Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
B lake watched his rear-view mirror all the way home, but there was no sign of Piper behind him. He’d sped off too fast. Her offer to help had been sweet, kind, and thoughtful, but it had sent his head scuttling in the wrong directions.
It was hard enough being in the studio with her, but at least there were other people there as a buffer to keep things professional. At home, with nobody around, not even Marshall…all he could think about was giving her a tour of the house that ended in his bedroom.
No, dammit, just no.
He had a deal with Marshall, and he did not want to work with Rachel ever again. Besides, it was always, always a mistake to mix it up with a costar. When it fell apart, as it always did, there were hurt feelings and scandals, and they couldn’t afford that kind of publicity on a children’s animated feature.
His stern lecture to himself didn’t really stop him from thinking about how amazing she’d looked today as she sank into the part of Princess Jewel. Her eyes lit up, her cheeks flushed, and her tangible joy had transported him. He couldn’t fault anyone for liking the way the scene had turned out.
He managed to park and race from the garage to the front door in time to be leaning against the doorframe looking cocky when she pulled into the driveway.
He didn’t know why, but something about her brought out the playful in him.
She met him at the door shaking her head. “Feel like a race car driver now?”
He checked his imaginary watch. “My all-electric, environmentally green machine just kicked your gas-guzzling ass by five minutes. Yes I do.”
“Five whole minutes. Wow. Sooo speedy.”
“Hey, for LA traffic that might as well be five hours.” He stood back to let her inside. “So let’s talk about how you’re going to save me from my very busy schedule.”
She swept past him then turned to taunt him with a playful smile and a swing of her hips. “Not sure I can save you, but I can at least help out a little. Let’s go check out that ridiculous murder board of yours and see where I can pitch in, and can we order takeout? I’m starving.”
She strode down his hallway like a rock star on stage, humming their first duet as she went. Damn, she sounded good, and she looked like she belonged here.
“I have to confess something.”
Piper stopped in the middle of the door to his office. “You’ve never, ever cleaned this room? I know. I can tell.”
She picked up a couple of notes that had fallen off the whiteboard on her way in.
“That’s probably true. My housekeeper refuses to step foot in here but no, that’s not it.” He took the notes from her and put them on the desk. “I never went to a Bellamy Sisters concert. ”
“Shame. You missed out.” She started to stack the papers on the table.
Alarm shot through him. “Hey, stop that. You’re messing with my filing system.”
She looked at him doubtfully. “This isn’t a system. It looks like the fairgrounds after the carnival pulled out.”
“I need this stuff exactly where I put it.”
“Okay, okay.” Piper held her hands up in surrender. “I’ll stop destroying your obviously carefully situated piles of paper.”
Piper looked around. “Where is anyone supposed to sit in here?”
“Here.” He dumped the books out of the chair in the corner and helped her shift it to the table.
“Out of curiosity, why didn’t you ever go to one of our concerts? Don’t like pop music?”
“I hate crowds,” he admitted. “But now that I know you I wish I’d made the effort. Think The Bellamy Sisters will ever get back together? Do a reunion tour?”
She sat back in the chair and hugged her knees to her chest. “A few weeks ago I would have told you hell no, never, we’re done, forget it. But now…I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What’s changed your mind?”
“In a funny way, doing this movie with you.” Piper looked thoughtful. “I’ve been having so much fun with you it’s put other things into perspective. I love everything about the process, you know? Watching the animators work. Meeting legends like Gina and Jeremy. I’m not just one thing, anymore. I’m not just one of The Bellamy Sisters.”
She packed a lot of meaning into that one sentence. “Just” one of The Bellamy Sisters sounded like code for something else, like just another rom-com actor.
He knew exactly what that was all about. “I get that. It’s why I’m turning myself inside out for Conned. I’ve been in the business for so long that I never really considered being anything else until I was turned down for a role I really wanted to play for being, and I quote, too pretty.”
Her eyes lit with amusement. “It’s true, you know. You’re a very pretty guy.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said wryly. “It’s hard to break out of the rom-com box once they put you in there. I love what I do, but I was ready for something different.”
