4. Lex
LEX
“P lease, feel free to give me a call anytime. I’m out of town for the next few days, but I’m always available.
I would love to discuss the specifics of purchasing the rights.
” There was nothing else I could say, so I ended the call, feeling a little troubled as I tucked my phone into my khakis.
It was a beautiful day, surprisingly cool and comfortable on the course. If only I could be in the moment.
“What was that about?” Spencer asked as we waited for Dante’s friend, Vaughn, to putt.
“I’m in a bidding war for the rights to a book Summer is dying to turn into a movie,” I explained, keeping my voice low. “She doesn’t know I’m bidding on it. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“I guess I’ve never given much thought to how a book becomes a movie,” he admitted with a shrug. “So there are plenty of people interested in it?”
“It’s a bloodbath,” I confirmed with a grimace. “Dad had a magic touch when it came to shit like this.”
“I know better than to suggest you give him a call for advice.” When I grimaced again, he snorted. “Yeah, I thought so.”
No. To put it mildly, I was not exactly a fan of the idea. “Right, why don’t I just admit I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing?”
He shook his head. “That’s not what it would mean. You know that.”
“I do.” That still didn’t mean I wanted to admit the need for help. “Everybody knows about Dad going through his surgery and treatments and how he’s on the mend. How shitty would it look if word got around that I was asking him to use his influence around town?”
His heavy sigh told me he understood before he said a word. “I would tell you it won’t happen, but people are assholes.”
“Exactly. Next thing you know, there will be a headline in Variety about how Lex Landry forces his father into servitude.”
“Well, look at it this way. There are always going to be other projects. Who wouldn’t want their work produced and directed by the two of you? Summer is the hottest female director in Hollywood. And I mean that innocently,” he added, raising his hands in surrender before I had the chance to react.
We shared a laugh, waiting for his turn.
He was right. Summer was the hottest thing in Hollywood, at least as far as directors went—male or female.
She had that special something that made actors want to work with her.
She knew how to pull a powerful performance from even the most lackluster artist. Danica Cole’s career had exploded after her Oscar nomination, so naturally, there was a line of eager newcomers dreaming of the chance to work with the director who’d made it possible.
What I didn’t want to admit because it was not my problem to share was the flipside of all that success.
In our town, success tended to fade quickly.
Sure, Summer had hit it out of the park on her first try with a major studio, but what next?
Everyone was always looking for the next thing, including her, wondering if she could outdo herself.
Every director had gone through it, and more than a few of them had cracked under the pressure, the disillusionment.
Things moved too fast to allow anyone to rest on their laurels.
“Not bad,” Vaughn called out, giving Spencer a thumbs up when he finished the hole under par. “So you tech boys out in San Francisco take time for golf, I see.”
“We do all right,” Spencer told him with a grin, bending to retrieve his ball. “We don’t sit around all day behind computer monitors.”
“No, that’s what you have staff for,” I agreed.
Vaughn snickered, jerking his chin at me. “And you. What’s it like being surrounded by hot young things all day long?”
“I don’t see them. I don’t notice them. They don’t exist,” I insisted, laughing at his obvious disbelief.
The man’s face damn near twisted in horror. “I don’t know how you do it. There’s no fucking way I could be a good boy and keep my hands to myself surrounded by all that willing pussy.” He sounded almost mournful as if he felt sorry for me.
“I have more than enough willing pussy at home,” I pointed out, neglecting to mention that pussy given in exchange for a role wasn’t the same as willing pussy. “Anyway, that kind of shit is frowned upon nowadays. You can’t go around harassing the actresses anymore.”
He shook his head, raising his sunglasses to reveal piercing eyes which he rolled with a sigh. “It must be torture.”
I exchanged glances with Spencer, and we shared a private smile. He sounded a lot like we had not so long ago. “You should come out to LA sometime, take a tour of the studio,” I suggested. “You can see for yourself it’s not exactly the pussy parade you seem to think it is. We do work, you know.”
