Dark hair, dark eyes and a chiselled jaw, along with the famous eight pack physique and more infamous ass cheeks that had appeared inside woman’s magazines across the globe whenever he went swimming on a public beach...Patrick Sauvage was made for the physical roles. But he was also classically good looking, so he could pull off historical roles, contemporary roles...whatever he was wanted for.
He tended to piss off most of the A-list actors, because he could also act, so they couldn’t laugh at his performances and dismiss him that way. He had trained in London, and he had been honing his skills through the years with private coaching. He was a master at accents.
Kate was right. Sauvage was perfect for Murad, except that he was flaky.
His personal life was not just a shipwreck; it was a museum in ode to marine time disasters. Four wives and at least three serious relationships had broken up publically and loudly. And then there was the fact that Sauvage liked to inhale or drink a lot of his spare income and the resultant disasters from that.
Sauvage had an annual booking at Betty Ford.
All the sordid details and media headlines flickered through Roman’s memory as Sauvage sailed across the bar, smiling and nodding at various people as he passed. He even stopped once or twice to sign autographs. His smile was at full wattage, and he looked like he’d just spent forty days at a health spa. He was tanned, fit and glowing with good health.
The security guy gently shepherded him over to the pool area.
Everyone at their table was turned to watch the superstar descend upon them, now. His arrival had stopped the conversation and yanked their attention around to the centre of the lounge.
Everyone except Garrett’s assistant. Hers was the one head not facing toward Sauvage. She was watching the TV screens behind Roman, utterly disinterested in Sauvage’s entrance. Then she looked down at her computer tablet, absorbed in the text on the screen.
Curioser and curioser. Roman catalogued her for future study.
Sauvage spotted Garrett and his smile turned into a genuine one, full of warmth and dazzling good cheer.
“I’ll be damned,” Roman murmured, as Garrett got to his feet.
Kate shot him a look.
Garrett and Sauvage hugged, and it was not French airy thing. It was a solid expression of friendship.
Roman leaned toward Kate. “That’s how he’s getting him for five,” he murmured. “He knows Sauvage well enough to either pull in a favour...or something bigger.”
“What could be bigger?” she murmured back.
Roman raised his brow.
“Oh...” she breathed, her eyes widening as she turned back to look at Sauvage. Roman knew she was trying to instantly reassess Sauvage in light of the possibility that he and Garrett were now or were once lovers.
Garrett gave up his seat, putting Sauvage directly opposite Kate. It was a strategic move, Roman realized. Sauvage had charm and magnetism to spare, and he would pour it all on Kate, his future director and producer.
Garrett took the chair next to Sauvage and everyone else shuffled around and settled back down.
“Kate, do you know Patrick?”
Patrick held out his hand. “We’ve never had the fortune to formally work together, although we’ve rubbed elbows at awards here and there. Hi, Kate.” He didn’t beam at her. “I hear you’ve got concerns about casting me.”
Roman sat forward, as Kate’s studiously blank expression slid into place. She cleared her throat. “I do,” she said after a few seconds. “I’m not a producer with an endless pocket. You’re currently outside my economic reach. Garrett seems to feel differently.”
Sauvage nodded. “He showed me your script. I want the part, Kate. It’s perfect for me, and I’m perfect for your movie.” Again, he wasn’t smiling. No charm. Just business. Roman could feel tendrils of admiration curling up inside him again, despite his need to despise what Garrett was doing to Kate. Sauvage was playing it straight. And he had exposed his cards for everyone to see. No bullshit. No hype. Down to business. Kate would find that hard to resist. It was her style of doing things.
Kate drew in a breath and let it out before she responded. “I’ve been talking to someone else.”
“I heard you were considering Greg Evershot,” Sauvage replied. His lips thinned. “He’s a fine actor,” he said flatly. “He’ll do a wonderful job.”
Even Roman was familiar with the standard Hollywood euphemism for saying an actor was full of shit, and couldn’t act for peanuts. He winced.
Kate smiled briefly. “I can’t afford you, Patrick.”
“You can if I come in at five.”
She licked her lips, glancing at Garrett. “Why on earth would you take a pay cut like that?”
Sauvage considered for a moment. “Between us, let’s just call it personal reasons. When you write the press release, you can tell them I believe so strongly in your movie, I wanted in badly enough to take the cut.”
Roman glanced at Garrett and found he was watching him. Roman sat back in his chair. There was something more at work here. It wasn’t just a favour, or even a very personal favour.
Kate’s breath was more rapid now, and Roman could detect the coppery smell of adrenaline in her aroma. She was excited, or afraid, or aroused. Or all three. But she was containing it. Hiding it...except she didn’t know that Garrett would be able to sense it, too.
Roman reached under the table, and squeezed her denim-clad knee, as a warning. He kept his hand in place, soothing her thigh with long strokes.
He saw her draw in long, steady breaths. Calming herself. She had received the message, then.
She sipped at her drink, and then laced her fingers together, staring at Sauvage. “It’s not just the money, Patrick. You know that.”
A fine furrow appeared between his brows. “Calum told me. I’ve been clean for six months. Clean of everything. Even booze.”
