Chapter Ten
Elliot Fox walked fast. I had to trot to keep up with him as he led me down the back corridors of the office to a dingy corner suite from which I could hear the unmistakable whir of servers. A visibly irritated Elliot hammered a fist against the door. “Noah! Riley!”
“What’s the password?” A disembodied voice called out.
Finally, a small smile from Elliot. “Walt sent me.”
“Afraid not, Noah,” Elliot said with an indulgent sigh.
As Noah sagged with visible disappointment, a smaller head of cropped, bright purple hair poked around the door. “She better not be, I don’t have my garlic and crucifix ready. Lucie, right?”
“This is Riley, head of IT,” Elliot said.
“And I’m her underling,” Noah said with a grin.
“Are you though?” Riley quipped, “because you never do what I tell you.” I instantly liked her. She had olive skin that glowed against the pop of her hair and bright, inquisitive eyes that shone with mischief. “Come on in.”
Elliot and I shuffled into what was little more than a box room, with multiple thin server towers, a row of cabinets and then a shelving wall full of neatly labeled storage boxes.
A large desk crowded with computers and laptops was stained with coffee rings, while any free wall space was decorated with posters of almost every computer game I’d ever heard of, and many I hadn’t.
“This is where we keep all RJF masters, plus the office server,” Riley explained to me. “If you give us a minute, I’ll set you up with your equipment.”
Noah nudged Elliot. “Is it true you brought Parker Neil in to score Woodstock?” he said.
“It is,” Elliot said.
“That guy only scores for the likes of Nolan and Del Toro,” Noah said. “How did you convince him?”
“Pitched hard,” Elliot said with a shrug.
“So RJ has you involved in crewing up as well as writing?” I asked.
“RJ has me doing most stuff,” Elliot said.
“Elliot’s like RJ’s second hand,” Riley added. “And his third hand.”
“Third, fourth, fifth,” Noah said with a laugh.
Riley heaved a laptop onto her desk. “You’re gonna learn a lot from this guy,” she told me.
Elliot’s reaction to this praise was merely to grunt and inspect the poster nearest to him.
Riley angled the laptop towards me. “Here, choose a password.” As she looked away, I tapped one in.
“Great,” she said when I was done. “Make sure you remember it, because I don’t keep a record of it.
” I nodded and she carried on tapping away.
“Okay, just going to check the email is working …” While Noah and Elliot chatted about film delivery technology, Riley showed me how to access the central storage drive for all the documents I might need.
She pointed to one folder. “This is RJ’s locked file. ”
“You have to get the password from me,” Elliot interjected.
“Okay.” I looked at him expectantly.
“Not now,” Elliot said with a scowl. “I’ll log you in when you need access.”
“You can’t just let me have it?” I asked in disbelief. What happened to being joined at the hip and all the trust RJ had been banging on about?
“If you need to access it, you ask me,” he said defiantly.
“Okay. You’re all set,” Riley said, handing over the laptop with its charger.
“Same here.” Noah handed me an iPhone still in its box. “Your email is loaded onto it, as is the calendar, I’ve synced that to Elliot’s seeing as you’ll be working together.”
“Noah.” Elliot’s voice was a growl.
“What?” I said innocently. “We’re meant to be joined at the hip, aren’t we?”
“Are we done?” he demanded to Noah and Riley.
“I release you!” Riley crowed. “Now, go forth and make movie magic.”
“Say what’s up to Vivian for me,” Noah said, earning a disgusted look from Riley.
Elliot paused in the doorway. “Noah, no offense, but if you think Vivian is ditching her multimillionaire fiancé for you then I’m seriously concerned for your mental stability.”
“Hey, man, he’s fucking ancient,” Noah said amiably. “What do you think, could I swoop in and offer a supportive shoulder for her to lean on when he inevitably disintegrates into dust?”
“Gross.” Riley threw a USB stick at Noah, missing by several yards. “Ignore this guy,” she said to me. “He has a thing for soulless harpies, please don’t judge the rest of us by him.”
Elliot and I left the pair of them bickering about the state of their love lives and headed back towards the main office.
“You should give Vivian your new number,” he suggested. “So RJ can contact you whenever.”
I looked towards Vivian’s desk, where she was talking to Ralf. “That means interacting with her, huh?” I had very strong doubts that I would ever be able to win her over.
“I’m afraid so.” Elliot’s phone rang and he glanced down, his face tightening.
“I gotta take this.” And then he stalked off, murmuring a soft greeting into his phone.
I watched him leave, my optimism at an all-time low.
The man couldn’t stand me, let alone trust me.
