My first audition with a renowned billionaire. Not just any billionaire, either. But, as I've come to learn via a poorly written wikipedia article, one of the foremost movie producers in town. From what I understand you'd be hard-pressed to find a movie made in this giddy little city that didn't have his signature, somewhere along the way. Daniel Grant; the man who makes the Sun shine, or so said the Vogue piece about him.
She stares into me with wide, impatient, and impetuous eyes, waiting for me to dish the dirt on my auspicious audition. It's now that I realize that I should feel great about all of this; I mean, for one morning, at least, I had the ear of the richest man in Los Angeles. And, not to mention, his wandering, lustful eyes for a good five minutes. I'm sure if I'd been a little more assertive, I could have gotten any role I desired. But I don't feel great, rueful, or even disappointed in my ascension to Hollywood heaven. I just want one thing: to know why he'd leave me naked and frustrated like that.
"Carissa," I begin, mindfully obscuring the naked parts of my version of events, before a whole different thing entirely pops into my head; "how did you know I met with Daniel Grant?"
In her effervescently innocent way, she points to the house-phone, nestled between a delicate arrangement of trash on the coffee table.
"Voicemail."
Voicemail? Why don't I ever fucking give my mobile number out on my portfolio, rather than the fucking house-phone! I snatch it from the table, and under the giddy eyes of my sister, replay the message he left.
"Hi Miss Everett," it begins, in that strangely chimeric monotone I've had bouncing around my head all afternoon. He breathes deeply, and for a second, I'm transported back to that white room, my eyes closed, and his hot breath on my neck. My heart races and I feel a twinge of something ever-so-slightly naughty between my legs. "I just wanted to say that after our meeting this morning, I have a role in mind for you after all. Let me know if you're interested."
And with the curious way he emphasized interested, he hung up. Holy fuck, a role!?
"My sister, the big Hollywood starlet," Carissa sings with relish, as I sit frozen upon the couch. "You'll still visit me, won't you? When you get that mansion next to Jack Nicholson's place?"
I barely hear her; I'm too wrapped up in my own little world. I can't help but replay that entire message in my mind, over and over. A role in mind for me? He speaks so tempered, never letting his voice rise an octave, yet makes everything he says sound so sly. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Maybe I distrust him a little too much after this morning's frivolities. But then again, something doesn't seem - well - right.
"So come on," she whines in my ear, jolting me from my day-dreaming trance. "What's he like?"
I pause for a moment, before ripping the phone from its charger, and springing up from the couch, leaving a very disappointed and audibly dissatisfied Carissa yelling in my wake. Back to my room; back to my own world. I'm going to call him. I'm going to get that role. And for the first time in my life, I'm going to go into this so-called role with no preparation, no lump in my throat, no colony of butterflies in my stomach, and no nerves. I'm going to be me: Chloe Everett.
Ring ring
I've barely gotten into my room and closed the door behind me before I hit redial. Who am I kidding? My hand trembles even as I call him, clutching the phone perilously close to my ear, and screwing my eyes shut, unwilling to allow any part of this cruel world to interrupt me right now.
Ring ring
I'm back in that bright, white room. I can feel the warm air against my naked skin. I feel his breath exciting the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end, and I feel the wet twinge of dampness between my legs, as I fidget around on the spot.
"Hello, this is Daniel."
That voice; I come tumbling back to Earth with a bang and a shudder, and after a moment's brief hesitation, finally make myself heard.
"Hi, Daniel; Mr. Grant, hi."
Fuck, why didn't I decide what I was going to call him before I'd made the call? Speaking of which, I really, really don't know what to fucking say next.
"Miss Everett, hello." He remembers my name; my voice! I briefly catch myself swooning like a schoolgirl, before I shake myself out of it, and get back on track.
"Yeah, I uhm, thought I'd get in touch about this role of yours."
