A Midsummer Night's Fling (Much Ado about Love #1) (2 page)

T
he door coming
toward his face was not a total surprise, or, at least, it shouldn’t have been judging by the previous few minutes. Unfortunately, this time Max wasn’t far enough back and the door connected smartly with his nose.

He didn’t get smashed hard, just enough to make his pride hurt.

Yes, it had been a while since he’d seen Nicola. When things had ended between them, she’d basically said,
Don’t call me. And I won’t be calling you.
But still, they’d never been only a couple—they’d been good friends too. They’d grown up together from teenagers to young adults to stupid twenty-somethings. Well, stupid in
his
case. You’d think after all this time, she might have been even a little happy to see him.

Were you happy to see her?

He grimaced. A fair point. If his boss hadn’t told him to get Nicola or else
,
he wouldn’t even be here. Wouldn’t have come within ten miles of Nicola. Still, despite the difficulties between them, he thought by now he and Nicola could be friendly to each other. Maybe even actual friends.

How long has it even been?
He counted back…
Five years
. “Shit.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and stared at the dingy whiteness of her door. The door did not move. “Shit.”

Low voices sounded from the other side: Nicola talking with her friend, the tattooed Asian girl.

Clearly, his original strategy was not working. What could he say or do to get Nicola to open the door? He tapped one knuckle against the wood, not knocking, just thinking.

An image of Nicola as the door had first swung open distracted his mind’s eye. Seeing her had been like stepping back in time. Five years, but she still matched his memories of her. Soft brown hair, longer than she used to wear it in grad school, now grown past her shoulders and falling in waves to frame her heart-shaped face. A pair of very fine brown eyes, large and glinting with intelligence. High Grace Kelly cheekbones marred slightly by a small scar from childhood chicken pox. And her lips, bow shaped and full, pursing when she stared at him, then scrunching in a frown right before she swung the door closed.

Just…beautiful. Even working in the entertainment industry, even being thrown together with beautiful women as a matter of course, Nicola was still the most breathtaking woman Max had ever seen. Beauty on a whole other level. Grace and poise you could float in. Statuesque as Galatea come to life.

And still with the single most perfect ass ever created by God. Or man, for that matter.

Max rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the feelings off, but awareness of her itched under his skin, insistent and accompanied by a crashing wave of simple, profound pleasure, which had swamped him at the sight of her.

I’m in trouble.

He wasn’t here for
that
. Not for anything approaching
that
. In fact, he’d thought he’d shaken
that
particular brand of feeling altogether, or he wouldn’t have come.

If he didn’t need so badly for her to cooperate, he would have already turned tail and run. She was beautiful sure, sweet when she wasn’t pissed at him, but the two of them…

He pressed his thumb and middle finger against his eyes, then circled his fingertips in to pinch his nose. Forget
that
. He wasn’t falling into this tiger trap. No way. He had a mission, and he knew—he fucking
knew
—that despite her feelings about him as the messenger, Nicola would want to hear what he had to say.

Also, he was screwed if she didn’t listen to him. So he really had to get her to open the door. His cell buzzed inside his pocket. He glanced at the number, then accepted the call. “Hi, Rita.”

“
Mijo
, did she say yes?”

“No.”

Rita made a disgusted sound on the other end of the phone. “You did it all wrong.”

“I’m trying, boss, but she slammed the door in my face. Twice.”
Well, three times
. But no need to tell Rita everything.

“You did break her heart, mijo,” Rita pointed out. “
Twice
. What’s a little door slamming between friends?”

He rubbed his nose, which was still not quite happy after being banged with a door. “How am I supposed to convince her to play Titania for you when she won’t open the door?” He hunched his shoulders against the wooden frame in defeat. “I didn’t get any further than ‘I have a job for you.’” And damn if that didn’t hurt more than a door to the face. Were things so bad between him and Nicola they couldn’t even talk to each other?

Silence prevailed on the other end of the phone. When Rita did finally speak, her voice was slow and low, which made the hair on Max’s neck prickle in warning. He recognized a pre-rant voice when he heard it. “Let me get this straight,” Rita said. “You go to talk to your ex, a woman you dated off and on—”

“More on than off.”

“—off and on for eight years. A woman you proposed marriage to. After five years of not seeing her, you try to make nice to her with, ‘Mi belleza, you want a job?’”

“Pretty much.”

“
Ay dios mio
.”

“Rita, she was being impossible. Slamming the door in my face. Screaming.”

“Maxim, I need her. I trusted you with this because I thought you were ready for more responsibility. How can you be my assistant, how can I teach you anything if you can’t even talk to an actress?”

He swallowed, sourness in the back of his throat. Rita was the first person to trust him with a good opportunity since he’d been blacklisted by the studios all those years ago, and now he was blowing it. “I am ready, Rita. I won’t let you down. I won’t let the company down. I’ll…” He trailed off, abruptly aware of the intense quiet on the other side of the door. He wasn’t yelling, but he
was
an actor. His voice was deep. Sound carried.

Rita had started another rant about social niceties, empathy, putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, but Max rode over her Atticus impression. He pitched his voice louder than before, angling his head toward the door and making sure the juicy tidbits of his offer were emphasized, “Yeah,
Rita
, Nicola wouldn’t let me tell her anything about the
project
. She wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell her she’d be playing
Titania
. At the
Rosalind Shakespeare Festival
. For you,
Rita Payan de Nunez
.”

The apartment door swung open behind him, and he fell backward, pretty much ass over elbows. Lying on his back on the apartment’s hard floor, he stared up into his ex-girlfriend’s face.

“You win,” Nicola ground out. “Tell me more, Fiesengerke.” She paused. “And say hi to Rita for me.”

