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Just the sound of his name in her head was enough to send her stomach into a slow tumble and roll she hoped wasn’t visible on her face. She’d been unable to drive their kiss from her thoughts; it had haunted her through restless, tossing nights until she gave up and went without sleep. But he didn’t need to know that. So tonight, she’d chosen clothes to project a blatantly in control woman.
Exactly the opposite of how she was feeling, which was slightly out of control every time she so much as breathed around the man.
And then when Nick reached across the table and began stroking her fingers, all her best intentions vanished like so much smoke. She couldn’t remember anymore whether he was supposed to respond to her provocation or not, or what she would do with him then. The only sensation she registered was the slide of his thumb over the back of her hand. The pressure of his fingers on her palm. And that was when she knew she’d lost control.
Again.
She shut down.
Turned it off, dropping his hand and every ounce of sensuality in her body, until she might as well have been wearing sackcloth and ashes. The one thing she knew she had mastery over was her work, and if that was the only stability she could find as the edges of the cliff crumbled beneath her feet, then she’d stand firm on that rock and leave the daredevil tricks behind.
It was an act, of course, and she’d been a decent-enough actor way back when, before figuring out she’d rather organize the strings instead of dance to them or even pull them. Good enough at least to get her through one meal with this man.
As long as he stopped touching her.
Then she caught a name in the general flow of words brushing against her consciousness and jerked her attention back to Nick.
“Heitman? What about Heitman?”
Lips pressed together, he looked more likely to throttle her than kiss her. It occurred to her that frustrated sexual tension might not be the best of moods under which to conduct a business negotiation.
Better frustrated than indulged. Maybe.
“How far back should I go?” His voice snapped like a pane of glass broken over his knee. Clearly her mask of polite attentiveness had slipped a bit.
She rattled off the list. Even though she was only giving him partial attention, she hadn’t missed much.
“Your mother’s hot for this young playwright.” He glared at her. She refrained from rolling her eyes. “In the artistic sense, obviously. I’ve actually heard of him. He’s supposed to be hot shit.” And wasn’t that intriguing. The first tingles of excitement were sparking in her belly. “So she’s backing his show in a big way, you’re white knighting it with your business expertise—” that glare again “—or are concerned for her welfare. Crap. Do you ever just say anything right out? So, you’re putting yourself in the royal seat, thumbs up or down on everything, nothing will get past your tricky eye, will it? And Heitman. You’ve got Heitman as the director?”
“I don’t have him. I don’t want him. But my mother and Smith do, and yes, they have him.”
“And Heitman wants me?”
“Apparently.”
She had to admit, she hadn’t expected that one.
She stopped chewing and looked down to discover that she was most of the way through a meal she hadn’t tasted. It seemed she’d chosen a smoked-prawn risotto with celery root, pickled fennel and—were those juniper berries? She slowed and enjoyed the complex medley of flavors in her mouth while she considered this new piece of information from all angles.
When she looked up, Nick was staring at her. He held his steak knife in a fist, more like a weapon than an eating utensil, with a white-knuckled grip.
She thought he might be developing a twitch in one eye.
“Heitman and I did one show together. After the third drop cloth caught fire, the male lead had a stroke, literally, and then the city shut down the theater for building-code violations. And those were just the highlights.” She shrugged. “Heitman’s a big believer in curses, jinxes. I was sure if he ever said my name out loud again, he’d throw salt over one shoulder and holy water over the other, just in case.”
“Well, he must have seen something he liked in you, because he doesn’t want me talking to any other stage managers.” Nick frowned.
“Yeah, I’m good at putting out fires.”
“Better at starting them than putting them out, I’d say.”
“Problem is, I’m gonna be booked.” Which was almost a shame, because she’d enjoy a chance to joust with this man from time to time across a dinner or conference table. Not to mention that this Smith was rumored to be an up-and-comer. But she wasn’t missing out on the big leagues for anyone.
Nick winced and shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
“I am. There’s a Broadway show leaving New York and word on the street is we’re a lock for the Chicago run. I’m meeting with the show runners in a few days. I really can’t take on anything else right now.”
“That isn’t happening.”
“What do you mean?” The muscles in her back locked up as she stopped herself from flinching. Nick’s face was calm. He wasn’t trying to break her heart, she was sure, just delivering what sounded like the world’s worst news.
“Heitman said to tell you it’s going to London next. They just haven’t announced it.”
Shit.
Nothing was written in stone until you had the ten-commandments tablets in your hands. She knew that. Knew better than to count on anything in the constantly shifting sands of show business. But she let herself mourn for a moment, even though she made sure to keep every sign of her crushing disappointment off her face. She’d been so ready to take this next big leap forward. To join the big leagues.