“Don’t try to explain it to him.” His friend, Aiden, was laughing by the time he finished his putt. “Vaughn can’t help but flirt with every pair of tits he sees. It’s amazing he hasn’t been sued yet.”
“Fuck off,” Vaughn fired back, scoffing. “Because you’re a saint, right?”
“Just saying. You’re not exactly particular…” Aiden paused, thinking it over, then shrugging good-naturedly. “Neither am I. Why bother? I’m not trying to settle down. No offense to you guys,” he added, nodding toward Spencer and me. “It’s just not on the agenda.”
“It wasn’t on my agenda, either,” Spencer admitted. “And then, I found out I was a father. Talk about a fucking shock. There are still days I wake up, and I can’t wrap my head around it.”
“Neither can I,” I added, grinning at Vaughn and Aiden and adding, “I mean, think about it. An entire human being with her life in your hands? I shudder to think.”
The other guys laughed, but Spencer didn’t. “Hey, that’s all Rowan,” he insisted. “Every good thing about Hannah comes from Rowan. She was there during those formative times, you know? And her parents,” he added. “I could never repay them.”
“You’re a better man than me,” Vaughn decided, tapping his club’s handle to his forehead in a quick salute. “I don’t know how you do it. Either of you. Managing these empires you sit on top of while keeping the same women happy day in and day out. I need a Xanax and a nap just thinking about it.”
His words echoed in my head on our way to the next hole, where Dante, Travis, and Sebastian had just finished.
Keeping my woman happy. It wasn’t such a hard thing to do on a daily basis.
Although, I wouldn’t call Summer low maintenance.
She wasn’t demanding and didn’t buy into drama for drama’s sake.
She always joked she got enough drama at work.
Our relationship was her sanctuary, a sentiment I could agree with.
Still, she couldn’t hide her anxiety from me.
She would never have admitted it out loud, but I felt her uncertainty, wondering if she was washed up after our latest release had brought in solid but somewhat unimpressive returns.
Nothing like the instant sensation she had first caused, riding that energy into her second project.
She was just as good as she had ever been, maybe even better, maturing daily and refining her techniques.
The public didn’t see any of that. All they saw was the finished product, and like spoiled, greedy children, they wanted one thing only. More.
She could make magic happen if only she could get her hands on material strong enough and worthy of her talents. I checked my phone, scowling at the lack of a return call from the author’s agent whose book I was so desperate to acquire.
“It’ll happen, Lex.” I didn’t realize Spencer was watching me. When I looked his way, he wore a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry about it. In the end, you always get what you want. There’s no reason to think this will be any different.”
What was it Summer said earlier? “From your lips to God’s ears,” I replied as we crossed the course with the sun beating down on us.
“So long as there’s somebody up there taking requests, I have one of my own.” With Vaughn and Aiden walking ahead of us, he dropped his voice to barely louder than a whisper. “Did you notice anything off about Rowan last night? At dinner, I mean?”
I thought back, shrugging. “Not that I can remember. Why? Is she all right?”
“No, she’s not.” He shook his head when I stared at him, waiting for more. “It’s probably nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything about it. She would be pissed if she knew I was talking about her like this.”
“I remember you saying something about how her firm has expanded, which, of course, I know about,” I added, since I had seen her at the studio numerous times since she started working with us on a retainer. “Is she overwhelmed? It can be fucking terrifying when you get what you wanted.”
“She’s got something on her mind and won’t tell me about it. It’s bad enough I’m watching her work herself half to death, but she refuses to admit it’s too much.”
“Tell me something. Would you admit it was too much if you were in her place?” I knew the answer, naturally, but I wanted to hear it from him.
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Would you?”
“We both know I wouldn’t,” he grumbled.
“And that’s probably why the two of you work so well together because you’re so much alike.
” It was the same with Summer and me, after all.
It was what first drew us together. That and the undeniable chemistry that sprang to life the minute I set eyes on her.
I tried to fight it. We both had. It had been a waste of time.