“You’ve gone longer than that before. And you have a tendency to fall off in the middle of filming, when the stress gets to you.” She shrugged. “Sorry, but that’s the facts, Patrick. And again, I don’t have the budget to have the set stand around idle while you go off on a binge, then spend forty days drying out, before you wander back to work.”
“Calum told me about this babysitting thing. You’re not serious, are you?”
“I am,” Kate replied serenely.
Sauvage pushed back in his seat. “That’s insulting.”
“You’ve proved you can’t be trusted, Patrick. And I can’t afford to take you at your word. You want the part, you say.” She shrugged. “That’s the price.”
He put his hands on the edge of the table, and Roman realized he was going to push himself up, and walk away.
But Garrett’s hand curled over his shoulder. “Suck it up, Pat. Just one movie. Prove you’re really clean. Then you’ll have roles coming in from all directions, and no more nervous insurance clauses and a revolving door of agents.”
Sauvage sat motionless in his chair. Considering.
“One movie and this is all over,” Garrett added softly.
Now, what did that mean? Roman wondered.
Sauvage breathed heavily through his nose. Then he nodded shortly. “Okay,” he said. He dropped his hands away from the table edge.
“It’s the role of the century,” Garrett added. “You know that.”
Sauvage grimaced. “Yeah.”
Roman glanced at Kate. She was absorbing every inch of this by-play with a writer’s and director’s keen sense of observation of character and interaction. Good. He wanted to talk to her about it later, when they were alone. He wanted to know if she was picking up the same wild and unexpected layers of sub-text that he was.
Garrett wasn’t hiding anything. What game was he playing here? What was the ace in his pocket if he was playing his cards face up?
Chapter Nine
Kate pushed the thick bound agreement back over the table to sit in front of Garrett. “You bring Patrick on board and
take care of him, and for that, you get one percent North America net on theatrical, DVD and Blu-ray,” she said.
Roman noted the change of phrasing. It was no longer five million they were discussing. Now Sauvage was sitting across the table from her, she had adjusted her language to make the terms sound less like they were picking over a commodity. There were producers who wouldn’t have bothered, or for whom being sensitive to Sauvage’s feelings wouldn’t have even occurred to them.
Garrett didn’t touch the wad of paper. “At least make it gross.”
Kate smiled. “You think you’re the only one who wants in on this deal, Garrett? I could raise another five million and more to take care of Patrick all by myself. I don’t need you. Net.”
Roman kept his jaw clenched least he smile and give himself away. She had used his shield.
But Sauvage was frowning, looking to Garrett.
And Garrett was smiling.
The ace. This was the ace, Roman realized.
“Patrick won’t deal with anyone but me,” Garrett said smoothly. “I offer compensations you and your backers couldn’t possibly extend. You could raise five million a hundred times over. You could even find and offer him the forty-two million that is Patrick’s current standard salary for a movie. I guarantee right here and now, in front of Patrick and everyone at this table, he would not deal with you if I’m not a part of the deal.”
And Garrett’s gaze flickered toward Roman. It was instant, and then gone.
Roman caught his breath and the shape and outline of the ace fell into place. Sweet Jesus, he breathed to himself.
He leaned across the corner of the table, and put his lips to Kate’s ear. “He’s got you. Give him the gross. I’ll explain later.”
Kate looked at him sharply. Then she sat against the high back of the buffet and let anger and frustration settled into her features. “Fine,” she said, her voice stiff. “Gross.”
Garrett rested his hand on the agreement, and slid it slowly across the table again. He turned it so it was facing her the right way around. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a gold pen and dropped it on top of the agreement. “I had a gut feeling,” he said. “The agreement is drawn up for 1% North American gross on theatrical, DVD and Blu-ray. All you have to do is sign.”
“Not without a lawyer looking it over first,” Kate shot back, fury dripping from every word.
“I’ll read it,” Roman told her, holding his hand out.
Kate handed it to him, her face in neutral again.
Roman scanned the pages slowly, absorbing the structure of the agreement. Most of the contract was boilerplate stuff – indemnifying everyone in case of the most unlikely scenarios possibly happening. His legal training was dusty, but he remembered contract law as being interesting because writing contracts was often future oriented, focused on what might happen and trying to cover every possible eventuality. This contract was written by someone who had really thought it through. And, surprisingly, it was a fair contract, covering Kate’s ass as much as it covered Garrett’s.
Roman pushed the contract back in front of Kate, open at the signature page. “It’s a good contract. Nothing scary,” he told her. “It binds him to exactly what you just agreed on. You, too.”
“I see,” she said. She glanced at Garrett. “You had a gut feeling, huh?”
Garrett lifted his shoulders. An elegant shrug. “I’m good at reading people.” He smiled. “And I do my research.”
Kate picked up the pen. Roman pointed to where she was to sign.
“I don’t read GC magazine on a regular basis,” she said, as she signed. “But about two years ago they ran a survey. Power women and their beddable quotient. A friend told me I was on the top fifteen list.” She handed Roman the pen, for his signature as witness.
“I remember the survey,” Garrett replied. “You were ranked at somewhere around sixty-three percent.”
Roman pushed the contract on.