He waits. I wait. The silence is killing me. With a spluttering cough, I continue:
"Is there a casting office somewhere you want me to go to, or -"
"No," he barks back, interrupting my nervous train of thought. "How about you meet me in town first. There are a few things I need to make clear."
I listen intently, pressing the phone against my face as tightly as I can while he gives me the address of a restaurant. I assume he's picking up the bill.
"And, one more thing Miss Everett," he says, finally raising his voice to an enthralling high, "I'm looking forward to seeing you again."
His words strike a strange and worrisome chord within me. I gulp, loudly, finding a knot in my throat that spitefully stops me from answering his final words, and he hangs up duly. Looking forward to seeing me again? Given everything; my unrelenting and obvious attraction to this man, the unworldly and unimaginable power he holds over my fledgling career, and most of all, my absolute and irreproachable desire to find out just why he did what he did this morning, I'm not so sure I look forward to seeing him.
Seven PM tonight, at a restaurant whose name I scrawled so nervously inside my cell. I look to my open wardrobe, and already know what I'll wear; my dark blue dress, strapless, and similar to Carissa's red one in everything but color. Something a little more... me.
"Carissa," I say lightly, poking my head around the corner of the living room, finding her deep inside some indecipherable law textbook. "You haven't told anyone about, you know, Daniel Grant, have you?"
"What? No, of course not," she answers, her eyelashes fluttering innocently, and her square white front teeth glowing in the luminescent light. Without another word, she buries herself back inside her book, apparently unconcerned with how my call went. With an empty mind, I take myself back to my room, and throw myself back upon the bed, replaying my morning's audition over and over, and over again.
Chapter Six
I hate Los Angeles at night. For a city full of stars, you wouldn't know it by looking; the smog and fluffy pollutants belched into the sky by a million cars chokes up any watching stars in the night, bathing us instead in a dull miasma of thick, warm humidity. That's why when I managed to arrive at this address in one piece, I already loved the view. I’m a little out of town, elevated just high enough to escape the fumes, and close enough to the hills to see the big, white iconic 'HOLLYWOOD' sign without my glasses.
I got myself here twenty minutes early or so. There's not a chance in hell I'm going to be delayed by police chase or a crash or a gridlock or whatever the hell else the roads of LA have in store for me tonight. The restaurant itself seems nice enough; French dining, apparently. I wouldn't know much about good food, considering that Carissa and I live on a diet of noodles and popcorn. You know, the thing that strikes me most about this place though - dimly lit, hidden away inside the court of a set of towering well-to-do office buildings - is how low key it is. The streets are illuminated by dim orange lampposts, and the final moments of the Sun on the horizon can't find their way through the hills.
I dig into my bag, taking a nervous look around as if I were rehearsing a role in some hackneyed spy movie, and find my cell phone. I know I said I was going to go into this meeting with no preparation, but I can't help myself.
Daniel Grant was born thirty years ago to a classical-era movie magnate and his scriptwriter wife, who died just after he was born, according to a cursory glance at his wikipedia page. Inheriting the family fortune, he was the pioneer of that loved-and-despised Teen/Werewolf/Slasher movie trend. You know, the movies where the guy gets the girl, the girl gets murdered, comes back as a werewolf, yadda yadda. But apparently it
made Daniel Grant and his studio filthy rich.
I switch my smartphone off before seven, and find the darkest corner of the courtyard to sit myself, scanning every inch of the road ahead of me for limousines, hummers, helicopters, whatever else I could imagine a bachelor billionaire arriving in. In the end, I needn't have bothered.
"Miss Everett," I hear him say, with a stern hand upon my shoulder. My heart practically bursts from my chest in excited surprise, as I spin around to find him as gorgeous as my earlier daydreams portrayed.
"Mr. Grant!" I bellow, trying my utmost to stop myself grinning inanely.
"Daniel" he corrects me.
"Daniel."
"Shall we find a seat?"