She sighed. “Yeah. Me too. That’s why I wanted this movie so badly. It’s why I hung out for two years waiting for it to get started, and why I’ll put up with just about anything to see it through. I do miss being on stage with Mattie and Della, though. I love the intimate shows with my fans, but it’s not the same. There’s nobody to share the high with after it’s over, you know?”
He didn’t, really. Wrapping up a movie always felt a little anticlimactic, and he wasn’t overly thrilled with watching himself on screen. “I can’t say I’ve ever felt high at the end of a day of shooting, but I understand the idea.”
Her gaze locked on his with palpable intensity, and her face lit up with an inner glow that he found mesmerizing. “There’s this energy from the crowd that lifts you up so high it feels like you’re flying, you know? Like you’re all connected on some kind of cosmic cloud that’s taking you away from everything mundane.”
She lifted her hands and face toward the ceiling and beamed. “It’s practically orgasmic.”
He started at the word orgasmic and nearly choked on his own spit. That one word put a flurry of images in his head that absolutely should not be there. It was all he could do to drag his thoughts back to the conversation.
He caught her watching him and narrowed his eyes at her in mock suspicion to cover whatever she might have seen on his face. “Are you sure you’re not talking about a drug high here? They smoke a lot of weed at those concerts.”
She laughed and waved her hands in denial. “No. I mean, yes they do sometimes, but no. It’s not a drug high. It’s…well it’s kind of like today, when we were in the middle of things and we started laughing and we just knew it was something special. You felt that, right?”
He loved the tangible joy he saw on her face and the way she expressed it with her whole body. What would it feel like to run his hands over the soft curve of her hips?
No, no, no. Stop thinking about her body. Get your mind out of the damn gutter.
“I thought it was good,” he said in what he hoped was an innocent, agreeable tone. He wasn’t sure it came off though.
He was usually so good at being who he needed to be in every situation, but every time Piper was around, his thoughts scrambled. This girl messed with his head in all sorts of ways.
It was a bad idea to let her help him out. It meant she’d be here for hours, in his house, alone…with him.
Piper’s smile deepened. “Why do I get the feeling you’re having a whole conversation in your head without me?”
He shook himself. “Sorry. I…yeah, distracted. ”
She sat down at the table and pulled out her phone. “First, food. We’re both loopy. Then, talk to me about your to-do list.”
They debated what Piper considered his speed bumps over deli wraps. His list was more like a series of sticky notes, which she didn’t find useful at all.
“How do you even keep track of things like this?” She waved a pink note at him that had the word catering scrawled on it. “Sticky notes don’t stick.”
“It’s all in my phone too. Those are just visual reminders.” He took the note from her and crumpled it up.
“Let’s see if I have this all right.” She’d written an extensive list on a pad of actual paper they’d managed to find at the bottom of his desk drawer, and now she ticked each item as she spoke it out loud. “You’re having issues with catering, you can’t find a ranch replacement, you need a bar but not just any bar, one with a,” she put air quotes with her fingers, “Vegas-cool guy vibe, not a hooker vibe, and you haven’t signed anyone for costume design yet, and you’re iffy about set design. Plus casting calls for the secondary characters were never finished, the script still isn’t final, you need to cast the girlfriend now that Jessica’s out, and Marshall has a whole list of locations you still haven’t nailed down. That about it?”
“Feels like there should be more, but it’s plenty to start with.” He took Jessica’s picture off the whiteboard, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the trash can by his desk. It hit dead center.
“You’re right, there should be more. You don’t mention music anywhere, and you are absolutely going to need it.” She added that to the list.
“You would notice that.” It had been in the back of his mind to contact Grant Withers, the guy who’d done the score for one of his mother’s biggest hits, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet because the man insisted on a final script before he started work. At the rate they were going, their script wouldn’t be final until after the movie was in the can.
“What about hair and makeup? Do you have go-to people for that?” Piper wrote it down on the list.
