Cougar (Chauvinist Stories Book 2) Page 3

  Her brows raised. “I can’t believe you haven’t had offers.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve had offers.” Loads of them, but none of them were mine either. Not like when I’d first been on the scene and passionate project ideas were burning holes in my back pockets.

  Now, I was being offered someone else’s ideas. Which was great.

  Those ideas were the reason I had a big bank balance and two houses. But they weren’t mine and while I enjoyed working on them, felt a connection to the work and process—I wouldn’t have worked on them if I didn’t—those ideas still . . . well, they fell a little flat.

  I wanted something that was mine.

  Like the old days.

  I smiled and patted Artie’s hand. She’d probably get a kick out of me lamenting the good old days that were all of a whole five or six years ago.

  But I also knew she’d get it.

  “I’m fine. Just haven’t found that Cinderella yet.”

  It was a credit to the connection we had that she didn’t miss what I was getting at, or question my decision to randomly bring the famed princess into our conversation.

  “No glass slipper projects,” she murmured with a nod. “Hmm. I actually have something I think—”

  “Pierce!”

  We turned to see Bill, one of my executive producers on the remake project, waving us down. I glanced down at Artie, but she was already releasing my arm. “Go,” she murmured. “I bet that entertainment show wants to get an interview.”

  “I’ll see you late—”

  Bill clapped his hand down on my shoulder, nodding at Artie briefly. “I was just talking with Andre over at the network and . . .”

  And socializing time was over.

  I stopped by Andre to discuss some quick marketing issues then gave a soundbite to the entertainment show that Artie had mentioned. Then I was pulled aside by my lead actor in the film I was promoting that day and asked my opinion on acceptance speeches he’d had written for him.

  Probably presumptive, but I supposed being prepared was better than “umming” and “uhhing” on stage.

  Then I gave a few more interviews, took a few more pictures, and finally, finally made it into the theater. Initially, I’d loved all the hoopla that came with having been part of a film that was popular enough to warrant award nods. Now, I understood it was part of the process and did what I needed to do. But realistically, all I wanted to do was get the night over with so I could go home and have pizza delivered.

  Because anyone who was anyone didn’t come to the carpet early.

  Which meant that anyone who was anyone also didn’t get a chance to eat.

  Plenty of booze though.

  Sometimes that worked out for those on the receiving end of awards with spectacular results and sometimes . . . with spectacular failures.

  Snorting to myself, I walked over to the bar and ordered a club soda, not planning on being one of those award receivers who went viral for all the wrong reasons. Not that I realistically thought I’d be on stage that evening. The other directors’ films were much better and had critical acclaim. Mine was popular and had made a shit-ton of money, but it was a black sheep among typical Hollywood nominees.

  See?

  I could evaluate myself realistically.

  And I was fine with making movies that made people happy, that entertained and provided some escapism . . . even if that meant I didn’t get to take home a gilded trophy.

  I just needed to find my—fuck, but I was going to think it—because I just needed to find my happy again.

  I—

  Was spinning.

  Sighing, I forced the thoughts out of my mind, finished my club soda, then went to make my rounds. I did my job. I schmoozed and shook hands and networked and laughed. Then I sat and looked dutifully on, clapping for a winner that wasn’t me. Which was fine. I was alone, but I was where I had always dreamed I would be. I’d find what was missing, or I’d realize I wasn’t actually missing anything at all.

  There. Done. Get over it.

  But as I went about my night, I couldn’t help but watch Artie as she went about hers, smiling and laughing and generally charming everyone she spoke to.

  She made it look absolutely effortless.

  Still, I wondered if she felt the same emptiness inside her that I did.

  And if she did, then did the careful distance she kept between herself and the rest of the world make the emptiness easier to bear?

  Much later that evening, I was chowing down on my pizza when there was a knock at my door. Slice in hand, I got up from the couch and made my way over, glancing through the peephole to see a harried-looking girl standing outside, clutching a bag to her chest.

  I unlocked it, tugged it open. “Can I help you?”

  “My boss told me to deliver this to you.”

  I didn’t take the bag she extended. “Who’s your boss?”

  “Artie Mil—”

  My fingers found the handle before she finished the name, peeking inside to see an envelope with Artie’s handwriting on it. Heart skipping a beat, I turned my attention back to the girl in front of me. “You have a ride home?”

  She nodded. “I drove.”

  “Okay.”

  Her feet stayed firmly planted on my porch.

  “Did you need something else?”

  She blinked. “Oh. Um. Nope.” Spinning, she hustled down the steps and out to the street. I waited until she was in her car and driving away before I went back inside.

  The envelope smelled like Artie.

  Or maybe I was just hallucinating.

  Either way, I opened it up and read. It didn’t take long because there were only two words.

  For inspiration.

  -A

  Curved, hurried strokes, exactly like the note I’d kept from five years before. And yes, I was critically aware of how pathetic that made me, not that it was going to stop me from keeping this one as well.

  Gently, I folded and pocketed the paper then looked into the bag.

  A book.

