Dirty Professor

by North, Paige

  “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” said Ava Marie as she stretched on the floor, her legs spread in an almost perfectly straight line.

  “No, I promise you, it was. They’re probably all sitting in some fancy bar drinking martinis and laughing over the worst audition they’ve ever seen.” I crunched on another chip, trying not to see Leo Armstrong’s face. I rubbed my wrist where he touched me, getting orange dust on my skin in the process. It felt good to talk about. I didn’t have any friends in L.A.—yet—and Ava Marie was someone who knew the ropes.

  I didn’t tell her, but I hoped she could help me with my column, once I finally started on it in the true sense of things. I figured we could go out on the town together, checking out the hot spots. She knew I worked at Crush, but I had told her that I was also thinking about getting into acting. In a town like this, it wasn’t unusual. What I didn’t tell her was that I was working undercover on a story to expose Leo Armstrong’s caddish ways.

  Ava Marie pulled both her legs together in front of her, flexed her heels and leaned over her knees. She had what could only be described as the perfect body—long, lean, strong but not too muscular. A dancer’s body—which she was. A dancer, I mean.

  “I don’t think you get it,” I said, cringing when I thought of the way those people looked at me when I read the lines. Siri had more personality than I did. “There was this guy sitting in a corner eating a sandwich during the whole thing. I think he was the janitor, Ava Marie, and even he was laughing at me.”

  “Look, Sophie,” Ava Marie said. “I don’t know you very well. We’ve only lived together a couple of weeks. But one thing you should know about me is that I don’t lie, and I don’t bullshit. So if you’re looking to me to give you sympathy for this one audition you had today, you’re looking in the wrong place. I go on auditions all the time. It’s a full time job that doesn’t pay. Tonight is one of the few nights I have off from my other job at the restaurant and I really don’t want to spend it listening to you whine.”

  “I didn’t mean to whine…” I began, stunned by her harsh tone and frankly, a little embarrassed. Since I’d moved into our tiny apartment I rarely saw Ava Marie. She left in the morning for auditions and usually went straight to her job waiting tables on Third Street Promenade.

  “Talk to me when you’ve been on seventeen auditions in one week and turned down for every single one. And that happens for weeks on end. I’ve had to audition through stress fractions and tendonitis. My body is in constant pain and my ego is always being smacked down a peg. I’ve been told I’m too fat, that my neck is too short, my torso too long for my legs. On top of it all, I’m dead broke. And I never complain about it.”

  “Ava Marie, I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just…venting.”

  “Vent to someone back home,” she said, standing up. She looked at me and let out a deep sigh. Her voice softened as she said, “I’m not trying to be mean. It’s for your own good. You can’t let what people say out here say get you down. You’ll never survive.”

  My stomach felt heavy. I was totally regretting my dinner choice which, let’s be honest, was a pity party for one.

  My phone rang, and unfamiliar number on the screen. I picked it up and answered, hoping it wasn’t Kait looking to get all the gruesome details.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Sophie Adams?” a deep and somewhat familiar voice asked.

  My heart stopped at the mention of my undercover name. “Yes.”

  “This is Leo Armstrong. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  I cleared my throat, which had suddenly become dry. “No. Not at all.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about the audition today,” he said. His voice was clipped, formal. “If you’re not too busy, I’d appreciate your coming by my condo.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sure. I can stop by tomorrow…”

  “Tonight would be better. If you’re not too busy.”

  I looked at the half-eaten bag of chips. My big plans for the night. My stomach was dropping as if I’d just stepped in an elevator that plummeted twenty stories.

  “No, it’s fine. I mean, yeah. I’ll come by.”

  “Ready for the address?”

  When I hung up the phone, Ava Marie said, “You okay? Who was it?”

  “Oh, um, a guy from the audition,” I said.

  “You got a callback?” she said, and I could see the jealousy on her face, that one audition would go so well.

  “No, it was…some other guy. He invited me to his place to run lines.” The quick-thinking lie sounded pretty good, I thought.

  But Ava Marie looked at me like I was simple child—one she felt sorry for. “Oh, Sophie. Sweet, innocent Sophie. I don’t know what goes on in Maine, but when a boy calls to invite you to his house to run lines, he probably means something more like running his tongue in lines all over your body.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I know.” Even though I had totally not thought of that. I couldn’t think straight, frankly. Leo Armstrong just called me. Leo Armstrong just invited me over to his condo. Holy shit. I didn’t know whether to be excited that I hadn’t blown the audition, or a nervous wreck knowing that the undercover story was moving forward despite my efforts. “I’m not that dumb.”

  “You sure about that?” she said.

  “Damn, Ava Marie,” I said, offended.

  “Sorry,” she said, with a shrug. “I just want to make sure you get it.”

  “I get it,” I said with a little extra force. I was in it now. I was playing a role for a breakthrough article. I had to steel myself against the nerves. I looked down at myself. “What am I going to wear?” I couldn’t wear the same dress as this afternoon. This was my second chance to make a good impression on him. I’d totally blown it in the audition so I had to make sure I dazzled him tonight. I headed to my microscopic bedroom to see if anything would do.