“I have ideas. I was going to call the sisters who did my last three movies.”
“Do you know everyone in Hollywood?”
He considered that. “Not everyone, no. There’s new people coming in all the time.”
She rolled her eyes and continued her brainstorming. “You have special effects lined up, and stunts. I couldn’t help with those anyway. Camera, electrical, sound, etc. is all yours. Okay, I think I see where I can help, especially with costume design. I know someone who’s absolutely fantastic.”
He pictured the videos he’d pulled up of The Bellamy Sisters’ last tour and inwardly cringed. Piper had worn a silver-sequined bodysuit that emphasized every curve and made her sparkle like some sort of celestial disco ball.
He wondered if she still had it for reasons that he refused to admit to himself, but that amount of flash wouldn’t work well on camera. “This is for a movie, remember, not a stage show. Although I suppose we do have that one scene where boas could come in handy.”
“Orry Kurland is a genius. She designed everything for all of our videos, plus she’s done a few indie films since we split up. You’d be lucky to have her. What’s your budget for that?”
“I was hoping to keep it under sixty grand. I want it to look classic and elegant when they’re in Vegas. Real high rollers. But in the town they can look more low-key. Except for me of course.” He brushed imaginary lint off his T-shirt. “My character’s always cool and swanky.”
“Sixty. Wow. We didn’t spend that on an entire tour, even with the dancers, but okay.” She picked up her phone.
He dialed Marshall and waited for him to pick up while Piper greeted Orry, the design genius, with genuine affection.
“I know, it’s been way too long. How’s Adrian?” She listened and murmured polite noises for a while.
Marshall finally picked up. “Hey. Just a sec.”
In the background, he heard Marshall say, “I don’t see why the price would stay the same when half the buildings are gone.”
A familiar feminine voice answered him.
Marissa , he thought.
Blake leaned back in his chair and listened in on Piper’s conversation while he waited for Marshall.
“Listen,” Piper said, “I was just talking with a friend of mine and got to wondering if you were still wanting to break into Hollywood?”
He perked up at her use of the word friend. She could be simply picking up the lingo. Everyone was a friend in Hollywood.
Then again, she wasn’t from LA originally, so maybe she actually meant it.
“I’m back,” Marshall singsonged.
Blake forced his attention away from Piper and back to Marshall. “Hey. Where are you? I thought you were negotiating the ghost town.”
“I’m in Virginia City with Marissa. She says the ranch wants the same money even though half of it would work better for a dystopian sci-fi.”
“Screw that.” Blake pulled up the budget spreadsheet on his computer and deleted the ranch off the list.
“That’s what I told them.”
“So what about the ghost town? Is it worth the extra expense?”
“The ghost town’s a bust,” Marshall said. “It’s a tourist trap and they refuse to let us shut it down for less than five million. Besides, I think we might have something better.”
“That’s good to hear,” Piper said, startling Blake. It was almost like she was responding to Marshall instead of her designer friend. “So how would you like to work on Blake Ryan’s next hit? They kick off in January and they need everything .”
Blake swore he heard someone squeal his name on the other end of the line.
“Who’s that?” Marshall asked. “Is that Piper? Where are you?”
“In my office,” Blake told him. “And yes, that’s Piper.”
“What’s she doing there?” Marshall sounded suspicious.
“She offered to help us out.” He clicked over to his list of possible locations and put too much $ in the note field for the ghost town .
“Help. Right.” Marshall snorted. “She’s the reason we have to rework the third act. Again. That’s not help, that’s interference.”
“Great,” Piper said, looking excited.
“No it’s not great,” Marshall scoffed. “Jostling the entire third act just so you can have sex is not great.”
“Would you stop?” Blake whispered to Marshall.
“I’ll stop when she does,” Marshall said.
“He’ll be so excited,” Piper trilled. “It’s a modern buddy caper type of story, kind of a cross between Ocean’s Eleven and…”
She glanced at Blake.
“Present-day The Count of Monte Cristo ,” he filled in.
“It’s not going to be either of those things by the time she’s done,” Marshall grumbled.
