by Holly Rayner
As I said before, I made many useful contacts during the auditions that followed Date Roulette, and one of those was Elijah Reed a seasoned drama writer from the early nineties. He’d written for two popular cop shows, and one intensely gritty show about life in the inner city, among others. While the public had largely forgotten his name, it still commanded respect among Hollywood’s directors and producers. Still, though, the man was facing competition in his field from newer, younger talents. I had an idea that, with a little persuasion, I could get him to help me out.
I called Elijah using a false name, and told him that I represented a small organization that was interested in pitching a television show to Patras Productions in the near future. While the group was well appointed financially, I told him, it had little name recognition at the minute. I intimated that the group was willing to pay him a princely sum if he would arrange a meeting for us, in his name, with the executive producer. Within one hour, Elijah—or rather I—had an appointment to meet with Kristos the following afternoon.
Elated at my success in outwitting Kristos’ evasive tactics, I ran through my story one last time, searching for errors. Finding none, I packed an overnight bag and a good business suit that still fit me, and snuck back into North Hollywood under the radar. I slipped into a motel, again obscuring my identity, and prepared for the next day, when I would put my acting skills to the test.
THIRTEEN
The following morning, I took a pair of scissors and trimmed my long hair to just above my shoulders. Fishing some dye out of the overnight bag, I turned myself into a brunette. I put on a pair of glasses, as well as a touch of makeup, then added a white blouse and my classy, dark brown business suit. I went to the mirror and admired my handiwork. I looked like an attractive, slightly pregnant, secretary.
I could now walk freely through the city without fear of being recognized. No one in Kristos’ office would know who I was, either. I felt like Sherlock Holmes, but just as I began reveling in my cleverness, my baby gave me a kick. “Hey! Settle down in there!” I said, laughing.
My car had been returned to my apartment, so I rented one to complete my disguise. I came away with a black Accord, and set out for Kristos’ offices, working on my voice the whole way. By the time I arrived, I was no longer Emma Johnson, actress. I was Sarah Hill, secretary to Mr. Reed.
I carried everything I needed through the front doors and towards the elevators. No one seemed to recognize me at all. In mere moments, I was standing in front of the secretary I had called umpteen times before, trying out my new voice.
“My name is Sarah Hill,” I said, in a voice half an octave lower than my natural one. “I am Elijah Hill’s personal secretary. I believe he has an appointment with Mr. Metroupolos.”
“Yes, Miss Hill. Go right in and get set up. Mr. Metroupolos will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you,” I replied. I didn’t mention how lucky it was that Kristos had time to see me, considering that he was supposed to be booked solid for the next five months.
I stepped into his office and began setting up, determined to be the soul of professionalism. In a moment, Kristos walked in.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Hill. It’s a pleasure to meet you. When will Mr. Reed be arriving?” he asked.
He walked up to me and took my hand in his. He was halfway through his handshake when he leaped back in shock. The expression on his face was priceless: a mix of surprise, terror, and rage.
“Mr. Reed will regrettably be unable to meet you this afternoon. He has been unavoidably detained. I am here to function as a replacement.”
“I specifically said no contact,” Kristos growled.
“I’m not here for contact,” I replied calmly. “I’m here to pitch a show. If you’ll just sit down,” I suggested, indicating my materials when he gave me a look that clearly said ‘bullshit’.
“I call it A Game of Chance. It’s a modern romance that follows the lives of two people who overcome a difficult situation to find the best in each other. Our lead is Ellen Paige, a secretary for a small publishing company. She’s a smart, pretty Nigerian woman whose temper can sometimes get the better of her. Ms. Paige hopes to become a novelist one day. She keeps her work in a notebook at her desk, and adds to it whenever she has a free moment. The company is owned by David Winters. David is from the Midwest, and he’s inherited a strong work ethic and homespun values. He’s organizing an event to promote his struggling company. He wants the focus of his event to be a new American novel that will return his company to its former heights.”
“And he finds it in Ellen’s notebook I presume,” Kristos interjected sourly. He was doing his very best to appear uninterested, but he wasn’t quite succeeding.
“Yes,” I returned in social tones. “Ellen is working on a novel about two teenage sisters who help each other through Nigeria’s civil war after their parents are killed.”
“And what are you basing your knowledge of that war on?”
“Google, Wikipedia, and a dozen first-hand accounts I found online,” I answered.
It was an interesting idea, the kind of thing award-winning novels were written about, but I didn’t want to dwell on how much research I had done. I knew I’d be on safer ground if I stuck with the main story, and not the one Ellen was writing about.
“David finds her work one day, when Ellen is away from her desk, and starts to read it. He has only been reading for around ten minutes when Ellen returns, but by that point he’s become extremely interested in it and her.”
