’m going to make him wait long enough for you to get inside,” he told her firmly. “But maybe you should be quick—I don’t know if I can fend off two different attackers at once.”
Riley laughed and slid back onto her seat, gathering up her purse. “Goodnight,” she said quietly, opening the car door and climbing out of the seat on unsteady legs.
True to his word, Mansour stayed right where he was; Riley heard the other driver lean on his horn twice, and heard him shouting something about rich assholes, right up until she stepped through the door into the building. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Mansour pull away, finally giving the other driver clearance.
Riley shook her head, grinning irrepressibly, almost giggling again as she made her way to the elevator, feeling as though she was lighter than air, as if she might actually glow in the dark.
ELEVEN
Riley stepped through the door to her apartment and spun around in place as she closed it behind her, giggling softly to herself. The date with Mansour had been the best date she’d been on in years—maybe ever. “Wow,” Riley said, sighing as she leaned back against her front door. She couldn’t stop smiling, remembering moments from throughout the evening, especially the kiss.
She gathered herself up and walked through the living room and into her bedroom, humming quietly. “Oh man, it’s been a long day,” she said to herself, unzipping her dress and tugging it over her head. After all the stress of the day’s shooting, and the excitement of the date, Riley felt exhausted. She went into the bathroom and debated taking another shower, or maybe a long bath, with Epsom salt and essential oils, something to soothe the lingering aches in her body that even Mansour’s kissing skills hadn’t been able to rid her of. “If I do that there’s a good chance I’ll fall asleep in the tub and drown,” Riley told herself, shaking her head. She decided to keep things simple: wash her face to get the makeup off, brush her hair and teeth, and curl up in bed for a good night’s sleep.
As she wiped the makeup off of her face, Riley’s giddiness began to ebb, and her thoughts turned inexorably back onto Alex. She had managed to forget about him entirely through almost the whole night with Mansour, but she realized that if it got back to him that she’d been on a date with the executive producer, he would absolutely put pressure even more on her to feed him details. If she continued dating Mansour, Riley was certain that he would inadvertently give her plenty of confidential information; he had told her a few things that very evening that she knew Alex would be very keen to know about.
“It’s not fair,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. Riley could hear the whining note in her voice, but she didn’t care. “I get this great opportunity, and then Alex comes along and…” she sighed. She had to admit that the opportunity that Alex had dangled in front of her was—at least on paper—even better than the bit part she had in Galaxy Wars. “And now I meet this great guy, and he turns out to be my boss.”
Riley scrubbed at her face more firmly than she intended, until every trace of makeup was gone and her skin felt tight and shiny. She brushed her teeth, slathered moisturizer on her skin and finished undressing as she ruminated on the situation she found herself in. Even three months earlier, she would never have believed that her luck could change so drastically in such a short time.
Stepping out of the bathroom and back into her bedroom, Riley pulled on a nightgown and sighed. There was no doubt in her mind that as soon as Alex found out about her date with Mansour, he would pressure her to give him as much information about the executive producer as humanly possible.
As she sat down on the edge of her bed, Riley’s stomach turned over inside of her at the thought of telling Alex anything at all about Mansour. Even though she’d only met him earlier that day—at least formally—Riley had never felt such a strong, sudden connection with anyone. Even with Alex, it had taken her time to really feel something for him, in spite of all of his charm and flash. “I can’t do it,” Riley said to herself out loud. “I can’t.” She shook her head; it was bad enough that she was risking her future career by essentially spying on the company that hired her. It would be far worse to betray Mansour directly, especially when he’d been nothing but kind and sweet to her from the very beginning.
She curled up in bed, silently counting off the things that she was giving up in the process; there would be no big role with Empire State, there would be no half-million dollars to float her financially for years to come while she worked her way up the celebrity ladder. But there might be some happiness with Mansour—and even if it never went beyond a few dates, she would at least have her integrity. After what seemed like hours, Riley finally fell into an uneasy sleep, thinking of how she could extricate herself from the agreement she’d made with Alex—and if that was even a possibility for her now.
TWELVE
The next morning, Riley woke up earlier than she would have expected, her heart beating fast from a dream that escaped her as soon as she opened her eyes. The most she could recall was that she was trying to drag heavy weights, straining every moment while a shadowy figure continually added more to the pile she was expected to carry.
Riley sat up in her bed and looked out through the window; there wasn’t much of a view, but the sun was unmistakably up, yellow light streaming through the blinds. Call it off. You have to. Riley took a deep breath and sighed. She knew it was the only way she could move forward—but she also knew that Alex would try and talk her out of it. “Eat some breakfast, get some coffee in you, and get it done,” Riley told herself—words she had heard from her mother on more than one occasion when she had dug her feet in and tried to avoid something.
Riley decided that as soon as she was fully awake and aware, she would call Alex and inform him that she wanted out of the deal. She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, rubbing at her face. “Breakfast first. Though talking to Alex might make me want to throw up,” she said, grimacing.
Just as she was adding cream and sugar to her coffee, after setting her skillet onto the stove, Riley heard her phone buzzing in her purse, where she’d left it the night before. She frowned to herself, trying to decide who it could be; her heart beat faster with excitement at the idea that it might be Mansour, calling to propose their next date or just to talk. But Riley shook the thought away, reasoning it was more likely one of her friends, or someone from the production team calling to confirm some detail of shooting in the coming week. Riley turned the burner on the stove off and debated whether or not to answer. If it is Mansour, I definitely don’t want to miss this. Riley hurried to the table where she’d left her purse and fumbled through the contents until her fingers closed around the phone.
Unfortunately, the name on the screen wasn’t Mansour’s, nor was it one of her friends. It was Alex. “Shit,” Riley murmured. She wasn’t ready to talk to her ex-boyfriend. “Well, no time like the present,” she told herself, taking a deep breath. Just before the phone finished its final ring before rolling over to voicemail, Riley tapped the ‘accept’ icon flashing on the screen.