“Would you focus, please?” Blake said.
“Did you hear that?” Piper asked. “That was Blake filling in the details. Yes, it’s actually him.”
She held the phone away from her ear.
He could hear several people shouting in the background, and he distinctly heard someone scream, “Oh my God, it’s Blake Ryan on the Phone!”
He couldn’t help but laugh.
“I heard that. Why isn’t she using my name?” Marshall said, sounding petulant. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone with her so long. You’ve already caved, haven’t you. You broke the deal.”
“No,” Blake said a little too loud.
Piper put a finger to one ear and walked to the far side of the room.
“I knew it! I knew you’d cave.” Marshall made a triumphant crowing noise. “I can’t wait to see you with Rachel.”
“Would you drop it?” Blake gritted his teeth. “She can probably hear you.”
“Fess up so I can make the phone call to the director. ”
Blake turned away from the door and whispered harshly into the phone. “I have not had sex with her.”
“Sure you haven’t. You know if you’re lying I’ll be able to tell. You have no poker face at all when it comes to sex.”
“Do I have to be here for this conversation?” He was glad Piper was on the phone. He had no idea how she’d take it if she heard him talking about that stupid deal but he didn’t want to find out.
“She’s getting way too close for there to be nothing happening. You let her make changes to the script.”
“She made a suggestion. I’m the one who changed it, and it’s a good move. You know it is.”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. Why is she making phone calls with your name in them? Why are you two there alone? You’re doing it, admit it.”
“There’s nothing to admit,” he hissed in a low whisper.
“I guess I have no choice but to believe you. For now.”
“Glad you agree.” He carefully avoided looking at Piper.
“When I get back, I want equal time alone with her. It’s only fair.”
“I don’t think so.” Blake glared at the air in front of him where Marshall would be standing if they were in the same room.
Piper raised an eyebrow at him.
He made a vague gesture toward the phone and mouthed, “Marshall.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be in the studio today?” Marshall asked. “I mean, that was the reason I’m out here sweating my ass off with Marissa, right?”
Blake grimaced. This conversation was beyond excruciating with Piper so close. He thought about hanging up, but Marshall would take that as confirmation he’d already broken the deal, and he was not paying a penalty for something he hadn’t even done.
Yet .
He rubbed the tense spot at the back of his neck. “Piper and I did the first scene so well they want to tweak the rest of the script. We’re down about a week while they get with the writer. Maybe two.”
There was silence on the other end, followed by Marshall’s bellowed laughter.
“I don’t think they have a final cast list yet, but we can estimate.” Piper cast him an irritated glance and left the room.
Blake thought seriously about hanging up and turning his phone off.
“Of course they’re rewriting the script. Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like they have a deadline or anything.” Marshall’s laughter died down a half groan, half sigh. “I wonder what else is going to go wrong because this can’t be the end of it. ”
“What happened?” Marissa said in the background.
“Oh nothing,” Marshall said. “There’s just some kind of cosmic joke going on and we’re the punchline.”
“Stop scaring her. It’s not that bad,” Blake told him.
“Reality check.” Marshall sobered the rest of the way. “We’re back to square zero on locations, and it’s going to be impossible to start photography with our lead actor tied up on another project, but hey, it’ll all work out right?”
“Yes. It will.” He sounded a lot more confident than he felt, he hoped.
Marshall’s resigned sigh was long and loud. “Seriously, what’s this mean for us? Do we need to delay too? Should I pack up now?”
“No. Let’s keep working it. We’ll be fine. Paul swears we’ll make the premiere. At any rate, I’ve kept my part of the deal. I doubt they pull the funding just because Scorched ran a little late.”
“You hope,” Marshall said. “I already mortgaged the condo, and I really, really don’t want to ask my parents for more money.”
“You won’t have to. Let’s deal with one thing at a time, okay? We’re not broke yet.” Blake looked for patience on the ceiling but didn’t find any. “You mentioned you have something better than the ghost town. What is it?”
“Yeah, hang on. It’s noisy as hell out here.”
