“What about when he goes home at night?”
Her father waved this away. “He’ll have weekly drug tests. I just want someone reliable working with him on set.”
Elizabeth imagined fetching lattes and dry cleaning for the man who had given her a concussion and hadn’t bothered to apologize.
“I really need this, Lizzy,” her father said pleadingly. “I’ll pay you double.” Now that was an incentive. Medical school wasn’t cheap.
Elizabeth let her shoulders sag. She was going to hate this. “All right, but I’m only responsible for him on the set. I have med school applications to work on.” She didn’t even want to think about how far behind a night in the hospital had put her.
Her father nodded eagerly. “Of course, of course.”
Jane had watched their back and forth apprehensively. “I hope this works out, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth sighed. “I hope so, too.”
***
With his car out of commission, Darcy was forced to call his chauffeur to pick him up at the studio. Raoul hadn’t been expecting the call, and the trip through L.A. traffic took a while, so Darcy was forced to cool his heels longer than he would have preferred—the cherry on his crap sundae.
Finally, Darcy’s limo pulled up in front of Building 4, and he slid gratefully into its air-conditioned comfort. The car glided forward, smoothly navigating the studio’s streets and slowing as they waited while the studio gate slid open.
The momentary pause provided an opportunity for Darcy to wave to the fans who had clustered outside the gate. He never knew how they discovered where he would be every day, but somehow the word had gone out that he would be at Worldwide Studios. Most of the fans were teenage girls, but some were older women. Many carried signs telling Darcy they were his “#1 Fan” or that “You are the Greatest.” When they noticed him waving to them, high-pitched squealing ensued. One girl may have passed out.
The first couple of times Darcy had encountered this level of adoration, he had been incredulous. He wasn’t anything special. These people didn’t really know him. How could they be that excited to see him? But now he was accustomed to it. He was even grateful that these particular fans had stayed loyal despite recent events.
Darcy continued to wave and smile as Raoul pulled the car into traffic. They both knew from past experience that if the car stopped for too long, the fans would surround it; then Darcy would be trapped, and it would take forever to go anywhere.
Once they were underway, the driver lowered the glass between the back and front seats. In his fifties, with a full head of dark hair and the beginning of a paunch, Raoul had been with Darcy for nearly five years—and during that time they had developed an easy camaraderie. “So, your first day back behind the wheel didn’t go well.”
Darcy sighed. His license had been suspended for a year; driving himself that morning had felt like a taste of freedom. “The first part was just fine. It wasn’t until the end that there was any difficulty.”
Raoul’s eyebrows rose. “Sir, as you’re undoubtedly aware, most people don’t consider a trip in the car a success unless all of it is free from accidents. Ninety percent isn’t a passing grade.”
“Sarcastic bastard,” Darcy grumbled. “I don’t know why I keep you on staff.”
Raoul merely grinned. They both knew why Darcy kept him on—and paid him far more than the going rate—and being a sarcastic bastard was one reason.
“Have they looked at the car yet?” Darcy asked.
“Yes, sir.” Raoul had arranged to have the Ferrari towed to his preferred garage. “It will be two weeks at least until it’s ready.”
Darcy groaned.
“Really, sir. I took such good care of her while your license was suspended, and then on her maiden voyage—”
“I know. I don’t need a guilt trip on top of everything else today.” Darcy swiped a hand through the hair hanging over his forehead. “What should I drive in the meantime? I don’t even remember what else is in the garage.”
“Sir, if I might make a suggestion?”
“You will anyway,” Darcy muttered.
“Sorry?”
“Never mind, go ahead.” He never understood how a chauffeur who grew up in Texas could speak with the precise diction of someone from England. Had Raoul watched too much Downton Abbey?
“Perhaps for the duration of the film, I should drive you. Then when you are at your leisure, you could practice driving in more isolated locations.”
Darcy leaned back into the leather seat and considered. He wouldn’t admit it to Raoul or anyone else, but it was possible that he wasn’t the world’s greatest driver. Of course, it was just that he was out of practice. But maybe it would be safer for him and everyone around him if Darcy didn’t have to worry about that responsibility right now and just focused on his acting.
“All right,” Darcy said with a sigh. “That makes sense. Consider yourself on call until principal filming is over.”
“You fill my heart with joy, sir.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
Raoul laughed, and Darcy shook his head. He knew damn well that Raoul’s use of “sir” was just another way to tweak him.
“Did anything happen at Pemberley while I was away?” Darcy asked.
“Your mother called and requested that you call her back.”
Darcy sighed. “Do you think she even remembers I have a cell phone?”
“It’s quite possible she believes she’s calling your cell phone when she uses your Pemberley line.”
Darcy snickered, but Raoul was right. His parents didn’t pay attention to details like what number to use when contacting their son. When people asked him where his parents were, Darcy always said something like, “They’re bumming around Europe. I don’t know if they’ll ever come home.” The other person always laughed because they thought Darcy was joking—which was his intention.
He really wasn’t joking, although the statement was misleading. His parents were in Europe, but not together. In fact, they avoided being in the same country if they could help it. Right now, his father was in Italy, and his mother was in…Poland, Darcy believed. They had enough money that they didn’t need to work and could enjoy themselves—and that’s what they were doing. God knows who they were doing it with.
