wanted to talk to you about Mac Harrison,” Claudia said by way of kicking off the conversation.
Grace started in her seat and tried to will away the blush that she could feel rising into her cheeks. There was no way that Claudia was about to tell her to stop using him as her convenient virtual stud. No one could know what she’d been doing in the privacy of her apartment last night. No one.
It didn’t stop her from blushing, however. Ducking her head, she pretended to have an itchy nose.
“Right, Mac Harrison. The actor who plays Kirk on the show,” she said, fumbling for time.
Claudia gave her an odd look and Grace winced mentally. Probably pretending to not be familiar with one of the show’s biggest stars was not the smartest way to appear natural.
“Yes. That Mac Harrison,” Claudia said dryly. “What did you think of the blocks he directed recently?”
Grace blinked a few times, trying to work out where this conversation was going. Mac had directed two five-episode blocks since he’d put up his hand to step behind the camera. Both had been good—inventive, interesting, tight.
“Does he want to do more?” she hedged.
“His agent has approached me. You still haven’t answered my question.”
Grace fiddled with the hem of her 1950s-era sundress. “They were good, strong. He brought a lot of energy to it,” she said honestly.
Claudia smiled. “I’m glad you liked his work. He’s a big fan of your scripts, too. It’ll make the whole process much smoother.”
Grace frowned, feeling as though she’d just missed something very important.
“Um, what process?” she asked hesitantly.
“Well, you’re writing the script for our feature-length wedding episode,” Claudia explained.
“Yessss,” Grace said slowly, beginning to see the yawning chasm that loomed before her.
“And he’s going to direct it.”
Grace’s whole body went hot, then cold.
“You’ll have to work closely with each other—he’ll be on light duties on-set and we’ll get in an extra body to take over some of your usual workload so you can do reconnaissance with him for location shoots and anything else that’s necessary. I want this to be the best wedding the Boulevard has ever done,” Claudia said with determination.
“Right. The best,” Grace repeated numbly.
She felt blindsided. For twelve months, she’d used Mac Harrison as the personification of all her sexual desires. She’d had sex with him in her mind a hundred different ways, cried his name out as she climaxed, gone to sleep with his image in her mind. All despite never having met the man.
And now they were about to become each other’s shadows.
Why did she feel as though she’d set herself up for the fall of a lifetime?
2
MAC PULLED INTO the visitors parking slot at the Boulevard’s Santa Monica office and switched his ignition off. Instead of getting out of his car, however, he sat for a moment listening to the tick-tick-tick of his engine cooling.
He was nervous. He felt like an idiot as soon as he admitted it to himself. It had been a long time since he’d felt the peculiar mix of adrenaline and expectation that was pumping its way around his body right now. He’d stopped being nervous about auditions roughly three years after he’d left his cushy, high- paying role on the show—that was about how long it had taken Hollywood to suck his hopes and dreams out of him. It was hard to feel nervous about something when you knew you didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of achieving it.
He forced himself to acknowledge his feelings. Claudia Dostis was entrusting him with the most important episode of the year—a feature-length, stand-alone wedding episode that was supposed to knock everyone’s socks off. And she’d chosen him, a still-wet-behind-the-ears novice to direct it. When she’d called to tell him her decision a week ago, he’d thanked her, written down the appropriate details and discussed his studio schedule with the production manager to ensure they could work his shooting schedule around these new directing commitments.
He’d read through the story line they sent him, made notes, come up with some ideas of his own. But it was only now that he was sitting here, about to commit himself wholly to the project, that he could admit to himself there was a very real chance he wasn’t up to the challenge she’d offered him.
He was a novice. He’d directed ten episodes, and now they wanted him to make their big special shine. Frankly, he thought they were crazy handing their baby to him.
Of course, he could always say no. He could tell Claudia that he didn’t want or need the hassle. This whole directing thing had only ever been a diversion, after all, something to stop him from banging his head against the wall in frustration.
He could start the car up and drive away from it all. If that was what he wanted.
The door of his ’57 Corvette complained with a metallic squeal as he stepped out. If he sat around contemplating his navel much longer, he was going to be late. Grabbing his notebook, he headed toward the building entrance.
With the decision made, some of his nervousness dropped away and he realized that underneath his uncharacteristic adolescent self-doubt there was a buzz of anticipation, the yin to the yang of his nervousness. He didn’t have to look far for the source—he was about to meet Grace Wellington.
He’d been reading Grace’s work for the past year and every time he picked up a script with her name on it his curiosity and his respect for her had grown. She was the best writer on the show, hands down. She only penned one every now and then—she was obviously absorbed with her duties as script editor—but when she did, it was like a beacon in the night. The dialogue sparkled, emotions ran deep, laughs were sincere. She could write.
He’d whiled away a lot of long, boring hours in his dressing room wondering what she was like, the woman who put down words with so much energy and life and power. It was hard to get a bead on her, since there were so many different facets to her writing.
For starters, there was the sexy, sizzling, witty banter that delighted an actor. That Grace Wellington struck him as savvy and confident, a man-eater in red silk garters and stilettos.
Then there was the wry humor that she managed to inject into every episode. When he dwelt on that aspect of her writing, he thought of messy hair, big smiles, hot cocoa and woolly sweaters.
Then there was the wrenching emotional content of her scenes. She always managed to strike a chord, helping him dig deep to find the humanity in any story, no matter how soapy or silly. That woman he imagined as razor sharp, dressed in minimalist black with a bent for double-shot espressos and books by dead Russian authors.
He was looking forward to meeting her, to satisfying his curiosity about the mystery woman behind the scripts. He also figured that if he was going to have to jump headfirst into the unknown on this project, it would help to have the show’s best writer by his side.
For the first time