“Maybe Summer can get it out of her,” he suggested, and the hope in his voice made me feel sorry for him. All he wanted was to help her. “I already fucked up by offering start-up capital if she needs to start fresh… should the whole thing collapse on itself.”
“Oh fuck…” I groaned, rolling my eyes. Rowan and I weren’t exactly close, but I could smell a misfire a mile away.
“I know,” he muttered. “She didn’t take that very well. She tried to hide it, but I could see I’d fucked up.”
“I’ll ask Summer if everything seems okay with her after they get back from their lunch,” I suggested. Then, I had to laugh at myself. “Listen to us. Who have we become?”
“You know something?” He smirked. “I was asking myself the same question.”
After we finished our game, we headed to the clubhouse for lunch and drinks. There was a lot of good-natured banter as we compared our scores. “Now I know everybody had to be taking it easy on you since it’s your wedding weekend,” Clay told Dante, who boasted the lowest score.
“Either that or it helped that he was the one keeping score,” Sebastian joked.
“Nah, these hotel guys have nothing to do but sit back all day and watch as the money rolls in,” Vaughn insisted with a grin. “Try having time for golf when you’re running a casino.”
“Oh, fuck off. You came in second place.” Grayson showed him the list of compiled scores. Then we laughed when he lowered his head.
“Because money doesn’t just roll into a casino,” Dante pointed out. “You all are notoriously in need. Might as well beg for change on the street corner.”
“Maybe we should start a GoFundMe.” Sebastian was barely fighting back a laugh as he raised a glass of iced tea to his lips.
“Fine, point taken,” Vaughn grumbled. “I swear to Christ, you all could beat a dead horse until it’s nothing but pink mist.”
Clay was distracted by something on his phone, which he held out to Dante. “Sure, that works fine,” Dante agreed.
“Everything okay?” I asked. Dante and Mira were handling everything related to the wedding, and frankly, I didn’t envy them.
There would be hundreds of guests in attendance and the standards were high.
This would mark the Manning-Rinaldi group’s first major event in Nevada after earning accolades in California.
We had all worried Clay lost his mind when he married Mirabella as one of the conditions of her father selling his properties.
I would be the first to admit I considered an intervention, but by the time he told us about the marriage, the wheels were already in motion. Not that he would’ve listened anyway.
Now, however, it was obvious the two of them were a perfect match, complementing each other and pushing each other to work harder—the way all successful couples did, including Summer and me.
“It looks like there was a little bit of a mix-up with the timing of the florist’s arrival,” Clay explained.
“Not a big deal. It might mean shifting the photography schedule since the bridal party won’t have their bouquets until later in the morning than we expected.
But we can work around it,” he insisted to Dante, who seemed unbothered.
Clay, on the other hand, was clearly thrown off.
He caught me watching him when he looked up from the message he must’ve been sending to the florist or to Mira.
Either way, I saw the strain in his eyes.
The nod I intended to reassure him with didn’t seem to do the trick, but he lifted his chin anyway, nodding back.
“What I want to know is what’s the bridesmaid situation look like?” Grayson practically salivated, looking around the table. “Who should we keep an eye out for?’
“They’re a handful of friends she’s made over the past year or so,” Dante explained.
“One of those post-divorce things. She ended up cutting ties with a lot of the people from that life, but she has a habit of making best friends wherever she goes. I swear, you would think she’s known some of these women her entire life.
” There was a lot of affection in his voice, including admiration.
“I need to head back to the hotel,” Clay announced, more than a little strained. “It’s always something. See you guys at the rehearsal tomorrow.”
“Damn,” Travis murmured once Clay was on his way out of the clubhouse. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“He wants everything to go well,” Dante reasoned. “There are a lot of moving parts. And Lenny’s first wedding was rather… inadequate. Like her marriage. We’re pulling out all the stops.”
I hoped Clay and Mira would be in one piece by the time it was over.
“So, really.” Vaughn grinned, leaning in. “Out of all the bridesmaids, who would you say is the easiest?”