A car door shut, and the background noise cut off abruptly.
Piper walked back in looking excited and talking in a perky, upbeat voice. “Okay. We’ll get that list over to you. Think you can bring it in under twenty grand? He says part of it has to look Vegas swank, but the other part is small town.”
Blake stared at her. She’d named a figure that was a third of his intended budget. He knew from experience and research that the dollar amount he had in mind might not be enough if they went really high-end or designer label, especially for the suits.
Surely, nobody could get it done that cheap.
“Did she just say twenty grand?” Marshall asked. “What’s she negotiating?”
“Costume design,” Blake said. “Some woman named Orry.”
“Never heard of her. Sure she’s legit? Never mind, I don’t care. As long as we aren’t naked, it’s all good.”
His lips twitched, and he couldn’t stop himself from pushing the button since Marshall had set it up like that. “I guess we’ll find out if someone is naked if they can’t keep their hands to themselves.”
“Oh, it’s on!” Marshall said. “I hope you know we’re having a long, long talk when I get back about how deals work. This isn’t over.”
Something whirred in the background. By the amount of ambient noise that suddenly appeared, he guessed Marshall had rolled the window down.
“I’m sure it’s not.” Blake glanced up at Piper, hoping like hell she wasn’t paying attention to his conversation.
Piper winked at him. Did that mean she was listening to him, or was she just excited at the deal she was brokering? “Great. I’m so excited, Orry, I can’t wait to see you.”
“Can I have that list, Marissa?” Marshall called out.
“Yes,” Piper said, “I’ll send it tonight, and we can work out the details next week. The sooner the better.”
“There’s two more to see this afternoon,” Marissa said. “Tell Blake I’m sorry he couldn’t be here for this.”
“Not nearly as sorry as he’s going to be,” Marshall said.
The window whirred, and the noise cut off again.
“Perfect,” Piper said. “I’ll see you soon. Thanks, Orry.”
Piper ended the call and fell onto the chair looking smug. “Am I good or what?”
“Is she good at what?” Marshall asked.
“I think she just made a deal for budget costume design,” Blake said.
“Hey,” Piper sounded offended. “She’s worth triple what you’ll be paying. She just doesn’t have her foot in the door in LA so she’s not demanding Hollywood rates yet.”
Piper narrowed her eyes at him. “Who are you talking to? Marshall?”
“Is this Orry someone she knows from touring?” Marshall asked in his ear. “We won’t look like throwbacks to the seventies, will we? I saw her last video.”
“I’m not asking her that,” Blake told him.
“Ask me what?” Piper asked.
“Why not?” Marshall demanded.
Blake put the call on speaker and set the phone down on the desk. “You’re on speaker. Ask her yourself.”
Marshall repeated his question without any hint of embarrassment.
“That song was a celebration of the spirit of freedom. And yes, I looked like a disco ball. I was supposed to. That’s not the point. She also did the wardrobe for ‘Wildest Night.’ Pull up the video on your phone. Go ahead. We’ll wait.”
Piper turned her phone around to show Blake the video. It took place in a casino, and Piper wore a sequined black gown that would look at home on any red carpet. “Orry does all our red carpet gowns and Lizzie’s wedding dress. Trust me. After people see her work on Conned you won’t be able to get her anywhere near this price.”
“Can she show us sketches before we agree to anything?” Blake asked.
“Of course.” Piper nodded. “She’ll have some ideas to us next week.”
“That fast?” Marshall asked. “Damn. Nobody moves that fast around here except maybe the paparazzi.”
Piper tapped the list of things she’d made. “Why are you sticking with this caterer again?”
“They’re the best,” Blake said. “Plus, I know them. They’ll give me a good discount.”
“Plus, she has a crush on him,” Marshall said.
She grabbed a chip from the pile on the desk as she considered that. “You’ve budgeted eighty grand. Is that with the discount?”
“Not sure,” Blake said. “I based it on Mom’s current project, but it could be a little less or a little more.”
“Bet I can get it for half that,” Piper said looking thoughtful.