Darcy wasn’t kidding about hoping they never came home. His parents had transferred ownership of Pemberley to him and Georgiana so they’d be free to enjoy Europe but stayed there when they were in the U.S. While they were away, he had Pemberley to himself—with no need to endure shouting matches about who stayed in which wing of the house.
He couldn’t imagine why his parents had ever thought they would be a good fit for a relationship lasting more than six months, let alone a marriage with assumptions about lifelong love and fidelity. He wasn’t sure anyone could promise that, but they sure as hell shouldn’t have.
“All right,” Darcy said to Raoul. “Remind me to call her back in a week if I haven’t already.”
“Yes, sir.”
***
Darcy didn’t know which was worse: having Elizabeth Bennet as his on-set personal assistant or having no personal assistant at all. He had muddled through the first five days of filming without an assistant, and it hadn’t been pretty. He’d been late to the set once, had arrived with the wrong pages in the script twice, and another two times he hadn’t had the right costume. There was no question that he needed an assistant.
The problem wasn’t just that he felt guilty about the concussion—although it wasn’t really his fault. The problem wasn’t even that being with her was awkward and uncomfortable. The problem was that from the minute Elizabeth Bennet entered the room on her first day of work Darcy was hyper-aware of her. As he sat in his chair in the makeup room, his eyes weren’t even turned in her direction, but instantly his skin prickled as if her presence had supercharged the air. He’d turned his head toward her and gotten an earful from Marge, the drill sergeant of the m
akeup room.
He spent the next five minutes holding his head very still and trying to make sense of his reaction. Personal assistants were supposed to be practically invisible on set; accordingly, her jeans and t-shirt did nothing to attract attention. Aside from her striking eyes there was nothing remarkable about her. Why did he notice her at all?
The movie employed dozens of PAs, the worker bees of a set. Paid a pittance, the PAs were the ones who kept the call sheets, ran for coffee, delivered messages, found props, ran extension cords, and did any number of tasks that required a Swiss Army knife, sticky notes, and duct tape. It was a miserable job for the most part; the only reason someone would take it was because they hoped it would open the door to a future career as a director, producer, cinematographer, or actor.
Darcy preferred having his own personal assistant on set, but Maria had quit abruptly to start a goat lawn-mowing company, and Roy was still seeking a permanent replacement for her. Elizabeth was just filling in temporarily and only on the set.
Elizabeth circled to the front of his makeup chair so he could see her without turning his head. “Good morning, Will. Do you need anything? Coffee? A copy of the shooting schedule?” Her face was carefully polite and her tone was neutral, but she had subtly put him on notice that she was different. Maria had been with Darcy for almost two years and, like Raoul, had always addressed him as Mr. Darcy or sir.
“No. Nothing,” he said gruffly. Could she tell how he was reacting to her?
“Okay. I’ll just sit back there.” She jerked a thumb at the back of the room. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Great. She could watch Darcy’s every move, but he couldn’t see her. He should have invented an errand. When Marge twirled Darcy’s chair so she could work on the back of his head, he observed Elizabeth typing on her tablet, frowning with great concentration. Was she pretending to ignore him? He didn’t like that.
“Which scene are we shooting first?” he asked, although he knew the answer very well.
“Seventeen,” she responded without glancing up from the tablet. “The first living-room scene.”
“Are there any changes I should be aware of?”
Her eyebrows drew together as she finally focused on him. “No, although Security sent around a notice warning everyone to be careful when entering or exiting the studio to avoid allowing any rabid Darcy fans through the gate accidentally.”
“They did not use the word rabid.” She couldn’t possibly be as unaffected by him as she appeared. No woman ever was.
She shrugged. “Okay, I embellished.”
“I don’t know how the fans always find out where I’m going to be. It’s a little creepy. They know more about me than my mother does.” It was a joke he made frequently; most people didn’t know what a low bar that was.
She didn’t laugh. “But they don’t, do they?” Elizabeth said with an abstracted expression.
“They don’t what?”
She rested her chin on her fist, staring at nothing in particular. “They don’t really know you. It must be so strange being famous like that. They might know your birthday and how tall you are and the name of your childhood dog or your prom date. And maybe they’ve seen every film you’ve ever made and watched every talk show appearance and read every interview. But they still can’t really know you, not the way a friend or colleague would know you. All those things just provide the illusion of knowing you.”
Darcy gaped at her. He couldn’t have articulated the truth that way, yet somehow this non-celebrity grasped celebrities’ symbiotic relationship with their fans. The Hollywood machine fostered the illusion that they could really get to know movie stars when in fact it wasn’t possible—or even desirable.
“What?” she asked, and he realized that his mouth was hanging open.
He hastily shut it. “Nothing. I mean, yeah, you’re right. That’s exactly the issue. And their devotion is…transitory. Today they scream my name, but tomorrow they might forget it. They can love you or hate you on a whim. Everyone’s career goes through ups and downs, sometimes with little rhyme or reason.”
