Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Brendan narrowed his eyes, flaring his nostrils. “Is that agent code for nepotism?”
“Pro-ba-bly.” Drake drawled the word out, turning it into three. “Look. I can raise hell about it, but all it’ll do is get you booted and recast. I’ll do it anyway, if you want. Your bank account’s sitting pretty. You can skip this. Not to mention Oliver Newcomb may be big, but not so big a director he can have you blacklisted.” He raised the short, thick dashes of his rather angry black brows. “So if it’s a matter of principle for you…”
“Maybe,” Brendan mused, reading over the first line for his character again and again, mouthing the words silently.
I’m afraid there is no God here.
Spoken by a frigid, withdrawn man who had just spied the lovelorn hero after the hero’s first glimpse of the daughter, the ice-hearted maiden, in her elegant finery. In classic fashion, the hero fell in love from afar with a single glance, letting out an enraptured whisper of Dear God—only for the father to interrupt his covetous stare and draw a proverbial line in the sand, setting himself up as the hero’s adversary from the start. A constant roadblock, diverting the hero’s attempts to get closer to the heroine, making him realize that perhaps the ice-cold exterior was a mask for the loneliness of a life under her father’s guarding eye. Hell…for the first half of the script, the hero spent more scenes with the father than with the heroine.
Hm. There were a number of ways Brendan could play this, depending on a few other possible elements of the story. A number of ways he could bring this character to life, give him presence, make him from a convenient story stumbling block into a valid opponent for the hero. Diction would be key, he thought. A distinct style of speaking, giving weight and allure to the words, a touch of threat. Perhaps, maybe…
“No,” he corrected himself, frowning and idly tapping his thumb to his chin. “I’ll try it. I’m curious. Let’s see what happens.” He lifted his head, looking at Drake. “But I want to talk to the kid.”
A pained expression weighted down Drake’s face. “If you’re going in for the table reading today, you’ll meet the rest of the cast—”
“No.” Brendan levered himself to his feet and padded across the floor to the recessed entryway. “In private.”
Drake let out an exaggerated, long-suffering sigh. “Brendan.”
“Mn.”
“Brendan.”
“We just had this conversation. Say my name as many times as you want, you still won’t get your way.” Settling down on the edge of the entryway, Brendan tugged on his polished dress shoes, then smoothed his jeans over the them.
Drake practically rolled himself off the sofa, swaying to his feet and slumping over to join Brendan, sinking down to pull his own Italian leather shoes on. “Just promise me you won’t do anything rash.”
“I’m supposed to be acting my age. Would I do anything rash?”
Freezing, Drake gave him a sour look from under his brows. “You disingenuous piece of shit. I’m going to pack you and Ion Blackwell up in a shipping crate, drop you on a remote island somewhere, and let you eat each other.”
Brendan frowned. “Blackwell? The YA author you’re always griping about?”
“The reason my hair is going prematurely gray,” Drake grunted, his very much not gray at all hair drifting across his brow as he yanked the laces of his shoes into place, twining them around his fingers and knotting them.
“I thought that was me.”
“You, him, and Grey Jean-Marcelin, but don’t you fucking get competitive about that, too. My blood pressure can’t take it.” Drake stood, pointing down at Brendan sternly, looming over him. “Let’s go. But fucking behave yourself, you hun dan.”
When Brendan rose to his full height, any advantage Drake had disappeared—not that his attempt at intimidation had been working all that well in the first place. Brendan stood head and shoulders above Drake’s trim build, and Brendan looked down at him, twisting his lips.
“I have no idea what you just fucking called me. You know I don’t speak Mandarin, lan yeung.”
“You know I do speak Canto, I know exactly what you just called me, and remember agents can fire clients, too.” Huffing, Drake snagged his suit coat from the rack and draped it over his arm with one more warning look in Brendan’s direction. “Now c’mon, you giant fucking man-baby. Let’s go annoy your costars.”
CHAPTER TWO
CILLIAN TELL DIDN’T KNOW HOW he’d ended up in this situation.
Trapped. The cushions of the sofa in his dressing room pressing against his back, fingers dug into the seat, texture biting into his sweating palms in rough scrapes. His feet ground against the carpet, thighs tensed and straining as he pushed back, flattening himself into the couch. His pulse moved thick and fast, a straining churning knot clutching in his chest, as Cillian stared upward.