“Yes but will the food be edible?” Marshall asked. “People get cranky if you feed them ration bars and water.”
“Trust me,” Piper said in a patient, please-stop-giving-me-a-hassle tone. “I know people who will do a fantastic job, and you won’t have to worry about bad publicity. Want me to check it out?”
Blake gave her a thumbs-up. “Okay. Get a bid, but don’t agree to anything yet. I want to give Big Screen Catering a chance to counter. I owe them that.”
“Okay.” Piper dialed her next contact on her way out the door. She liked to walk while she talked, apparently.
“You seriously aren’t sleeping with her?” Marshall asked. “Hell, I sure would be. She’s great.”
Blake snatched up his phone and took it off speaker. He hoped like hell she hadn’t heard that. “Can we get on with the update?”
“Just remember what happens if…when…you slip. That’s all I’m saying. Rachel’s waiting for you with open arms.” Marshall sounded way too smug.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you.”
“Immensely.”
“Do you actually have suggestions, or did you just call to harass me?”
“Oh I have suggestions, but now’s not the time. Marissa’s giving me side-eye.” There was the sound of paper being flipped. “The way I see it is we have two options. Option A, find an all-in-one replacement for the ranch. So far, I’ve come up with two possibilities, both problematic. There’s Virginia City, which I’m in right now, and Prop City.”
“Prop City?” Blake frowned and made a note of it. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s not actually a city. The locals have been gathering leftover movie props for years and slowly building this little town with them. They even have the shell of a real World War II plane. It’s actually pretty cool.”
“Sounds like a tourist trap.” He pictured a graveyard filled with old casino signs and tumbleweeds—but with a gift shop. Because everything in and around Vegas came with a gift shop.
“It totally is. But think about it. Props from other movies could mean less work for us. ”
“Hmm. What’s it look like?”
“There’s a main street, and they’ve starting to define a couple of neighborhoods, but there’s only two housefronts, a few storefronts, but no actual buildings.”
“Sounds like a lot of construction costs.”
A running total that was beginning to rival the spending of some small countries cha-chinged in his head.
“Yes, but the rent’s super cheap and the locals were thrilled at the idea,” Marshall said.
Piper wandered back in and sat down at the table, cradling the phone against her shoulder while she wrote on her notepad. “Right. We’d want good, easy-to-grab-and-go options that work well in the heat, and maybe a final hoorah for the wrap party with fancier stuff.”
“Tell her we want bags of peanut M&M’s with all the yellow ones removed,” Marshall said.
“I’m not telling her that,” Blake said. “Stop listening in on her conversation. What about Virginia City?”
He typed out notes in his spreadsheet as Marshall continued.
“I think it’s a bust. Too big, and too greedy. They want as much as the ranch, but they can’t give us full blocks. They can let us have a street here or there, and a couple of abandoned warehouses, but they’re full of old mining equipment, of all things. It would be a lot of work just to clean them out. You’d think they’d pay us for that.”
“That sounds great,” Piper said to whoever was on the phone. “Send me menu options, and I’ll get the potential head count over to you as soon as I can. Remember, you might have to be mobile, and you’re bidding against a Hollywood heavy hitter.”
“That’s right. We are heavy hitters,” Marshall said.
“She meant the caterer, not us.” Blake grunted at the notes he’d just made. Neither place sounded ideal. “What about option B? ”
“Option B is we pick and choose based on need. There’s a saloon that would work for the buddy scene over in Goldfield, and an abandoned casino in Montgomery Pass that we could use, but it needs some work. Still, might be better than building from scratch. The old machines are still in there.”
“Really?” He couldn’t type notes fast enough. “Shoot me a text with links, would you? And pictures.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks,” Piper said. “I’ll get back to you as soon as they make the decision.”
“You’re welcome, Piper. Anytime,” Marshall said. “I’m sure Blake would love to show you his appreciation.”
Blake gritted his teeth. Marshall was having way too much fun with this semi-three-way conversation. “What about the hometown scenes? Any ideas for that?”