I continued to make my pitch, and the longer I talked, the more Kristos’ face seemed to change. It was clear to me that I was winning him over, and I hadn’t done all of this work in vain. I tried to read his expression, but quickly realized that I couldn’t analyze Kristos and make the pitch at the same time. I gave up trying to read him and followed my plan, praying that it would work out in the end.
FOURTEEN
Kristos
Nothing could have shocked me more than Emma’s sudden appearance in my office. As angry as I was, I had to admit that the woman was an excellent actress. She had changed everything, even down to her voice, and despite myself, I was impressed.
She wasn’t acting now, however, as she told me about the relationship between her characters. The two had hated each other from the first; Ellen had resented David’s invasion of her privacy, and David had seen Ellen as ungrateful for his help in getting her published. But they needed each other, so they worked together. When Emma got to the part about the pair having sex after getting plastered during their date, I was flabbergasted. She was drawing on our relationship for her pitch. Every line of it was similar to what we had gone through. Even though she had cast herself as a Nigerian woman, and me as a Midwestern man, there was no denying the similarities in our stories.
The longer I listened to Emma’s pitch, the more it became clear: I had misjudged her, and made a terrible mistake. With every word she spoke, my heart sank deeper into my chest.
“So Ellen is worried about what her boss is going to think and the things he’s going to accuse her of. She’s concerned she doesn’t have enough money to raise a child by herself. She wonders whether David actually loves her and whether he’ll make a good parent or not. She’s terrified, but she forces herself to make the call.”
I hope to God I never again feel as shitty as I did right then, sitting and wondering how long Emma had struggled with coming to talk to me. How long had she needed to steel her nerves? She had needed support, someone to help her with what she was going through, and I had accused her of making it all up. I glanced at her hair, now cropped and dyed, the glasses perched on her nose. She’d had to do all that just to be able to talk to me. I was beginning to feel like some sort of bridge troll.
“You were never going to blackmail me were you?” I said quietly as soon as Emma paused for breath. The not-quite question seemed to surprise her, but when she absorbed it, she shook her head no.
“I just wante
d to talk to you. It’s really scary, you know, learning you’re going to bring someone into the world. I really had no idea what I was going to do. I wanted to know if you wanted to help raise him. He’s an active little guy.”
“It’s a boy? I have a son?” I gasped.
“We have a son,” Emma replied. “And there’s no way in hell I’m giving him up.”
I began to hate myself when I remembered that I had tried to take a child away from his mother. I looked at Emma, standing before me with a slight bulge at her waist and a look of determination, and I realized that I had never loved anyone more than this brave, beautiful woman.
“Look, Emma,” I replied dolefully. “I’m sorry. For everything. I’ve been making assumptions about you ever since we met. I’ve never been fair to you.”
“Just as long as you know that,” Emma interrupted.
“Just a moment,” I returned. “I’m not done apologizing for being an asshole yet.”
The ghost of a smile flickered across her face, and she let me continue.
“I’ve questioned your morals, and put you through a ton of grief. All because I judged you based on other people instead of bothering to learn who you really are. If it’s not too late, I want to change that. Will you give me another chance?”
I felt more nervous than I had in a long time, asking this. To be brutally honest, I knew I deserved nothing of the sort. But Emma simply walked quietly over and gave me a little kiss on the cheek.
“You can have another chance,” she answered to my delight.
Honestly, I can’t remember ever being happier than I was right then. All that mattered was the woman in front of me, and the person she would shortly be bringing into the world. I needed to have both of them in my life.
***
“For the record, you make one hell of a brunette,” I told Emma as I made preparations with my secretary. I had managed to talk her into joining me for a walk on the beach, and needed my secretary to look after things while I was gone.
“Thanks,” Emma replied. “You should have seen your face. I thought you were going to have a heart attack. It took everything I had not to laugh right then.”
She was laughing now. She grabbed my hand and placed it over her stomach. For a moment, I wondered what she was doing, and then I felt my boy move. Emma winced a little, but I felt like shouting.
“That’s amazing,” I breathed excitedly.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
We went to my Audi, where Stanton was waiting. He looked at Emma with recognition in his eyes, but he said nothing. On the way to a private stretch of beach I had purchased years ago, I talked Emma into finishing her story. Stanton dodged the traffic as well as he could, but it still took nearly forty minutes to get there.
When we arrived at the beach, the sun was just beginning to set. For a while we simply walked together, just admiring the beauty of our surroundings. Emma pointed out a flock of birds flying in formation across the sky, and I told her I wished I knew how to paint the lush golds, reds, and deep purples that were slinking over everything. We eventually started talking about what happened to Emma since I saw her last, and finally the conversation came around to her mother.