How did he manage to sneak up on me like that? I found a place so darkly closed off from the rest of the street that he simply must have come from inside the building. Whatever Chlo, I say to myself coolly, trying to invoke that cool-as-a-cucumber feeling once more.
"Sure!" I giddily screech, instantly dispelling any possibility of remaining as calm and collected as my inner voice demands.
He takes me gently by the wrist, and leads me inside. I expect the clattering of knives and forks, and chattering of diners, and the shrill cry of a baby. I hear no such thing. The place smells terrific; chicken and mushrooms and herbs of all flavors, and each table is lit by a set of candles - flames dancing seductively from side to side as we pass - but something's not right. We're all alone in here.
"Daniel," I say, craning my neck around in frantic circles, trying to find evidence of any human life, but finding only the mustached maitre d’, standing alone by the shiny silver kitchen door, staring into space. "Is this place even open?"
"It's always open," he says nonchalantly, speaking every word in a dull-set monotone. He leads me to a table - a large rectangle, covered in a classy white tablecloth - and seats me at the far end, courteously pulling the chair out for me, before walking to the opposite side for his own position. The candles are gorgeous; burning sullenly and quietly, leaving bright imprints on my vision as soon as I tear my face away from them. Daniel, too, is quite the picture: a dark blue suit jacket, dark blue jeans, and a pink shirt beneath; top button undone in the obligatory style.
"So, what," I finally knock up the confidence to say, "no-one else comes here?"
He deftly tosses me a menu across the table, narrowly missing the line of candle flames that separate us.
"I like peace and quiet," he says after a few moments pause. "And I like the food in this restaurant."
I stare back into him blankly, unaware of the brazenly smug point he's trying to make to me.
"I bought it."
We're interrupted by the waiter - a short fellow, apparently voiceless - bringing us a selection of wines. I don't care for any of this; I just pick the first bottle that's presented. Daniel does the same. I'm so overwhelmed by this entire experience - by the gentle breeze of the air-conditioned atmosphere, and the sight of my gorgeous, enigmatic billionaire host sitting just feet away from me once again - that his statement sails right past me, and I'm back inside my own world, feverishly battling my own insecurities.
"Look," I say, putting my hands upon the table, trying to keep myself composed, and straddling the fine old familiar lines of giddy schoolgirl admiration, heart-pounding nervousness, and an all-defeating desire to put him on the spot, and find out just what I'm doing here. "What is this all about? The audition? This role of yours?"
He looks into me with those expressive eyes of his, reflecting the dancing flames of the candles in his pupils. His expression doesn't change, even as I mention this morning.
"And, uhm, the nakedness."
I can’t find any easier way to say it, so I just blurt it out. I feel a tinge of shame upon hearing myself utter those words, and a flooding rush of embarrassment. But he's still unchanged.
"I feel I should apologize, Miss Everett," he starts, putting down the menu, and clasping his fingers together humbly, and diplomatically. "You're not stupid. I can see that. And I can also see that you might not appreciate being played like some insignificant fledgling actress in some cheap B movie. My methods might not seem all too clear to you, and for that I am sorry."
Being played? His methods? He managed to answer a question with only more questions. I plant my chin upon my outstretched palms, leaning in towards him to study his expressions further. He's remarkably composed; he never diverts his eyes from me, not even for a mere second. He's a picture of every trait of confidence I wish I had.
"I see something in you," he says, grasping my attention once more. "There's something about you. You don't seem happy about yourself, almost as if you're dissatisfied with what you were given in life. You don't seem so comfortable in your own skin."
I don't know whether to feign offence, or commend him for such a successful reading of me. I'm everything he describes, with any extra measure of anxiety thrown in for good measure. I open my mouth to speak, but he goes on before I can have a chance to state whatever it was I wanted to say.
"And yet, here you are. Hollywood. Trying to carve a career out for yourself. And not just any career, but one of the most extraverted careers of all. I want to know, if you're so unhappy being you, why exactly do you think you've got what it takes to put yourself in a movie?"
