Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Chad asked me. “Water? Coffee?”
Julian frowned at him. “You never offer to get me coffee.”
“I could say the same for you,” Chad said sweetly.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing and shook my head. Then my smile collapsed as Chad pulled the door shut, and I was left alone with Julian Lewis. He was sitting behind his desk today, so I lowered myself into one of the two chairs across from it.
“Thank you for coming in again,” Julian said formally. I noticed he didn’t offer his hand again, and I was glad. That jolt yesterday had caught me off guard. Not that I expected it to happen again. It had been static electricity or something. It couldn’t have been just the touch of his palm.
“Of course.” I crossed my legs and caught how his gaze flickered down to them. My skirt was knee-length, but to a guy like Julian, bare skin was bare skin. If I was showing it, I must want him to look. Only years of practice kept my mouth from pulling down disdainfully in one corner. Some girls thought it was the creepy old guys who were the worst, but for me, it was the handsome ones. The ones who didn’t even feel entitled, necessarily, but who assumed that their attention was a favor.
Julian was smooth, though. His gaze was back on mine in a nanosecond. His eyes were so blue that if I were any other woman, I might welcome it. Vibrant, oceanic. The kind of eyes you could drown in, if you let yourself.
Which I never would, of course.
Julian cleared his throat. “I brought you in to offer you the production assistant position with Miller.” Everything in his voice said but, and I waited a moment for it to land.
“But?” I finally prompted when he didn’t continue.
For a moment, he looked surprised, then he smiled. It electrified his face to a devastating effect. Even my cold, jaded heart skipped a beat at the sight. “This is why I have to hire you,” Julian said, almost to himself.
“Even though you aren’t sure you want to?” I guessed.
Julian nodded slowly. “Don’t take it personally. Your resume speaks for itself. Your references are unimpeachable. You have great instincts. But I need someone who can do more than just be good at the job.”
My eyebrows arched up before I could stop them. So much for years of schooled neutrality. “More.” I repeated, letting a little acid drip into my voice. Just a few drops. It could have been a question rather than a warning, but it was a warning. If this job also entailed blowing Miller, I’d tell Julian where he could put my resume. And if Fletcher knew what he was asking me to do, I’d deal with him next.
Julian nodded again, not seeming to notice my acidic tone. “Generally, as you know, a production assistant works for the director. This position will be a little different. You’ll work with Miller, but you’ll be working for me. I need to be kept apprised of every detail of his progress. This project is…important.”
Ah, yes. Here it was. The power struggle I’d sensed in my interview. “And Miller isn’t supposed to know about this surveillance,” I guessed.
Julian shrugged his shoulders. “He knows, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. I need someone who can handle him but who is loyal to me.”
There was a beat in which his words took on a strange, double meaning in my mind. It was on the tip of my tongue to retort that I’d never be loyal to him, but I swallowed them.
“I mean, loyal to Lewis Productions,” Julian said, and I realized that he’d heard the double meaning, too. “This project is important to the company.”
“I understand.”
Julian scanned my face. I raised my chin and did my best to look capable of both the position and the deception. I was confident I was capable of both. I was already a double agent–what was one more layer of deceit?
Julian didn’t look convinced, but he rolled his shoulders back like he was shaking off a warning tingle in the base of his neck and said, “HR will send you the offer letter as soon as I let them know you’re the official hire. You technically have forty-eight hours to accept, but–”
“Miller wants me on set tomorrow at eight am?” I almost laughed at the expression on Julian’s face. Disbelief, and then realization, and closely on its heels, irritation.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, the same way I’d seen him do at the interview yesterday when Miller was tap dancing on his last nerve. “He already offered you the damn job, didn’t he?”
I nodded. “He called yesterday afternoon, just before Chad called to set up this meeting.”
Julian didn’t look surprised. “He’s going to do that. In the future, I need you to let me know when he’s going around me. Remember, you work with him. You work for me.”