Susan Andersen - Playing Dirty

She knocked back a sip of coffee, set her cup on the table and, hands flat on either side of the mug, leaned into them in her intense need to make her friends understand why she’d agreed to do the last thing they’d expect from her. “Look, I’m not exactly raring to play personal concierge to Cade myself. But it’s work I can do with my eyes closed and he’ll pay me a weekly bundle for it, plus a huge bonus if the documentary comes in on time and on budget.”

“Even if he’s on the up-and-up, how on earth are you gonna deal with seeing him day in and day out?”

“By being the biggest professional you’ve ever seen. By reminding myself that if all goes well, I can finally pay off that frickin’ balloon payment that’s been hanging over my head.”

Remembering a discussion with Cade last night that she had almost enjoyed, she flashed her dimples at her friends. “One of the things I’m genuinely excited about is an agreement I made to talk with Cade and his scriptwriter about Miss A to get her part as authentic as possible. So tell me what you guys would like to see included about her.”

After an enthusiastic conversation about their mentor, Ava looked at her watch and pushed back from the table. “I know this is a bombshell and I’m sorry to drop it on your heads and run, but I’m meeting Cade again this evening at my lawyer’s to go over the fine points in my contract and discuss my job description in more detail. Until that’s taken care of, I don’t plan to sign anything.” Rising to her feet, she looked down at her two friends. “We good?”

“Of course we are.” Poppy stood as well and gave Ava a hard hug. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“Not gonna happen,” she promised.

“Don’t forget dinner at Dev’s and my place next week,” Jane added as she, too, rose to give her a hug. “And you step carefully around that man, you hear?”

“I will,” she said, pulling on her plum-colored Steve Madden wool peacoat, flipping up the collar and picking up the plum, blue and green scarf Poppy’s mother had made her to wind around her neck. “Love you guys.”

She headed for the door, but paused to shoot her friends a cocky smile over her shoulder. “And don’t worry! I’m gonna kick some serious booty on this job.”

I didn’t think I’d ever get used to being in the mansion as an owner after Miss A died. So how weird is it that it feels so strange to suddenly be here as an outsider?

Nine weeks later

“SHE HERE YET ?”

Beks Donaldson, Cade’s production assistant, was slow to pull her attention away from the chart she was putting together at the kitchen table in the Wolcott mansion. By the time she craned around to look at him over her shoulder, he was seconds from tapping the face of his watch with his forefinger—that detested, time-is-money gesture his old man always used to use on him. Fuck. He’d sworn he would never do that to anyone else, so what the hell?

Annoyed by his slipping control, he found it didn’t help his mood that while Beks didn’t roll her gray-blue eyes, she somehow managed to convey the impression of doing so.

But all she said before turning back to her chart was a mild, “No.” He noticed she also refrained from reminding him that he’d interrupted her work less than ten minutes ago to ask the same damn question.

“She’s late,” he growled at the feathered tips of Beks’s Harley-Davidson shield n’ wings tattoo showing on either side of her nape above the neckline of her sweater.

“Uh-huh.”

Okay, he was being an idiot. But damn Ava Spencer anyway for keeping him waiting. He considered giving Beks a you-don’t-even-wanna-mess-with-me look, but she didn’t bother to turn around again. He had to settle for a stern, “Let me know when she arrives.”

“You got it, boss.”

He went back to the parlor where he’d been working on his own prep work—only to discover that he couldn’t concentrate for shit.

Dammit, he never lost the ability to focus when it came to work. He’d bled too many buckets, poured too much of his heart and soul into carving out a place for himself in this industry, to allow himself the luxury.

Not that he didn’t understand what the problem was, of course; he knew exactly where he’d gone south. He was always proactive, accustomed to working through every eventuality ahead of time to avoid spanners being thrown in his works during the actual production. Generally, by the time he was ready to dig in and really rock and roll, he’d worked out ninety-nine percent of the kinks, thereby sidestepping a lot of blunders. But he’d made a serious one with Ava that night back in November.

Yes, he’d owed her an apology for being such a shit in high school. But considering he’d attempted to give her one several times over the past decade, there had been no need to lead off with it the minute they’d come face-to-face. Her coolness that evening had made him rush the sorrys instead of waiting to get a feel for the emotional climate, a skill he’d developed early in his career and found handy in damn near every situation.

The trouble was, he had everything riding on this project. In order to get it funded he’d had to accept a couple of contract clauses he ordinarily would have avoided like a flaming case of jock rash. So he’d gone in knowing he had to talk Ava into renting him the Wolcott mansion. It was that or scrap the project, because if he had to build sets to duplicate it, his budget would be a bust before he even got started. And considering he’d already signed the damn contracts, that wasn’t an option.

Not that he’d hamstrung himself entirely. Never one to go into anything blind, he’d investigated before he’d signed anything, then deemed the risk worthwhile when he’d discovered the extent of Ava’s financial difficulties. And if securing the mansion had been his sole objective, things would have been business as usual.

But while he prided himself on always hiring efficient crews, for this project he’d needed not just efficient but the very best. That was a nonissue when it came to industry personnel. He’d known exactly who to hire: the professionals he’d worked with most successfully in the past. The ones whose visions meshed best with his own.

He always used a local as well, however, someone familiar with the area, to manage logistics and coordinate daily living for his cast and crew so he could focus his own attention where it belonged—on the production. To his dismay, not only had Ava turned out to be one of the owners, hers had also been the name that had kept cropping up when he’d started putting out feelers for a Seattle go-to, detail-oriented person with the best contacts. How ironic was that?

Karma sure was a bitch. Still, he had bet on himself. Because while the risks of this project might be greater than all his other ventures combined, so were the rewards.

The Wolcott documentary was his ticket to even bigger and better things. Velcro it to his past several achievements and maybe, just maybe, he’d finally get to take the script he’d been sitting on for three long years and turn it into the film he’d been dreaming of. The latter wouldn’t have a blockbuster-sized budget. But that only meant it would be all his to do the way he wanted to do it.

Well, either that or it would be the flush heard around the world if his gamble failed and Ava Spencer decided to use the mansion or her position on his crew for payback. He had to admit it was a concern that had been scratching at the back of his mind ever since they’d signed the contracts. Yet, staring at the blustery weather outside the parlor window, he didn’t see how she could do it, given that she needed money almost as badly as he needed this documentary to succeed.