  I found a red stretchy dress still in a box in my floor. I’d bought it to wear on a date with Paul, my ex-boyfriend. We had planned to drive down to Portland for dinner to celebrate my graduating cum laude. Before I could cut the tags off, he called to tell me that our lives were going in different directions, and we should call it quits before someone got hurt. I didn’t even know at the time it was too late for that.

  “Don’t worry,” I told Ava Marie as I took off the yoga pants I’d immediately put on when I got home from the audition. “I know what I'm doing.”

  Which was a total lie, but it seemed pretending to be someone I wasn’t was the only way I’d make it through this assignment, so I might as well start now.

  Chapter Five

  When I pulled up to the high-rise condos on Wilshire Boulevard I felt like I was pulling up to a luxurious hotel. A guy actually valet parked my car. As I walked away I had to scramble to see if I even had any money to pay once I left.

  I took the elevator to the twenty-third floor, per Leo’s instructions. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do once I got there—he hadn’t given me an apartment number.

  Turned out I didn’t need one. He lived on the entire twenty-third floor.

  He stood at the end of the long hallway as I exited the elevator, waiting.

  “Hello,” I said, as I nervously walked toward him.

  “There she is,” he said, and a smile filled his face that could have lit all of the Hollywood Hills. I couldn’t help but smile back. It felt good to know that seeing me made him look that way—even if I had to remember what kind of guy he was.

  He made no move to meet me halfway down the hall. I felt self-conscious walking toward him in my tiny dress and heels as if I was on a runway, and Leo Armstrong the only one in the audience. The intense blue of his eyes came into focus before the rest of his features, like a beacon aimed right through me. Even from the distance, I felt like he saw me.

  Finally, when I stood before him, he said, “Welcome. I’m glad you could make it on such short notice.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Thanks
for having me.”

  I followed him through the door and into a world of total opulence and sleek beauty. The living room was two stories high and lined with glass and steel and looked out over the glittering city below. It was decorated in clean whites, blacks and gray, all sharp edges and no fuss. A staircase curved up to the second floor, and a chandelier dripped down from the second story, lit with crystals and LED lights, giving it a magical glow.

  “This is amazing,” I said, not caring that I was wide-eyed and slack jawed.

  “Thanks,” he said. “It’s good for a starter home. Next time I’ll get something more spacious.” I turned to look at him, stunned. He flashed me a smile, his lips curling up in delight. “I’m teasing you. I know it’s big and gorgeous. Sometimes I feel guilty about it.” I followed him to the couch, where he motioned for me to sit down. It was white and soft, like cashmere. “That’s another lie. I don’t feel guilty about it. Not one bit. Now—what can I get you to drink?”

  I had no idea what to order—should I ask for wine, or would a mixed drink be more sophisticated? I wish I knew what his other beauties drank because it suddenly felt like a daunting question.

  I wondered for the thousandth time why he’d even see fit to invite me over. I’d definitely bungled the audition, and in terms of looks—I didn’t even rate on the same scale as the other women who’d been in the room waiting…

  So what was I here for?

  “That wasn’t a trick question,” he said, watching me. He hands were in the pockets of his dark pants, and with his sleeves casually rolled up, I could see the strength even in his forearms. Incredible. I hadn’t seen any beach shots of him, but I suddenly found myself desperately wondering what the rest of his arms looked like. If just looking at his forearms could do this to me, I wasn’t sure I could handle the rest.

  “Sorry,” I said, smiling. I needed to calm down. “I’ll just have whatever you’re having.”

  “Good,” he said. “A director just sent over this bottle of prosecco. It’s a nice wine, don’t get me wrong,” he said from the bar as he got glasses and the bottle from the wine refrigerator. He held up the bottle. “But do you think going over budget by two million dollars is worth one bottle of Italian bubbly? He could have at least sent me a case.”

  “Or bought you the vineyard,” I said.

  “Smart girl,” he said. The faintest stubble of beard had appeared since our meeting, giving him a more careless look, despite the sharp clothes he still wore.

  He shot me a quick grin and my stomach thrilled.

  I was quickly finding that it made me happy to please him and make him smile. Who wouldn’t want to see that face light up? And seeing him smile also alleviated the sensation that I was in so far over my head, I might drown.

  On an oversized coffee table was a plate full of fresh fruit, cheeses and baguette slices. I thought of my chip dinner, and my stomach growled. Leo sat next to me, close enough to reach out and touch me. The feeling from the audition of being so close to him returned, and I found myself feeling jittery. He handed me the glass of processo, and our fingers brushed. I definitely needed the alcohol to calm myself down.

  Leo held his glass aloft. He turned his body toward mine and looked at me in a way that felt piercing, almost intrusive. But then a little smile played on those luscious lips of his, and he said, “Here’s to nailing auditions.”

  I smiled and rolled my eyes. I clinked his glass and took a drink. Once I had a little liquid courage in my belly, I felt comfortable saying, “Can we just agree that that was the worst audition you’ve ever seen?”

  “The worst? Absolutely not,” he said. “You didn’t pass out. At least not that I saw.”

  “People have fainted in auditions?”

