Love, Chloe (13 page)

He glanced down, then shook his head, a wry smile crossing his lips. “Ah—no. I live here. C9. Perks of the job.”

Oh. Of
course
. “Lucky me. I guess I can find you whenever I need you.” As soon as the response came out, I felt the blush creep along my cheeks. I rushed to cover my words. “Going out?”

He smiled. “Just down the block. Whiskey Tango. It’s my friend’s place.”

I nodded. Whiskey Tango. Fancy shmancy. God, he looked hot. And he lived in the building; that was a fun fact. C9. Not that I’d ever need his room number.

“You gonna make it upstairs okay?” He looked at me carefully, probably wondering why I was still standing, staring at him.

I nodded, trying for a casual smile. “Yeah. Of course. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

He waited until I got on the elevator, the gesture sweet, and I waved a goodbye as I stepped on. In the moments before the door closed, I heard the front door settle and wondered, the elevator starting its ascent, if he would return home alone.

C9.

C9.

C9.

Interesting.

Not that I’d ever need it.

Week two of being on
Boston Love Letters’
set and I already felt so much smarter. Most of my education came from Hannah who took me under her bubble-gum-smacking wing. The rest of my education came from watching, leaning my butt against any spare surface and collecting as much information as I could.

The movie was about Jenna (played by Nicole) a middle-aged waitress who started getting love letters from a stranger. The stranger ended up being Mark (played by the talented and gorgeous Joey Plazen), a younger guy who lived across the street and watched her every day through his window. Which, in normal life, would be totally creepy, but it was
Joey Plazen
, so of course it’d come across romantic and sexy.

And it really
was
big budget. Like, an actual gonna-be-in-theaters movie. While Nicole strutted around like she was big shit, I kept my mouth shut and tried to not mess up. I hadn’t yet found out what Clarke wanted me to watch out for, but I spent all my time stuck to Nicole’s side. Taking notes when she barked. Texting Hannah when I was lost.

I was mid-text, doing exactly that, when I first met Joey Plazen.

“Hey.”

I didn’t lift my head. I couldn’t. I really, really needed to know where Set 14 was, and what the hell a stinger was, because Nicole needed one on Set 14 “ASAP.” I finished typing out the questions, adding extra question marks for urgency, then pressed SEND, looking up in agitation once it went through.

Any chance I had of responding was stuck in my throat. Joey Plazen was the actor who kicked Brad Pitt’s career to the curb. The guy who raced cars on the weekends when he wasn’t sunning himself on his two hundred foot yacht. The guy who bed costars without apology, got in street fights (and won), and who went full-frontal in his last role, an action movie that had no need for penis-flashing but whose ticket sales absolutely exploded as a result. I’d gone with Vic to the theater. Squirmed in my seat when Joey had pulled off his shirt, revealing a rippling set of perfect abs. Audibly gasped when he pulled at the drawstring of his pants and ditched the sweatpants, revealing pure freaking perfection between his muscular thighs. It was never a good idea to audibly gasp with Vic. Talk about passing a blowtorch to an arsonist.

He’d reached over. Slid his hand up my thigh, underneath my skirt, tracing his fingers lightly over the lace line of my panties. I’d pushed his hand away and he’d resisted, exploring further, the pads of his fingers persistent as they nudged past my underwear and pushed inside. I felt his breath, warm against my neck, the bite of his teeth as he nipped my neck. “You like him?” he’d whispered, his voice gruff, too loud in the silent theater, and I’d shushed him, digging my nails into his arm as I squirmed in my seat, his fingers knowing exactly how I liked it. I’d cursed his name as he pushed me further and further along the edge of oblivion, watching the movie through half-closed eyes as Joey Plazen had fucked his costar. I’d watched until the absolute last moment, when my head hit the back of the seat, and I’d fully succumbed to Vic’s touch.

I blinked the memory away and tried to focus on Joey Plazen’s face without thinking of what lay beneath his jeans.

“Hey,” I finally managed.

“You’re Nicole’s assistant, right?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“Cute.” He peered down at me. I said nothing, not crazy about his tone. “You mute?”

“No.” I pushed myself to my feet. “Can I help you?”

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Keep your boss out of my way.”

“Out of your way?” That’d be difficult to do, seeing as they were co-stars.

“Yeah.”

I laughed. “Okay,” I intoned, in a manner that left zero doubt as to my sincerity.

“I’m serious. She doesn’t belong here.” Joey Plazen’s sexiness was taking a serious nosedive. “And I need lunch.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I think you have an assistant.” My phone lit up, Nicole’s ringtone playing, and when he glared at me I almost laughed. God, I’d seen that glare so many times. Threatening bad guys. Scowling at love interests. I’d seen it enough that there, on the set, surrounded by fake backdrops, it had no impact whatsoever. “Got to go,” I sang, answering the phone and stepping away, any response from him lost in the bark of Nicole’s greeting.

Right before she ended our call, I glanced back over my shoulder, but he was gone.

“Joey’s
pissed
.” Hannah popped her gum and wrapped a hand around my arm, pulling me into a dark spot between two trailers.