For a moment, she wondered if she should doubt Drake. Who knew if he was ruthless enough to lie to get his mother what she wanted? But, no. It would only take one phone call to Heitman, or almost anyone in the industry, to check. She was sure it was true.
Get a grip, girl. Life’s disappointing. Let’s see what we can salvage here.
She’d kept her calendar clear for the Broadway show, not pursuing other gigs that would have taken over her schedule. Unless she wanted to take a big hit, going after this play with Heitman might be her best option this late in the game.
Of course, it would have been better had she not made out with the man who was effectively one of the show’s producers, but that couldn’t be helped now. She knew he wanted her. And there was no use pretending she hadn’t just spent the previous two nights imagining him naked and in her bed. But there was no room in her business plan for romance. Or even down and dirty one-night stands. Particularly not with the money.
Shaking her head, Maxie readjusted her battle plan and rolled into her standard pitch speech. The words flowed without hesitation. It was a presentation she’d made dozens of times by now, albeit never before to a man who’d kissed her senseless at a bus stop.
She slapped her portfolio on the table the moment her dinner plate was whisked away by the busboy and showed off her stuff.
Literally.
“We have a warehouse half a mile from the office. Historically, more than half of the prop needs of any given show can be fulfilled by our stock, and that number is trending upward as our inventory expands. We’ll save you time and that means money.” Nick flipped through the pages of digital photos of precisely organized rows of bins and crates and closets. Clothes, shoes, pots, pans, bicycles, birdcages, traffic lights, trees—anything and everything that a set designer might want to see on stage. The warehouse was her baby. Her business coup. Without it, she didn’t have a business. The financial crash had hit the theater world hard. Life had been rough for years as people cut back on luxuries, which definitely included nights out on the town watching plays. But when the real estate market in Chicago tanked, she picked up an old foreclosed warehouse for a song, borrowing money from her family after presenting her business plan in a three-hour PowerPoint presentation. She’d immediately started filling it with every prop she’d collected over twelve years of backstage work. Then she’d hired her network of talent, mining her friends, classmates and savvy competitors when she could.
Nick was listening.
She could tell he’d buried his frustration as the wheels clicked in his brain and he considered her proposal.
“We’re also prepared to fully staff the crew needs of the show, at whatever level necessary. This is a plus for you in that it will save an enormous amount of time. My crews work together without missing a beat—everyone on the same page, using the same system.”
“Isn’t it more traditional for the director to assemble the crew piecemeal? Hiring the best individual for each job?”
He didn’t look up from the portfolio. He’d moved on to the copies of her projected and actual budgets for shows she’d run in the past. She hoped he’d assume that the thinness of that section had more to do with the inherent dryness of pages of numbers than the fact that she’d yet to land many big shows.
“It is. It’s also traditional to waste time creating a smoothly functioning crew out of a crowd of people who are used to a dozen different ways to call a show. I don’t waste time, and my people work together like clockwork from day one.”
Closing the cover, he drummed his fingertips on it for a moment while looking at her. She ran through her mental list of expected objections and prepared to counter them with articulate explanations.
“How many shows do you run at a time?”
A new question.
“Myself, only one. My company? Right now we’re managing Oz and a couple of small local productions.” She wanted to tell him about her vision for the future, her sandcastles in the sky, but this wasn’t high school. And she wasn’t standing in front of an open locker, hoping the cute boy across the hall would ask her to prom. She needed to impress.
One of the hottest directors in Chicago wanted her. She was disappointed about missing out on the Broadway show, but this opportunity could be nearly as big for her.
She sat calmly under Nick’s pensive gaze. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she knew what she was doing, and that she did it better than almost anyone. Let him stare as long as he liked. When he figured her out, if he figured her out, there was only one conclusion to reach: She’d be the one solid, knowable factor in the swirling mystery that was the world of a theater production.
He wouldn’t be able to resist her.
“You’re sure you can take on another show right now?”
She didn’t even blink.
“I was already planning to do that, plus it’ll be at least three months before we open. In ten years, Carving Bananas will be stage managing half the shows in Chicago.”
She had him. She could feel it.
Handing the portfolio back to her, he waved off the sommelier’s approach with more wine and signaled for the check. “That’s ambitious.”
“That’s a given,” she said, dropping the folio at her side. She knew the end of a meeting when she felt one. It was time to wrap it up. “We’re efficient. We’re cost effective. We minimize chaos. The more shows we run, the more obvious that will be. The only limits are on how many good people I can hire, and that pool is nowhere near tapped out yet.”
“Okay.”