“Hi, Rita,” he said into the phone, watching Nicola.

“Bye, Max.” Rita clicked off, her satisfied smirk practically beaming through the phone to him.

He sat up, draping one arm over his knee, and grinned at his ex-girlfriend. “Hello again, Nic.”

* * *

T
he Rosalind Shakespeare Festival
. Wow. Just wow. Nicola could barely process anything Max said after that. The RSF was one of the best renowned theater companies in California, on the West Coast
period
. It was a performance of
Romeo & Juliet
at the RSF, watching Isabella Elton perform Juliet, which had made Nicola realize she wanted to be an actress. Basically, here was Max offering Nicola her dream job on a silver platter.

But what was the catch?

Nicola allowed Max to pass over her threshold, wondering as she did so if, like inviting a vampire into your home, she had compromised the integrity of her apartment.

As he stepped inside, she became aware Max was bigger, more ripped than he’d ever been in the past. He’d always towered over everyone, but now he seemed built on an entirely different scale than the rest of humanity. In his jeans and fitted dark blue shirt, it felt as if Hercules were trying to run around masquerading as a mortal man, costumed in faded Levi’s.

Oblivious to her discomfort, he pushed aside the stack of papers she’d been sorting and sank onto the foot of her bed—the only guest seating her miniscule studio apartment had to offer. Besides the toilet.

He explained that the actress who’d been cast as Titania had had to drop out when she landed a small but prestigious film role that required her to leave the country.

Cassie went to lean against the bathroom door, hovering near Max and listening. But mostly ogling Max.

Ignoring her friend, Nicola frowned at Max as he stared guilelessly back at her. “All right, Max. Why me? There must be actresses already in the company who want this part.”

He shrugged, his massive shoulders rising and falling like some kind of geological event. “This is the tent-pole production of the company’s summer season. We need A-level talent, and none of the girls already in the company are up to snuff. Rita knows you, she’s had you in a lead role before,
and
you’ve played Titania—”

“In grad school.”

As Nicola said it, Cassie shot her a shocked look from the bathroom door, which was basically,
Why are you sabotaging yourself?

Nicola pretty much felt the same way: furious with herself for being so childish. Still, as juicy as this opportunity was, Nicola didn’t want anything to do with anything that had to do with Max.

Max was a trap, a dungeon, a freaking oubliette. She’d barely managed to survive leaving him five years ago. She didn’t know how to process this, how to deal with him. She was swimming in cognitive dissonance. Part of her was glad to see him. Part of her was squealing with joy at the opportunity he was offering her.

And part of her wanted to punch him in the head and throw him out of her apartment.

“Which one is
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
?” Cassie asked, turning toward Max with a polite smile.

Traitor
. Nicola glowered.

“It’s the play with the fairies,” Max explained. “Puck. The two couples run into the forest, and the fairies meddle so people keep falling in and out of love with each other. Nicola would be playing the fairy queen—”

“I didn’t say I’d do it!”

“Whose estranged husband, the fairy king, casts a spell on her so she falls in love with a man who’s got the head of a donkey. And much wackiness ensues.”

Cassie frowned, thinking. “Wasn’t Christian Bale in that movie? He took his shirt off.”

Max gaped at Cassie in horror.

Nicola bit back a grin. “Cassie isn’t much for Shakespeare. You didn’t used to be either, Max.”

“I’m a reformed character,” he said, his voice going warm and low.

Nicola shifted, feeling her cheeks heat.
Liar
.

“
You
love this play, Nicola,” he said. “You know Titania’s lines.”

She folded her arms, annoyed by his calm certainty that he still knew anything about her. “It’s been
years
. I’ve forgotten the lines.”

He cleared his throat, then said, “‘But if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.’”

The answering line from
Midsummer
leapt into Nicola’s head. She fisted her hands against her sides. After a brief struggle with herself, she murmured Titania’s responding line, “‘Out of this wood do not desire to go: Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.’”

Cassie gaped at her easy recital, but Max nodded, gloating because he had won the point. “We have three weeks of rehearsal left, then it’s Dress and Tech. We need someone who can hit the ground running.”

“Three
weeks
? How many weeks of rehearsal does the RSF do?”

“Seven.”

“That’s pretty nice.” Every moment they spent talking, Nicola’s adrenaline spiraled higher and higher, leaving her light-headed with excitement.

Titania. With Rita. With the RSF. Seven
weeks
of rehearsal? Sometimes you only got three, which left barely enough time for everyone to get the lines memorized, never mind perfect their performances. Oh, she wanted this job. Bad.

Clawing for sanity, she stared at Max, her mind clicking over options, ripple effects. Rita wouldn’t have sent Max if he wasn’t in the show himself. He was in the thick of this plot. No doubt.

Nicola wanted to jump headlong into this opportunity, ignoring any potential consequences. Longed to, really. But after five years of striving to be wiser and not just older, she had learned to look down and think hard before she leapt. “Who’s playing Bottom?” she asked Max, suspicious. Titania had most of her scenes with Bottom, the character who gets turned into a donkey. Max was the wrong type for Bottom, who was usually performed by a character actor, but Rita often played around with expectations in her casting choices.

“Gilbert Dodgson is playing Bottom,” Max said promptly. Too promptly. “He hasn’t done much theater, but he’s a stand-up comic. Really funny guy.”

Nicola stepped closer to Max, staring him down. The other character who had several scenes with Titania, including what could be termed a “love scene” depending how the director staged it, was Oberon, king of the fairies. “If I did this, who would be my Oberon?” Nicola pitched her voice high and sweet, smiling at Max even while her eyes glared.