  I sucked in a breath—in disappointment, in anticipation? In that moment, I couldn’t be sure. The only thing I was sure about was sitting back down on the couch, grabbing another slice, and cracking open the book and beginning to read.

  I was hooked before finishing the first page.

  Five

  Artie

  My cell rang just as I stepped out of my car.

  I’d taken a red-eye to Iceland right after the awards ceremony in order to approve a few shooting locations my field producer had scouted out.

  Already, I was in love, even while understanding that filming here was going to be difficult with our schedule. The project was slotted to begin shooting in October, which meant we had a narrow window in which to get the necessary shots in the right light and weather conditions.

  Still, the pictures I’d received from the field producer and director had almost convinced me, despite the risks to schedule.

  The drive from the airport and my current stopover had done the rest.

  We’d film here and figure the rest out later.

  Sighing in satisfaction, I lifted my cell to my ear and said, “Hello?” Besides, the weather in October was supposed to be some of the best and—

  “Does this mean you’ll finally work with me?”

  My lips pulled into a smile. “Pierce.”

  “I didn’t get any sleep last night, thanks to you,” he murmured, and I tried, quite desperately, though I would take that admission to my grave, to hold back a shiver at his voice. I’d heard it with alarming frequency over the last years, the slight bedroom rasp that he never used in public.

  Just to me.

  Just in my bed.

  “Does that mean you like it?” I asked, trying to focus.

  “It’s fucking everything.”

  I laughed. “I never understand why people say that. It’s just a book. Yes, it’s a story I thought you might like, and”—I smiled at the
driver and walked a few feet further from the car, lifting my DSLR to snap a few shots of the landscape—“it can’t put food on the table or cure cancer or whatever everything encompasses.”

  “It’s everything when it makes my heart sing with joy,” he murmured. “Or my fingers itch for my camera or for my laptop to frantically type up ideas. It’s everything when I close my eyes and see nothing but the shots I’ll use to tell this story.”

  My breath caught, words failing me for several heartbeats. “I’m glad you like it.”

  His voice slid down my spine. “I more than like it, I love it.”

  He loved it. I smiled, repositioning the camera and taking a few shots that weren’t the pretty landscape, but instead encompassed the logistics area. Where we’d house the crew, where the actors might stay between takes. Places to park and store equipment—

  All of it needed to be planned for in advance.

  “I’m glad,” I murmured, finger working furiously on the button.

  “What’s that clicking?” Pierce said into the silence.

  I froze. “I’m in Iceland.”

  A beat then, “And that involves clicking, how?”

  “I’m scouting,” I said. “Or rather, I’m scouting my scouted locations so that I can make sure they’re up to snuff.”

  Pierce chuckled. “You know, most executive producers of your stature sit at home and just lend their names to projects. They don’t take fourteen-hour plane rides halfway around the globe to scout locations.”

  “I’m not most producers,” I said, striding back over to the car and telling my driver to proceed to the next location. “It’s my money,” I told Pierce, “which means that if I want to keep it, then I’d better know where it’s going.”

  “No,” he said as I buckled in, “it’s because you love it.”

  A tingle shot down to my stomach.

  In the five years since we’d slept together, I’d gotten to know Pierce quite well. You couldn’t move in the same circles for extended periods of time and not get to know someone. Well, I couldn’t, especially when that someone was a person I liked.

  “Don’t try to deny it,” he said lightly. “You’re an excellent producer because you love what you do . . . and also because you’re crazy enough to fly halfway around the world on no sleep just to scout out locations that have already been scouted.”

  “I slept on the plane.”

  Pierce chuckled. “You’re also excellent at avoiding any kind of conversation that might bring up anything personal about you.”

  Smart man.

  Part of why I liked him so much. In fact, my appreciation for all things Pierce Daniels was almost enough to warrant breaking my rule of keeping all personal relationships temporary. Light. Easy. No drama.

  Except, one night hadn’t been nearly enough for my body . . . or my mind.

  Not that it changed anything.

  I was forty-two years old. I lived and breathed my work.

  There wasn’t room for anything else.

  “I’m glad you liked it,” I said.

  There was a sigh. “Really good at deflecting,” he murmured then louder, “Yes, I liked it. I’m also hoping the fact that you sent it with a terrified intern to my front door at midnight means that you both want me to sign on and also that the rights have been optioned already.”

  His tone was so serious I couldn’t tell if that would be a good or bad thing. So, I told him the truth. “Yes. To both.” A beat before I made an offer I’d never ever done before, not on a project I really wanted. “But . . . I’ll also step back from it if you want me to.”

  Silence.

  Then, “Why in the hell would I want you to step back when you’re the best damned producer I’ve ever met?” he asked, almost angry. “Is it because you don’t like my work? You don’t want to be associated with—”

  “Pierce.”

  “—me because of my past films. If so—”

  “Pierce.”

  He stopped.

  “I love the book, love the idea of making the film, and I love you as director for it, but also, I don’t want to step on your toes. You’re looking for something,” I reminded him. “And I’m not sure that something is with me pulling my normal control freak production skills with you. Maybe you want—”

  “I want this. I want you.”