How were we going to work together successfully?
“Hey, look who it is!” Ralf said genially as I approached Vivian’s desk.
“I have my American mobile number,” I said. “Could you give it to RJ?” She looked at me blankly. “If you have pen and paper?”
“Mo-bile,” Ralf repeated. “Adorable.”
Vivian sighed heavily and shoved a Post-it my way. “Here.”
Ralf chuckled. “That’s not very welcoming, Vivi.”
Vivian turned her mask-like face to him. “The ticker-tape parade is booked for tomorrow,” she said.
Ralf oohed at me. “Lucie, this is a rare thing – humor! Not often Vivi blesses us with it.”
“Vivian,” she said, sounding bored. “Let’s be professional, we’re at work.”
“Is it work you’re doing right now?” Ralf tilted his head to look at her screen. “Because that looks suspiciously like the webpage for Golddiggers Confidential?”
Vivian rose to her feet. “Run along, Ralf and find someone else to bore with your crass attempts at world domination.” Then she stalked off, leaving a trail of cloying perfume in her wake.
Their dynamic was fucking weird. “Is she always like that?”
“She runs hot and cold,” Ralf remarked.
“Was that hot or cold?” I said. “Because I can’t tell. And she didn’t take my number!”
“Here.” Ralf stuck the Post-it note to the computer screen. “I’d like to tell you she’s a cuddly teddy bear under all that couture, but that would be a huge disservice to teddy bears.” He frowned. “And actual bears, come to think of it.”
“Is her fiancé really old?” I asked.
“Baldemar?” Ralf laughed. “When I met him, I thought he was her great-grandfather.”
“I take it he’s rich?” I said. “And also, Baldemar?”
“Ha! I know. I can’t work out if his parents hated him or his birth predated the English language,” Ralf said.
“But it doesn’t matter, the guy owns like half of the Upper West Side, so yeah, he’s wealthy.
” He glanced around and leaned in. “Between you and me, Vivian wants to start her own film financing group. Gee, I wonder if there is someone in her life that could set her up?”
“I’ve heard of worse ideas to get ahead,” I said.
“She’s a true New Yorker,” Ralf said, with a tone that almost sounded like admiration. “Hard work but a hard worker.”
“Are you from New York?”
“Boston and proud!” Ralf puffed his chest out. “And what about you? That accent, it’s … intriguing. It’s not London, is it?”
Was he flirting with me? I couldn’t tell but I sincerely hoped not. Trying hard not to blush, I shook my head. “Yorkshire. The north of—”
“It is utterly delightful,” Ralf talked over me. “And listen.” His voice dropped. “If you need help with the script, even if just a second opinion, I can make myself available. I’m in with the financiers, I know what they want, and I can always steer you—”
“We’re good, thanks, Ralf.” Elliot had reappeared, his expression fierce.
“Hey, buddy.” Ralf stepped back, arms wide. “I’m just saying, I can help.”
“Listen, buddy,” Elliot snarled the word. “We’ll be just fine.”
“Will you?” Ralf snorted. “Because RJ bringing in a third party doesn’t scream fine, it screams desperation.” He glanced at me. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Although I had to take a little. But it was beyond clear these two hated each other and I had to wonder why. Ralf was a little oily, yes, but what had happened to drive both men to this level of antagonism?
“Melroy’s skittish, okay? Took a lot to bring them to the table. If they get a whiff of RJ’s anxiety, they’ll pull out of this and Kittredge will also be out,” Ralf went on.
“So make sure Melroy stays sweet,” Elliot shot back. “You know, cosy up to the money. Isn’t that what you do best?”
Ralf’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to retort, but his phone rang, twice, then stopped. “Whatever. I gotta deal with something.” His eyes met mine in a tight smile. “My offer of help stands.”
When he’d walked far enough away, I turned back to Elliot. “What was all that about?”
“Long story.” He let out a heavy sigh, before adding, “You can’t trust him.”
“We just met,” I said. “He’s been really helpful and friendly.” As opposed to you. I didn’t say the words out loud, but the way Elliot’s scowl deepened told me he’d heard them all the same.
He pursed his lips, then gestured towards a door at the far end of the office. “Let me show you where we’ll be working.”
I followed him to the room, whereupon he stepped to one side to let me enter first.
“Thanks.” I pushed at the door, only for it to scrape across the floor and stick.
“Just give it a kick,” he advised.
Although it felt like I was in the opening seconds of a prank video, I did as he asked and gave the door a couple of solid whacks, managing to wedge it open a little further, just enough for me to slide my body and my tote bag through, totally crushing my chest in the process.