“Why?” I didn’t look up from my phone, time short. In fifteen minutes, we needed to be at an all-cast meeting where our great director, Paulo Romansky, would finally make his first appearance. I didn’t want to be late, not with the thin ice that Nicole seemed to be on. The more I found out on set, the more I discovered exactly how disliked Nicole was by cast and crew. We were talking serious hatred being spewed, and it wasn’t for lack of her trying. She’d been bending over backward to try and win over hearts. We’d brought in sushi and afternoon cupcake deliveries, hired on-set masseuses, and she paid for everyone’s drinks at the bar around the corner on Friday night. Nothing helped. No one wanted her here. The general consensus, whispered over scripts and coffee, was that she had bought her way onto the project. Poured some condom dollars in, saved the movie’s financing, and got herself a starring role.

But regardless of their snide comments and her crappy résumé, I knew that the woman could act. I’d watched her beam at Clarke. Giggle and wrap her arms around his neck. Lie so smoothly that if I didn’t know the truth, I’d have believed every word. I hadn’t seen her boyfriend since that day on the street, but I’d been paying attention, noticing the lies about her whereabouts and the extra cell phone she carried in her purse. She couldn’t play the part of the devoted wife so well without acting chops of some kind. Maybe
Boston Love Letters
was her chance to really show them off. Maybe now, with all of the pieces in place, she’d actually move into the limelight she seemed to so desperately crave.

“I can’t talk Hannah, we’ve got that meeting—” She kept tugging me aside, like she had something urgent to say.

“You can’t do that—just blow him off.”

It took me a minute to remember who she was talking about. Oh, right. Joey Plazen. I dismissed her concerns with a laugh. “Whatever. He needs to get over himself. No offense, but your boss is an asshole.”

Hannah’s eyes widened and she sucked in a deep breath of air, her dark purple nails biting into my forearm. I noticed, a moment too late, that she wasn’t looking at me, but
behind
me.

And then I heard the devil himself speak.

“You girls done with your chat?”

I grimaced, watching Hannah mutter an apology and dart out into the light. I stood, cornered and chilly in the shade, and crossed my arms. Screw his Oscar, screw his looks. I was sick of entitled assholes. “I’m sorry. Is chatting not allowed?”

“Not when you’re on the clock.” His frown enhanced his dimple, a dimple I once had stuck to the inside of my locker. “The meeting’s about to start.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him.

“Then I guess we should get to work.” I smiled brightly and turned sideways to squeeze past him. He stepped back and stalked toward the meeting.

Diva
. I killed a few minutes fishing for a pretend something in my purse. Once enough distance was present, I followed suit, glancing at my watch as I moved.

I arrived to the meeting late. I tried to slip into the back of the room, but no one budged to accommodate my scrawny ass. The room was packed—stuffy and hot despite the freezing temperatures outside. I ended up in the doorway, my hand gripping the frame just so I could crane my neck over a crew of teamsters.

Someone in front was talking, an unfamiliar voice droning on about call times. I found Hannah a few heads over, and raised my eyebrows in greeting. She gave me a small smile. “Who’s that?” I mouthed, pointing a finger forward, over the crowd, to the guy talking. They should have given the guy a box to stand on or something.

“Romansky” she mouthed.

Duh
. I should have figured. But, with all the hushed drama around this guy, I expected his arrival to come paired with glittery spotlights and a marching band. Last week, he’d been in Japan, the set a clusterfuck of activity without its director, everyone prepping for the filming that would start tomorrow. Hannah turned back to the front, her clipboard up, pen moving, and I bit my bottom lip.
Crap
. Clipboard. Paper. Pen. All items that were sitting back in Nicole’s trailer. All items a good assistant would have, especially for a meeting like this. I heard the director rattle off a list of meetings and times, and I whipped out my phone and tried to type, tried to save at least one appointment. There was a low chuckle from my left and I turned to find Joey Plazen shaking his head at me. I felt the itchy crawl of embarrassment heat my cheeks. He tapped on a shoulder and the crowd parted, crewmembers crawling over themselves to clear a path, his steps moving easily toward an empty chair that looked like it was reserved for him.

Through the parted bodies, the hole beginning to close, I got my first glimpse at the man at the front of the room, our director, the famed Paulo Romansky. A man I had seen before, one fateful afternoon back on the Upper East Side: Nicole’s hipster boyfriend.

Everything suddenly made sense.

Nicole’s secret fling.

Clarke’s stern directive to watch her on set.

Her role in a big budget film where she didn’t belong.

The pieces fell into a big arrow that pointed directly to the man at the front of the room. Nicole was sleeping with the director. It was so obvious I was almost insulted.

How stereotypical could she be? Everyone was walking around snidely suggesting that she’d bought her way onto the film, but
oh NO
. It was so much worse. Especially since Romansky was also married, to one of those Victoria Secret models with insured legs. I had a moment of pity for his wife but I’d seen plenty of photos of her. She’d bounce back. Literally. Her return to glory would be the perky boobs-in-a-million-dollar-bra type of bounce back.

I lost sight of him and tried to spot Nicole over the scores of heads, over a hundred people crowding the room. So many people and Hannah said there’d be even more once filming started. I gave up on my search for Nicole and slumped against the doorframe.

I needed a drink. I couldn’t imagine this meeting ending and having to face Nicole. Not when my face was getting all flushed and itchy and it felt like I was going to—of all things—cry. Cry! Where in the hell did
that
weakness come from? It wasn’t like I was emotionally invested in Nicole’s marriage, wasn’t like I’d just discovered the affair. But now that I knew who he was, it seemed even worse. Did Nicole even
like
this guy? Or was he just a stepping-stone she took to get this role? I could handle an affair for love, but cheating on Clarke for a role—that was where my brain stopped working.