She regarded him with a curiously intent expression. “Everyone thinks the stars are in control of everything, but you don’t really feel that way, do you?”
“No. It feels like the fans are in control.” Darcy swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat. She really understood. He quashed an impulse to ask her to be his therapist.
He wanted to say more, to confess how confusing his life could be. How would she respond? But he’d already revealed more than he should have, particularly in the presence of the makeup drill sergeant.
Silence fell. Elizabeth lowered her head to the tablet, but for some reason Darcy wanted her attention on him. “How are you feeling?” She shot him a wary look. “I mean, with the concussion and everything.” He pointed to his head as if she had forgotten where a concussion occurs.
“I still get headaches occasionally, but the doctor thinks they’ll stop soon.”
Her eyes made him think of windswept beaches and long sea voyages. “Good.”
When her eyebrows lifted, he rewound the last seconds of their conversation in his head. “I mean, not good that you get headaches,” he clarified. “But good that they’ll get better soon.”
“Yeah.” After a moment she returned her attention to the tablet. He was losing the battle for her attention to a hunk of plastic and wiring. The mere thought made him hot and itchy.
It was a shame she wasn’t more attractive, although she was prettier than he had noticed at first. Those thick dark curls that tumbled down her shoulders framed her pale face so nicely. But she’d never be a leading lady. Did she recognize that reality? His heart ached for her. If I have a chance, I’ll assure her that she could have a decent career as a character actress.
“I’m glad you’re back on your feet,” he said, mainly so that her eyes would flick up in his direction again.
He hated being ignored, particularly by…by... Well, he didn’t want Elizabeth to ignore him. For reasons he chose not to examine too closely, he needed her to focus on him. So when her eyes met his, he unleashed his killer smile, the one that had sold millions of movie tickets and graced the cover of People.
“Thank you,” she said in a dazed and distant voice. Her hands had gone slack, and the tablet was in danger of sliding off her lap. Her eyes were fixated on his lips. Bingo.
But she was still staring a few seconds later. Uh-oh. Maybe he’d hit her too hard with his smile whammy. She wore that expression—the one on so many fans’ faces—which suggested more than simple attraction. It suggested that she was constructing elaborate fantasies in which he invited her on dates, told her she was the only one for him, proposed, and took her to live with him in his mansion.
He remembered his mother telling him to watch out for that look. With more than thirty films under her belt, she had dealt with some obsessed fans. “They think they know you. You’ve been on the big screen. You’ve been in their house on television. They’ve built a fantasy of the ‘real’ you, and they think they’re in love with it.”
Five minutes ago, Elizabeth had said some intelligent things about the differences between fantasy and reality. But she was a red-blooded American woman, and he had deployed the killer smile.
Gah.
He didn’t want to see that expression on Elizabeth’s face. She was his assistant; having her follow him around the set like a lovelorn puppy would be…inconvenient—and worse, subtly wrong somehow. He didn’t want adulation. Not from his personal assistant. Not from her. Not Elizabeth.
Darcy’s heart raced, and his breathing quickened. He had to nip it in the bud. Now. Before it took root. He had to discourage any romantic feelings she might nurture. And quickly.
It was a shame, he thought. When she had stopped being difficult and sarcastic, she was really quite interesting. He might have enjoyed her company. But he couldn’t take the risk that a full-fledged crush would set in. That wou
ld be disastrous. The only thing he could do was be distant, reserved, unfriendly—stop the crush before it blossomed.
“You know, I would like a coffee,” he said brusquely, thinking up the most ridiculously complex order he could imagine. “I need a half caff, no whip, double-foam latte.” She blinked at the abrupt change in topic. “Now.”
Her spine stiffened. “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” She slid off the stool and gave him a mocking salute as she marched out of the room.
Chapter Four
Elizabeth slammed out the door to Building 4, ignoring the mostly female crowd of gawkers who clustered around the entrance hoping that William Darcy might happen to venture out. It was sickening. These people worked at the studio! They were grown women. Did they have to act like pre-teens at a boy band concert? Surely they had jobs to do.
She wanted to shout at them, to tell them that their idol was a bastard, incapable of human decency, barely competent at holding up his end of a conversation—even when you tried to be interested in and sensitive about his life. That being his assistant was like working for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
One minute he would give her a smile that could charm the panties off any woman, and she’d begin to think that a human heart might beat inside that mannequin-perfect body. The next minute he was dishing out a coffee order like she was a particularly slow Starbucks employee.
Hello whiplash.
But the women outside the soundstage door didn’t want to hear it and wouldn’t listen even if she yelled it through a megaphone. All they could think about was that lustrous, wavy dark hair and the intense sky-blue eyes. Or the way he smiled as though you were the only person who mattered in the world…
Okay, so she had gotten a little—a lot—mesmerized by him for a few seconds—or minutes—back there in the makeup room. But it had been purely aesthetic appreciation. Like looking at Michelangelo’s David or—okay, better if she didn’t think of muscular, naked men. Like looking at Monet’s Water Lilies or listening to Rhapsody in Blue. She could appreciate his face the way she could enjoy a great work of art.
Darcy in Hollywood Page 5