“We’re still scouting, but so far I like Genoa. It’s about forty miles from Reno, about a thousand people including the dogs. Small, but quaint. I totally see our girl living there. Then there’s a town three hours away…” Blake could hear paper being flipped again. “Tonopah. It looks a little too run-down for what we’re looking for, town-wise, but there’s a nice park and a field that would be fantastic for the love scene. I’ve never seen that many stars. It’s like they had them imported. Speaking of which…do we have thoughts on who you’ll be kissing?”
Blake glanced up from his notes to find Piper watching him with a ghost of a smile. She could have been the model for how he’d pictured the lead girl when they wrote the original script all those years ago. Dark hair done up in a simple ponytail. No makeup. Beautiful, sunny smile. Soulful eyes that looked at the world with bold curiosity.
When he’d conjured up the character of the small-town girl, he’d taken every fantasy he’d ever had and wrapped it all up in the idea that somewhere there was a girl who saw past all the pretend glamour to the man underneath. She was the kind of girl who didn’t try to change who she was to suit anyone else. She was kind, down-to-earth, and staring right at him.
Piper’s smile widened a little, and a hint of the dimple appeared. “What?”
“Blake? Still there?” Marshall asked.
He started. He should not be staring at her like that. It put all kinds of bad ideas in his head. Ideas that would land him in serious trouble. “I have to go.”
“Hey, wait—” Marshall said.
Blake hung up.
He should say something. Anything. “You look excited. What’s up?”
Piper stood up and waved her notebook at him with a triumphant gleam in her eyes. “They’ll send a final bid after we give them an estimated head count, but they think they can do it for around thirty grand, and they’re totally mobile so they can go wherever we need. Within reason, that is.”
“Impressive.” He wrote the number down on a yellow sticky note. “Who’s this, and how did you find them?”
“Her name’s Katrina Cone.”
He wrote the name underneath the dollar figure and frowned at it. “I know that name. Is that the Katrina Cone? The Top Chef winner?”
Piper nodded enthusiastically. “Lizzie’s friend Carrie is the chef at Belhurst, and she knows a whole network of people who cook. She trained with Katrina Cone in Paris, and she hooked me up.”
“You said she’s mobile?”
Piper tossed her notebook onto the table. “Very. She owns a food truck empire in Vegas, everything from tacos and barbecue to cookies and ice cream. If Carrie says they’re good, they’re ten times better than that. ”
He jotted down food trucks on the note and crossed to the whiteboard to put it next to his other catering notes. “You’re amazing. Seriously, you are saving our asses on this.”
“Sometimes it pays to look outside California.” She had a hand on her hip, and her happy gaze locked on his.
He put a hand on her elbow and leaned in. He planned on kissing her cheek, just a Hollywood thank-you like he’d done a thousand times over the years with any number of people.
It should have been no big deal. It should have been a playful, innocent move that meant nothing.
But she turned her face toward him instead of away, and his lips grazed her lips instead of her cheek. They were warm and soft, and they captured him so thoroughly that he couldn’t have pulled away even if he wanted to.
It should have ended as soon as it started. It should have been an oops, I didn’t mean to do that, so sorry, won’t happen again, kind of moment.
But he didn’t want it to end.
He wanted more.
Did she?
He drifted his lips across hers in a gentle, teasing motion.
Her lips lifted like she was smiling against him.
Parts of his body tingled to life as a rush of awareness flooded through him. Was that a yes?
She closed her eyes and pressed into him.
He leaned into her. Their light touches became more solid, more serious. It was a question. If she pulled away, he’d know he crossed the line. He’d back off. Apologize. Never do it again. Take fifteen cold showers.
Her arms went around his neck, and her lips parted, and the tip of her tongue reached for him.
Something unlocked between them, and what had started as a mistake became an instant need that couldn’t be ignored .
How could a bad idea feel so very right?
Forget the deal.
Damn the consequences.
He pulled her close and put serious effort into exploring every inch of her mouth and the dimple that had tortured him for weeks.