I don't know how to answer. I have to consciously stiffen my hands before me to stop them trembling beneath this intense, magnifying, all-seeing, all-hearing and all-knowing gaze of his. Seconds go by, as the dancing candle flames seem to taunt me, swaying from side to side childishly, as I struggle to think of an answer.
"I think, uhm," I say, before trailing off into thought once more. "I think it's about becoming a different person. If I can surrender myself to the right role, to the right script and the right character, everything seems different somehow. Like I don't have to worry about myself anymore."
He watches me intently, and for a split-second I swear I see that wry grin back on his lips, contorting upwards into his cheek, before he steadies himself and goes back to that courteously serious expression.
"It's nice to just be someone else. I don't have to think about what sort of decisions I'm making, or saying the wrong thing, or doing the wrong thing, because as long as I've learnt the lines in the script, I know I'll be fine."
I've said everything I have to say; my entire philosophy on acting, and my wholesome intentions as an actress. If this is truly an interview for a movie role, I couldn't have put it any clearer. Daniel, however, is content to keep staring at me, his eyebrows raised quizzically, and his elbows planted firmly upon the table. Eventually, to dispel the silence, I feel compelled to speak again.
"So, what sort of movie role are we talking about?"
"No movie" he answers succinctly, before finally diverting his eyes from me, and back to the menu below him.
"Okay, television?"
"Nope. Not television either."
I'm confused; not a movie, not television, what sort of role does he think I'd take? I'm too pale for the pornographic industry in this town, to state just one objection.
"Oh - kay. Then, what are we here for?"
He exhales loudly, arousing within me yet again the briefest memory of his gorgeously delicate breath on my skin. I wait, nervously digging my nails into my palms as he calculates his words, carefully.
"I'm looking for someone. Someone to work for me. Someone to work with me."
What happened to the movie role I was mentally psyching myself up for? Now I find he instead wants a glorified secretary?
"You want a personal assistant of some sort?" I mount the courage to ask, as two pristine glasses of wine are brought to the table, and sparkling white wine is poured into each. He pauses until the faceless, wordless waiter has left, before continuing.
"No. I don't like to use labels."
"So what do you want from me, Daniel?"
"I want someone I can control," he says with gusto, making the candle flames dance again befor
e us. "Somebody untainted by this corrupted and superficial business we're part of. And you're the perfect candidate."
Someone he can control? What the hell does he mean by that? I tighten my legs together, pressing the sides of my knees against one another, trying very hard to dispel the mental images of being ‘controlled’ by Daniel Grant. It feels like I'm tensing every muscle in my body, but I can't help invoking images of the last time I surrendered every last bastion of control to him, and the feelings I had.
"I guess I just want someone who won't say no."
He's staring into me so intensely I just have to look away; two piercing, expressive eyes studying my every movement, and every facial expression for clues on how I might feel about this. I look down, realizing that I'm digging two painful nail-marks into my own palms, and put my hands down to the table, as he watches my every move. A strange silence grips us; far from awkward, but then not exactly comfortable either. He's content to spend these passing minutes staring directly at me, occasionally showing me glimpses of that duplicitous grin.
"Okay," I finally say between gritted teeth, feeling myself melt under the pressure, "and what would I have to do for you?"
I feel I already know the answer. I bat my knees together, and try to ignore what feels like a growing dampness between my legs, excited at the very prospect of being a billionaire's muse. Now he doesn't hide it. He breaks out into a beaming smirk that reveals to me almost every one of his impeccably white teeth.
"Anything and everything I say, Miss Everett. It's the best sort of working relationship there is." The mere mention of the word relationship has my ears burning. I take a sip of wine, finding the taste rather too bitter and fruity. I'd hate to know how much he paid for it. "Of course, there would be the necessary disclosure documents to sign, contracts, whatever. But right now, I just want to know if you're interested."
Forbidden To Say No - The Billionaire's Plaything (An Erotic Romance Novel) Page 4