  “You have no idea. When we do open auditions like the one we had today—usually when we have a movie that has so many smaller roles, it’s easier to just open it up—we get lots of interesting auditions. People with one line of dialogue will come in with this whole backstory for their character, only to say the line, ‘Your car has arrived.’ Or some want feedback immediately, and sometimes the actors will throw a fit if you don’t tell them what they want to hear. So on a scale of one to crazy, yours wasn’t so bad.”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t even get out a single line. I was a total idiot.”

  “You were charming,” he said. “And gorgeous.”

  “Stop,” I said, the heat on my face unbearable I had to cover it with my free hand. Leo reached up and took my hand, gently pulling it away. The sureness of his hand on mine felt electric, and when I looked at him his eyes danced with delight—probably knowing his words could make a silly girl like me blush so easily.

  “I think I can easily guess that you’re not from around here,” he said.

  “Nope,” I said. “How can you tell?” Was it my dress? Or something about the way I spoke?

  “You don’t have that jaded, cynical way about you like most people here,” he said. “Also, you look like a real woman, not some pin-thin, plastic Barbie doll type. You look…all natural.” His eyes scanned down me for a moment, and it was in such a sexy way, far different from the way Bethany had looked me down yesterday. “So where are you from?”

  “Maine,” I said, feeling embarrassed. I’d practically gotten laughs at the editorial meeting for stating such a shameful statement.

  Leo looked off and said, “I spent a fall there, up in Bar Harbor. You know it?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I said, pleased that he actually knew Maine as something more as that state way up there in the corner. “It’s on Mount Desert Island.”

  “Right,” he said. “Yeah. It was really a beautiful, picturesque small town. Quiet, secluded. And I know Maine is known for its lobster but I had the absolute best at this little restaurant there just off the main street.”

  “I live further south from there but I’ve been on vacations up there on long weekends. It’s great.”

  He asked me more about myself, like how long I’d been in L.A. and how I’d ended up here. Instead of telling him that one, and only one, magazine hired me, I said I was mostly looking for an adventure. “I just thought I’d come out here and see what happened—with the whole acting thing,” I added. “I don’t plan on living my whole life here.”

  “No? Think you’ll go back to Maine?” he asked.

  “God no,” I said. “I mean, I like where I’m from. I just want to do something more, you know? Something a little bigger. Only I don’t know what that is yet.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he said. “I don’t know, Sophie. I have a good feeling about you.”

  I could feel myself blushing again, so I took a sip of the wine.

  “You’re also very beautiful, too. Although I’m sure plenty of people have told you that before,” he continued.

  “Stop,” I said, smiling and covering my face with my hands, wondering if Kait had actually been right that I was somehow Leo’s type. It seemed bizarre to say the least—patently impossible.

  And yet here I was, sitting next to him at his condo.

  “And even more beautiful when you blush,” he said. “Don’t ever hide your face. It’s criminal.” He took my hand gently and guided it back down to my lap, and his thumb brushed on my bare thigh, sending a shock straight up between my thighs. I shifted slightly on the couch. I couldn’t help myself. When he released my hand, dragging his fingers across my thigh, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I took a drink of the wine, concentrating on the light bubbles that danced across my tongue and down my throat.

  “So,” I began, trying to pull myself back to some sort of decent conversation. “Do you have any notes for me from my audition? Anything I can do to improve my skills?”

  He smiled a crooked smile, which damn, was even better than the full version. He was amused by me, and I had a feeling he enjoyed watching me squirm.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked. “For me to help you improve you
r skills?”

  “Well, I…” I stammered. At that exact moment, my dress slipped off one shoulder. Leo reached up and tucked the fabric back in place. He left his hand there, his fingers holding on to my shoulder, pressing delicately.

  “Perfect timing, huh?” he said.

  I laughed, releasing some tension, and covered my face with my hand again. Total embarrassment.

  “No, no,” he said, teasing, taking my hand again. “What’d I say about covering up that gorgeous face?”

  The last thing I wanted was for him to let go of me, to stop touching me, but that’s exactly what he did. This guy was getting to me, and fast.

  I kept reminding myself that none of this was real, but suddenly it was feeling all too real, and my defenses had not been prepared for the kind of heat and chemistry I was experiencing.

  Leo stood from the couch and said, “Listen, Sophie. I don’t like to pretend.” He walked toward a table near the two-story window, where the city lights danced below us. He opened a drawer and pulled something out. “I live in a world of make believe, with movies and people using each other to get ahead. So I need to know I can trust you.” He sat back down next to me. On the table, near all the food I still wanted to eat if only I could stop panicking, Leo Armstrong placed papers and a pen down before me. “For someone like me,” he said, “it’s a part of my reality. Before we talk about your audition or…anything else…I need you to sign this non-disclosure agreement. It’s standard but feel free to take a moment to read it. If you don’t feel comfortable signing it, I completely understand, but unfortunately I won’t be able to enjoy your company without it.”

  I picked up the paper and let my eyes scan the words. The flirting of moments ago had certainly evaporated. Legal documents will do that to a girl.

  “You want me to sign this?” I asked.