“If anyone had told me we would live together for nearly two months, I would have said they had lost their natural mind, but in the end, that’s what happened. I always thought she had no faith in me, and I really fought to prove her wrong. Whenever I lost, it felt like the world was saying my mother was right, that I had no chance of making it as an actor and should quit while I was ahead. But she never believed any of that. I never saw her, but she came to all of my performances. Apparently, she learned to use the DVR just so she could record one of my commercials.”
Emma talked about her mother for a great deal longer, and as she did, I saw worry lines etch themselves deeper in her face.
“Something’s bothering you, Emma,” I said at last. “Why don’t you tell me what it is?” At first, she hesitated. Then, with a sigh, she began to talk.
“The whole time I was with my mom, I kept asking her what was wrong. Some days she seemed well enough, but most of the time, she was weak, and her joints bothered her. I couldn’t talk her into going to a doctor, but she would go out every now and then, for several hours at a time. I guessed she might be going to the hospital, but I couldn’t get her to talk, so I did what everyone in my situation does.”
“You looked it up on the internet?” I asked.
“I looked it up on the internet,” she confirmed. “The symptoms, especially the rash, matched up with lupus. I’ve been worried sick ever since. I told her what I found, and she patted her hair, which was a wig she didn’t think I knew about. She told me it was just a bit of a virus, and a few days later, she went back to Arizona.”
I hugged her and told her not to worry; that her mother would be fine. When you’re a billionaire, making promises like that is slightly easier.
We started talking about the baby, whom she wanted to name Jacob, after her very first friend in elementary school. He couldn’t fight to save his life, but according to Emma, he was the greatest tattletale the world had ever known. She swore his tattling saved her from several schoolyard beatings. I, of course, suggested naming him Kristos, and she just smiled.
“That’s his middle name,” she said. “And I get the impression that he likes it. Can I ask you something?” she asked, and her face suddenly became serious again.
“Of course,” I replied.
She put a hand on my shoulder. “Why did you think I was going to blackmail you in the first place? What gave you that idea?”
That was the very last question I wanted to answer right now, but I didn’t see how putting it off was going to make it any better. Besides which, I had been a jackass to her for months, making her struggle for no reason. I knew that she deserved to know why, even if it was a story I hated to tell. I braced myself, and started at the beginning.
“Well, when I started out in television, I was a producer for a news show no one watched on a network no one had heard of. They hired me out of school, both because I did so well there, and because I was extremely affordable. Very slowly, by rearranging the format and making the hosts more engaging, I was able to turn the show around. Viewership was still low, but rising steadily. I got a raise.
“One of the staffers, a woman named Celine, started to notice me, and soon, we became friends. She seemed like a wonderful person, with a great sense of humor, so I thought she was kidding when she demanded I put her on the show. She was not. She told me my choice was between making her a regular feature, and facing an unfounded harassment charge. She’d been seeding our coworkers already, she said, telling them how uncomfortable I made her feel. I couldn’t expect to have a career if I was fired after only three months in my first job, so I caved and gave her a regular segment on the show.”
“That’s horrible, Kristos,” Emma intoned, sounding upset. “But that was years ago…”
“Yes, but it got worse. Eventually, I bought the news show and promoted my assistant to executive producer. Katherine had been my right hand for two solid years. At the time, I trusted her completely, and treachery was very far from my mind. That is, until she demanded that I hand over the show to her. Either that, she threatened, or she would tell everyone that I was stalking her.”
“Jesus!” Emma exclaimed incredulously. “Tell me you fought that one.”
“You’re damn right I did. Tooth and nail. She dragged my reputation through the mud, but eventually, the jury found me not guilty of all charges. After that, I never wanted to feel that exposed again. It had been the worst experience of my life, and I felt so low that I considered going back to Greece and taking up real estate like my parents wanted me to. Instead, I used the few contacts I had in the industry to pitch my first reality show about six contestants who try to build a successful business together. It was picked up by one of the major networks, and I made a fortune. You can pro
bably guess what happened after that.”
“Another woman tried her hand at blackmail?” Emma asked.
“Several more,” I replied. “Over a dozen by the time you showed up. Between them, those women cost me three hundred million dollars.” Emma’s jaw actually fell open at that. “When I thought you were like the rest of them, I flew off the handle, and I’m sorry for that. I know I haven’t been clear about my feelings for you, Emma, but since the first day we met, I’ve never been able to get you out of my mind. I was upset when you left that morning because I really thought we might have something together.”
“Really?” Emma replied with a little smile. “Well in that case, I suppose it’s okay if I tell you a little secret too: I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind either. Believe me, I’ve tried. Really, really, hard. But it never quite seemed to work.”
