Behind the Scenes(22)

Mr. Murakami leaves thirty minutes later. He says a pleasant goodbye to the four of us and ambles out the door. Twenty seconds later, the buzzer goes off.

“Send Sydney in,” Mr. Mulroney says.

I cringe at the request. It takes everything in me to not drop my head face down onto the desk and thump it until my brain bleeds.

You’ve done it this time. You’re getting fired for sure.

Dana glances at me but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know what happened and probably doesn’t think anything out of the ordinary is going on.

He’s sitting in his chair going through a stack of papers and I slink back through the door. His hair is ruffled in the front, like he just ran his hands through it. Unfortunately, it looks an awful lot like his hair does in my recurring dream about him.

I shut the door behind me and hover there.

“I’m not mad at you,” he says, still busy with his papers.

“Oh.” I look at the floor, then out the window, then at the wall. When I look back at the desk, he’s staring at me.

He opens his mouth, then hesitates and closes it again.

The silence is too much to bear. I need to do something. “That’s good.”

He smirks.

“What?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. I’m toeing the line. I shouldn’t be using such a blatant attitude with my boss.

But everything about our relationship toes — or crosses — the line. From the very first minute, it’s been that way. We’re miles and miles past any sense of real propriety. Nothing about this work environment could be considered “normal” in any regard.

“You’re cocky,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

I burst out laughing. “Me?”

I think he’s going to chastise me for my cheekiness, but he only smiles. It’s genuine too. The corners of his eyes crinkle up and there’s a lightness in his blue eyes I haven’t seen before.

“Well, now I can never fire you,” he says. “John likes you, and he’s a commodity. Each one of his films grosses more than the one before it.”

I respond without thinking. “So put a woman in the next one. Maybe your expectations will be surpassed.”

He gazes at me. “Maybe.”

In half a second, my heart beat doubles. Am I imagining the heavy connotations in that one word? I need to leave this office before everything I promised myself I wouldn’t do happens.

“I should get back to work.”

He smiles again. His voice is slow and sweet, the consistency of molasses. “I know you four don’t do anything when I’m not around.”

The comment takes me by surprise. If he’s going to be so honest, maybe I should do the same.

“Then why keep us around?” I ask.

He blinks rapidly, his honey colored eyelashes fluttering. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

Ouch.

“It’s good to keep up appearances,” he tells me, leaning back and linking his fingers behind his head. “When people see I have four assistants, they think I’m more serious about my job.”

I snort. “That’s what I suspected.”

He cocks his head and a look holding some semblance of pain quickly flashes across his face. I’m instantly regretful. Douchebag or not, maybe the comment was a little harsh.

I grasp at the doorknob behind me. Time to save my tail. “Do you need anything?”

“Who were you with Friday night?” he asks, taking me once again by surprise. “Were you on a date?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He straightens his back and opens his laptop. “And I’m fine.” He stares at the screen in front of him as if I’m no longer there.

He stares at the screen in front of him as if I’m no longer there. What on Earth just happened? The man is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Seriously. It’s the only thing that explains his sudden attitude shifts. Or, if he’s not from a nineteenth century Scottish horror novella, he suffers from legit bi-polar disorder and needs to get himself hooked up with some meds right away.

My brain exploding — just like it always does when Simon Mulroney is around — I leave the office.





CHAPTER FOUR


At midnight, I still can’t sleep. I stare at the TV while Eryk channel surfs.

“How’s the screenplay going?” he asks from the other end of the couch.

“Huh?”

He waves a hand in front of my face. “Hello. Earth to Sydney.”

I force a grin. “Sorry. I was just spacing out. The screenplay… is going. Kind of.”

He looks back at the screen and continues flipping. “What does that mean?”

I sigh and drop my head on my arms. “I seem to have hit a bump in the road.”