He plucked the napkin out of his lap and dropped it on the tablecloth in front of him. Like clockwork, the server arrived with the check and Nick handed him a credit card. The man returned almost immediately and Nick gestured for him to wait while he signed the slip. Before she could figure out what to say next, Nick put his hands on the arms of the chair and started to slide it back.
Her butt was frozen to her seat, like she was sitting on a block of ice, the cold locking her brain into immobility. Her jaw creaked as she pushed the word out. “So, okay?”
He looked down at her. “You’ve got the job.”
“I do?”
The distinction was important.
The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Meet with Heitman. Go over the script. If your numbers are in line, then you, your crew and your warehouse have the job.”
She stood up. Now was the time for some memorable comment to seal the deal. Some pithy remark about how he wouldn’t regret it. Maxie opened her mouth.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
She spun on one heel and walked away, bracing herself momentarily on the arm of a passing busboy as the trembling in her knees threatened to spill her across the slick Brazilian-cherry wood floor.
The pristine surfaces of the ladies’ room at Nomi had never echoed so loudly with shouts of glee.
“Yes!”
An older woman in beige linen and pumps yanked her hands out of the sink and left the room without drying them, glancing back over her shoulder on her way out.
“Yes!”
A glimpse of herself in the wall-length mirror arrested her celebratory stomping dance around the room. She laughed out loud and wondered if the escaping woman had gone to summon help.
Her eyes glittered wildly and color rose high in her cheeks. She couldn’t get enough air for shouting, though her open-mouthed grin was unshakeable.
She looked high.
Or insane.
The laughter rose from her belly and shook her soul with joy, turning into another loud woo-hoo! at the end.
“We’re on our way, baby,” she said with satisfaction to her reflection and shook her head at the grin she still couldn’t get off her face. But she must have managed to tone it down a notch from lunatic to simply happy, because when a waitress cracked the door to the restroom and poked her head in gingerly, she smiled back at Maxie before glancing around the empty room and leaving. She checked her cell phone before leaving the bathroom and, sure enough, there was a missed call and a message from a New York number. But she didn’t even care about the missed opportunity with the New York show. Heitman wanted her and his shows almost always hit the big time after launching in Chicago.
This could be the start of everything.
Walking back to where Nick was waiting for her near the elevators to the ground floor, energy flooded her body. She felt as if sparks were shooting out of her fingertips and the ends of her hair. It wasn’t possible for a body to hold in this much electricity. She wanted to sprint up a mountain. Or dance, dripping sweat, to a thundering beat in a hot, crowded club.
Or be thrown on a bed and devoured.
The elevator doors opened in front of Nick. She heard another couple approaching down the hall.
She couldn’t hold this explosion inside for one more second. And mountain climbing and dancing were out.
Stepping into the elevator behind Nick, she pushed the door-close button in the face of the startled couple and dropped the portfolio to the floor with a heavy thud.
Nick looked at the folio. He looked at her, eyebrows drawn together. She might have seen the beginnings of a smile.
Yeah, no time for that.
She smacked her palm against his chest when he took a step toward her and held him away. Felt a full-body memory flash of the last time she’d had her hands on him.
“In sixty seconds there’s nothing but business between us.”
She curled her fingers under the placket of his shirt and yanked him close enough to wrap her free hand around his neck and pull his mouth down to hers. Her lips bruised against his teeth as their mouths crashed together.
The world spun and she stumbled backward until her head rapped against the elevator wall, held up by the iron bands of his arms around her, one of his hands on her ass, pulling her up and into him, the other gripping the back of her neck. His tongue plunged into her mouth and hers did battle with it. She moaned as fire shot through her and raced her hands over him, desperate to get even closer.
He found the hem of her shirt and scraped a hand up her naked back, while she arched her breasts into him and sucked greedily at his mouth. Gasping, she dragged his hand from her back to her naked breast beneath the shirt, crying out when he scraped a thumbnail roughly over her hard nipple.
The ding of the bell when they hit the lobby barely registered.
When she came to, they were leaning against each other like two shipwreck survivors stumbling back onto solid ground. Nick’s forehead braced against hers and she wasn’t certain whose breath rasped louder in the small square box that suddenly felt devoid of air.
The slide of the doors opening and then closing again pulled her part of the way to clarity. She knuckled the door-open button before they were recalled to the twenty-fifth floor.
The tiny ping of a hairpin hitting the floor as she straightened rang in her ears like a bell.
Her updo was definitely a lost cause.
She jammed the elevator door open with one booted foot and tugged her fingers roughly through what remained of her French twist. Pins dropped and bounced on the floor as she raked loose hair back, hoping she didn’t look like she’d just jumped off a cliff. The descent from the twenty-fifth floor had been quite a ride.