“That’s right,” Kate agreed. “Something like sixty-three percent of GC’s male readership would take me to bed given the opportunity.”
Garrett picked up the pen and signed, then handed it on to Patrick Sauvage, who witnessed it. “Not hard to understand why,” Sauvage observed, with a small smile.
Kate stood up, picked up her satchel and slung it over her shoulders. “Well congratulations, Garrett. You fucked me over good and proper.” She smiled at the rest of the table. “Have a great day, everyone.”
* * * * *
Garrett arranged for Patrick to safely leave the hotel and the guards he’d hired managed to sneak him out without inciting a mob. With Patrick’s departure, that meant the need for hired heavies was lifted, too, and the slight pressure he’d been feeling since stepping into the bar of being surrounded and hemmed in lifted. Calm returned.
He pulled out his phone and thumbed through the menus quickly.
“The limousine is waiting,” Winter pointed out, her tone remote and ethereal, as she collected the paperwork and her tablet.
Garrett glanced at her. “It can wait. I need a few minutes. You go ahead with MacDonald. I’ll join you when I’m done.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, and there was a note to her question that implied she wasn’t being merely polite.
Garrett reminded himself that Winter was privy to more than just his human life. So far, she had proved to be a surprisingly effective executive assistant, even though she had been foisted on him over his loud objections.
He glanced around for eavesdroppers. “I need to speak to Roman,” he murmured. “I think he picked up far more about that deal than was spoken, or than Kate was aware of. I want to know how much of a hindrance he’s going to be.”
“He and Kate have already left.” She shifted the pile from her right hip to her left. “You’ll have to catch up another time.”
Annoyance touched him, until he realized that she wasn’t telling him what to do. She was simply pointing out facts in a remote, disinterested voice. He frowned. “Is something wrong?”
She gave him a brief smile. “Nothing. Why?” Her eyes, disguised behind the dark contacts, met his without wavering. “Roman’s cooperation or lack of it isn’t the issue today,” she added. “We can deal with him later if we need to.”
Garrett tucked his phone away again. “If I didn’t know Nial better I would say that has an ominous overtone to it.”
She glanced up at the big screens behind him, then gave him another smile. This one seemed brittle.
“You’re right,” he finished. “We need to let them think through what has happened, and allow it to settle.” He headed for the door and she fell into step beside him. “Am I dropping you at your hotel?”
“Are you done with business for the day?” she asked.
“Today, yes. Why?”
“Then the hotel is fine. But after we’ve dropped you off.”
He cocked his head to look at her, puzzled.
She gave a small smile. “You’ve never used an executive assistant before, have you?”
Garrett pushed open the door for her and felt the heat of the mid-afternoon drop over him like a warm blanket as they stepped outside. Winter caught her breath.
“There’s been plenty of talk about my control issues,” Garrett told her. “But a really good executive assistant, one that really makes a difference, needs to know everything about your life. And with my life — my lifestyle and well, being what I am...I knew I was never going to let someone I hired that far inside my shields.”
“If Nial gets his way, if vampires are revealed and accepted by humans, that won’t be an issue for you any longer, will it?” Winter pointed out, as they descended the concrete stairs down into the basement car park.
Garrett considered this new aspect of coming out. He hadn’t applied it to doing business in quite this way, before. There were a lot of aspects to how he moved through his day that he could change. No more pretending he had to halt after e
ight or ten hours because he needed to rest or eat. If he wanted to work through the night, he could...and on into the next day.
And when he needed to feed, he could disappear for the hours necessary to feed and recover without inventing excuses.
“There will be advantages, certainly. But it won’t be easy, the first few weeks and months we tell the world,” he warned her. “The misunderstanding and misinformation will be overwhelming.”
“That’s why Nial wanted you working with him,” Winter replied serenely. “You’ve had experience dealing with massive projects like this.”
The driver already had the car door open for them and the engine running. Winter stood back and indicated Garrett should get in first, and he overrode his instincts, and slid onto the seat. She settled beside him. MacDonald was already seated on the bench behind the driver, his gaze on the screen of his massive silver laptop, his fingers rattling across the keys.
Winter glanced at MacDonald, then at Garrett. She pulled out her computer tablet and turned it on. “Your calendar tomorrow morning is light,” she told Garrett. “But we should use that time to lay out what needs to be dealt with before we head out on location. That will be a long list, I presume.” She slid her finger down the screen. “With this meeting today, all your commitments in Los Angeles have been completed, so there is nothing preventing you from returning to Boston tomorrow on the noon flight. Do you want to make that flight? I can set up the tickets tonight.” She looked at him expectantly.
Garrett sat back, letting himself relax. “Why not?” he replied.
“You’ll need to be at LAX by ten to make check-in and security clearance in time, so we should meet around seven-thirty to discuss the film shoot. I’ll order breakfast for your suite and make it a breakfast meeting. Does that suit you?”
He nodded, aware that MacDonald would be listening to all of this. She was making it sound like he, Garrett, was human and a food eater. That he was perfectly normal. Well, she would have had a lot of practice doing that with her two husbands, although Sebastian did eat food, even though he was wasn’t really human.
Blood Stone Page 11