  Oh.

  Well, that was . . .

  Not interesting exactly. Hell, who was I kidding? It was exceptionally interesting. At least until he went on because then, and another thing I would never admit this side of alive, but I was mildly disappointed.

  “I want the most talented producer in film working on this project, and I want her to allow me to direct it,” he said. “This isn’t about me having some sort of ego trip and having to bring a project to fruition by myself. I like working with a team. I like the process.”

  I pushed the disappointment away. This was why I worked and lived in temporaries.

  Anything deeper got in the way.

  “Good,” I said. “It’s settled then. I’ll reach out to my assistant, have her schedule some time so we can get the ball rolling.”

  He blew out a breath, one that I would have said sounded frustrated if not for his enthusiastic tone that followed it. “Sounds good, Artie,” he said. “Thanks for thinking of me. I can’t wait to get started.”

  “Me neither,” I murmured, saying goodbye and hanging up.

  I couldn’t wait.

  Not a lie.

  But also dangerously close to not temporary.

  Shit.

  Six

  Pierce, Nine Months Later

  Her hair was a mess, an absolute mass of blond locks tangling across her face as the wind whipped up the cliffs.

  All I could see were snippets of Artie’s features—the corner of a plump, red mouth, one arching blond brow, a glimpse of an arctic blue eye.

  And she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever had the luxury of witnessing.

  “I’m really loving the fact that my hair tie snapped,” she muttered, wrestling with her hair. Frankly, I was surprised she didn’t have an army of them at her disposal, since she was normally so prepared and put together. However, there was something off about Artie today, something I’d noticed when we’d set out scouting that morning. It wasn’t fragile, exactly, but almost . . . precarious, as though she needed cheering up.

  I’d done a decent job of that thus far, the shadows receding from her eyes, a smile creeping into the edges of her lips. She’d definitely been laughing at my crappy jokes during the last ten minutes of the drive.

  “Here,” I murmured, unable to watch her struggle with her hair any longer. I gathered the locks at her nape and twisted them into a quick braid that I tied off with a rubber band I had around my wrist. My sisters would probably kill me for daring to put the strip of tangle-inducing, albeit effective at containment, material into another woman’s hair.

  But desperate times called for desperate measures.

  I could pray for forgiveness to the hair gods later.

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?” she asked, curiosity dancing across her face.

  That was much better than sad, and so I shared. “My sisters.”

  “I didn’t know you had sisters.”

  I grinned, kept sharing. “I’m the baby of the family,” I told her. “They’re much older—as I love to remind them—and settled with kids of their own.”

  “That’s nice.” She smiled. “Are they in L.A.?”

  “God no.” I mock-shuddered. “They want nothing to do with the Hollywood crowd. Not that they’re not proud of me. It’s just . . .”

  “A lot.”

  “Yeah. That.” I shrugged. “And they’ve got kids of their own. Obligations and partners and their own jobs. I’m just the little brother they tortured by making me play dress-up.”

  She held up the braid I’d put into her hair. “Well, I definitely benefited from all that dress-up experience, so if I ev
er meet them, I’ll have to thank them.”

  “They’d love that,” I said with a smirk. “They like your movies more than mine.”

  “Seems to be a lot of that going around.”

  I mock-glared. “Sisters are the worst.”

  “I happen to think they have impeccable taste.” She smiled beatifically. “But seriously, how was it growing up as the baby?”

  “It had its perks. Besides imparting the braiding skills, they looked out for me and didn’t make me feel too awful when I tried to trail along after them and their friends.”

  “How much older are they?”

  “Ten and twelve years.”

  “Oh fuck.”

  My feet skittered to a stop, eyes darting around. “What? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Artie.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  I tugged at her braid. “Nice try with the lies, but don’t try and bullshit a bullshitter.”

  We stared off for several minutes before she caved. “Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “But the only reason I’m telling you this at all is because we’ve always been honest with each other.”

  “Brutally so,” I grumbled.

  She rested her head on my shoulder, fluttered her eyelashes up at me. “You love my honesty.”

  “Is that what I’ve been feeling?” I narrowed my eyes. “Loving your honesty when you nixed my rewrite of Bethany’s death scene?”

  “You’ll love it when the reviews come in raving about it.”

  “That’s if Eden can do it.”

  “Eden will nail it.” Artie nodded ahead. “Come on and take a look at this outcropping. When I saw the pictures, I thought it would be perfect for the opening.”

  I followed her, spent all of three seconds looking and knew immediately she was right. We’d pan up the cliffs, watch the wind whipping around the heroine’s hair, her clothes, witness the paper flying from her hand and spinning and tumbling over the edge. “You’re right.”

  She grinned, clasped her hands to her chest. “I do love it when you’re honest with me.”

  Honest, as in I often still woke up hard after dreaming about her all night? Or maybe honest as in I still jerked off to the little sounds she’d made when I’d licked her pussy?